Paradoxes of the Old Believer Movement

Abstract

"The growth of interest in religion among the Russian people since the fall of the communist regime is usually looked at from only one angle - the revival of the Orthodox Church. This has a certain logic to it from the personal, cultural, ideo- logical and national viewpoints. However, the picture most people, including news- paper columnists and the secular authorities, have of spiritual life in Russia has become extremely one-sided. Normally, when people speak of a return to religion or to the Church, they are now referring exclusively to the Orthodox Church. In the religious sphere as such, the main task is to recover the past. However, this has turned out to be a crude process incapable of fully reproducing the spiritual and cultural diversity of prerevolutionary Russia. Returning to 'the faith of our grand- parents' sometimes turns out to mean returning to the faith of grandparents who are strangers to us: people can lose touch with their family traditions."