The Old Believer Church is different from the Orthodox Church. What do Old Believers believe? Differences in the Creed

In the 17th century, Patriarch Nikon carried out reforms that were caused by the need to bring the liturgical practice of the Russian Church to a single model. Some of the clergy, along with the laity, rejected these changes, saying that they would not deviate from the old rituals. They called Nikon’s reform “a corruption of the faith” and declared that they would preserve the previous charters and traditions in worship. It is difficult for an uninitiated person to distinguish an Orthodox from an Old Believer, since the difference between representatives of the “old” and “new” faith is not so great.

Who are Old Believers and Orthodox Christians?

Old Believers – Christians who have left Orthodox Church due to his disagreement with the reforms carried out by Patriarch Nikon.
Orthodox Christians - believers who recognize the dogmas of the Orthodox Church.

Comparison of Old Believers and Orthodox Christians

What is the difference between Old Believers and Orthodox Christians?
Old Believers are more detached from the world than Orthodox Christians. In their everyday life, they preserved ancient traditions, which, in essence, became a certain ritual. The life of Orthodox Christians is devoid of many religious rituals that burden it. The main thing that should never be forgotten is prayer before every task, as well as keeping the Commandments.
In the Orthodox Church, the three-fingered sign of the cross is accepted. It means unity Holy Trinity. At the same time, the little finger and ring finger pressed together into the palm and symbolize faith in the divine-human nature of Christ. Old Believers middle and forefinger put together, confessing the dual nature of the Savior. The thumb, ring finger and little finger are pressed against the palm as a symbol of the Holy Trinity.
It is customary for Old Believers to proclaim “Alleluia” twice and add “Glory to Thee, O God.” This, they claim, was what the ancient church proclaimed. Orthodox Christians say “Alleluia” three times. This word itself means “praise God.” Pronunciation three times, from the point of view of the Orthodox, glorifies the Holy Trinity.
In many Old Believer movements, it is customary to wear clothes in the Old Russian style to participate in worship. This is a shirt or blouse for men, a sundress and a large scarf for women. Men tend to grow a beard. Among Orthodox Christians, a special style of clothing is reserved only for the priesthood. Lay people come to the temple in modest, not provocative, but ordinary secular clothing, women with their heads covered. By the way, in modern Old Believer parishes there are no strict requirements for the clothing of worshipers.
During worship, Old Believers do not keep their arms at their sides, like the Orthodox, but crossed over their chests. For both some and others, this is a sign of special humility before God. All actions during the service are performed synchronously by the Old Believers. If you need to bow, then everyone present in the temple does it at the same time.
Old Believers recognize only the eight-pointed cross. This is the form they consider perfect. Orthodox, in addition to this, also have four points and six points.
During worship, Old Believers bow to the ground. Orthodox Christians wear belts during services. Earthly ones are performed only in special cases. Moreover, on Sundays and holidays, as well as Holy Pentecost, bowing to the ground is strictly prohibited.
Old Believers write the name of Christ as Jesus, and Orthodox Christians write it as I And sus. The topmost marks on the cross are also different. For the Old Believers, this is TsR SLVY (King of Glory) and IS XC (Jesus Christ). On the Orthodox eight-pointed cross it is written INCI (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews) and IIS XC (I And sus Christ). There is no image of the crucifixion on the eight-pointed cross of the Old Believers.
As a rule, eight-pointed crosses with a gable roof, the so-called cabbage rolls, are placed on the graves of Old Believers - a symbol of Russian antiquity. Orthodox Christians do not accept crosses covered with a roof.

