Metal detector finds century-old religious artifact once banned by emperor

A metal detector in eastern Poland recently discovered a religious artifact that experts believe dates back hundreds of years. Experts said the cross icon is probably a relic of Orthodox communities that continued to practice after a series of reforms that divided the Russian church in the mid-17th century, and an example of the types of symbols that were banned during the reign of a later monarch. .

The cross, made of copper alloy, was detected by a metal detector in Niedrzwica Duża, a commune about 160 kilometers from Warsaw, according to the provincial government’s monument conservation office, which said in a declaration who received the item last week. The relic was found buried in the ground by Jacek Zięba, a metal detectorist who searched the area with permission from the office.

The artifact, which measures only a few centimeters from end to end, appears to be a typical biblical symbol showing Jesus nailed to the cross, with other figures etched in the peripheral space that are more difficult to decipher. The conservation office shared images of the cross and compared them to others that depict the icon as it might have originally looked.

Inscriptions on the back of this particular cross allowed experts to connect it to the Russian community of Old Believers or Old Ritualists, a group of Eastern Orthodox Christians who maintained the beliefs and ritual practices of the ancient Russian Orthodox Church after it was They implemented a reform of changes around. 1650. These liturgical reforms divided the religion, leaving the “old believers” in the minority. But they clung to their pre-reformation customs for several centuries, even as the reigning leadership of the day and the church itself shifted in another direction.

“For the Old Believers, from the beginning of the movement, in the mid-17th century, icons were at the center of their religious life,” the researchers wrote in an article about the religious community’s connection to iconography and its prevalence in their private homes. worship of life. The article, published in 2019 in the theology magazine Religionsnoted that icons during this period served “as the material basis of the identity of the Old Believer movement.”

Under Tsar Peter I, also known to historians as Peter the Great, the Russian church banned the creation, sale and use of cast icons such as the cross. Peter the Great became tsar of Russia (the monarch) in 1682 and ruled as emperor from 1721 until his death in 1725. According to Poland’s provincial conservation office, he instituted a ban on crosses cast in copper between 1723 and 1724..

The casts were not only used by Old Believers to practice their religion, the office said. They were also sold widely and were eventually purchased by ordinary people on public forums, and it was common to see one in homes throughout Russia. While fundamentalist communities took root in the late 17th and 18th centuries along part of the Baltic Sea, another center emerged on mainland Russia, near Moscow, about a century later. Historians say that the domestic community was known for its artistic culture that produced simplistic cross icons in large quantities.

Throughout the reign of Peter the Great and many other leaders at other times in history, Russia encompassed parts of Eastern Europe, including Poland. Given that and the fact that Russia’s Old Believers settled in multiple locations at different times, experts say more work needs to be done to determine exactly when the cross was created. But it is generally believed to be about 300 years old.