Spasovo Soglasiye (netovshchina) — a priestless Old Believer movement that took shape in the middle Volga Region from the late seventeenth century onward.[1] It is considered Nizhny Novgorod in origin and was especially widely spread throughout the Volga Region.[1]
Origin and Founders
The soglasiye (agreement/communion) took shape among the Kerzhenets Old Believers of the Nizhny Novgorod Zavolzhye. Its founders are said to be Kerzhenets men Koz'ma Andreyev and Koz'ma Panfilov. The movement preached by Koz'ma Andreyev and Koz'ma Panfilov acquired a distinctive name — "koz'minshchina," or "netovshchina": its followers taught that all the sacraments had been abolished by the Antichrist, the priesthood and the Eucharistic sacrifice had ceased, and "God's grace had been taken up to heaven."[3][1] The name "netovshchina" (from нет, "no/there is none") reflects the central tenet of the teaching: the denial that true priesthood or valid sacraments are possible in the present world ("there is no" salvation through ecclesiastical institutions).
Within the soglasiye several branches are distinguished: the bol'shenachal'nye, the malonachal'nye, and the "deaf netovshchina." In the 1830s–1840s, councils of the Spasovo Soglasiye were held in Simbirsk, Gorokhovets, Kovrov, and other towns, at which some Spasovtsy drew closer to the Pomortsy and the Arsen'yevtsy; the new current that emerged was called novospasovshhina (of the lesser beginning), and the malonachal'nye adopted statutory worship with singing, baptism, and marriage blessed by their own preceptors.[3] The "deaf netovshchina" — the branch most widely spread throughout the Volga Region — accepted baptism and marriage in the official Orthodox Church as a means of registering legal status, seeking thereby to avoid persecution by the state and the dominant church.[3][1]
Place in Nizhny Novgorod Old Belief
The Spasovo Accord is one of nine Old Believer movements that took shape historically in the Nizhny Novgorod region. From it grew the Arsenyevtsy branch. One of the founding teachers of the Spasovshchina was the monk Arseny, who came to the Kerzhenets River in the late 1670s and established several sketes there; his followers — the Arsenyevtsy — initially recognized as legitimate only priests ordained before Nikon's liturgical reforms, and only after the last of those priests had died did they become priestless.[3][1] The Nizhny Novgorod region holds a special place in the history of Russian Old Belief: it was in Zavolzhye, from the 1660s onward, that an extensive network of Kerzhenets sketes arose — the principal center of "the ancient piety" following the church schism of the mid-seventeenth century.[1] The Spasovo Accord fit naturally into this environment: merchant dynasties who had come out of Old Belief — the Bugrovs, Blinovs, the Sirotkiny — left a notable mark on the civic culture and philanthropy of Nizhny Novgorod. After Russia's proclamation of religious tolerance in 1905, the larger-council Spasovtsy intensified their public and missionary work: they began registering communities and convening all-Russian councils, held primarily in Nizhny Novgorod, and also organized an All-Russian Brotherhood of Old Believers.[3][1]
Study and Sources
The manuscript heritage of the Nizhny Novgorod Old Believers, connected in part to the Spasovo tradition, is held in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department of the Nizhny Novgorod State Regional Universal Research Library: the collection numbers over 56,000 items, including the Pomor Responses, Guslitsa chant manuscripts, and works by the icon-painter and scribe I. G. Blinov.[1] The folkloric tradition of the Nizhny Novgorod Old Believers is documented in the anthology "Shall I climb the high mountain, shall I see the deep abyss…", compiled by O. A. Savelyeva and L. N. Novikova and published in 2001.[1]
The Spasovo Accord unites four independent confessional groups (tolki) within the priestless movement, having a heterogeneous structure: the parish communities within them are loosely connected to one another.[3]
Sources
- samstar-biblio.ucoz.ru — The Spasovo Accord unites four independent confessional groups (tolki) within the priestless movement, having a heterogeneous structure: the communities within it (archive)
- Historical Encyclopedia of Nizhny Novgorod — Old Believer Accords of Nizhny Novgorod Region
- geno-nn.ru — Old Believer Communities of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate in the 20th Century — Genealogical Research — Nizhny Novgorod Region — Genealogist Nikolay Lilenkov (archive)