Prayer vs adultery
by Elizaveta Mayetnaya, "Moskovsky Komsomolets" 3 March 2003.

The Old Rite country in an hour drive from Moscow
They live long and happy lives spending their days praying, fasting and working hard. They call themselves "The True Orthodox" though they put a cross with two fingers. They hang icons on trees and build praying houses in the woods. Since the 17th century, they have been called "schematics". They are Russian Old Believers.

The ancestors of the old believers of Egorievsk (formerly they were called "goulslyaki") fled to this land to avoid the church reforms and capital punishments. They have never betrayed their faith but they also have never show it up much. They have been taking the rules of the game. They have been saying, "The will of God manages everything" under any regime: royal, communist or democratic.

Their faces resemble those portrayed on the icons. Their elders are tidy with wide round shaped beards. They wear the rope belts supposed to protect them from the evil. Their speech is full of proverbs like: "Peter doubted and sank", "Went to church, got out of prison" hence, they not seem to be pushy with their faith.

The old believers of Goulslitsy (the historical province in the East of Moscow region) have a reputation of rough and bad tempered people. Some of their ancestors were the Novgorod independence fighters exiled by Ivan III. We don't believe the historians are quite right, for many Russian successful merchant families such as the Morozovs, Zimins, Rakhmanovs, Balashovs, Khloudovs, Soldatenkovs, Kouznetsovs originated from this land. All of them came from Gouslitsy where 90% people have been confessing the Old Rite.

"Living with him wasn't easy…"
The people of Shouvoye do not say "spasibo" (thank you). They thank with "Spasi Khristos" (Save you Christ). If you say "Peace on your home" (Myr vashemu domu) the family will smile and let you in.

"There is not much real old believing families left", says Anna Pchelina, "the young don't have the true faith, but without it you have nowhere to go".

The old rite monks lived beside the village, in the wood, which was also a home for many wolves. Once a flock of hungry animals was chasing an old believer. The man climbed the tree but the frost was so strong, that he soon would freeze to death. He started to pray and suddenly St. George appeared with a fire rod in his hand. The beasts howled and ran away. The saved man went home and then hanged the icon of St. George on the tree where he sat. The icon was there for many years and fold down in the mid 1950-s being very old. Soon a few other icons appeared in the wood from the people miraculously saved in fires or car accidents.

The Pchelins live in a tidy village house. They have plenty to do: looking after livestock, gardening and praying for long hours. "I've never been a Komsomol (Young Communists Organization) member. My mother would kill me for that", says Anna pouring out tea. Her husband Alexei didn't join the Communist party, thought being a pilot-instructor he had to. "We've been relied on God only and He helped us", says the Pchelins. Their five children and many grandchildren also are old believers.

"A prayer can make a lot", says Alexei Pchelin. "When I was an instructor of Egorievsk pilot school, we were piloting a helicopter on 100m height. Suddenly our only engine stuck. We managed to survive."

"When young my husband was a very nice guy. The girls around got crazy about him. Some of them were saying me that they would take him away. I was an average girl, a poor-educated textile factory worker… To not loose him, I was praying a lot. There is a special prayer against adultery. The more you read it, the better", told us Anna. "The prayer is "Holy martyrs and confessors Gury, Samon and Aviva, pray The Lord for us".

Going for brides
In the recent time, the foreign visitors started to come to Egorievsk. The guests are also the old believers. They come to marry Egorievsk girls. Their communities in the States, Canada and Romania are small and a suitable marriage partner is not easy to find. They visit old believing churches and get acquainted with parish girls afterwards.

The warden of the Egorievsk St. George church Andrey says: "One guy recently came from Romania. He taught us to restore icons. We accommodated him in a good family and he fold in love with their girl. They married and went to Romania. The old believing youth know each other well. They often travel together." Normally the old believing marriages are of lifetime, but some exceptions occur.

An old believer came to a priest asking to divorce his wife because of her adultery. The priest didn't want to do it and recommended to tolerate the situation. The man was stubborn and left his wife without the reverend's consent. However, the priest vetoed a new wedding for the long seven years. As we told, such cases are rare in the old believing families, but often happen when one of the spouses is of another faith.

"My aunty got married during WWII", says Anna. "Her husband didn't want kids and wanted her to make an abortion. The priest forbade to make the aborts, as well as to divorce. What she was supposed to do? She decided to keep all babies and try to cope with the man. Finally, she gave birth to four children and her husband became an exemplary old rite parishioner.

The misalliance stories can be quite different. An old rite priest Ivan married a dissenter. She entered the church in the middle of the night service and yelled: "Why did you become a priest, we don't need it". Poor Father Ivan loved her wife and had to leave his parish. They say he has died of emotional depression six months later.

