On the Role of Eschatology in the Ideological Confrontation between the Church and the Old Believers

The article describes the process of formalizing the eschatological teaching among the Old Believers and attempts to refute it by Church hierarchs. The focus is on the doctrine of the ultimate destinies of the world, which gained significant support among opponents of church reform in the latter half of the 17 th century. The study demonstrates the con tinuity of ideas and the evolution of the views of the authors who explored in their works the theme of the reign of the Antichrist in the world and affirmed the idea that only the defenders of the old rite are able to serve the guarantors of the salvation of mankind. The authors built their arguments on quotations from the Holy Scriptures and their interpretations in patristic literature, explaining the facts of modern reality through them. Such constructions appeared quite convincing to the Russian population's religious consciousness, resulting in an increasing number of supporters of the Old Believer doctrine, turning the intra-church movement into a broad religious and social one. The fight against schism became relevant not only for the Church but also for secular authorities since the defenders of the old rite used the doctrine of the ultimate destinies of the world to justify their opposition towards governing bodies and solutions to social and political issues proposed by them. The Church battled against the Old Believers in alliance with the authorities. Council resolutions and legislative acts evidence this. The article concludes by arguing that the Church and authorities in the 17 th – 18 th centuries saw the main threat in the dissemination of the teachings of the Old Believers in handwritten propaganda texts, which necessarily contained a statement about the possible accession of the Antichrist in Russia. However, no attempts by the Church hierarchs to rebut the eschatological teaching of the defenders of the old rite were successful, and the religious-social movement only continued to grow. Both sides believed that eschatology played an essential role in the ideological confrontation between the Church and the Old Believers, substantiating the right to oppose the innovations brought into ritual and liturgical practice due to the reform.