The Secret Reform of Avvakum

Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko

In Orthodox worship there are a number of prayers that the priest reads in the sanctuary before the holy table. These prayers are read in a low voice and are often drowned out by the singing of the choir. They are called the “secret” prayers. But they are called so not because no one may know them, nor because they contain some kind of “secret”, but because at the moment they are said the Mystery, the Sacrament, is being celebrated. Yet in the common mind of churchgoing people it is precisely the first sense that has taken root, and so any attempt to read these prayers aloud, so that everyone present at the service can hear them, is regarded almost as heresy or, at the very least, as “Renovationism”.

Much the same thing has happened to the way people regard the work and the epistolary legacy of that greatest reformer and teacher of the Church, Archpriest Avvakum. And it must be said that this view has not only survived but has even grown stronger with time. A considerable number of people, not only among the opponents of his teaching but even among his followers, have come to the firm conviction that Archpriest Avvakum was a staunch zealot for “form” and gave no thought at all to “content”.

The independent Russian Church, which became such de facto by the middle of the 15th century and de jure with the election of Patriarch Job in 1589, stood in acute need of reform by the beginning of the 17th century. The extremely low level of education among the clergy, the vast territories, the shortage of liturgical books: all this called for administrative reform, while the lack of spiritual enlightenment and the survival of pagan rites and beliefs among the people called for a reordering of community and parish life. This was understood alike not only by Avvakum and Nikon (the future patriarch), both of them members of the circle of the “Zealots of Piety”, but also by the circle’s actual leader, Stefan Vonifatiev, who was at that time confessor to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The circle acted quite openly and enjoyed the support of Patriarch Joseph and of the Tsar himself. It can therefore be said that awareness of the need for church reform was a “commonplace” of the age. However, as often happens, the disagreements lay in how the reform should be carried out and what exactly needed reforming. Archpriest Avvakum had his own view of the matter. It must be said that his view enjoyed fairly wide support even before Nikon’s reforms began. What did it consist in? Was it really nothing more than attachment to the old rite? Then what reforms can we be speaking of, if nothing needs to change, and the “correction of the books” and the “new” rite only do harm to true Orthodoxy?

Unlike Nikon, Avvakum sees the need for church reform not in a formal “correction” of the rite and the church books, but in the correction of the lives of Christians in accordance with the ethical teaching of Christ. Here is what he writes in a petition to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich: “Thus writeth on the Epistle to the Ephesians that luminary of the whole world, John Chrysostom: nothing so provoketh God to wrath as discord in the Church, and nothing so worketh schism in the churches as love of preeminence among them that are in authority.” I believe that Avvakum uses these last words as a reproach to Nikon not only for “the desire for power within the Church itself”, but also for the Church’s age-old striving to “please” the power of the state.

Of the very nature of the Church’s troubles Avvakum speaks in a letter to Simeon Krasheninnikov: “And when I stand in church, again an inward woe: the disorder therein I cannot endure. Without ceasing I do battle with drunken priests, and with the choir clerks, and with the parishioners. The little ones, the children, play in church, and they too trouble my soul. Some things I would fain pass over in silence, yet it cannot be: it burneth within my bowels, it scorcheth like a flame. And I weep, and I do battle. And when during the liturgy the beggars wander about the church and I cannot quiet them, I bow down to them, and promise them money, and bid them stand in one place, and after the Liturgy I pay them too. But with those who wander about and set the people in a stir and will not hearken to my counsel, with them I do battle, for my conscience constraineth me, I cannot endure it... One, entering the church, laugheth, another talketh idly and raiseth a clamour in the time of common prayer, and yet another, puffed up with pride, altereth the church rule, and others do other unseemly things... For the church is heaven, the church is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit: the Master reclineth upon the holy table, borne by the cherubim, the Lord resteth upon the diskos, borne by the seraphim. When thou hast set foot upon the threshold of the church, consider that thou art gone up into heaven, to serve God together with the angels, the living and true God, God who giveth life to the dead and looseth from the death of sin unto life eternal that groweth not old, which may we all obtain in Christ Jesus.”

This long quotation gathers up his whole understanding of how imperfectly the Church treats human “weaknesses”. In the old dispute between ecclesiastical “oikonomia” (settling questions from the standpoint of indulgence, practical benefit, convenience) and “akribeia” (strict adherence to dogma, to the inner rule of faith) in matters of morality and piety, Avvakum comes down unequivocally on the side of akribeia. Moreover, Avvakum himself more than once acted as something more than an apologist for strict ethical rules: he quite successfully “cured” people of drunkenness, denounced fornication and bribe-taking, and himself kept these norms of conduct with the utmost strictness. It is ethical principles, not church ritual, that Avvakum puts first. That is precisely why he does not consider it necessary to change the rite. At the same time, Avvakum’s own writings show that he was acquainted not only with the teaching of the Fathers and the biblical text but also moved freely in the Western theology of his day, as follows, for example, from his “Letter to Two Maidens”: “It behoveth us to be baptized as we have received, and to believe as we were baptized. But that which the adversary hath sounded in thine ears, thou abolishest the priesthood, and the sacrament also, after the manner of Luther and of Calvin.” Arguing with his correspondents, who hold that the priesthood cannot be preserved in an age of universal moral decline, Avvakum calls this approach a Protestant simplification and an “abolition of the priesthood and the sacrament”, which shows that he knew (at the very least) the foundations of that teaching. To be so familiar with a “heresy” it is not enough merely to have “heard” of it. One needs acquaintance with the sources. One needs a knowledge of languages. Yet both state and church propaganda would later strive to declare Avvakum and his followers benighted and unlettered, in order to belittle their words as far as possible by presenting them as a “peasants’ heresy”.

In the age-old dispute over “which is higher, the priesthood or the kingship”, Avvakum and his followers take an unambiguous position. The priesthood, that is, ethics, stands higher than the worldly order. The transformation of man, the taming of his pride and his passions: that is the true aim of Christianity. The rite as such is secondary here, and it ought not to be changed. The fruitfulness of this position is borne out, for example, by the reputation of the Old Believer merchants. Concluding deals worth millions without a contract, “on their word”, giving thousands to charity, caring for widows and orphans: these are the fruits of that inner “reordering” of man which Avvakum desired.

Avvakum’s legacy has been read, studied and taken apart letter by letter, yet to this day, sadly, it has not been heard or put to use.

Unlike Nikon and the official church, Avvakum saw his task as a reform of “teaching”. The Church is bound to pass on to her children foundations that are above all ethical, whereas the official structure is content with outward splendour and formal piety, which are most often measured by the size of the “voluntary donation”.

Having failed to hear Avvakum’s voice, both the Church and Russian society let slip the chance he had given them to reform the ethical foundations of their order, and doomed themselves to the spiritual catastrophe that became reality in the 21st century.

First published: academia.edu