Lubov Vasil’yevna Titova,
Candidate of Philology, Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Opponents of the Church Reform on the Antichrist Essence of Patriarch Nikon
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2022-2-16
The article is devoted to one of the little-known Old Believer writings about the Antichrist, which is a response to the “Praise to Patriarch Nikon” by an unknown author who seeks to elevate the patriarch by comparing him with God. The Old Believer writer aims to debunk the image of the ideal church hierarch. The connection between the writings is obvious, they follow one after another, in a single block: The Sermon on the Antichrist is directed against the “Praise” and seeks to refute it not only as a whole, but also in individual phrases. These two texts were published by Ya.L. Barskov in 1912, but were not in demand by researchers, although they are of considerable interest for the history of the Old Believers. Based on the study and analysis of the Old Believer essay on the Antichrist, it seemed possible for us to conclude that the idea of the antichrist essence of Patriarch Nikon was formed among the first generation of opponents of church reform. As was shown, first of all they tried to formulate their attitude to the current moment, as the time approaching the arrival of the Antichrist into the world, and then to decide what kind of Antichrist he is. The negative attitude towards the patriarch was expressed by the Old Believer writers in different ways, despite the fact that they unanimously considered him their enemy and the main opponent of the true faith, who brought the “end times” closer with his actions. Old Believer writers endowed him with certain features of the Antichrist (“the horn of the Antichrists”, “God-marker”, the forerunner of the Antichrists – Avvakum, the deacon Fedor, the monk Abraham) and only in the Sermon on the Antichrist, created shortly after 1664, for the first time, Patriarch Nikon is openly called the Antichrist. In conclusion, the question is raised about the need for further study of this very important and undeservedly forgotten Old Believer work, and its scientific publication and the solution of the issue of its authorship.
Publishing: 28/04/2022
The article has been received by the editor on 19.03.2022
How to cite: Titova L.V. Opponents of the Church Reform on the Antichrist Essence of Patriarch Nikon // Historical Courier, 2022, No. 2 (22), pp. 251–259. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2022/ISTKURIER-2022-2-16.pdf]
Links: Issue 2 2022
Keywords: Sermon about the Antichrist, “Praise to Patriarch Nikon” by Ya.L. Barskov, “opponents of church reform”, Old Believer writer