Popovtsy

The Popovtsy (Russian: Поповцы; IPA: [pɐˈpoft͡sɨ], "priested ones") or Popovschina (Russian: Поповщина) were from the 17th century one of the two main factions of Old Believers, along with the Bezpopovtsy ("priestless ones").

As none of the bishops joined the Old Believers (except Bishop Paul of Kolomna, who was executed), ordained priests of the Old Rite would have soon become extinct. Two responses appeared to this dilemma: the priested Old Believers (поповцы, Popovtsy) and the priestless Old Believers (беспоповцы, Bezpopovtsy). As opposed to the Bezpopovtsy, the Popovtsy recognised the validity of the priesthood of clergy ordained by the State Church, receiving them into their fold, creating their own ecclesiastical structure, which would later break into a number of smaller movements (e.g., those who accepted the priesthood of the Belokrinitskaya hierarchy, the so-called Beglopopovtsy who rejected this hierarchy, the Belovodskaya hierarchy, etc.).

The Popovtsy represented the more moderate conservative opposition, who strove to continue religious and church life as it had existed before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon. They recognised ordained priests from the new style Russian Orthodox church who joined the Old Believers and who had denounced the Nikonian reforms. Popovtsy have priests, bishops and all sacraments, including the Eucharist.

In the 18th - 19th centuries, the Popovtsy lived in communities on the Vetka Island on the Sozh River, in Starodub, along the Irgiz River, in monasteries of the province of Nizhny Novgorod along the Kerzhenets River, although they were scattered throughout Russia and even far beyond its boundaries. In the late 18th - early 19th century their spiritual centre was located in Moscow at the Rogozhskoye cemetery.

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