Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/469

Rh sign of the cross with three fingers for the sign of the cross with two fingers. To accept this meant that children would have to unlearn a practice that had been taught them at their mother's knee. Such an unsettling of domestic religion was not to be thought of. On these and other grounds of the same nature, of which of course they found an abundance in a corrected version of the service books, the Raskolniks broke off from the ancient Church of Russia. It is their opponents who call them by the name that brands them with the sin of schism. The title that they take for themselves is Staro-viéry, which means ""; they are the people who cling to the faith of their fathers. Yet deep as is the gulf of division thus caused, and bitter as were the mutual recriminations formerly hurled across it, there is no difference of theological ideas separating the two parties. Both hold to the only two standards of faith required by the orthodox Church—the Bible and the Nicene Creed; nor do they differ at all in their interpretations of Scripture or creed.

These old dissenters therefore have nothing in common with Protestantism. Their origin is in no way comparable with the contemporary rise of various sects in Western Europe. They are Russian of the Russians.

In course of time various influences led to remarkable developments among the "Old Believers" in very different directions. One thing, however, they shared in common: they were all regarded as schismatics, and therefore they were all not only denoimced by the Church but regarded with disfavour by the government. It was not forgotten that the corrections, or innovations, were introduced by order of the tsar and forced on the Church by imperial authority. Here then was a State violation of the customary order of the Church. The Raskolniks resented the innovations themselves, and they were indignant at the arbitrary and tyrannical manner in which they were made compulsory. It was natural enough that people should deem it a sacrilegious outrage for government officials to march into the churches, seize the venerated service books, deposit