Lipovans

Lipovans or Lippovans ( _ro. Lipoveni, _uk. Липовани, _ru. Липоване, _bg. липованци) are the Old Believers, mostly of Russian ethnic origin, who settled in the delta of the Danube River in Tulcea county in the Dobrogea region of eastern Romania and in the southwestern part of Odessa Oblast (in Budjak) as well as in Chernivtsi Oblast in Ukraine as well as in two villages in North-Eastern Bulgaria. According to the 2002 Romanian census there are a total of 35,791 Lipovans in Romania, of whom 21,623 still live in Dobrogea.

They emigrated from Russia over 200 years ago as dissenters with the mainline Russian Orthodox Church. They settled along the Prut River in Moldavia and in the Danube Delta. They have maintained strong religious traditions that predate the reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church undertaken during the reign of Patriarch Nikon. When he made changes to worship in 1652, part of the believers carried on worshipping in the "old way". In that sense, they continued to speak Old Russian, to cross themselves with two fingers instead of three, and to keep their beards. The Russian government and the Orthodox Church persecuted them and as a result some committed suicide by burning themselves, with many other being forced to emigrate.

The Lipovans were considered to be schismatic by the Nikonians. However others consider this label to be incorrect. [ [http://www.jsri.ro/old/html%20version/index/no_3/onufrie_vinteler-articol.htm The Community of Lipovean Russians from Romania] ]

The main centre of Lipovan community in Ukraine is Vilkovo. In this town, they built their own church, St Nicholas. In order to construct their homes, the Lipovans created islets of dry land by digging mud out from trenches and put into work a series of canals. The house walls were made of reed and mud, and thatching was standard for the roofing. Because this characteristic materials, the buildings had a tendency to sink into the mud and needed to be rebuilt every few years [ [http://travel.independent.co.uk/europe/article226573.ece Water world - Europe, Travel - Independent.co.uk ] ] [http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/subjects/geography/rivers/Feature%20Articles/danube.htm] .

For details on the Lipovans in Bulgaria, see Russians in Bulgaria.

References

External links

* [http://web.archive.org/web/20031101025945/http://www.traktor.cz/twisted/second.html "Second-Hand Souls: Selected Writing"] by Nichita Danilov (translated from Romanian by Sean Cotter)
* [http://www.museum-collections.odessa.ua/english/vilkovo.html Lipovan's icons: The Bleschunov Municipal Museum of Personal Collections]
* [http://atheism.about.com/library/irf/irf99/blirf_romania99.htm Romania. Religious Freedom Report 1999]
* [http://www.zorile.ro Zorile newspaper published in Romanian and Russian]