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Regulating Old Believer Marriage: Ritual, Legality, and Conversion in Nicholas Fs Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Irina Paert
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Abstract

In this article, Irina Paert reexamines the relationship between Old Believers and officialdom. She focuses on the impact the criminalization of Old Believer marriages had on dissenting communities in Nicholas I's Russia (1825-55). Although Paert emphasizes the difference between Old Believer and official approaches to marriage, she also draws attention to endemic conflicts and contradictions within the local and central governments regarding the implementation of policies, and she identifies a variety of grass-root responses to these problems. In addition to ecclesiological disagreements between different branches of Old Belief, conflicts existed within specific congregations, which were divided along class and gender lines. Paert thus raises new questions about the boundaries separating the official culture from that of religious dissent, and Orthodox from Old Believer communities, and she questions the persistent representation of the Old Believer community as a “counter-society.”

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , Fall 2004 , pp. 555 - 576
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2004

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References

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7 Edinoverie which supported some form of union with the Orthodox Church, was initiated by Old Believers and supported by such Church hierarchs as Nikiforos Theotokis (1779–1786) and metropolitan Platon (Levshin) of Moscow. The latter composed the Rules of Edinoverie, approved by Paul I in 1800. Active promoters of Edinoverie in the nineteenth century were Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov) and the converts from Old Belief Archimandrite Pavel (Lednev) (1821–1895) and Timofei Verkhovskii (b. 1799). The restrictive conditions under which Old Believers could join Edinoverie and the lack of ecclesiastical independence meant this institution had an ambiguous status within the Russian Church. Edinoverie’s association with religious intolerance provoked fierce criticism by Old Believers. E. E., Lebedev, Edinoverie v prolivodeistvie nisskomu obriadovomu raskolu (Novgorod, 1904), 20–21 Google Scholar. See also Nechaev, V., Platon Mitropolit Moskovskii v ego otnosheniiakhk edinoveriiu (Kazan', 1903)Google Scholar; Bruess, Gregory Lynn, Religion, Identity and Empire: A GreekArchbishop in the Russia of Catherine the Great (Boulder, Colo., 1997), 142–71Google Scholar; I. K. Smolich, Istoriia russkoi tserkvi, 1700-1917 (Moscow, 1997), vol. 8, pt. 2, p. 141. For critical evaluations of Edinoverie, see Pokrovskii, Anlifeodal'nyiprotest, 346–48; Kut'ev, O. L., “Edinoverie v Permskikh votchinakh Stroganovykh (30–e–50–e gg. XIX w),” in Mir staroobriadchestva, no. 4 (Moscow, 1998), 275–82Google Scholar.

8 For example, Kel'siev, Sbornik, 185; Vasil'evskii, Gosudarstvennaia sistema, 36–39; on the strength of the Old Believer community, see Robson, Old Believers in Modern Russia, 12–15.

9 John Gillis argues that marriage has always been a social rather than a private affair. Ethnographers collected overwhelming evidence demonstrating the participation of the whole community in marriage ritual. See Gillis, John R., For Better, For Worse: BritishMarriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford, 1985), 135–50Google Scholar; Argudiaeva, Iu. V., “Nizhegorodskaia svad'ba,” in Chistova, K. V. and Bernshtam, T. A., eds., Russkii narodnyi svadebnyi obriad (Leningrad, 1978)Google Scholar.

10 For medieval and early modern marriage, see Pouncy, Carolyn Johnston, ed. and trans., The “Domostroi“: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible (Ithaca, 1994)Google Scholar; Giles Fletcher, Ogosudarstvierusskom (St. Petersburg, 1905); M. Rabinovich, “Svad'ba v russkom gorode v shestnadtsatom veke,” in Chistova and Bernshtam, eds., Russkii narodnyisvadebnyi obriad, 7–9; la. Shchapov, , “Brak i sem'ia v Drevnei Rusi,” Voprosy istorii, 1970, no. 10:218–32Google Scholar.