TheDifference.ru determined that the difference between Old Believers and Orthodox Christians is as follows:

Adherents of the old faith are more detached from the world in everyday life than Orthodox Christians.
Old Believers make the sign of the cross with two fingers, Orthodox Christians make the sign of the cross with three fingers.
During prayer, the Old Believers usually call “Hallelujah” twice, while the Orthodox say “Hallelujah” three times.
During worship, Old Believers keep their arms crossed on their chests, while Orthodox Christians keep their arms down at their sides.
During the service, the Old Believers perform all actions synchronously.
As a rule, to participate in worship, Old Believers wear clothes in the Old Russian style. The Orthodox have a special type of clothing only for the priesthood.
During worship, Old Believers bow to the ground, while Orthodox worshipers bow to the ground.
Old Believers recognize only the eight-pointed cross, the Orthodox - eight-, six- and four-pointed.
Orthodox and Old Believers have different spellings of the name of Christ, as well as the letters above the eight-pointed cross.
On the pectoral crosses of the Old Believers (eight-pointed inside a four-pointed one) there is no image of the crucifixion.

More than three centuries have passed since the church schism of the 17th century, and most still do not know how the Old Believers differ from Orthodox Christians.

Terminology

The distinction between the concepts of “Old Believers” and “Orthodox Church” is quite arbitrary. The Old Believers themselves admit that their faith is Orthodox, and the Russian Orthodox Church is called New Believers or Nikonians.

In the Old Believer literature of the 17th - first half of the 19th centuries, the term “Old Believer” was not used.

Old Believers called themselves differently. Old Believers, Old Orthodox Christians...The terms “orthodoxy” and “true Orthodoxy” were also used.

In the writings of Old Believer teachers of the 19th century, the term “true Orthodox Church” was often used. The term “Old Believers” became widespread only end of the 19th century century. At the same time, Old Believers of different agreements mutually denied each other’s Orthodoxy and, strictly speaking, for them the term “Old Believers” united, on a secondary ritual basis, religious communities deprived of church-religious unity

Fingers

It is well known that during the schism the two-finger sign of the cross was changed to three-finger. Two fingers are a symbol of the two Hypostases of the Savior (true God and true man), three fingers are a symbol of the Holy Trinity.

The three-finger sign was adopted by the Ecumenical Orthodox Church, which by that time consisted of a dozen independent Autocephalous Churches, after the preserved bodies of the martyrs-confessors of Christianity of the first centuries with folded fingers of the three-finger Sign of the Cross were found in the Roman catacombs. There are similar examples of the discovery of the relics of saints of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.

Agreements and rumors

The Old Believers are far from homogeneous. There are several dozen agreements and even more Old Believer rumors. There is even a saying: “No matter what a man is, no matter what a woman is, there is agreement.” There are three main “wings” of the Old Believers: priests, non-priests and co-religionists.

Jesus

During the Nikon reform, the tradition of writing the name “Jesus” was changed. The double sound “and” began to convey the duration, the “drawn-out” sound of the first sound, which in Greek is indicated by a special sign, which has no analogy in the Slavic language, therefore the pronunciation of “Jesus” is more consistent with the Universal practice of sounding the Savior. However, the Old Believer version is closer to the Greek source.

Differences in the Creed

During the “book reform” of the Nikon reform, changes were made to the Creed: the conjunction-opposition “a” was removed in the words about the Son of God “born, not made.”

From the semantic opposition of properties, a simple enumeration was thus obtained: “begotten, not created.”

The Old Believers sharply opposed the arbitrariness in the presentation of dogmas and were ready to suffer and die “for a single az” (that is, for one letter “a”).

In total, about 10 changes were made to the Creed, which was the main dogmatic difference between the Old Believers and the Nikonians.

Towards the sun

By the middle of the 17th century, a universal custom had been established in the Russian Church to perform a procession of the cross. The church reform of Patriarch Nikon unified all rituals according to Greek models, but the innovations were not accepted by the Old Believers. As a result, New Believers perform anti-salt movements during religious processions, and Old Believers perform religious processions salt.

Ties and sleeves

In some Old Believer churches, in memory of the executions during the Schism, it is forbidden to come to services with rolled up sleeves and ties. Popular rumor associates rolled up sleeves with executioners, and ties with gallows. Although, this is only one explanation. In general, it is customary for Old Believers to wear special prayer clothes (with long sleeves) to services, and you can’t tie a tie on a blouse.

