Edinovertsy

Categories / Religion. Church/Religious Faiths
EDINOVERTSY, (singular edinoverets) Orthodox believers that have preserved "old" rites and devotions (which existed before the reforms of Nikon), but who are subordinated to the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox church. This branch of Orthodoxy, named Edinoverie was founded by Nikodim, an Old Believer and monk, in the late 18th century. The name was supposedly given to the church by Metropolitan of Moscow Platon (Levshin) who had wrote the regulations for Old believers' joining the Russian Orthodox Church. The majority of St. Petersburg Edinovertsy consisted of bourgeois and merchant classes. The first Edinoverie Church was established in St. Petersburg in the house of merchant I.I. Milov in 1799. In 1845-52, St. Nicholas Church (18 Zakharyevskaya St.) was built nearby by architect N.E. Efimov, usually referred to it as Milov's Church. In 1801, the Church of the Presentation of Our Lord was erected on Volkovo Field, and Volkovskoe Edinoverie Cemetery was established around it, where architect V.I. Beretti built the Holy Annunciation Church in 1813-18. In 1808, Bolsheokhtinskoe Edinoverie Cemetery was founded (present-day 5 Metallistov Avenue), where the St. Demetrius Church was erected in 1845-53, followed by the Holy Virgin Intercession Church in 1854 and Mariinskaya Сhurch in 1896-1902. All the aforementioned churches were closed and demolished in the 1920s-30s. The chief church of Edinoverie used to be the St. Nicholas Edinoverie Church (today 24A Marata Street), which was closed in 1932; it now houses the Museum of the Arctic and the Antarctic. Followers of Edinoverie were active in social and charitable work; for instance, Anastasiinskaya Almshouse for the aged from Okhta region functioned since 1850 with space for 50, as were the almshouse attached to St. Nicholas (Milov's) Church (from 1891) and men’s and women’s Filippov almshouses at Volkovskoe Edinoverie Cemetery (since 1903). From 1908, the congregational community attended St. Nicholas Edinoverie Church has maintained an almshouse, Tsarevich Alexey Professional School and a Girls’ Gymnasium. Golos tserkvi magazine was published in St. Petersburg along with other printings. In 1917, Petrograd numbered several thousand followers of Edinoverie; the same year the first Edinoverie bishop was ordained, the Bishop of Okhta Simon (Shleev). In 1932, the last churches of the Edinoverie were closed down, and the Edinoverie clergy were subjected to purges. In the early 1990s the Edinoverie community of St. Petersburg was revived; the chapel by St. Nicholas Edinoverie Church on Marata Street was returned to the community.

References: Исторический очерк единоверия. СПб., 1867; Простосердов А. И. Волковское единоверческое кладбище: К столетию его Благовещенской церкви, 1816-1916. Пг., 1916.

M. V. Shkarovsky. Beretti Vikenty Ivanovich
Efimov Nikolay Efimovich
Milov I.I.
Platon (Levshin), Metropolitan
Simon (Shleev), Bishop
Marata St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 24, litera л. А
Metallistov Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 5
Zakharievskaya Street/Saint Petersburg, city, house 18
Исторический очерк единоверия. СПб., 1867
Простосердов А. И. Волковское единоверчерское кладбище: К столетию его Благовещ. церкви, 1816-1916. Пг., 1916 St. Nicholas’ Edinoverie Church
Arctic and Antarctic, Museum of the