Translator’s Introduction: This piece is originally found on the Staroverii website, a site full of excellent pieces, unfortunately all in Russian. This is a rough translation of an interesting work concerning the movement of lay monasticism in the southern Ural range and parts of Siberia among some priestless (though not confined to them). There are several other articles from this source I’d like to translate when I have the time–MRJ

In Siberia such things were common, and pilgrimages were a central part of the Siberian and Ural style observance. Just northwest of Ekaterinburg were several monastic chapels that attracted pilgrims, many of these monastic teachers later died a martyrs death. Even after the Tolerance Decree of 1905 persecution continued in these out of the way places and even their graves were held secret for this reason. Thousands of pilgrims would come to the Ural monastics each Lent and other holy seasons. Many of these monastics lived at the tops of the high mountains, making their access very difficult. But is twas done anyway, and quite regularly. Such visitations were common, along with processions and liturgies in these largely inaccessible mountain ranges. These pilgrimages by the Old Ritualists was forcibly interrupted only in the 1930s on orders from Stalin.

In Siberia, the peasant life existed close to the monastery. It is true that the monks worked with the peasants and were fed by them accordingly. They built cells next to the buildings of the village. These were lay monastics, not necessarily tonsured, and they lived as a part of the village life, thought not immersed in it. They rejected marriage and all free time was devoted to prayer. Thy avoided all entertainments and generally created a sort of “third way” between the maximum requirements of a monastic life and life in the world. But it is also true that on occasion, these institutions of lay monastics would eventually become regular monastic centers.

The ancient faith is one of the oldest manifestations of Old Russia. It did not take long before the ancient piety was accepted only by the peasantry and in the post-revolutionary era was exclusively peasant. It was forced collectivization that destroyed the old peasant family, and the family structure was the basic unit of Old Rite culture. The Old Rite defended itself through flight and visions of the coming end of all things. The more violent the revolution, the more extreme the asceticism that these peasant victims engaged in. The Old Rite basically rebuilt some king of Christian life in the huge area east of the Urals.

It is the tradition of this lay monasticism that became the dominant form of asceticism in the Urals region and points east. Monasticism of this variety was a common form of devotion in times of extreme persecution. There is the story of Fr. Dimitri, who had a wife and child, but retreated on occasion to a life of semi-monasticism. He gave to the poor from his own inheritance, ate very little and was said ( by local skete monks) to have had toe gift of clairvoyance. He would only wear the clothing, including the cap and caftan, of old Russia without fear of persecution.

It is clear that no matter what the accord, the father was the patriarch of the family, and was often referred to as the “abbot” of the family, since his role was identical to that of the superior of a monastic institution. Often the large Old Rite families would have some children take up the monastic life regardless of their personal inclination: as an obedience. This was based on the old practice of agrarian societies of paternal leadership and the sense of religious duty and the fear of God first and foremost. Monasticism was often commanded in part of these families as a form of obedience. The only time disobedience was countenanced was if a child wanted to go to a monastery and the parents rejected this. Then disobedience was proper and the child could go off to monastic life regardless of parental consent. This sort of thing was not uncommon, and it was often the case that parents who considered the child’s labor more important than the monastic vocation would often go to the monastery themselves in their old age as a sign of penance and prayer. This sort of ascetic life was always leading to breaks with the world, in other words, the piety of the ancient Russian families was such that a normal life was impossible, And in these cases, the monastic life was an acceptable calling. . .

While some monasteries rejected people who were too young, the Paternik of the Ural region for the Old Rite speaks of many people coming to monastic life at a very young age, 9 or 10 years in some cases. Many young children would sneak off into the woods to live a life of asceticism. Sometimes parents would follow and an entire family would take up the wandering monastic life without a formal tonsure. These forms of asceticism existed not for any economic reason, but solely to “make up” for the disappearance of the Orthodox life both in Nikonian and Soviet Russia. They served as examples of the Old Piety Russians had forgotten. The main source of this example was the family monastery and family wandering.

