www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Old-Ritualists Forum Old Believer groups on Facebook

If you are on Facebook, you may want to check out these member groups. The first is the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church. Most of the entries are in Russian, but two are in English and interesting. The latest entry is a photo taken in May, 1964, in Woodburn, Oregon, showing the original leaders of the Old Believer church three years after they settled in Oregon. The photo was taken right after a council meeting where they discussed whether soy sauce was allowed to be eaten because in China the soy sauce was made in big containers where they banged on the container to have the worms settle to the bottom before scooping up the sauce. Another entry dated September 6 includes information on Old Believer booklets in English which may be purchased from an Old Believer in Nikolaevsk, Alaska.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/130986270065/

The other Facebook group is Nikolaevsk School, a K-12 school in Alaska. Currently, approximately 75% of the students are Russian Old Believer, but more non-Russian Old Believer families are starting to move into the community.

https://www.facebook.com/NikolaevskSchool/timeline

Finally, if you are interested in learning more about that school, check out their website.

http://nikolaevskschool.blogs.kpbsd.k12.ak.us/wpmu/

Thanks!

Tom,

Thanks for these links, my friend!

Many years,

Neil

Tom,

A post inquiring what the decision was regarding soy sauce seems to have gone missing from the thread. I, too, am curious - do you know what they decided?

I'm also curious as to what caused the question to arise. Although I'm pretty conversant with the many taboos and strictures that are or have been imposed by the various concords over the centuries, I can't nail down a specific one that would seem to apply in this instance. (Although I can certainly understand the aesthetic concern that might arise from the description of the worms swimming around in the concoction, I doubt that alone would have bring the matter to the point of requiring a communal decision). Have you any idea?

Many years,

Neil

Neil,

I don't know what happened to that post. I did not remove it nor do I know why or how the community decided the issue of use of soy sauce. I will ask my Old Believer contact in Erie, PA.

Before I contacted an Old Believer in Erie, I wrote to Luba Kvakov who put the photo and text on Facebook. She wrote back to me:

I shared that photo from my grandfather sisters photo collection. Their brother, Arch Priest Kondraty Fefelov, passed away 5 years at which time I gathered all photos from his life and shared an album of his life.
It is funny that the soy sauce discussion is a topic on your forum.
However to answer your question, it was a mixed topic of conversation sounds [some] chose not to eat soy sauce whenever I being in the US others felt it was okay
Oh darn spell check
Sound [Some] shows to stay away and not eat the source sauce because it was considered to be unclean and unsanitary only because of what they had witnessed in China as it was prepared
Some chose....
In China the beans were stomped on like grapes to crush and begin preparing. Then when the soy sauce was complete they would bang on the barrel where the soy sauce was stored to allow for the worms to settle down to the bottom before scooping up the final product to use for eating and cooking.
Therefore when arriving in the United States, they had no clue on processes here and chose to stay away from all processed foods. Some bezpopovtsi here still do to this day.
I hope this answers your question
the soy sauce story was just something that stood out with my grandfather and shared with his children who have now shared it with all of us

I feel privileged to receive a response from her because some Oregon Old Believers are not as friendly to outsiders as the Erie community.

Neil: Thank you for following up on the missing post!

Tom: Thank you for the extra research on the soy sauce issue. I'm always anxious to learn more about OB practices & customs.

Tom,

Thanks very much for that. I had considered the possibility that the soy sauce issue was related solely or chiefly to considerations of hygiene and sanitation (those would certainly have been the major factors for me), but that seemed too easy an answer given the many taboos that the Old Believers observe.

Many years,

Neil