Kazan, June 5, 2020
Photo: spzh.news
A new street being built in Kazan will be named in honor of Protopop Avvakum Petrov, the leader of the 17th-century Old Believer movement that led to a lasting schism in the world of Russian Orthodoxy.
The corresponding resolution was signed by the Executive Committee of the Tatarstan capital, reports the press service of the mayor of Kazan.
The new street will be located in the Vakhitovo District, where the Kazan Kremlin is located. According to the resolution, the street will be named “Protopop Avvakum Street.”
The announcement comes as Old Believers are celebrating the 400th anniversary of the birth of Avvakum (1620-1682). He has gone down in history as an irreconcilable opponent of the Church reforms initiated by Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Michailovich, which resulted in schism. He was the ideologist and most visible actor of the Old Believers in the period of their emergence, for which he was exiled, thrown into prison, and eventually executed. He has remained an authoritative and iconic figure throughout the history of the Old Believers, and is revered by them as a confessor and martyr.
Some Old Believer groups have rejoined the Patriarchate over the intervening centuries, and in 1971 the Moscow Patriarchate repealed the anathemas against the Old Believers, although the schism continues.
In September 2019, the Russian Ministry of Culture announced its intention to suggest that regional authorities name streets and squares in honor of Old Believers in connection with Avvakum’s anniversary, reports Interfax-Religion.
In March 2017, Russian Deputy Ministery of Culture Alexander Zhuravsky, a member of the committee for the jubilee events expressed hope that events and conferences could be held with the participation of both Old Believer and Moscow Patriarchate representatives that would help ““if not to eliminate the division, then to bring historical positions together.”
He recalled that the process of the reunion of the Moscow Patriarchate with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia also began with conferences.
However, later that year, in June, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, the Chairman of the Commission on Old Believer parishes and cooperation with the Old Believer community, stated that while it is necessary to overcome the schism, it won’t happen anytime soon.