Recently, a teacher in a out of the way family institution in the Amur region wrote, in connection with the feat of the Conception of the Theotokos, that these were several easily identified virtues necessary to the Christian life. He lists them as follows: Sincere love, to avoid all evil, constant repentance, refusing human praise, continual prayer, a reading and obedience to the sacred writings, cleanliness, patience, mercy and charity.

In contrast to these, our teacher writes their opposites, the objects and concepts opposed to the virtuous life: intemperance, anger and spite, fighting, roughness, pride, magic, adultery, modern music, murder, excessive concern with money and the economy, modern entertainments, drunkenness and many other things. It is very easy to fall into the rut of modern life, jobs, careers, money problems, entertainments, homes and cars, etc. These can all lead us to forget God and never have time for prayer and holy reading.

Many other sins are listed here: our approach should be the to non-possession, rejection of luxury, and, importantly, a rejection of worldly entertainments. Women and their contrivances are especially to be feared as a gateway to sin. Women and worldly entertainments form the core of ascetic rejection from Byzantium to Old Russia.

The Old Rite from its inception made the ascetic life the center of its world. An Archpriest named Avvakum wrote on the Nikonian bishop Hilarion: “My friend Hilarion, the Archbishop of Ryzan, will sit down on his couch, on his boats, on many pillows, combing his hair, with wenches coming and going to him, as well as the inmates of the Makarevskogo Monastery.” Other Old Rite writers in the 19th century made similar claims about dissolute bishops and monks. Many monks forgot about the prohibition on meat, they partook of far too much vodka and other beverages borrowed from the heterodox.

Sometime in the 1970s or so, a major manuscript began circulating around the Old Rite communities in the far east. The author is concerned, among other things, with the very nature of anti-Christ and the ways he will be understood and seen. Here are a few issues:

The basic thrust at first is that the world of Anti-Christ will be known by the mass enslavement to carnal passions. This part is part of a letter addressed to one who is not living a moral life. This person is seemingly obsessed only with the cares of the body and such an obsession follows one, even into the home. It never ceases to cause havoc and harm. There are two different forms of labor: labor for the body and labor for the soul. When man suffers many misfortunes and sufferings, this is labor for the soul, for God. It seems the concern for the one attacks the concern for the other. The ideal state of man is hardship: All the poor are brothers in Christ. Peace is the killing of the body and its desires. One should reject the desire to work if it means the acquisition of material things of a luxurious or superfluous nature. The life of the peasantry is a model: they seek subsistence, security and piety, and seek little else.

Further, some of the gravest offenses are the violation of ancient food prohibitions. Abstinence is centrally important for the cure of the soul, and violating these mean an approach of the world and what it considers good and wholesome. Bathing is a good thing, but not for the sake of making an impression. Some, however, do not bathe, such as the monks, so they will no be attractive to the world or to women. Self-disparagement here is the key.

The married life is honorable, but the anti-Christ will not serve it. A solid marriage can save the soul. Marriage, at its best, is a spiritual union, not a carnal one. A wife cannot refuse the husband, but a forced carnality is a bad thing, and is harmful to the marriage and to the soul. The writer is a solitary and sees the outside world as saturated with temptations. The desert is a place of peace, the world, a place of temptation and death.

Thus, Ural-Siberian accord preserved the entire nature and life of Christian asceticism. Most practiced it in peace, without the withdrawal to a monastery. This form of the ascetic life is midway between that of the world and that of the monastery. This kind of asceticism was reintroduced to Russia partially because the structure of the pre-capitalist forms of society were still important and central to the Old Believers. At the same time, the central core of the eschatological vision was also important to maintaining the Old Rite family structure and its values, within the basically ascetic and lay-monastic struggle of her best witnesses. The greater the stress, the greater the stability of the family in meeting these stresses. The circulation of spiritual literature of the Old Rite and of Old Russia was also immensely important to maintaining this.