11 Elizabeth I cancelled this legislation in 1744, but the synod incorporated betrothal into the church wedding in 1775. The Code of Laws of 1832 reaffirmed this legislation. Smolich, Istoriia russkoi tserkvi, vol. 8, pt. 2, p. 65. Vladimirskii-Budanov, A., Obzoristorii russkogo prava (Kiev, 1886), 93, 97–98 Google Scholar.

12 Freeze, Gregory L., “Bringing Order to the Russian Family: Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia, 17'60-1860 ”Journal of Modern History 62, no. 4 (December 1990): 709– 46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Instruction on die sacrament of marriage (c. 1765) can be found in Tvoreniia izhe vosviatykh ottsa nashego Tikhona Zadonskogo (St. Petersburg, 1912), 1:117–19; Pavlov, A. S., 50-iaglava Kormchei Knigi, kak istoricheskii i prakticheskii istochnik russkogo brachnogo prava (Moscow, 1887)Google Scholar.

13 Freeze, “Bringing Order,” 719.

14 Pavlov, 50-ia glava Kormchei Knigi, 42–45.

15 Freeze, “Bringing Order,” 733–45.

16 On Old Believer debates about marriage, see Paert, I., Old Believers, Religious Dissentand Gender in Russia, 1760-1850(Manchester, Eng., 2003), chaps. 3 and 4Google Scholar; Pia Pera, / Vecchi Credenti l’ Anticristo (Genoa, 1992), chaps. 1-4; Korovushkina, I., “Staroobriadtsy v doreformennom gorode: Aspekty sotsial'noi istorii i chastnoi zhizni,” in Anderson, K. M. et al., eds., Sotsial'naia istoriia: Ezhegodnik 1998/99 (Moscow, 1999), 217–43Google Scholar.

17 “Corrected” (ispravlennye) priests were those Orthodox priests originally ordained by Orthodox bishops. They voluntarily joined Old Belief, rejecting their “heresies“ and taking further education in pre-Nikonian liturgical practice, usually in Irgiz monasteries (Saratov province). See Baidin, Staroobriadchestvo Urala, chaps. 2–3.

18 Then there are the secret Old Believers who, in order to avoid taxation, married and baptized their children in the Orthodox Church. See Lavrov, A. S., Koldovstvo i religiiavRossii, 1700–1740gg. (Moscow, 2000), 55–57 Google Scholar; N. A. Minenko, “Svodnye braki u krest'ian Zapadnoi Sibiri (XVIII-pervaia polovina XIX veka),” in Bakhrushinskie chteniia (Novosibirsk, 1976), 78.

19 Minenko, “Svodnye braki,” 78. On common law, see Orshanskii, I., Issledovaniiaporusskomu pravu obychnomu i brachnomu (St. Petersburg, 1879)Google Scholar.

20 1 Cor. 7:31, “And they that use this world, as notabusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.” Also see 1 Cor. 7:29, “But diis I say, brethren, die time is short: it remained!, that both they that have wives be as though they had none.” Paert, Old Believers; Paert, I. K., “Gender and Salvation: Representations of Difference in Old Believer Writings from the Late Seventeenth Century to the 1820s,” in Edmondson, Linda, ed., Gender in RussianHistory and Culture (Houndmills, Eng., 2001), 29–52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 G. Skachkov, “O sushchnosti zakonnogo braka” [early 1800s], Rossiiskaia gosudarstvennaia biblioteka, Rukopisnyi otdel, f. Barsova, ms. 828,11. 32–37ob.

22 Liubopytnyi, Pavel, “Brachnyi Ustav” (1803), in Deianiia pervogo i vtorogo soborovkhristianPomorskogo tserkovnogoobshchestva (Moscow, 1911), 109–16, 111Google Scholar; [Zaiatsevskii], “Istoricheskoe izveshchenie o bespreryvnom prodolzhenii zakonnogo braka v staroverakh,” in Pervyi vserossiiskii sobor khristian-pomortsev priemliushchikh brak, (Moscow, 1909), 10–17.

23 Pochinskaia, I. V., ed., Ocherki istorii staroobriadchestva Urala i sopredel'nykh lerritorii (Ekaterinburg, 2000), 15 Google Scholar.

