Welcome to Russian History Retold.

Episode 324, Raskol, the schism within the Russian Orthodox Church.

Last time, we finished the two-part series on the third Moscow show trial held in 1938.

Today, our topic goes back almost 300 years to the time when the Russian Orthodox Church

faced an existential threat due to the proposed reforms of Patriarch Nikon in 1653,

and this period is known as the Raskol.

The schism within the Russian Orthodox Church that occurred in the mid-17th century

was the only major split in the church's history.

The Catholic Church, of course, went through several schisms,

the first major one being the split between them and the Orthodox Church in 1054.

They also had a series of popes and antipopes beginning in the 3 century, all the way into the 15th century.

You also have the Protestant Reformation as well.

Islam has had a few all along, with the most well-known being the split between the Sunni

and the Shiite sects.

As for the Russian Orthodox Church, there was the central church and those known as the

old believers. There can be an argument made that Rokor, the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia,

was a schismatic break, but that kind of stands on shaky grounds as the main church was, for the most part,

banned in the Soviet Union for many years. They've also reconnected, so that break really

doesn't exist anymore. Even before the Romanoff's ascension to Muscovist Sardom, the church

attempted to implement reforms in the

mid-16th century. These reforms, though, were more of a support of Ivan IV's policies

and his numerous marriages than any real changes. After the time of troubles, Newzard Michael established a commission to study the changes that had crept into church services and suggest any corrections that they deemed necessary.

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