Life on Charter
A special code regulates all old believing life. Alcohol, tobacco and gambling are banned. In the old days these rules were even more strict. Tea was banned either and all women always had to cover their heads. Bread had to be broken, not cut, and a coffin had to be carried just with long towels. An old believing funeral is still full of special rituals. The group of old ladies will read the special prayers over a deceased for three days and nights. If one dies being drunk, he\she will not be buried in the old believing graveyard and the case will be considered as a suicide.

An old believing community has the elders. They are not the clergy people, but they are involved into dispute solving, counseling and morel teaching. Some of the elders have good education. The old believers of Egorievsk have own elder, a 82 year old Ivan Medvedev who ascetically lives in a small forest village.

Sergey Mikhailov, a Moscow historian says: "It's a unique territory which had 100% literacy yet 150 years before. All village women were not just literate, but often were the expert in the old spiritual literature. There were clerical schools, which supplied other regions with the highly educated old believing priests. They managed to preserve their monk's dwellings as late as to 1940s. The monks were traveling from village to village and it was a matter of honor for the locals to accommodate and feed them. No authority could cope with it.

Paradise for schismatics and bandits
The old believers of Gouslitsa were considered as well-to-do people because they have always work hard. In 1917, the Bolsheviks newspaper "Pravda" was even puzzled how to consider them, weather the Gouslitsa folk was peasants or workers. For sure they might be peasants for they cultivated their large fields. They also might be considered as workers, for they worked at the cotton mills. In 1930-s the right definition was found - kulaks.

Local soils are poor but the hops cropped well. To yield it in time the old believers had to hire seasonal workers. It gave a good reason to put many of them under "dekulakization" and exile to Siberia.

In Tsar times all sort of criminals loved the area. It was situated on the border of three Russian provinces, so it was easy to escape; the police regiments worked only on theirs territories. The robbers and thefts felt safe because the old believers did not inform the police. Being under constant surveillance and suspicion themselves, they were not keen to cooperate with police.

The old believers live well with their Orthodox neighbors, whom they called Nikonians (The followers of patriarch Nikon). The old believers often were helping their "new believing" compatriots which appreciated it and did not gave them up to the authorities. In all government reports, Gouslisy was listed as a region of the official "New" Orthodoxy. When inspectors visit it they were surprised to find its mostly old believing population. Normally the conflicts were being settled by paying the bribes.

The old believers of Gouslitsy might eat and drink with the "new believers" but never prayed together. "One of not our faith shall not pray", is still written on the wall of Slobodyshchy village church. Even in the atheistic soviet time there were a couple praying houses in any old believing village. St. Nikita church (built in 1915) has not been closed indeed. The government report of 1947 indicated 17000 parishioners of the old believing church in Alyoshino. People even prayed in the grain storage houses, which were decorated with icons until Khroushchev times.

"God leads you, keep going…"
Snake the tempter, hell fires, Satan and daemons… You hardly can find them on the average Orthodox icons. There are plenty of them on the old believing ones. The old believers painted even St. Christopher with the head of a dog. The beautiful Roman youth was not happy about his bright appearance for it could tempt the young girls. Therefore, he asked God to give him an ugly face. Such was the old believing apocrypha. In fact, St. Christopher was beheaded. After the church reform, such icons have been destroyed or repainted. The Egorievsk museum still keeps the unique samples of this old Russian art.

The icons from Gouslitsy were known thru over all Russia. The most skilled icon painters lived in Gora village. The last of them died in the mid 1990s. Unfortunately he had no disciples to pass his skills on. Now the Egorievsk artist Alexander Khlebnikov tries to rediscover the old icon painting secrets.

"It's so pity we have lost so many old secrets", says Alexander. "For example, the local painters were using the self-made oils which they were making in winter time
in the special cold sheds to avoid dust. Everything was special. The eggs for tempera had to be fertile. It gives brighter yellow color.

"It is exiting thing to be a traditional icon painter. You can imagine you are Leonardo or Andrew Roublev… I've tried it and I've been moved…" Alexander's father was an old believer. His mother was Orthodox. He is communed by the average priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, but the old believers consider him their icon painter. "When I've painted my first icon to be installed near the old believing village of Chelokhovo, the mysterious things were happening", says Alexander. The old local ladies came to me and said theí would pray for me. They told me "God leads you" and asked to keep going. Surely I am very far from perfection for the real icon can be painted by the very convinced believer, even an ascetic monk, who lives in a small sell, prays and paints only".