AVVAKUM PETROVICH (1620–1682)

AVVAKUM PETROVICH (1620–1682), Russian Orthodox archpriest who fought against the liturgical reforms of Patriarch Nikon. Avvakum is usually considered the principal leader of the early Old Believers. The apocalyptic teachings he developed in numerous writings formed the core of Old Believer ideology, and his strong moral convictions provided a heroic example for future generations of Old Believers.

Born into a family of village priests in a hamlet close to Nizhniy Novgorod on the Volga River, Avvakum became a church deacon in 1642 and a parish priest two years later. He quickly became known as a religious zealot for demanding moral discipline and regular church attendance from his parishioners. Avvakum's sermons against drunkenness, gambling, and fornication as well as his attacks on minstrels and dancing bears brought him to the attention of Archpriest Stefan Vonifat'ev, confessor to Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich (ruled 1645–1676). Despite the Kremlin's support (after 1647) for his campaigns, Avvakum suffered brutal assaults, and finally expulsion, at the hands of his angry parishioners. In 1652, the Kremlin rewarded Avvakum for his loyalty by making him archpriest of the unruly Volga town of Iurevets. He again fell victim to popular revolt and had to seek refuge in Moscow.

Avvakum quickly antagonized the newly elected Patriarch Nikon (reigned 1652–1666). Avvakum's vita emphasizes that he opposed Nikon's introduction of the three-finger sign of the cross (replacing the old two-finger sign) and other liturgical reforms, but his only surviving letter from this period (dated 14 September 1653) reveals that he primarily resented the patriarch's secular priorities. On 16 September 1653 Avvakum was sent to Siberia after denouncing Patriarch Nikon as "a great deceiver and the son of a whore" in a public sermon. In the Siberian capitol of Tobol'sk, Avvakum implemented rigorous disciplinary measures and continued to fight ecclesiastical corruption. In 1656, he joined a military expedition sent to convert the natives of Dauria (now the Lake Baikal region) to Russian Orthodoxy. After enduring many hardships, Avvakum returned to Moscow in 1664 as a fervent enemy of the established church, and only then did he begin to polemicize against the liturgical reforms of Patriarch Nikon.

Most of Avvakum's polemical writings are dated after 1667, the year in which he was excommunicated and exiled by a church council to a remote prison colony beyond the Arctic circle. Glorifying the old Russian Orthodox rituals, his letters and treatises (including the Book of Sermons and Book of Commentaries) condemned the new sign of the cross, the new liturgical books, and many other innovations (such as three hallelujahs instead of two and changes in the wording of the Lord's Prayer) as signs of the approaching apocalypse.

Avvakum was responsible for developing some of the principal ideas of the Old Believer movement. These included a belief that Russian society must be reshaped according to Orthodox moral teachings, and that all secular and foreign influences on the church should be rejected. Avvakum upheld the image of a mythological Russia that was holier than other world cultures. He condemned Patriarch Nikon and his successors as minions of the Antichrist but promised the coming Kingdom of God to those who remained loyal to pre-Nikonian Orthodoxy.

After Avvakum was burned at the stake in April 1682, his writings were carefully preserved and transmitted to later generations of Old Believers in widely copied manuscripts. The authenticity and originality of Avvakum's work has yet to be fully investigated. Many scholars have assumed that Avvakum had a remarkable memory, because he quoted long passages from medieval church texts during his imprisonment without having access to book collections. However, there are significant similarities between Avvakum's writings and those penned by other Old Believers, such as Deacon Fedor Ivanov and Archimandrite Spiridon Potemkin. A handful of scholars have therefore suggested that some of the writings attributed to Avvakum may, in fact, be forgeries. Scholars have also pointed out that Avvakum left almost no trace in documentary records. Other early Old Believers, such as the now largely forgotten Nikita Dobrynin, left significant archival trails, since they were under constant surveillance by the authorities. It is also curious that Avvakum's writings provoked no response in the form of an official church polemic, whereas Dobrynin's Supplication generated several book-length rebuttals.

There is little doubt that Avvakum's vita (in its numerous redactions) became one of the most popular Old Believer texts, and no work of early Russian literature has been more frequently translated and published. Nineteenth-century Russian writers such as Fyodor Dostoyevski and Nikolay Leskov further popularized Avvakum's image, and Avvakum has remained the dominant focus of Old Believer studies to this day.

AVVAKUM PETROVICH (1620–1682)

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