The Life of the Archpriest Avvakum, Written by Himself
The autobiography of the archpriest Avvakum, written in prison at Pustozersk after the Moscow council of 1667 had condemned him. It gives the case of those who refused Patriarch Nikon’s changes to the Russian rites, in the words of their leader.
Avvakum tells his life from his birth in the village of Grigorovo: his years as a priest, his opposition to Nikon, his exile to Siberia with his wife and children, his return, his appearance before the patriarchs in Moscow and his banishment to Pustozersk, from where he says he is writing. The book is a participant’s account and a polemic. Nikon and those who accepted the new books are “apostates” in it, and what they said is reported only as Avvakum remembered it. See Nikon’s Reforms and the Old Believer Schism.
Cited in
- 1652 to 1667, firm date