The Old Believers and the World of Antichrist (excerpts from Robert Crummey's book) Toward the end of the Seventeenth Century, Old Belief was a diversified movement that, under the sign of resistance to Nikon's liturgical reforms, united opposition to change in the Russian Orthodox church, the imperial administration and the social order. Many of its adherents encapsulated their hatred of everything new and oppressive in Russian life in the apocalyptic symbol of Antichrist. The symbol and the mood it expressed demanded resistance to the state and the official church--the instruments of Antichrist. For, in both symbolic and practical terms, the faithful were not to submit to his power. The logic of their position, then, led the Old Believers to a confrontation with the power of the imperial government. The overwhelming weight of their adversary, however, posed an agonizing problem of strategy. How could the faithful best make a stand against the legions of Antichrist? They had at most three possibilities--armed revolt, flight into some hidden refuge or the construction of fortress communities that would rally and shelter the defenders of the old faith. The hopelessness of armed rebellion limited its appeal in time and space. When, in the Seventeenth Century, many Old Believers were convinced that the end of the world was imminent, there was no need for concern about the continuance of the true faith. It was therefore justifiable for the faithful to strike a satisfying blow at the enemy and meet their inevitable fate, sword in hand. In the Olonets area of north Russia, rebellion blended with mass suicide, another expression of belief in the imminence of the apocalypse. When life went on past the projected dates for the final consummation, the urge to armed resistance weakened in the north. Thereafter Old Believer rebellion was limited to participation in the great peasant and Cossack revolts of the Eighteenth Century. Old Believers of southern Russia, whether peasants or Cossacks, took part enthusiastically in the Bulavin uprising and the revolt of Pugachev. In the latter instance, early in the reign of Catherine II, however, the reactions of the supporters of Old Belief were distinctly ambivalent. Many, including the residents of the Irgiz monasteries in the lower Volga valley, refused to support the rebels. And after Pugachev, the tradition of rebellion faded into memory or the nostalgic imagining of uprisings that never were. The Old Believers of northern Russia found flight from Antichrist's power a more attractive alternative than open revolt. The hermits who spread Old Belief to the Olonets region and other equally remote corners of the empire sought havens where they could live a contemplative life and keep the old faith alive without interference from outside. In the late Seventeenth Century, however, the central administration's increasing control over even the lightly populated districts of the north and Siberia and over the Cossack country made such refugees well-nigh impossible to find. In the Olonets area, for example, no Old Believer hermitage could escape detection forever. Nevertheless, the difficulty of flight into the "desert" did not prevent the more intransigent of the Old Believers from attempting to follow this strategy even in the present century. In the 1740s, for example, the Filippovtsy broke with Vyg and tried unsuccessfully to withdraw from contact with government's agents. Even later, the beguny ("the runners") rejected all contacts of any kind with Antichrist's world. The practical impossibility of their position, however, soon forced them to adopt a double standard. The zealots of the sect indeed refused to touch any documents bearing the seal of Antichrist, including money; but, in order to survive physically and enjoy communal religious life of even a rudimentary sort, they depended on a network of sympathizers who lived ordinary laymen's lives. In this life, then, one simply could not escape Antichrist's power and keep alive the old faith and the dream of a better world. The third path was the narrowest and thorniest of all. It was, at the same time, a particularly attractive one, especially when it became clear that Antichrist's resign would continue into the indefinite future. Andrei Denisov and the leaders of the Vygovskaia Pustyn (Old Belief Monastery in the "Vyg Wilderness") saw clearly that their task was to keep alive the old faith in the new world of Peter I. To do so, they had to create a religious organization and a cultural life for the scattered cells of Old Believers. And, above all, they had to build a community that would be a nerve center of that organization and the bearer of that culture. As the earlier hermits had already discovered, however, the arm of the state was long. The leaders of Vyg and the other Old Believer communities therefore had no choice but to reach a "modus vivendi" with the imperial government (they decided to settle temporarily until a final settlement could be reached). It was fortunate for them that Peter I was prepared to treat the Old Believers pragmatically, if not with