Seventeenth-century Russia witnessed a major schism within the Russian Orthodox Church that has never been healed. The schism erupted when Patriarch Nikon, seeking to reconcile conflicting practices and publish standardized liturgical books, imposed reforms that followed Greek usage over Russian. Much of the dispute was over minor differences, most notoriously epitomized by whether one crossed oneself with two fingers or with three, but what was really at stake was a clash of two different visions of Russian Orthodoxy. The so-called “Old Believers,” those who rejected Nikon's reforms, believed that the Greeks had betrayed Orthodoxy at the Council of Florence and that only the Russians preserved Orthodoxy in its uncorrupted purity—and therefore to exchange Russian for Greek practices was tantamount to apostasy. Nikon, by contrast, had a more universal vision of Orthodoxy and sought to place Russian Orthodoxy alongside—and perhaps at the head—of world Orthodoxy. Neither side had an awareness of historical change, so both assumed that one set of practices simply had to be wrong and the other right.

Old Believers in a Changing World is a collection of essays by Robert Crummey spanning two decades. Crummey, a prominent historian of Russia, wrote his first monograph on the Old Believers and the World of Antichrist: The Vyg Community and the Russian State, 1694–1855 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970), before turning to other aspects of early modern Russian history. He returned to research on the Old Belief in the late 1980s, which corresponded with the collapse of the Soviet Union and an upsurge of interest and scholarly research into the Old Belief both in Russia and abroad. These essays therefore represent the culmination of the career of a leading, and deeply respected, scholar and pioneer in the field.

Most factions of Old Believers ended up without clergy (because no bishops but only priests joined the movement, there was no possibility of ordaining new clergy), and therefore had to develop forms of worship without most of the sacraments (a situation necessitated by the onset of the “End of Time”). However, Crummey argues that they should not be regarded as Russian “Protestants” because their sole aim and desire was to remain Orthodox—indeed, far from rejecting Orthodoxy, they considered themselves the “true” Orthodox. They were not “reformers,” but anti-reformers. Nevertheless, it is highly paradoxical that a movement which began by rejecting any change in Muscovite liturgical usage ended up being forced to make radical departures from standard liturgical practice. Indeed, the Old Believers split into numerous factions precisely over how to adapt to new circumstances, all the while refusing to admit they had adapted anything.

In these essays, Crummey situates his new research (and that of others he discusses) on the Old Belief in historiographical context. Since the nineteenth century there has been a divide in the interpretations of Old Belief between the “ecclesiastical” and “populist” schools. The former took religious protest at face value and examined the movement from the vantage of its religious polemics about history, liturgy, and canonicity. The “populist” school, by contrast, interpreted religious dissent essentially as a mask for protest against social inequalities and political oppression. Throughout these essays Crummey insists that both schools have their strengths and limitations and that historians must take both approaches seriously and address the questions raised by each. While never neglecting the social and political dimensions, Crummey particularly wants to assert that religion must be taken seriously as a motivating factor for dissent—something that was not always a given in the Russian and Soviet (or even Western) historiographical traditions.

Much of what these essays attempt to accomplish is to understand the Old Belief as a “cultural system.” Individual essays examine Old Belief as “popular religion” or the formation of Old Believer cultural systems through an analysis of seminal texts by Old Believer religious elites such as their polemical, historical, and hagiographical works. Inspired by developments in the study of early modern Christianity in the West, Crummey is particularly interested in the relationship between “elite” and “popular” elements in the Old Believer movement. Was it primarily a movement shaped by elites inspired by a religious worldview, or was it driven by social protest from oppressed or marginal elements of society? On this point he concludes that no easy dichotomies can be drawn: religious elites certainly shaped the Old Believer “cultural systems” through their polemical writings, but these were valued and read within communities even where the majority of believers were uneducated peasants, but the latter also gave their own stamp to the movement's various groupings.

A second focus is on the structure of Old Believer communities, which drew on a variety of sources ranging from the cenobitic monastery, the hermitage, the skete, the parish, and the philanthropic organization, depending on the location (urban or rural) and the degree of official toleration or persecution. A study of Old Believer spirituality argues that it drew on standard Eastern Orthodox sources. A central motif was the retreat to the desert away from the sinful and fallen world; paradoxically, however, most of the focus was on corporate worship and community norms rather than the individual spirituality that was the central concern of the Desert Fathers.

Ever placing his analysis of Russian religious dissent in comparative perspective with Western European Christianity, Crummey makes an impassioned case that Russian scholars would do well to be more familiar with the historiography of Western Christianity, but also that scholars of European Protestantism and Catholicism have much to gain from a greater knowledge of Russia.

I can think of no better entry into the world of the Russian Old Believers and the study of them than this collection. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Russian religious culture, but will also be of interest to those who work on seventeenth and eighteenth century Christianity or any form of religious dissent.