Old Believers and Old Calendarists

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Maria
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Re: Old Believers

Post by Maria »

NotChrysostomYet wrote:

(The second would only arrive on the scene when "bishops" of the "Living Church" would start a new priested Old Believer sect, which remains incredibly tiny to this day). Today their numbers have drastically decreased, but they still boast about 2 million members (Wikipedia lists an estimated 1 - 2 million members as of 2006, but they have grown since then).

The Bishops of the "Living Church" (a church group started by the soviets) were sergianists, and as such were considered to have betrayed the faith. The priests that they ordained would have questionable orders.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.

Justice
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Re: Old Believers

Post by Justice »

Actually the number of Old Calendarists is way more than 500,000 there are suspected to be at least 1 million in Russia alone.

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NotChrysostomYet
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Re: Old Believers

Post by NotChrysostomYet »

Maria wrote:
NotChrysostomYet wrote:

(The second would only arrive on the scene when "bishops" of the "Living Church" would start a new priested Old Believer sect, which remains incredibly tiny to this day). Today their numbers have drastically decreased, but they still boast about 2 million members (Wikipedia lists an estimated 1 - 2 million members as of 2006, but they have grown since then).

The Bishops of the "Living Church" (a church group started by the soviets) were sergianists, and as such were considered to have betrayed the faith. The priests that they ordained would have questionable orders.

Exactly, hence the quote marks I made around "bishops". That's why this (tiny) priested Old Believers sect can be easily dismissed, among other things.

Justice
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Re: Old Believers

Post by Justice »

NotChrysostomYet wrote:
Maria wrote:
NotChrysostomYet wrote:

(The second would only arrive on the scene when "bishops" of the "Living Church" would start a new priested Old Believer sect, which remains incredibly tiny to this day). Today their numbers have drastically decreased, but they still boast about 2 million members (Wikipedia lists an estimated 1 - 2 million members as of 2006, but they have grown since then).

The Bishops of the "Living Church" (a church group started by the soviets) were sergianists, and as such were considered to have betrayed the faith. The priests that they ordained would have questionable orders.

Exactly, hence the quote marks I made around "bishops". That's why this (tiny) priested Old Believers sect can be easily dismissed, among other things.

But as I said, the priestless Old Believers tend to be very pharisetic some as I stated, don't even allow marriage. These were never teachings in the Orthodox Church and it shows they've gone to far in their zeal.

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NotChrysostomYet
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Re: Old Believers

Post by NotChrysostomYet »

Justice wrote:

Actually the number of Old Calendarists is way more than 500,000 there are suspected to be at least 1 million in Russia alone.

Frankly that would surprise me very much, partly because the Russian Orthodox Church is still on the Old Calendar (therefore diminishing the appeal of an Old Calendarist jurisdiction for people in Russia - Old Calendarism is primarily a phenomenon in Greece). But perhaps you're right. Do you know of any synods that claim at least a decent fraction of that number in Russia?

Still, the point remains: playing the numbers game as an Old Calendarist is not to your advantage, especially when I'm not even trying to say that the Old Believers as they are today are the "true" Orthodox. :wink:

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NotChrysostomYet
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Re: Old Believers

Post by NotChrysostomYet »

Justice wrote:
NotChrysostomYet wrote:
Maria wrote:

The Bishops of the "Living Church" (a church group started by the soviets) were sergianists, and as such were considered to have betrayed the faith. The priests that they ordained would have questionable orders.

Exactly, hence the quote marks I made around "bishops". That's why this (tiny) priested Old Believers sect can be easily dismissed, among other things.

But as I said, the priestless Old Believers tend to be very pharisetic some as I stated, don't even allow marriage. These were never teachings in the Orthodox Church and it shows they've gone to far in their zeal.

That's true, but I'm focusing on the vast majority of Old Believers, who belong to one priested jurisdiction. There are few priestless Old Believers, and most of them are barely Orthodox at all today. (In addition, they betray the main leaders of the Old Believers when Nikon's Reforms were first being implemented, especially Protopope Avvakam, who insisted that they receive the priests and bishops who came over to their side as such). It would be best to ignore the priestless Old Believers completely during the course of this discussion.

Justice
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Re: Old Believers

Post by Justice »

NotChrysostomYet wrote:
Justice wrote:

Actually the number of Old Calendarists is way more than 500,000 there are suspected to be at least 1 million in Russia alone.

Frankly that would surprise me very much, partly because the Russian Orthodox Church is still on the Old Calendar (therefore diminishing the appeal of an Old Calendarist jurisdiction for people in Russia - Old Calendarism is primarily a phenomenon in Greece). But perhaps you're right. Do you know of any synods that claim at least a decent fraction of that number in Russia?

Still, the point remains: playing the numbers game as an Old Calendarist is not to your advantage, especially when I'm not even trying to say that the Old Believers as they are today are the "true" Orthodox. :wink:

I know, of course numbers don't determine the true church (that would be silly :lol: ) and actually I and the Traditional church would argue that even though Russia is still on the old calendar, it doesn't diminish the appeal of the Traditional Orthodox. The Russian Orthodox Church is involved in ecumenical dialogue with the Roman Catholics, Monophysites, Nestorians etc. This has caused many people in the Russian church to seek elsewhere and to stop commemorating the MP. As for the Majority of Traditional Orthodox synods in Russia, I believe it would be either the ROAC or the RTOC but I could be wrong since the synod under Metropolitan Rafail has quite the following in Russia and there are many Greek True Orthodox synods there as well.

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