Filippians or Philippians () was a ''soglasiye'' (
confession
A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of persons – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information th ...
, literally, "agreement") of the
Bespopovtsy
Bespopovtsy ( rus, беспоповцы, p=bʲɪspɐˈpoft͡sɨ, "priestless ones") are Priestless Old Believers that reject Nikonite priests. They are one of the two major strains of Old Believers.
Priestless Old Believers may have evolved into ...
(the "priestless") strain of
Old Believers
Old Believers or Old Ritualists, ''starovery'' or ''staroobryadtsy'' are Eastern Orthodox Christians who maintain the liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian Orthodox Church as they were before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow ...
. They detached themselves from
Pomortsy
The Pomorian Old Orthodox Church ( rus, Древлеправославная поморская церковь, Drevlepravoslavnaya pomorskaya tserkov), also known as the Pomorian Church, Danilovtsy, Danilov's confession, or simply as Pomorians, i ...
under the leadership of a "teacher" Filipp at the beginning of the 18th century. Because of the repressions of the government, they started practicing
self-immolation
The term self-immolation broadly refers to acts of altruistic suicide, otherwise the giving up of one's body in an act of sacrifice. However, it most often refers specifically to autocremation, the act of sacrificing oneself by setting oneself o ...
as a means for the "preservation of the faith". In the second half of the 18th century, their
decreased, and several other confessions were spun off:
Aaronovtsy (Aaron's Confession),
Shepherd's Confession (пастухово согласие), and many others.
Old Believer movement
Christian denominations established in the 18th century
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