(Starovery, the Russian Old Believers, are the centerpiece of Mussorgsky’s great opera Khovanshchina. The tragic raw genius, considered by many the greatest of all Russian composers, Mussorgsky personally chose the opera’s subject, wrote the story, the libretto, and the music of course, on a par with Wagnerian musical dramas. In fact, this opera teaches us not so much about history or religion, as about Russian historical development of religious appreciation, as felt and exhibited by Mussorgsky himself.
Khovanshchina’s creator’s sympathy is clearly with Starets Dosifei and his fanatical followers, the Starover old believers, who are ready to die for their faith, against the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, supported by the new Tsar Peter I and by the Russian State. Why is Mussorgsky, an Orthodox Christian, so sympathetic toward the "heretical" Starovery?
The answer is obvious. Mussorgsky was a witness to the steady decline of the prestige of Russian Orthodox Faith, and he was definitely more sympathetic toward Dosifei and his ilk, more akin to the breed of the early Christian believers, standing in direct opposition to the State. He would surely have welcomed the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which was to revive the decaying corpse of Russia’s Christianity, by turning every sincere Russian Christian into a Dosifei, of sorts.
Thus, the moral of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina is that, insofar as true religion is concerned, a zealot must be preferable to a hypocrite.)
Now a few words about the Starover religious phenomenon in a historical perspective.
For over two-and-a half centuries, since the middle of the seventeenth century and until the purifying effects of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution on the Russian Orthodox Church started kicking in, the Church had been guilty of the most unfair, brutal, and un-Christian treatment of surely the staunchest and sincerest Christian believers in Russian history: the Starovery. In the process of this shameful mistreatment the Russian Church was both spiritually and philosophically going against her own honorable conservative tradition, which had led her to the Great Rift with Roman Catholicism. Ironically, both in the earlier case of the Pope against the Eastern Bishops and in the later case of the Russian Church against the Starovery, sheer politics, rather than theology, was the motivation of the strong, and had the Pope been strong enough to overwhelm the bastions of Eastern Christianity (or, paraphrasing Stalin, if the Pope had a few more military divisions), the fate of Pravoslavie would have been just as tragic as that of the helpless old-rite believers of Russia.
Here is a very brief historical outline of the events leading to the birth of the term Starovery. In 1653, during the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, Patriarch Nikon was led to notice, by some Greek guests of his, that ever since the Russian Church had become autocephalous, the Russian Church liturgy had diverged, both in ritual and textually, from the Greek liturgy, and he decided to bring the Russian liturgy up-to-date, by adopting the current Greek religious practice. Both Tsar Alexei and Patriarch Nikon being unabashed xenophiles, this decision apparently never struck them as giving in to a foreign influence at the expense of Russia’s own homegrown practice. It is important to understand that there was nothing wrong with the latter, except that it was not "modern" enough by the Greek, read foreign, standards, thus implicitly, or perhaps outright explicitly, acknowledging, after two hundred years of self-governance, the supremacy of the Greek Church over the Russian Church!
Quite naturally there were many Russian Orthodox Christians who strongly disagreed with Nikon, but, by intimidation and coercion, he somehow managed to subdue the majority of the opposition, reducing it to much smaller numbers, but those remained steadfast in their faith. They accused Patriarch Nikon of literally being the Antichrist, and anathemized him in their churches. He, in turn, anathemized them, calling them all Schismatics (Raskolniki), and unleashed the power of the State against them. (The Tsar was having his own problems with Nikon, but the Schism was not to be tolerated, as undermining the unity of the State, and even after Nikon’s dismissal and disgrace, the Nikonian Church reform not only survived him, but became law.)
The cruel suppression of the Starovery, that followed, and continued for centuries, was appalling. Ironically, just as the prestige of the Russian Church was plummeting, the faith of the Starovery would never falter, but the fact that they had been ecclesiastically outlawed worked against them and precluded their acceptance by the mainstream body of Russian Orthodox believers, at least until the official Church would undo its curse.
After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, as the Russian Christians were brought back into an awareness of the treasure of sincere belief, the Kierkegaardian pledge that he would rather worship with a sincere pagan than with a hypocritical fellow-Christian, could be instantly felt all over Russia. Besides, the Starovery were not pagans, but certainly the sincerest “fellow Christians” of mainstream Russian believers. It was of course impossible to reconcile the two religiously, since their respective liturgies (theirs, by now held sacred by the Nikonians as well) were literally worlds apart. However the mainstream Russian Orthodox Church would be gradually softening up toward the erstwhile “Schismatics,” and in the 1970’s the stigmas were removed, and a forgiveness was formally asked by the official Russian Church for the history of persecution, which, in the true Christian spirit, was wholeheartedly given by the persecuted.
As of today, there are numerous Starovery communities all around Russia. Their self-segregating lifestyle is hardly conducive to mixing with the mainstream, even in broad social terms, and therefore the main Russian Orthodox Church need have no fear of some religious “heresy” ever creeping into her established Nikonian liturgy.