24 RGIA, f. 797, op. 9, d. 25287,11. 75–83.

25 Orshanskii, Issledovaniia po russkomu pravu, 47.

26 Old Believer marriage ritual is best described in Liubopytnyi, “Brachnyi Ustav,” 111. On peasant customary marriage, see Worobec, Christine D., Peasant Russia: Family andCommunity in the Post-Emancipation Period (Princeton, 1991)Google Scholar.

27 Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Permskoi oblasti, f. 65, op. 4, d. 167,11. 2–7; d. 160,11. 37–38ob. (Chancellery of the Perm’ governor-general).

28 Ibid.

29 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 199, d. 42, 1. 7 (Ministry of the Interior, Department of General Affairs); Vurgaft, S. and Ushakov, I. A., eds., Staroobriadcheslvo: Opyt entsiklopedicheskogpslovaria (Moscow, 1996), 175 Google Scholar.

30 Pokrov Chapel in Moscow, for example, justified their marriage practices by referring to the ordinances of 24 March 1719 (on the marriage tax on the Old Believers who married outside the church), to the Manifesto of 14 December 1762 on religious tolerance, as well as to the declaration of 1735 that all peoples of the empire had religious freedom. Liubopytnyi, “Brachnyi Ustav,” 110; Nil'skii, I. F., Semeinaia zhizn’ v russkom raskole (St. Petersburg, 1869), 17 Google Scholar.

31 Sobranie postanovlenii po chasti raskola, sostoiavshikhsia po vedomstvu SviashchennogoSinoda (hereafter SPR), 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1860), vol. 1. Volume 2 (1801-58) contains the majority of cases instigated by priests against noncanonical marriages compared to volume 1 (1722-1801), where these cases are almost absent. According to the edict of 1723, illegal marriages, marriages without parental consent, cohabitation, rape, incest, and illegitimacy were withdrawn from the church's domain and transferred to the civil courts. “Vysochaishii ukaz” (13 August 1727), Polnoesobraniezakonov Rossiiskoi imperii (PSZ), 6:365; S. V Kalashnikov, Sbornik dukhovnykh i grazhdanskihh zakonov po delam brachnym (Khar'kov, 1891), 5-6. The church failed to regain control over these matters after Peter's death. Anne I in 1736 turned down the request of Archbishop Innokentii of Irkutsk to allow the ecclesiastic authorities to deal with marriages performed outside the church.

32 Freeze, “Bringing Order,” 709–46.

33 Zhurnaly po delam Departamenta zakonov: Arkhiv Gosudarstvennogo Soveta v tsarstvovanieAleksandra I (St. Petersburg, 1874), 370–73.

34 Occasionally the civil authorities acted on the summons of the clergy and persecuted Old Believer marriages. When complaints reached the Senate, however, the actions of the local authorities were reproved. See, for example, Zhurnaly, 370–73.

35 Freeze, ChaeRan Y., Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia (Hanover, 2002), 50 Google Scholar.

36 Pera, Pia, “The Secret Committee on the Old Believers,” in Bartlett, Roger and Hartley, Janet, eds., Russiain the Age ofthe Enlightenment: Essays for Isabel de Madariaga (London, 1990), 236–37Google Scholar. Pera suggested that official misapprehension of the Old Believer debate on marriage was instrumental to the reversal of Catherinian policy toward Old Believers. In their official plea to Alexander I, Seraphim and Filaret complained about the freedom Old Believers exercised in their marital arrangements compared to the Orthodox populace.

37 Nicholas I stated several times that Old Believer marriage was the domain of civil, not church, authorities and that synodal definition could not apply to all dissenters. See, for example, legislation of 19 July 1827 and 10 December 1828 in Sobranie postanovlenii pochasti raskola (Moscow, 1858), 115. On the registration of Old Believers in city registers, see Tsentral'nyi istoricheskii arkhiv Moskvy (TsIAM),f. 2, op. l,d. 5731,11. 3–7 (Merchant Department of the Moscow City Assembly).