Question of the cross

Old Believers recognize only the eight-pointed cross, while after Nikon’s reform in Orthodoxy four and six-pointed crosses were recognized as equally honorable. On the crucifixion tablet of the Old Believers it is usually written not I.N.C.I., but “King of Glory.” Old Believers do not have an image of Christ on their body crosses, since it is believed that this is a person’s personal cross.

A deep and powerful Hallelujah

During Nikon's reforms, the pronounced (that is, double) pronunciation of “halleluia” was replaced by a triple (that is, triple). Instead of “Alleluia, alleluia, glory to you, God,” they began to say “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, glory to you, God.”

According to New Believers, the triple utterance of alleluia symbolizes the dogma of the Holy Trinity.

However, Old Believers argue that the strict pronunciation together with “glory to Thee, O God” is already a glorification of the Trinity, since the words “glory to Thee, O God” are one of the translations into the Slavic language of the Hebrew word Alleluia (“praise God”).

Bows at the service

At services in Old Believer churches, a strict system of bows has been developed; replacing prostrations with bows from the waist is prohibited. There are bows four types: “ordinary” - bow to the chest or to the navel; “medium” - in the waist; small bow to the ground - “throwing” (not from the verb “to throw”, but from the Greek “metanoia” = repentance); great prostration (proskynesis).

22.02.2018

Patriarch Nikon in the 17th century carried out a number of reforms caused by the need to bring the Church to a unified image of liturgical practice. Some of the clergy and lay people did not accept these changes, proclaiming that they were deviating from old customs, and nicknamed Nikon’s innovations “corruption of faith.” They announced that they wished to preserve the old traditions and regulations in worship. It should be noted that it will be quite difficult for an uninitiated person to distinguish an Old Believer from an Orthodox believer, because the differences between the new and old faiths are not that great. In this article you can find out what the Old Believers are, how the Old Believers differ from the Orthodox, and find out the answers to the most interesting questions of Orthodox people.

The difference between Old Believers and Orthodox

Orthodox believers are those Christians who accept the teachings put forward by the Christian Church.

The Old Believers are believers who wanted to leave the Christian Church due to their disagreement with the reforms carried out by Patriarch Nikon.

Experts in church history installed about a dozen distinctive features Old Believers from ordinary Christian believers in matters of conducting worship and other ritual ceremonies, reading and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, everyday issues, as well as appearance.

It should be noted that the Old Believers are heterogeneous, that is, among them there are various movements that also introduce some differences, but among the adherents of the old belief themselves.

Let's take a closer look at how Old Believers differ from Orthodox Christians:

• It has Old Believer cross, difference from the Orthodox one, but the Old Believers still enjoy using the form of the Christian symbol to this day. As a rule, it has eight ends, and two more small crossbars are added to our usual cross: oblique at the bottom and straight at the top. However, according to research, some accounts of the Old Believers also recognize some other forms of the Cross of the Lord.
• Bows. Unlike ordinary Christians, Old Believers only accept bows to the ground, while the latter use bows from the waist.

