Time takes its toll on Latvia’s ‘Old Believers’ FEATURE 09/01/2010

Time takes its toll on Latvia’s ‘Old Believers’

FEATURE

09/01/2010
SLUTISKI — There are little more than a dozen residents left in as many wooden homes in this hamlet tucked away from civilization in eastern Latvia. Most are Old Believers, a faith struggling to survive.

“The young people are leaving,” said Aleksejs Zilko, newly elected head of the Latvian Old Believer Church. “To whom shall we pass on our faith?”

Followers of the Christian denomination that split from the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century migrated to escape persecution, building tight-knit ethnic Russian communities around the world, secluded from the mainstream.

Today they face new challenges as a less-religious generation heads to the cities in search of work, leaving the old behind.

Elderly men with beards gathered alongside women in traditional costumes and long shawls at a recent celebration near Slutiski of the 350th anniversary of their first prayer house built in Latvia..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100901com6.html