38 The division of Nicholas I's reign into three periods is used by Kornilov, who characterizes the period from 1825 to 1830s as a reform movement. A. A. Kornilov, Aura istoriiRossii XIX veka (Moscow, 1918), as cited in Polievktov, M., Nikolai I: Biografiia i obior tsarstvovaniia (Moscow, 1918), 65–66 Google Scholar. Polievktov disputes this periodization and describes the entire reign of Nicholas I as a steady implementation of the conservative program. See Polievktov, Nikolai I, 65.

39 Paert, Old Believers, 193-215.

40 The political unreliability of dissenters—a stumbling block of the Russian government in the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth century—came again to the government's attendon during the investigation of the Preobrazhenskoe affair from 1816 to 1825. But this question received thorough attention only in the 1830s to 1850s: officials from the Ministry of the Interior and some churchmen pointed out that the political threat religious dissent presented to the stability of the empire was real rather than imaginary. See Paert, Old Believers, chap. 5; I. Iuzov, “Politicheskie vozzreniia staroveriia,” in Russkaiamysl', 1882, no. 5:181–217; Liprandi, Ivan, “Kratkoe obozrenie russkikh raskolov, eresei i sekt,” in Chteniia v obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh, 1870, no. 2:65–140 Google Scholar; Kel'siev, Sbornik. On cholera riots, see Saunders, David, Russia in the Age of Reaction and Reform, 1801–1881 (London, 1992), 140 Google Scholar.

41 Druzhinin, N. M., Gosudarstvennye krest'iane i reforma P. D. Kiseleva (Moscow- Leningrad, 1946), 1:40Google Scholar.

42 In the late eighteenth century, large numbers of Old Believers joined the Edinoverie. In Perm’ diocese, for example, 6,000 Old Believers became edinovertsy. But by Nicholas I's reign, many of them had converted back to Old Belief. Lebedev, Edinoverie, 20–21.

43 Sobranie postanovlenii po chasti raskola, 93–94.

44 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 198, d. 62.

45 According to the secret ordinance of 27 May 1820, the city government (merchant and meshchane guilds) could consider candidates from the priestless Old Believers only if no candidate from the priestly ones was available, given that they prayed for the tsar and recognized marriage. Sobranie postanovlenii po chasti raskola, 66–67. A more elaborate version of this classification was provided in 1842 by Metropolitan Filaret in his letter to Count N. A. Protasov, overprocurator of the synod. Sobranie mnenii i otzyvov Filareta, MitropolitaMoskovskagoi Kolomenskago (St. Petersburg, 1885), 3:91–93. See also “Raskol,”, N. V. in Brokgauz, F. A. and Efron, I. A., eds., Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ (St. Petersburg, 1899), 26:298Google Scholar.

46 Svod meant betrothal without the church wedding, or secret marriage by elopement without parental agreement. Svodnyi brak, civil marriage, was applied primarily to Old Believers and sectarians. Slovar’ sovremennogo russkogo literaturnogo iazyka (Moscow- Leningrad, 1962), 410, 422.

47 RGIA, f. 797, op. 9, d. 25287, 1. 4ob. (Chancellery of the Overprocurator of the Holy Synod).

48 Ibid., 1. lOob.

49 See the discussion on the ways in which imperial officials represented the sect of Skoptsy in the first half of the nineteenth century in Engeistein, Laura, Castration and theHeavenly Kingdom: A Russian Folktale (Ithaca, 1999)Google Scholar. The authors of the second half of the nineteentli century who were critical of Old Believer morals were Nil'skii, Semeinaia; Livanov, F. V., Raskol'niki i ostrozhniki, vols. 1–3 (St. Petersburg, 1868–73)Google Scholar; Nadezhdin, K., “Spory bespopovtsev o brake,” Pravoslavnoe obozrenie 15 (1864): 9–23 Google Scholar.

50 Belikov, V., Deiatel'nost’ Moskovskogo mitropolita Filareta po otnosheniiu k Raskolu (Kazan', 1895), 220 Google Scholar.

