Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy

Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy (Белокриницкая иерархия, Belokrinitskoe Soglasiye, Белокриницкое согласие) is the first full and stable church hierarchy created by the Old Believers.

History
After the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow in the 1650s, many members of the Russian Orthodox Church refused to acknowledge the changes which he had made to bring the church in line with the Greek Orthodox Church.

The Belokrinitskaya hierarchy was created in 1846 by acceptance of the Greek Metropolitan Ambrose. The hierarchy is called after the name of the see of the First Hierarch Belaya Krinitsa, Bukovina, in Austria-Hungary (currently Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine).

Major sponsorship for organizing this hierarchy (search for a metropolitan, organizing the necessary facilities, smuggling of candidates for priesthood etc. through the Russian border in both directions) came also from the Russian Old Believers merchant families, such as Ryabushinskie and Morozovy.

Some confusions may occur when using the term Belokrinitskoe soglasie in respect to a schism of Okruzhniki (Encyclicalists) and Neokruzhniki (Non-Encyclicalists). From one point of view, both sides of a schism originated from the Rogozhskoe cemetery administrative system and so both belong to the Belokrinitskoe soglasie From the other side, the Rogozhskoe cemetery priests and authorities were Okruzhniki almost entirely, so the term Belokrinitskoe soglasie can sometimes mean Okruzhniki.

Branches
Currently, there are two administratively independent branches of the Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy.


 * Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church with the center in Rogozhskaya Sloboda in Moscow; unites the Old Believers of the Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy in Russia and other countries of the former USSR.
 * Lipovan Orthodox Old-Rite Church with the center in Brăila, Romania; unites the Old Believers of the Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy in Romania, and diaspora
 * Neokruzhniki (Non-Encyclicalists) hierarchy - arose as a result of the split that began after the release of the "Encyclica" of 1862; it was suppressed in Soviet times.
 * Old Orthodox Church of Ukraine — separated from the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church in 2022.