But the positive and spiritually purifying fact of the Old Rite being accepted as a legitimate form of Orthodox worship is one of the best news about Russian religious life, coming out of today’s Russia.
Khovanshchina’s creator’s sympathy is clearly with Starets Dosifei and his fanatical followers, the Starover old believers, who are ready to die for their faith, against the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, supported by the new Tsar Peter I and by the Russian State. Why is Mussorgsky, an Orthodox Christian, so sympathetic toward the "heretical" Starovery?
The answer is obvious. Mussorgsky was a witness to the steady decline of the prestige of Russian Orthodox Faith, and he was definitely more sympathetic toward Dosifei and his ilk, more akin to the breed of the early Christian believers, standing in direct opposition to the State. He would surely have welcomed the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which was to revive the decaying corpse of Russia’s Christianity, by turning every sincere Russian Christian into a Dosifei, of sorts.
Thus, the moral of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina is that, insofar as true religion is concerned, a zealot must be preferable to a hypocrite.)
Now a few words about the Starover religious phenomenon in a historical perspective.
For over two-and-a half centuries, since the middle of the seventeenth century and until the purifying effects of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution on the Russian Orthodox Church started kicking in, the Church had been guilty of the most unfair, brutal, and un-Christian treatment of surely the staunchest and sincerest Christian believers in Russian history: the Starovery. In the process of this shameful mistreatment the Russian Church was both spiritually and philosophically going against her own honorable conservative tradition, which had led her to the Great Rift with Roman Catholicism. Ironically, both in the earlier case of the Pope against the Eastern Bishops and in the later case of the Russian Church against the Starovery, sheer politics, rather than theology, was the motivation of the strong, and had the Pope been strong enough to overwhelm the bastions of Eastern Christianity (or, paraphrasing Stalin, if the Pope had a few more military divisions), the fate of Pravoslavie would have been just as tragic as that of the helpless old-rite believers of Russia.
Here is a very brief historical outline of the events leading to the birth of the term Starovery. In 1653, during the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, Patriarch Nikon was led to notice, by some Greek guests of his, that ever since the Russian Church had become autocephalous, the Russian Church liturgy had diverged, both in ritual and textually, from the Greek liturgy, and he decided to bring the Russian liturgy up-to-date, by adopting the current Greek religious practice. Both Tsar Alexei and Patriarch Nikon being unabashed xenophiles, this decision apparently never struck them as giving in to a foreign influence at the expense of Russia’s own homegrown practice. It is important to understand that there was nothing wrong with the latter, except that it was not "modern" enough by the Greek, read foreign, standards, thus implicitly, or perhaps outright explicitly, acknowledging, after two hundred years of self-governance, the supremacy of the Greek Church over the Russian Church!
Quite naturally there were many Russian Orthodox Christians who strongly disagreed with Nikon, but, by intimidation and coercion, he somehow managed to subdue the majority of the opposition, reducing it to much smaller numbers, but those remained steadfast in their faith. They accused Patriarch Nikon of literally being the Antichrist, and anathemized him in their churches. He, in turn, anathemized them, calling them all Schismatics (Raskolniki), and unleashed the power of the State against them. (The Tsar was having his own problems with Nikon, but the Schism was not to be tolerated, as undermining the unity of the State, and even after Nikon’s dismissal and disgrace, the Nikonian Church reform not only survived him, but became law.)
The cruel suppression of the Starovery, that followed, and continued for centuries, was appalling. Ironically, just as the prestige of the Russian Church was plummeting, the faith of the Starovery would never falter, but the fact that they had been ecclesiastically outlawed worked against them and precluded their acceptance by the mainstream body of Russian Orthodox believers, at least until the official Church would undo its curse.
After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, as the Russian Christians were brought back into an awareness of the treasure of sincere belief, the Kierkegaardian pledge that he would rather worship with a sincere pagan than with a hypocritical fellow-Christian, could be instantly felt all over Russia. Besides, the Starovery were not pagans, but certainly the sincerest “fellow Christians” of mainstream Russian believers. It was of course impossible to reconcile the two religiously, since their respective liturgies (theirs, by now held sacred by the Nikonians as well) were literally worlds apart. However the mainstream Russian Orthodox Church would be gradually softening up toward the erstwhile “Schismatics,” and in the 1970’s the stigmas were removed, and a forgiveness was formally asked by the official Russian Church for the history of persecution, which, in the true Christian spirit, was wholeheartedly given by the persecuted.
As of today, there are numerous Starovery communities all around Russia. Their self-segregating lifestyle is hardly conducive to mixing with the mainstream, even in broad social terms, and therefore the main Russian Orthodox Church need have no fear of some religious “heresy” ever creeping into her established Nikonian liturgy.
But the positive and spiritually purifying fact of the Old Rite being accepted as a legitimate form of Orthodox worship is one of the best news about Russian religious life, coming out of today’s Russia.
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