Normally it's the conservatives who walk away, not the liberals, who find it much easier to live with change. And thus it was for the Russian Old Believers, who sometime in the 1660s got fed up with those ungodly changes the church was implementing--putting up three fingers instead of two--fundamental practices that have now, all these years later, become the signposts of the precious old religion. Because that's the way my grandfather did it"--that sort of thing.
Among Alaska's most fascinating immigrants are the Russian Old Believers, who have retained their original Slavonic language, almost entirely unspoken elsewhere in the world, along with a significant portion of the old way of practicing their Orthodox faith. That they've done so is amazing, of course, but not significantly different from the way that the Old Order Amish folks here and wherever they've gathered around the world have been somehow capable of flourishing despite living at least a century apart--maybe because of that separation!
As a people they've put some miles on. Originally Russian, their story maintains they were chased out for their beliefs. They literally walked until they felt safe, and that definitive hike brought them from Russian into China, where they lived happily until 1948, when the new communist regime determined all foreigners had to leave.
When they left China, many went to Brazil or Uruguay, staying together however in communities they built with their own hands, always practicing their traditional faith, including, if you can believe it, four or five-hour worship services every Sunday. They had some trouble practicing their Christmas rituals in the middle of summer, enough to make them look around for another place to call home.
Home became Alaska's Kenai peninsula, where today they live in communities all their own. There is, as you can imagine, a schism operating today among them. Some attend the church which has a priest, the others do not and will not, having gone without clerical leadership since the 17th century. The imposition of a ruling class among the faithful, they believe, is some sort of sacrilege.
But in other ways these Russian Old Believers remain viable as a faith-driven fellowship. Nothing is as important to them as the quality and character of their Orthodox faith. The long history of discrimination and prejudice, their long history of suffering, has given them the tenacity required to live so decidedly separate from the world.
That conversation in the bakery was quite amazing. The young woman showed no sign of discomfort as we talked about her unique dress. Her mother was along, as was her daughter. It was Saturday night, so when she talked about her people and their faith, I couldn't help ask, "So if we wanted to come to church with you tomorrow, where would we go?"
She waved off the question with a smile. They worshipped she said at Homer, several hours away. It would be ridiculous.
"Homer?" I said. "We were just there."
"Oh, the church is really hard to find," she said, as if our attending would be difficult, if not impossible. "It's a long way from Homer even."
It wasn't difficult to guess that Old Believers weren't into evangelism.
But they were charming and fascinating, as Old Order Amish are, fierce in their beliefs and the necessity of their sequestration from a world they've seen for 300 years as holding values at odds that threaten the old ways of faith. They drive cars and trucks, use iPads, and live well, having picked up fishing and boat-making in a region given to such enterprise. They're not poor--you can tell by the rich satins their women wear, beautiful clothes they are very proud to wear.
Faith is a wonderful thing. And sometimes strange.
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