In the history of Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church, the 17th-century church schism played a great role . Its consequences were reflected in riots, religious persecution, giving rise to countless martyrs for the faith. This powerful religious-political movement in scale and significance had its own background, without studying which it is impossible to understand the reasons for this great Russian drama. First of all, although this event concerned the sphere of religious rites and, mainly, the order of the liturgy, he had other reasons. One can especially emphasize the role of Tsar Alexei the Quietest and Patriarch Nikon, thanks to which the political preconditions turned into the driving force of the split. It should be noted that church reasons played a secondary role in this situation.
So, with the accession to the throne of the second Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the second in the Romanov dynasty , nicknamed the Quietest, the imperial appetites of Moscow increased. The monarch cherished the ambitious plans to unite under his wing all the Orthodox peoples living in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. But after the capture and annexation of Left-Bank Ukraine, a ritual problem suddenly arose. Most believers of the conquered lands were baptized with three fingers, as was done in Greece and throughout the Orthodox world, and the Russians were baptized with two. The king’s aspirations to found the Third Rome required a single rite. There were two ways out of this situation: either to impose Russian rites on the conquered population, or to force their own believers to profess Christ in a new way. Therefore, the church schism is a consequence of the mediocre policy of the authorities to introduce unified Orthodoxy.
Since it was dangerous to impose something on the already unhappy provinces, the king decided to take up “his own”. And he made it tough, "police" measures. In 1653, Metropolitan Nikon, elected a year earlier in the patriarch of All Russia, sent a decree in which he categorically prescribed to be baptized with three fingers and lay down four earthly bow instead of sixteen during the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. He also replaced one-voice singing with a polyphonic one and allowed priests to proclaim the sermons of his own composition. Thus, Nikon’s reforms and church schism are inextricably linked.
Since innovations were imposed “from above”, without any explanation or belief in the correctness of such measures, this decree was met with the most fierce rebuff, and in all sectors of the population. Even some nobles and boyars argued for not abandoning ancient piety. Representatives of the clergy, especially Protopopes Daniel and Habakkuk, also acted as opposition guides. But both the king and the patriarch remained unshakable. Even the fact that in 1658 Nikon fell into disgrace, and in 1666 was deposed from the rank of patriarch, it did not affect the widening church schism: in 1667 the Great Moscow Cathedral anathematized those who refused to accept new rites, and also continued blaspheming the Church, ”accusing her of apostasy.
The first manifestation of discontent among the widest masses of the population was the Solovetsky Uprising (1667-1676). It ended in the massacre of the dissatisfied. Church schism widened and deepened. Many families, fleeing persecution and not wanting to betray their faith, fled to the outskirts of the Russian kingdom - to the floodplains of the Danube, to the north, to the Volga and Siberia, spreading the doctrine of the end of time and the kingdom of Antichrist, which is now served by both the tsar and the patriarch. The death of Alexei the Quiet didn’t change the situation. Sofya Alekseevna only tightened the persecution of the rebellious Old Believers.
The church schism found its most terrible manifestation in mass self-immolations - the so-called "burns". Desperate people took their lives so as not to betray the faith. These suicides continued throughout the 18th-19th centuries. Secular authorities put an end to the persecution: the decree of Nicholas II “On Tolerance,” which guaranteed freedom of religion to the Old Believers. And in 1929, the Holy Synod adopted a decree that "the old Russian rites are also salvation."