The Latvian Old Believers is one of the world’s and Latvia’s historic ethnoreligious Christian communities. Throughout the 350 years of co-existing with other peoples and religions they’ve preserved their religion and traditions, and fostered a habit of being neighborly – hard-working, unobtrusive, and responsible as well as helpful, and a bit reserved. However, being neighborly doesn’t mean letting others get too close to one’s faith and worldview. On the Old Believers’ worldview, the present and future carry no great significance, for the Orthodox Schism already marked the arrival of the “final days” in the better half of the 17th century. It is of no importance how long this time period will last as measured by humans; it is of importance, though, to preserve the cornerstones of Old Believer religion – piously practiced traditions and the old rite of mass, in which singing in unison reaches a distinctive depth of prayer.
Old Believers’ prayer houses, manuscripts, and icons – all of this is but a visible form, touched and threatened by the ravages of time, by human negligence and forgetfulness. But these traces, which are rapidly disappearing today, lead to a deeper understanding of the genesis and essence of this religion. The Old Believers’ experience was influenced by persecution, prohibition, and prejudice, but their sacred heritage is a source of inspiration and strength in today's absurd world.
The Old Believers’ sacred heritage, its formation and significance in contemporary Latvia was discussed by Old Believer scholar Nadezhda Pazuhina, spiritual music composer Andrejs Selickis and artist Kristaps Epners, whose video artwork Maslova (about the Old Believers of Latgale and the Maslova prayer house) was exhibited at Survival Kit 13.
Kristaps Epners is a Latvian artist and graphic designer. He studied at the Visual Communication Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts. Since his first video installations were shown at exhibitions, Epners has positioned himself as an artist interested in things rarely explored in art, like self-discipline, daily routine, and commitment. He was nominated for the Purvītis Prize in 2017 and 2019; his work has been featured at the Latvian National Museum of Art, at “AV17” Gallery Vilnius, at the Tallinn Art Hall, at “Den Frie” Centre of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen, at the New Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, at the Ethnographic Museum in Gdansk, at the Akureyri Art Museum Iceland and in other venues.
Nadežda Pazuhina, Dr. art, cultural historian, scholar of religious studies, and senior researcher at the IPS (Institute for Philosophy and Sociology) of the University of Latvia. Her research interests include the history of Old Believer churches in Latvia and the Baltics, Old Believer cultural practices and their sacred heritage.
Andrejs Selickis is a contemporary Latvian composer of academic and folk-sacred orientation. His field of creative activity and research is Byzantine-Slavonic monody (“sign-singing”) and the possible archetype of the musical canon of Latvian sacred culture. He is also active in the liturgical field of musical in the Latvian Orthodox Church.