“Pure”, “profane” and “filthy”: Old Believers’ conceptualization of ritual purity

Abstract

This article considers how Siberian Old Believers of Chasovennoe (Chapellian) confession conceptualize the ritual purity. Though this is one of the Old Believers’ communities that elaborated a system of taboos, they have always been establishing stable interconfessional connections. This paradox is neutralized by deeper understanding on the nature of Old Believers’ taboo system as contradiction and correlation of vernacular practice and written rules. One of these practices, the so called “tableware rule”, due to adjustment of several ethical principles, such as moral rules and supernatural injunctions (terms by Robert Edgerton) offer a wide range of options of interconfessional behavior to Old Believers.