Old Believers

Old Believers
(including Lipovans, Molokans)
Regions with significant populations
Russia	400,000 (2012 estimation)
Latvia	34,517 (2011 census)
Romania	23,487–32,558 (2011 census)
Lithuania	18,196 (2022 census)
Armenia	2,872 (2011 census)
Estonia	2,290 (2021 census)
Moldova	2,535 (2014 census)
Kazakhstan	1,500 (2010 estimation)
Azerbaijan	500 (2015 estimation)

Old Believers
Old Believers
староверы
	Vasily Surikov's Boyarynya Morozova (1887), depicting the defiant Feodosia Morozova during her arrest. Her two raised fingers refer to the dispute about the proper way to make the sign of the cross.
Abbreviation	OB
Type	Eastern Orthodox
Classification	Independent Eastern Orthodox
Orientation	Russian Orthodoxy
Polity	Episcopal
Governance	Belokrinitskaya and Novozybkovskaya hierarchies (Popovtsy)
Structure	Independent councils (Bezpopovtsy)
Popovtsy	Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church; Russian Old-Orthodox Church; Lipovan Orthodox Old-Rite Church; Edinoverie;
Bezpopovtsy	Pomorian Old-Orthodox Church; Novopomortsy; Staropomortsy; Fedoseevtsy; Filippians;
Region	15 or 20 countries
Language	Russian, Church Slavonic
Liturgy	Byzantine Rite (Russian modified)
Founder	Anti-reform dissenters
Origin	1652/1658–1685 ; Tsardom of Russia
Separated from	Russian Orthodox Church
Other name(s)	Old Ritualists

Old Believers or Old Ritualists are Eastern Orthodox Christians who maintain the liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian Orthodox Church as they were before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow between 1652 and 1666. Resisting the accommodation of Russian piety to the contemporary forms of Greek Orthodox worship, these Christians were anathematized, together with their ritual, in a Synod of 1666–67, producing a division in Eastern Europe between the Old Believers and those who followed the state church in its condemnation of the Old Rite. Russian speakers refer to the schism itself as raskol (раскол), etymologically indicating a "cleaving-apart".

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