• How to be baptized. Nikon, during the period of his church reform, put forward a ban according to which one cannot be baptized with two fingers according to the old custom. An order was given to everyone to comply Orthodoxy sign of the cross three-fingered sign. That is, cross yourself in a new way - with three fingers placed in a pinch. The Old Believers, in turn, did not accept this provision, seeing it as a fig (i.e., a fig) and completely refused to follow the newly introduced decree. To this day, Old Believers make the sign of the cross with two fingers. A pectoral symbol. As described earlier, the Old Believers always have an eight-pointed cross, which is located inside the four-pointed one. The main difference is that such a cross never bears the image of the crucified Savior.
• Differences in the spelling of the name of the Almighty. There are discrepancies in some prayer books, which, according to calculations by one historian, are about 62.
• During the service, Old Believers keep their arms crossed on their chests, and Christians keep their hands at their sides.
• Practically complete failure from alcoholic beverages and tobacco products. Old Russian Church Orthodox Old Believers Only in some Old Believer traditions does it allow three glasses of alcohol on great holidays, but no more than that.
• Appearance. In Old Believer churches of God, compared to Christian ones, there are no women and girls wearing hats, scarves or scarves that are tied at the back with a knot. Old Believer women must wear a headscarf, pinned under the chin with a pin. Nothing colored or bright is allowed in clothing. Men should wear old Russian shirts untucked and be sure to complement it with a belt, which will separate several parts of the body into the upper, that is, spiritual, and lower, dirty. To a male Old Believer in Everyday life It is forbidden to wear ties, considering them a Judas stranglehold, and to shave off the beard.

FAQ

Some Christians, and also Old Believers, may be interested in a lot of questions that come up quite often in everyday life. Let's look at some of them.

Is it possible for Old Believers to go to the Orthodox Church and is it possible to be baptized with two fingers?

Old Believers are allowed to visit God’s temple, but if adherents of the old faith express a desire to be Orthodox, then first they need to receive Confirmation, that is, a Sacrament that will unite a person with the Christian new faith.

To be baptized with two or three fingers today does not have any special meaning, since these two rites were recognized as equally honorable. But it is still worth noting that if you visit God’s temple and are baptized there with two fingers, when everyone else is baptized only with the crown of their fingers, it will look ridiculous and even ugly;

Can an Old Believer be godfather to an Orthodox Christian?

One should not completely reject the possibility of a non-Orthodox Christian being present as a godparent during the Orthodox rite of Baptism, but this is only possible if the Old Believer is only one of the godparents, and the other godparent will definitely be a Christian of the new faith.

There is also one more condition under which the Old Believer is allowed to take part in the ceremony if he does not make any attempts to raise the child in non-Orthodox traditions.

The Lord is always with you!

Old Believers, also known as Old Believers, are adherents of the Orthodox movement in Russia. The movement of the Old Believers was forced, since Patriarch Nikon in the second half of the 17th century ordered church reform of the Russian Orthodox Church. The purpose of the reform: to bring all rituals, services and church books into conformity with Byzantine (Greek) ones. In the mid-50s of the 17th century, Patriarch Tikhon had the powerful support of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who implemented the concept: Moscow - Third Rome. Therefore, Nikon’s church reforms should have fit perfectly into this idea. But, de facto, a split occurred in the Russian Orthodox Church.

This was a true tragedy, since some believers did not want to accept the church reform, which changed their way of life and idea of ​​faith. This is how the Old Believers movement was born. People who disagreed with Nikon fled to remote corners of the country: mountains, forests, taiga wilderness - just to live according to their canons. There were often cases of self-immolation of believers of the old rite. Sometimes this happened to entire villages when official and church authorities tried to implement Nikon’s new ideas. According to the records of some chroniclers, the pictures appeared terrible: a large barn engulfed in flames, psalms rushing out of it, sung by dozens of people in the fire. Such was the willpower and fortitude of the Old Believers, who did not want changes, considering them to be from the evil one. Old Believers: difference from the Orthodox is a very serious topic that has been studied by some historians in the USSR.

One of these researchers in the 80s of the last century was Professor Boris Sitnikov, who taught at the Novosibirsk Pedagogical Institute. Every summer he and his students traveled to Old Believer villages in Siberia and collected interesting material.

Old Believers of Russia: difference from the Orthodox (main points)

Experts in church history count dozens of differences between the Old Believers and the Orthodox in matters of reading and interpreting the Bible, conducting church services, other rituals, everyday life and appearance. We also note that the Old Believers are heterogeneous. Among them, various movements stand out, which still add differences, but between the admirers of the old faith themselves. Pomeranians, Fedoseevites, Beglopopovtsy, Bespopovtsy, Popovtsy, Spasovsky sense, Netovshchina and many others. We will not tell everything in detail, as there is not enough space in one article. Let's take a brief look at the main differences and discrepancies between the Old Believers and the Orthodox.