51 RGIA, f. 797, op. 9, d. 25287,1. 60.

52 Olonetskie eparkhial'nye vedomosti (OEV) 1 (1900): 9.

53 In Muscovite society svod was the term for “betrothal,” but it could also mean “procure” or “pander.“

54 SPR, 2:497.

55 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov (RGADA), f. 1183, op. 11, historical note 1-3 (Moscow Office of the Synod, the Secret Committee).

56 Ibid, 1. 15.

57 SPR, 1:755, 2:3–4. Filaret (Drozdov) of Moscow, apparently, was an authoritative supporter of this practice. Belikov, Deiatel'nost', 213.

58 Suslova, L. N., “Organizatsiia edinoveriia na territorii Tobol'skoi gubernii v kontse XVIII-nachale XX w.,” in Istoricheskaia nauka na rubezhe vekov (Ekaterinburg, 2000), 171— 82Google Scholar; Ivanov, K. Iu., “Edinoverie kak sposob bor'by so staroobriadchestvom (na primere Tomskoi eparkhii),” in Kul'turnoe nasledie Aziatskoi Rossii: Materialy pervogo Sibiro-Ural'skogo istoricheskogokongressa (Tobol'sk, 1997), 107–8Google Scholar.

59 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 209, d. 644,11. 231–34.

60 RGIA, f. 797, op. 9, d. 25287,11. 75–83.

61 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 209, d. 644.

62 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 199, d. 2944.

63 In 1851 there were only 171 Edinoverie parishes in the whole Russian empire, and one-third of them belonged to the Perm’ diocese. See 0EV2 (1900): 37.

64 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 199, dd. 411, 2944.

65 Natsional'nyi arkhiv respubliki Kareliia, f. 25, op. 2, d. 1/5, 11. 14–15 (Olonetsk Spiritual Consistory).

66 On apostasy, see Paul W. Werth, “The Limits of Religious Ascription: Baptized Tatars and the Revision of ‘Apostasy’ 1840s-1905,” Russian Review 59, no. 4 (October 2000): 493–511.

67 Belikov, Deiatel'nost'; TsIAM, f. 16, op. 110, d. 847; f. 17, op. 6, d. 121; Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, f. 109, op. 3, d. 1494. In 1846 Filaret was commissioned by the government to develop the policy toward the Rogozhskoe community, the center of priestly Old Believers.

68 Nicholas I expressed his formal appreciation of Stroganov's dedication to the conversion and awarded the bailiff of the Perm’ estate, Sivkov, the Order of St. Anne. RGADA, f. 1183, op. 11, d. 22,11.1–3, 5ob.

69 RGADA, f. 1183, op. 11, d. 121,1. 5ob.

70 L. E. Gorizontov, “Raskol'nichii klin, pol'skii vopros i staroobriadtsy,” in Slavianskiial'manakh (Moscow, 1998), 149.

71 RGIA, f. 797, op. 9, d. 25287,1. 133.

72 RGIA, f. 1473, op. 1, d. 173, 11. 6–7 (Secret Committee on Dissenters’ Affairs).

73 The administrative punishment to which Old Believers were subjected for illegal marriages was less strict than, for example, the penalty for proselytizing, which was usually exile in a monastery or to the Caucasus.

74 See S. Frederick Starr, Decentralization and Self-Government in Russia, 1830-70 (Princeton, 1972), 48.

75 RGIA, f. 1473, op. 1, d. 73,11. 44–45.

76 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 199, d. 411.

77 RGIA, f. 797, op. 9, d. 25287,1. 85

78 RGIA, f. 1473, op. 1, d. 73,11. 2–37.

79 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 198, d. 62.

80 Ibid., 1. 85.

81 Gorizontov, “Raskol'nichii klin,” 149.

82 Engelstein, Laura, The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-De-Siecte Russia (Ithaca, 1992), 28 Google Scholar.

83 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 208, d. 447,11. 2–10. See also Freeze, Gregory L., “The Wages of Sin: Decline of Public Penance in Imperial Russia,” in Batalden, S. K., ed., Seeking God: TheRecovery of Religious Identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine and Georgia (DeKalb, 1993), 53–82 Google Scholar.

