The Old Rite Orthodox Community at the Lower Danube, between Tradition, Modernity, and Globalization

Abstract

Written history has recorded communities unique in their origin and structural mode of survival. One such community is that of the Old Russian believers, Staroveri, spread across the globe for religious reasons, like many other faiths, and still retaining their identity. What is the state of preservation of this identity, how long will it survive over time, and in what geographical area - these are all general questions. These questions, when put into concrete terms in Romania, are the object of investigation and meditation for what we imagine the old believers to be. However, we must be realistic and note that beyond the conservative spirit of the founding fathers of the community, there is a spirit of the times that erodes the principles of the founders. We will try to highlight some of the coordinates that have marked the evolution of a theocratic community in the two historical paradigms known to human society, at the crossroads of which we now find ourselves: the ethnocratic one, exhausted, with the prospect of dissolution, and the technocratic one, in full swing and in the process of establishing a new way of life. We are looking at the national community paradigm and the globalization paradigm.