“Now We See Two Churches...” Conversions to the Old Believer’s Church of Belokrinitsa Agreement and Multi-Orthodoxy Religious Landscape after 1905

Abstract

This article analyzes an almost unprecedented religious situation, which emerged after the 1905 “Edict of Toleration.” The Edict set in motion a number of processes in Russian religious landscape and created a legal foundation of what may be called a situation of multiOrthodoxy. The author explores the legal co-existence of two church hierarchies who called themselves Orthodox: Russian Synodal Orthodox Church and Old Believers’ Church of Belokrinitsa agreement. The Edict and the following Circular no. 4628 marked a turning point for religious seekers who considered conversion from one church to another. A number of requests for re-affiliation, sent to Belokrinitsa’s archbishop from representatives of various religious groups, mostly from the Synodal Church, sheds light on how this situation of multiOrthodoxy operated, how it was regulated and what were the contradictions emerging on the boundaries of these two canonical domains.