84 OEV1 (1900): 10.

85 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 199, d. 411.

86 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 199, d. 2944,11. 1–8.

87 For a different reaction, see Jeffrey Burds’ article on denunciations, which suggests that Orthodox peasants often reported religious dissenters who cohabited without a church wedding to the authorities. However, his comments deal with the tensions between the community and migrant workers (otkhodniki) that emerged in the postemancipation period, which were accompanied by other social and economic pressures. Seejeffrey Burds, “A Culture of Denunciation: Peasant Labor Migration and Religious Anathematization in Rural Russia, 1860-1905,“/o«r«a’ of Modern History 68, no. 4 (1996): 786–818.

88 RGIA, f. 797, op. 9, d. 25287, 1. 71; Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Sverdlovskoi oblasti, f. 6, op. 4, d. 45. Old Believers who married in church often refused to drink the wine offered by the priest during the ceremony or spat it out. OEV1 (1900): 260.

89 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 209, d. 644,1. 340ob.

90 Ibid.

91 According to the legislation of 1722, civil authorities dealt with noncanonical marriages.

92 SPR, 2:47–50. Divorce on the ground of sexual incapacity, for example, was possible in the Orthodox Church. See Freeze, Gregory, “Krylov vs. Krylova: ‘Sexual Incapacity' and Divorce in Tsarist Russia,” in Husband, William B., ed., The Human Tradition in Modern Russia (Wilmington, 2000), 5–17 Google Scholar.

93 Sobranie (Moscow, 1858), 93,153. Both cases are discussed in more detail in Paert, Old Believers, 196–97.

94 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 198, d. 62,1. 1.

95 Ibid., 1.2.

96 Ibid.

97 SPR, 2:368-70.

98 RGIA, f. 1284, op. 196, d. 181,11. 9–10.

99 SPR, 2:314–15.

100 TsIAM, f. 203, op. 266, d. 69,11. 1–3 (Moscow Spiritual Consistory).

101 TsIAM, f. 16, op. 110, d. 147, 11. 1–8 (Chancellery of the Moscow governor general) .

102 Ibid, 1. 8.

103 Prusskii, Pavel (Lednev), “O edinoverii na Preobrazhenskom kladbishche,” Bratskoeslovo, 1880, no. 2:624 Google Scholar.

104 A number of autobiographical accounts by former Old Believers were published in official church journals in the period from the 1860s to the 1890s. These publications served missionary purposes. “Kratkoe skazanie byvshego staroobriadtsa,” Dukhovnaiabeseda, 1864, no. 38:81-100, and no. 39:113-29; S. Naimushin, “Moia zhizn’ v raskole,” Viatskieeparkhial'nye vedomosti (1897), nos. 5–6, 8, 10, 12, 18, 20; K. Riabov, “Pamiatnye zapiski,“ Dushepokznoe chtenie (July-August 1870): 83–102,105–25.

105 The Moscow Secret Committee met only nine times between 1855 and 1878.

106 The ambiguity of this status led to the abuse of the legislation. It provided leeway for bigamists to avoid the strict punishments usually applied to similar breaches of die Orthodox sacrament of marriage. See Koni, A. F., “Po delu Parfenova,” in Koni, , Zaposledniegody (St. Petersburg, 1896), 63–71 Google Scholar.

107 On the history of the Belaia Krinitsa hierarchy, see Mel'nikov, P. I., “Istoricheskie ocherki popovshchiny,” in Polnoesobraniesochinenii (St. Petersburg, 1909), 7:3–375 Google Scholar.

108 See Mel'nikov, P. I., “Schislenie raskol'nikov,” in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 7:384– 409 Google Scholar; Prugavin, A. S., Staroobriadchestvo vo vtoroi polovine XIX v.: Ocherki iz noveishei istoriiraskola (Moscow, 1904)Google Scholar; Vasil'evskii, Gosudarstvennaia sistema, 39.

109 Robson, Old Believers in Modern Russia, 12–15.