In 1653, the Patriarch Nikon modified liturgical practices to bring the Russian Orthodox Church in line with those of the Eastern (Greek) Orthodox Church, from which it had split two hundred years earlier. The ‘Old Believers’ (staroveri) rejected these changes, and continued to worship using the earlier practices. These actions resulted in their persecution by the Russian Orthodox Church, which forced them into exile across Siberia.

Patriarch Nikon and Russian Orthodox clergy, 1660s, via Russia Beyond

Given their history, we investigated whether populations of Old Believers have genetically diverged from other Slavic populations as a result of their isolation. We also tried to determine whether the three Old Believer populations analyzed in this study were part of a single gene pool (founder population), or instead derived from heterogeneous sources in eastern Russia. As part of this analysis, we surveyed mtDNA diversity of 189 Russian Old Believer individuals from three populations in Siberia and 201 ethnic Russians from different parts of Siberia.

Members of an Old Believer community in the village of Tarbagatay, Russia. Source: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2018/0824/Once-banished-by-czars-a-centuries-old-sect-finds-new-life-in-modern-Russia

The mtDNA haplogroup profile of the Old Believers was broadly similar to that seen in other Russian populations. Their mtDNAs mostly belonged to maternal lineages commonly seen in Slavic and European populations, such as H, HV, J, K, T, U, V and X. When using the sequences to estimate their genetic distances from comparative populations, the Old Believer groups appeared similar to Russian populations from Siberia (see MDS plot below).

A multidimeniinal scaling plot of Fat values for Old Believers (in circles), ethnic Russians from Siberia (in squares) and comparative Slavic populations (small filled squares).

However, they did show some unique patterns of mtDNA variation relative to other Slavic groups, such as a high frequency of haplogroup U4 and a surprisingly low frequency of haplogroup H relative to other European populations (see network below). In addition, they showed low frequencies of the rare East Eurasian subhaplogroup D5 as well as other lineages (C, G, Z) that appear in native Siberian populations, suggesting they intermarried with these indigenous populations.

Network of mtDNA sequences in Old Believers (white circles) and Rusisan populations (black circles).

Overall, our results indicated that the Old Believers have not significantly genetically diverged from other Slavic populations over the 200-300 years of their isolation in Siberia, based on their maternal lineages. They also do not appear to have undergone a founder event given the mtDNA heterogeneity observed in their communities, However, more data from Y-chromosome and autosomal DNA markers are needed to fully understand the genetic impact of their exile to Siberia.

Publications

Rubinstein S, Dulik MC, Gokcumen O, Zhadanov SI, Osipova LP, Mehta N, Cocca MF, Gubina M, Posukh O, Schurr TG. 2008. Russian Old Believers: Genetic consequences of their persecution and exile, as shown by mitochondrial DNA evidence. Hum Biol 80(3): 203-238.