The Old Believers’ villages in Romania: Life of Generations and the Destiny of Traditions

Abstract

The article deals with the spiritual aspects of life of Old Believers’ communities in contemporary Romania and the changes in their traditional culture, which took place during the second part of the last century. People whose stories we present here told us that faith was the foundation, on which both a person and the community could lean on in difficult situations. Оne of the main peculiarities of the church life of Lipoveni is the intercommunication of church ceremonies and folk traditions. One of the most interesting facts about them in Manuylovka (Bucovina) is the sequence of church and folk songs during the wedding dinner. Nowadays however the role of tradition has changed. For example, there is a difference between the attitudes of the old and young generation towards the marriage with heterodoxes. Life among the people of another nationality and religion had consolidated the Lipoveni during the past centuries, but now threatens with additional risks of disappearance of their own cultural space.