1. How to be baptized correctly.

Nikon, during his reform of the church, forbade baptism according to the old custom with two fingers. Everyone was ordered to make the sign of the cross with three fingers. That is, to cross yourself in a new way: with three fingers folded into a pinch. The Old Believers did not accept this postulate, saw it as a fig (fig) and completely refused to cross themselves with three fingers. Old Believers still make the sign of the cross with two fingers.

2. Cross shape.

The Old Believers still accept the pre-reform form of the Orthodox cross. It has eight ends. To our usual cross, two small crossbars have been added at the top (straight) and at the bottom (oblique). True, according to some researchers, some Old Believers believers also recognize other forms of crosses.

3. Prostrations to the ground.

The Old Believers, unlike the Orthodox, recognize only bows to the ground, while the latter - bows from the waist.

4. Pectoral cross.

For the Old Believers, it is always an eight-pointed cross (as described above) inside a four-pointed one. The main difference is that there is never an image of the crucified Jesus Christ on this cross.

5. During worship, Old Believers keep their arms crossed on their chests, while Orthodox Christians lower their arms at their sides.

6. The name of Jesus Christ is spelled differently. There are discrepancies in some prayers. One scholar-historian counted at least 62 discrepancies in prayers.

7. Almost complete cessation of alcohol and smoking. In some Old Believer traditions, it was allowed to take three glasses of alcohol on major holidays, but no more.

8. Appearance.

In the Old Believer church, as in our Orthodox churches, you will not find girls and women with scarves on their heads, in hats or scarves tied in a knot at the back. The woman is strictly wearing a headscarf, pinned under her chin. No bright or colored clothing is allowed. Men wear untucked old Russian shirts with a belt dividing the two parts of the body into the lower (dirty) and upper (spiritual). In everyday life, an Old Believer man is forbidden to shave his beard and wear a tie (the noose of Judas).

By the way, of all the Russian tsars, the Old Believers especially hated Peter the Great because he forced them to shave off their beards, took the Old Believers into the army, taught the people to smoke (the Old Believers had a saying: “The tobacconist is a clerk in hell”) and other things, according to the Old Believers, overseas devilish things. And Peter the Great really valued the soldiers who entered the army from the Old Believers. One known interesting case. A new frigate was to be launched at the shipyard. Something wasn’t going well technically: either the log got stuck, or something else. The king who has powerful health and the strength of his body, he jumped up, grabbed the log, and helped solve the problem. Then he drew attention to a strong worker who worked for three and, without fear of the king, helped lift the log.

The king suggested comparing the silo. He says: “Here I will hit you in the chest, if you can stand on your feet, then I will allow you to hit me and you will have a royal gift.” Peter swung and hit the kid in the chest. Someone else would have probably flown about five meters head over heels. And he just swayed like an oak tree. The autocrat was surprised! Demanded a retaliatory strike. And the Old Believer struck! Everyone froze! And the guy was from the Old Believers of the Chud region. The king could barely stand it, swayed, and took a step away. The Emperor awarded such a hero a silver ruble and the position of corporal. Everything was explained simply: the Old Believers did not drink vodka, did not smoke tobacco, ate, as it is now fashionable to say, organic products and were distinguished by enviable health. Therefore, Peter I ordered young people from monasteries to be recruited into the army.

These were, are and remain the Old Believers, preserving their customs and traditions. Old Believers: difference from the Orthodox - indeed, most interesting topic, you can write a lot more about this. For example, we have not yet told you that in the houses of the Old Believers two sets of dishes were kept: for themselves and for strangers (guests). It was forbidden to eat from the same dishes with non-believers. Archpriest Avvakum was a very charismatic leader among the Old Believers. We recommend that everyone interested in this topic watch the Russian series “Raskol,” which tells in great detail about Nikon’s church reform and its consequences.

