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Comment by tsimionescu | Hacker News Reader

I remember watching a documentary about them, without much context. The old lady who is still living alone out there was talking a lot about how the Patriarch (an Orthodox equivalent of the Pope, more or less) corrupted their old faith, and she was cursing his name a lot. By the way she was speaking, I thought she was talking about some events that must have happened during her father's life, maybe his childhood - I assumed she was upset about some communist era Patriarch who probably was too friendly with the regime or something.

Looking it up later, I realized she was an Old Believer, and the Patriarch she was cursing was in fact Nikon, who corrupted their faith in 1652... I found it deeply fascinating how powerful and alive this almost 400 year old grudge was to this woman.

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It's basically Old Believers' entire identity - opposition to the official church.

Not to the official church, but to Ukrainians bringing it into the alignment with the common Orthodox canon at the time. What happened isn’t purely lithurgical change, they imported a lot of monks who can read canonical greek texts with them.

It’s a repeated historical pattern — top down reforms brought by “enlightened” leader to make the country more European, more Orthodox or more communist.

This was even before Peter cutting beards of the entrenched nobility and was sold on the orthodoxy, autocracy and nationalism thing by the usual suspects.

One of the reasons for the reforms was to "go back to the old roots", because the Greeks peformed some rituals differently from Russians, and the opinion was that the Russian rituals were "corrupted" but, interestingly, some of the "restored" canon was actually later Greek innovations while the Russian Church preserved the older ways. For example, they started to cross themselves with 3 fingers instead of 2 fingers in Constantinople only in the 13th century. In my opinion, an unnecessary and misguided reform.

Funnily enough, this obscure dispute may have been the inspiration for a very modern work of art.

In the game Elden Ring, there are mysterious entities known as the Two Fingers and the Three Fingers. The Two Fingers are well known and respected parts of the church of that land, while the Three Fingers are a secret, heretical cult.

And the Two Fingers is in fact a literal set of two fingers, which seem to be the index and middle finger, corresponding to the fingers used in the Old Believers version of the rite; while the Three Fingers is also a set of fingers, with a thumb, index, and middle finger, also corresponding to the fingers used in the modern rite. It's somewhat likely that they are inspired by exactly this huge dispute in Eastern Orthodox's history.

That's a different schism chef. It's all schisms all the way down. They were unhinged from the beginning you may say.

I tried watching "Ivan Vasilievich Changes Profession" (1973) to see which way they had Ivan IV (the Terrible) crossing, but the director very cleverly has the actor's back to the camera during that moment in the elevator...

You can see how oral knowledge and traditions could stay strong over many generations in human history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers

Go to the "Main alterations" segment if anyone wants more info on the changes that angered them so much still after 400 years. Humans can be so ridiculous.

Give them some smartphones with social media and it'll be forgotten in a generation.

Or, it will be amplified, and will become the basis of a religious-nationalist movement.

> "Or, it will be amplified, and will become the basis of a religious-nationalist movement."

^^^ If history is any indicator, this is the much more likely outcome. ^^^

Pravoslavnik motorbike gangs? Check.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Wolves

Mormons?

You joke, the North Koreans fighting for Russia in Ukraine are fascinated with the internet.

For the downvoters: https://www.hindustantimes.com/trending/north-korean-soldier...

Enh I don’t get it. Cheers folks.

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