4 ms·

Well, I think those are just markers. I think the real issue began with mass murdering of Old Believers during Nikon reforms, which were mainly about power (to

• int_19h 7y ago
  By the time Nikon reforms happen, the Russian Orthodox Church already had its own independent patriarch. And in fact, the reforms were about making things more like what the Greek church was doing at the time. Russian traditions, meanwhile, were based on old Greek ones, and basically better conserved. It went above and beyond matters of dogma and ritual, even down to stuff like clothing and hairstyles. Tsar Aleksei was also a Grecophile, and to him this was less abstract than just church issues - he was seriously eyeing Constantinople as a potential "Orthodox Reconquista", with himself as the new Constantine -the emperor of the Orthodox faithful. Military feasibility aside, this all is a lot easier if tsar's take on Orthodoxy itself is more consistent with what the Greeks see as such.