Drawing on a wide range of rare printed and archival sources, James White has written an important book about the Russian Orthodox institution of edinoverie (unity in faith), an effort to heal the seventeenth-century schism provoked by the liturgical reforms of Patriarch Nikon (Nikita Minin, r. 1652–58) of Moscow. The Old Believers (staroobriadtsy, starovery), who had refused to accept the reforms, were anathematized at the Moscow Council of 1666–67. Separated from the state church, which they regarded as heretical, the Old Believers formed their own ecclesiastical communities that continued to follow the pre-Nikonian rituals and books. Initially, state and church severely persecuted all religious dissent, but by the mid-eighteenth century, Russian authorities tried more tolerant policies to govern their large numbers of Old Believer subjects. Edinoverie represented one of the most long-lasting of these policies. Formally created in 1800 by Emperor Paul (r. 1796–1801) and Metropolitan Platon (Pëtr Georgievich Lëvshin, r. 1775–1812) of Moscow, edinoverie provided a way for Old Believers to legally practice their faith and the old rituals—as long as they accepted the authority of the state church. Under the aegis of official Orthodoxy, the edinovertsy observed the pre-Nikonian rites celebrated by their own elected priests in their own consecrated churches.

This welcome of the Old Believers into the state church was limited, White argues. Platon's rules (included in an appendix) contained an essential contradiction. On the one hand, the new institution legitimated the pre-Nikonian ritual and allowed for Orthodox priests in good standing with the official church to conduct the old rites. On the other hand, the rules clearly indicated that the old rituals were inferior to their Nikonian counterparts and that they contained errors. The rules did not lift the anathemas on the old rites, and they did not treat the two forms of the Orthodox rituals (Nikonian and pre-Nikonian) as equal in value. On the contrary, Platon, who drew up the rules only reluctantly, clearly considered edinoverie as only a temporary expedient to convert all Old Believers to the Nikonian rituals. At some point in the future, Platon believed, both Old Belief and edinoverie would disappear. Over time, however, the Orthodox Church developed a more accommodating and tolerant view of the rituals of edinoverie. The Local Council of 1917–18 adopted new rules that promised greater acceptance of and autonomy for edinoverie (which gained its own bishops), but soon afterward Soviet antireligious persecution almost completely destroyed this ecclesiastical movement.

In four chronological chapters, White traces the history of edinoverie from its creation in 1800 to its transformation in 1918. A fifth chapter, devoted to an analysis of “lived edinoverie” during this entire period, explores the movement's statistics, institutions, rituals, and relationship with those Old Believers who had refused to join the state church. In a bracing conclusion, White quickly summarizes the Soviet period of edinoverie and describes its surprising revival under Patriarch Kirill (Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundiaev) of Moscow, who sees its modern “purpose as creating a bridge of understanding between Old Belief and the Russian Orthodox Church… a joint front on social, cultural and moral issues” (204). Likewise, for the Eurasian nationalist Aleksandr Dugin, “the pre-Petrine rituals and piety maintained by edinoverie offer an antidote to secular, materialistic, and Western phenomena allegedly plaguing modern Russian society” (205). Despite such positive appraisals, contemporary edinoverie remains controversial, with some disparaging it as obsolete and hostile to normative Orthodoxy.

White analyzes edinoverie in the context of other imperial efforts to coopt and control the many different religious confessions in the empire. The impetus for this institutional experiment, White argues, always came from the state rather than the church, which was brought along reluctantly. Just as the state created special spiritual boards for Muslims, Jews, and Buddhists, it established edinoverie as a strategy for ruling over the Old Believers. The emperor's introduction of this reform, which directly addressed ecclesiastical issues, demonstrates the church's relative weakness vis-à-vis the state. Moreover, few Old Believers converted; those who did often acted under duress, especially during the reign of Nicholas I. White contends that the presence of two Orthodox rites, pre-Nikonian and Nikonian, eventually moved the state church to become less rigid and more tolerant of ritual diversity. Remarkably, despite all of its limitations and apparent artificiality, edinoverie continues to be a living movement to this very day. White's careful and engaging scholarship, which has mined an impressive number of provincial archives, provides an excellent foundation for further historical and comparative work.