In conclusion, we will only add that the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) only in 1971 completely lifted the anathema from the Old Believers, and the confessions began to take steps towards each other.

More than three centuries have passed since the church schism of the 17th century, and most people still do not know how the Old Believers differ from Orthodox Christians. Let's figure it out.

Terminology

The distinction between the concepts of “Old Believers” and “Orthodox Church” is quite arbitrary. The Old Believers themselves admit that their faith is Orthodox, and the Russian Orthodox Church is called New Believers or Nikoninans.

In the Old Believer literature of the 17th - first half of the 19th centuries, the term “Old Believer” was not used.

Old Believers called themselves differently. Old Believers, Old Orthodox Christians...The terms “orthodoxy” and “true Orthodoxy” were also used.

In the writings of Old Believer teachers of the 19th century, the term “true Orthodox Church” was often used.

The term “Old Believers” became widespread only towards the end of the 19th century. At the same time, Old Believers of different consents mutually denied each other’s Orthodoxy and, strictly speaking, for them the term “Old Believers” united, on a secondary ritual basis, religious communities deprived of church-religious unity.

Fingers

It is well known that during the schism the two-finger sign of the cross was changed to three-finger. Two fingers are a symbol of the two Hypostases of the Savior (true God and true man), three fingers are a symbol of the Holy Trinity.

The three-finger sign was adopted by the Ecumenical Orthodox Church, which by that time consisted of a dozen independent Autocephalous Churches, after the preserved bodies of the martyrs-confessors of Christianity of the first centuries with folded fingers of the three-finger Sign of the Cross were found in the Roman catacombs. There are similar examples of the discovery of the relics of saints of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.

It’s not for nothing that I attached to the article this particular work by the artist Surikov, where the character, Boyarina Morozova, demonstrates “two fingers.” A little about the picture itself:

"Boyaryna Morozova"- a gigantic (304 by 586 cm) painting by Vasily Surikov, depicting a scene from the history of the church schism in the 17th century. After its debut at the 15th traveling exhibition in 1887, it was purchased for 25 thousand rubles for the Tretyakov Gallery, where it remains one of the main exhibits.

Surikov’s interest in the topic of Old Believers is associated with his Siberian childhood. In Siberia, where there were many Old Believers, handwritten “lives” of the martyrs of the Old Believer movement, including “The Tale of Boyarina Morozova,” became widespread.

The image of the noblewoman was copied from an Old Believers whom the artist met at the Rogozhskoe cemetery. And the prototype was the artist’s aunt, Avdotya Vasilievna Torgoshina.

The portrait sketch was painted in just two hours. Before this, the artist could not find for a long time suitable person- bloodless, fanatical, appropriate famous description Habakkuk: “The fingers of your hands are subtle, your eyes are lightning-fast, and you rush at your enemies like a lion.”

The figure of the noblewoman on the sliding sledge is a single compositional center around which representatives of the street crowd are grouped, reacting differently to her fanatical readiness to follow her convictions to the end. For some, a woman’s fanaticism evokes hatred, mockery or irony, but the majority look at her with sympathy. A hand raised high in a symbolic gesture is like a farewell to old Russia, to which these people belong.

Agreements and rumors

The Old Believers are far from homogeneous. There are several dozen agreements and even more Old Believer rumors. There is even a saying: “No matter what a man is, no matter what a woman is, there is agreement.” There are three main “wings” of the Old Believers: priests, non-priests and co-religionists.

Name of Jesus

During the Nikon reform, the tradition of writing the name “Jesus” was changed. The double sound “and” began to convey the duration, the “drawn-out” sound of the first sound, which in the Greek language is indicated by a special sign, which has no analogy in the Slavic language, therefore the pronunciation of “Jesus” is more consistent with the Universal practice of sounding the Savior. However, the Old Believer version is closer to the Greek source.