tolerance. Those, like the residents of Vyg, who could offer the government their services, gained freedom to build the community of their dreams. The accommodation with the state, however, posed agonizing and ultimately insoluble problems. The price of freedom of action was discretion. Any member who denounced the power of Antichrist for what it was risked calling down the wrath of the government upon the community. The Vyg fathers therefore had to rein in the enthusiasm of their followers by persuasion and by introducing strict norms of communal discipline. The great monasteries of the Russian middle ages offered the ideal model of a strictly disciplined religious community and it was to this model that Andrei Denisov turned for inspiration. As his own statement indicates, the Solovetskii Monastery was a particularly attractive example because its monks had made a resolute stand for the old faith. To be sure, the Vyg fathers had to adjust the pattern in many respects in order to make it fit a community that was self-generating, dependent entirely on the support of laymen, and inhabited by both men and women. Nevertheless, Vyg, on the whole, adhered to the monastic pattern, given the Old Believers' isolation from the traditional centers of religious authority and the hazardous political and material conditions in which they lived. The members of the community succeeded admirably in surmounting the formidable material difficulties that they faced. Although the community was located in one of the most forbidding regions of northern Russia, the ingenuity of its leaders and the hard work of its members brought it prosperity. At the height of its development, the economy of Vyg was a remarkably balanced blend of agriculture, stock-raising, workshop manufacturing, commercial fishing and speculative trade. The Old Believers' position as a religious minority helped rather than hindered the community's economic ventures; like other Old Believers, the members of Vyg depended on the help of a network of sympathizers scattered across Russia to provide capital, economic intelligence and various personal services. Moreover, its agents could trade freely with the servants of Antichrist unhindered by any moral sanctions or bonds of personal sympathy. The community's economic success, however, did nothing to resolve its political dilemma. From the beginning, the Vyg community was caught between the demands of the state whose goodwill was essential for survival and the apocalyptic enthusiasm of its members. For nearly half a century, its leaders succeeded in mitigating the pressure from both sides, but in the end, Vyg was squeezed to death in the vise. Under the leadership of the Denisov brothers, Vyg maintained good relations with the Russian court by gentle deception. Although the rulers of the empire received countless letters and gifts from the community, its members avoided recognizing the legitimacy of the imperial throne by praying for its occupant. When faced with the choice between submission or the destruction of the community, the leaders of Vyg chose survival and continued ministry to the faithful. At this point, however, even a demanding monastic rule could not hold the members in line. The more militant would have none of the compromise and withdrew their support. Even though its leaders subsequently retracted their concession to the government, the crisis cost Vyg the support of many of its former adherents and, more significantly, its integrity. Submission postponed the community's fate but could not change it. After the pivotal crisis of the 1740's, Vyg was, in no sense, a source of explicitly political opposition to the imperial regime. Yet, its very existence as a stronghold of a determined religious minority made it unacceptable to the government. The comparatively liberal regimes of the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth centuries did not disturb its tranquility, but when Nicholas I undertook his crusade against the Old Believer communities of Russia, Vyg was defenseless. The third road--the building of a community--also terminated in a blind end. The history of the Vyg community, then, is the story of unavoidable failure. Its fate, however, does not diminish the significance of its achievements. The members of Vyg succeeded in building thriving settlements that brought prosperity to a poor and thinly populated forest region. Their community, moreover, became the spiritual capital of the numerous priestless Old Believers of Russia. From traditional materials, its leaders created a new culture which offered the Old Believers a satisfying alternative to the westernized culture of official society. Even today traces of its cultural influence can still be found in remote corners of Northern Russia. Admittedly, by the time that the official's assaults were launched, Vyg's membership had begun to dwindle and its creativity was gone. Nevertheless, what is remarkable about the history of Vyg is not that a community declined and was destroyed, but that, in the face of insuperable obstacles, it survived so long and achieved so much.