site.btaRussian Old Believers Celebrate Christmas Eve in Northeast Village

Russian Old Believers in Tataritsa Celebrate Christmas

Russian Old Believers living in Tataritsa, part of the village of Aydemir near Silistra in Northeast Bulgaria, are celebrating Christmas Eve on Tuesday, the local church board said.

Christmas will be celebrated on Wednesday at the Russian Orthodox Church Pokrov Bogorodichen in the village, built in 1750. The church is unique in Bulgaria, as its bell, icons, candlesticks and liturgical books originate from the world-famous Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Monastery in Ukraine. As there is no resident priest, a clergyman travels from the Romanian city of Braila to officiate major religious holidays.

Tataritsa is inhabited by ethnic Russians whose ancestors settled in the area more than 300 years ago. According to historical accounts, in the 17th century Tsar Peter the Great ordered a major church reform in Russia as part of the country’s rapid Europeanization. Followers of the old Orthodox rites opposed the changes and were subjected to severe persecution, prompting hundreds of thousands to flee their homeland to preserve their faith.

Two small groups of Russian Old Believers settled in present-day Bulgaria. One established itself in the village of Kazashko near Varna, while the other arrived in the Silistra region and founded Tataritsa. Today, only around fifty families, descendants of the original settlers, remain in the village, which is now administratively part of Aydemir, one of the largest villages in Bulgaria.