Differences in the Creed

During the “book reform” of the Nikon reform, changes were made to the Creed: the conjunction-opposition “a” was removed in the words about the Son of God “born, not made.”

From the semantic opposition of properties, a simple enumeration was thus obtained: “begotten, not created.”

The Old Believers sharply opposed the arbitrariness in the presentation of dogmas and were ready to suffer and die “for a single az” (that is, for one letter “a”).

In total, about 10 changes were made to the Creed, which was the main dogmatic difference between the Old Believers and the Nikonians.

Towards the sun

By the middle of the 17th century, a universal custom had been established in the Russian Church to perform a procession of the cross. The church reform of Patriarch Nikon unified all rituals according to Greek models, but the innovations were not accepted by the Old Believers. As a result, New Believers perform the anti-salting movement during religious processions, and Old Believers perform religious processions during salting.

∗ Salting - movement along the sun, promoting an increase in vitality and acceleration of spiritual evolution.

Ties and sleeves

In some Old Believer churches, in memory of the executions during the Schism, it is forbidden to come to services with rolled up sleeves and ties. Rolled up sleeves are associated there with executioners, and ties with gallows.

Question of the cross

Old Believers recognize only the eight-pointed cross, while after Nikon’s reform in Orthodoxy four and six-pointed crosses were recognized as equally honorable. On the crucifixion tablet of the Old Believers it is usually written not I.N.C.I., but “King of Glory.” Old Believers do not have an image of Christ on their body crosses, since it is believed that this is a person’s personal cross.

A deep and blatant Hallelujah

During Nikon's reforms, the pronounced (that is, double) pronunciation of “halleluia” was replaced by a triple (that is, triple). Instead of “Alleluia, alleluia, glory to you, God,” they began to say “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, glory to you, God.”

According to New Believers, the triple utterance of alleluia symbolizes the dogma of the Holy Trinity.

However, Old Believers argue that the strict pronunciation together with “glory to Thee, O God” is already a glorification of the Trinity, since the words “glory to Thee, O God” are one of the translations into the Slavic language of the Hebrew word Alleluia (“praise God”).

Bows at the service

At services in Old Believer churches, a strict system of bows has been developed; replacing prostrations with bows from the waist is prohibited. There are four types of bows: “regular” - bow to the chest or to the navel; “medium” - in the waist; small bow to the ground - “throwing” (not from the verb “to throw”, but from the Greek “metanoia” = repentance); great prostration (proskynesis).

Throwing was banned by Nikon in 1653. He sent out a “memory” to all Moscow churches, which said: “It is not appropriate to do throwing on your knees in church, but you should bow to your waist.”

Hands cross

During services in the Old Believer church, it is customary to fold your arms with a cross on your chest.

Beads

Orthodox and Old Believer rosaries are different. Orthodox rosaries can have a different number of beads, but most often rosaries with 33 beads are used, according to the number of earthly years of Christ’s life, or a multiple of 10 or 12.

In the Old Believers of almost all agreements, the lestovka* is actively used - a rosary in the form of a ribbon with 109 “beans” (“steps”), divided into unequal groups. Let's contact Once again to Surikov’s painting:

∗ Lestovka — in the noblewoman's hand. Leather Old Believer rosary in the form of steps of a ladder - a symbol of spiritual ascent, hence the name. At the same time, the ladder is closed in a ring, which means unceasing prayer. Every Christian Old Believer should have his own ladder for prayer.

Full immersion baptism

Old Believers accept baptism only by complete threefold immersion, while in Orthodox churches baptism by pouring and partial immersion is allowed.

Monodic singing

After the split of the Orthodox Church, the Old Believers did not accept either the new polyphonic singing style or new system musical notation. The hook singing (znamenny and demestvennoe) preserved by the Old Believers got its name from the way the melody was recorded special signs- “banners” or “hooks”.

Found a mistake? Select it and press left Ctrl+Enter.