Before we start talking about how the Old Believers are baptized, we should dwell in more detail on who they are and what their role is in the development of Russian Orthodoxy. The fate of this religious movement, called the Old Believers, or Old Orthodoxy, has become an integral part of the history of Russia and is full of drama and examples of spiritual greatness.
The reform that split Russian Orthodoxy
The Old Believers, like the entire Russian Church, considers the beginning of its history the year when the light of Christ's faith shone on the banks of the Dnieper, brought to Russia by Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir. Once on fertile soil, the grain of Orthodoxy gave abundant shoots. Until the fifties of the 17th century, the faith in the country was united, and there was no talk of any religious schism.
The beginning of the great church turmoil was the reform of Patriarch Nikon, begun by him in 1653. It consisted in bringing the Russian liturgical rite in line with that adopted in the Greek and Constantinople churches.
Reasons for church reform
Orthodoxy, likeit is known that it came to us from Byzantium, and in the first years after the Baptism of Russia, worship in churches was performed exactly as it was customary in Constantinople, but after more than six centuries, significant changes were made to it.
Besides, since there was no printing for almost the entire period, and liturgical books were copied by hand, they not only crept in a significant number of errors, but also distorted the meaning of many key phrases. To rectify the situation, Patriarch Nikon made a simple and seemingly uncomplicated decision.
Good intentions of the patriarch
He ordered to take samples of early books brought from Byzantium, and, after re-translating them, replicate them in print. He ordered the former texts to be withdrawn from circulation. In addition, Patriarch Nikon introduced three fingers in the Greek manner - adding three fingers together when making the sign of the cross.
Such a harmless and quite reasonable decision, however, caused a reaction like an explosion, and the church reform carried out in accordance with it caused a split. As a result, a significant part of the population, which did not accept these innovations, departed from the official church, which was called the Nikonian (after Patriarch Nikon), and a large-scale religious movement emerged from it, the followers of which became known as schismatics.
The split resulting from the reform
As before, in pre-reform times, the Old Believers were baptized with twofingers and refused to recognize new church books, as well as priests who tried to perform divine services on them. Standing in opposition to ecclesiastical and secular authorities, they were subjected to severe persecution for a long time. This started at the Local Council of 1656.
Already in the Soviet period, the final softening of the position of the Russian Orthodox Church in relation to the Old Believers followed, which was enshrined in the relevant legal documents. However, this did not lead to the resumption of Eucharistic, that is, prayerful communion between local Orthodox churches and Old Believers. The latter to this day consider only themselves to be the bearers of the true faith.
How many fingers cross the Old Believers?
It is important to note that the schismatics never had canonical disagreements with the official church, and the conflict always arose only around the ritual side of worship. For example, the way the Old Believers are baptized, folding three fingers instead of two, has always become a reason for condemnation against them, while there were no complaints about their interpretation of the Holy Scriptures or the main provisions of the Orthodox dogma.
By the way, the order of adding fingers for the sign of the cross both among the Old Believers and the supporters of the official church contains a certain symbolism. Old Believers are baptized with two fingers - index and middle, symbolizing the two natures of Jesus Christ - divine and human. The remaining three fingers are kept pressed to the palm. They areare the image of the Holy Trinity.
A vivid illustration of how the Old Believers are baptized can be the famous painting by Vasily Ivanovich Surikov “Boyar Morozova”. On it, the disgraced inspirer of the Moscow Old Believer movement, taken into exile, raises two fingers folded together to the sky - a symbol of split and rejection of the reform of Patriarch Nikon.
As for their opponents, supporters of the Russian Orthodox Church, the addition of fingers adopted by them, in accordance with Nikon's reform, and used to this day, also has a symbolic meaning. Nikonians are baptized with three fingers - thumb, index and middle, folded in a pinch (the schismatics contemptuously called them “pinches” for this). These three fingers also symbolize the Holy Trinity, and the dual nature of Jesus Christ is depicted in this case by the ring finger and little finger pressed to the palm.
Symbols contained in the Sign of the Cross
Schismatics have always attached special meaning to how exactly they made the sign of the cross on themselves. The direction of movement of their hand is the same as that of all Orthodox, but its explanation is peculiar. The Old Believers make the sign of the cross with their fingers, placing them first of all on the forehead. By this they express the primacy of God the Father, who is the beginning of the Divine Trinity.
Further, putting their fingers to the stomach, they thus indicate that in the womb of the Most Pure Virgin, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was immaculately conceived. Then bring your hand to your rightshoulder, indicate that in the Kingdom of God He sat at the right hand - that is, on the right of His Father. And finally, the movement of the hand to the left shoulder reminds us that at the Last Judgment, sinners sent to hell will have a place on the left (left) of the Judge.
Why do Old Believers cross themselves with two fingers?
The answer to this question can be the ancient, rooted in apostolic times and then adopted in Greece, the tradition of the sign of the cross with two fingers. She came to Russia at the same time as her baptism. Researchers have convincing evidence that in the period of the XI-XII centuries. there was simply no other form of the sign of the cross in the Slavic lands, and everyone was baptized the way the Old Believers do today.
This can be illustrated by the well-known icon “The Almighty Savior”, painted by Andrei Rublev in 1408 for the iconostasis of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir. On it, Jesus Christ is depicted sitting on a throne and raising his right hand in a two-fingered blessing. It is characteristic that it was two, and not three, fingers that the Creator of the world folded in this sacred gesture.
The true reason for the persecution of the Old Believers
Many historians tend to believe that the real reason for the persecution was not those ritual features that the Old Believers practiced. The followers of this movement are baptized with two or three fingers - in principle, it is not so important. Their main fault was that these people dared to openly go against the royal will, thereby creating a dangerous precedent forfuture tenses.
In this case, we are talking about a conflict with the highest state power, since Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who ruled at that time, supported the Nikon reform, and rejection by part of the population could be regarded as a rebellion and an insult inflicted on him personally. And the Russian rulers never forgave this.
Old Believers today
Finishing the conversation about how the Old Believers are baptized and where this movement came from, it would be worth mentioning that today their communities are located in almost all developed countries of Europe, in South and North America, as well as in Australia. In Russia, the Old Believer Church has several organizations, the largest of which is the Belokrinitskaya hierarchy founded in 1848, whose representative offices are located abroad. It unites more than a million parishioners in its ranks and has its permanent centers in Moscow and the Romanian city of Brail.
The second largest Old Believer organization is the Old Orthodox Pomeranian Church, which includes about two hundred official communities and a number of unregistered ones. Its central coordinating and advisory body is the Russian Council of the DOC, located in Moscow since 2002.
