Chasovennye

thumb|A Chasovennye chapel in Ulan-Ude, Transbaikalia The Chasovennye people (also known as the Semeyskie or Semeiskie people east of Lake Baikal) are a Siberian sect of the Old Believers, Eastern Orthodox Christians who reject the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow in the 1650s and retain pre-Nikonian religious practices. Although they once allowed priesthood, they eventually joined other priestless (Bezpopovtsy) movements and outlawed priesthood and sacraments beyond baptism. The term Chasovennye itself refers to the literal chapels in which liturgical practices such as baptism occurred.

== History == Beginning in the 1650s and continuing into the early 1660s, Patriarch Nikon of Moscow initiated the reform of the Russian Orthodox Church, intending thereby to bring it closer to the practices of the Greek Orthodox Church. The reforms initiated several small changes - for instance, the switch from two to three folded fingers for the sign of the cross - and several major changes - the alteration of the text of prayers and the subsequent burning of old texts. After many church members rejected his reform efforts, Nikon resigned as Patriarch on July 10, 1658, and imposed an exile upon himself. Despite often clashing with Nikon, Tsar Alexis adopted these reforms as a means of strengthening his control over the Russian Church. As a result of this reform, the Russian Church split in two. The more conservative of these two viewpoints, today known as the Old Believers, were declared heretics and fled mostly east and north into Siberia and other areas west of the Ural Mountains such as Vetka in modern-day Belarus. In an effort to escape these reforms, many Old Believers performed acts of self-immolation.