As I grow older and approach the end of my life, I feel obliged to record some observations on the Old Ritualist schism and the efforts to heal it, as well as some anecdotes describing my involvement in this effort. I would be remiss if I passed on without first documenting some of my personal dealings with the Old Believer community from 1970 to 2005 in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
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I write in part because I believe that the Old Ritualist schism of the mid-17th century can be ended. I hope this record will encourage further efforts at reconciliation with the many thousands of Old Believers in the world today.
I have not done much research on what I am about to commit to paper, largely because I have witnessed so much of it first-hand. I do not claim to having made history, but only to being present when it happened.
Oregon’s Willamette Valley
When I arrived in Portland, Oregon, in June of 1970, I was a 30-year-old Army veteran of the Vietnam war with a wife and two little sons, Stefan and Philip. I needed a job, and I was willing to do just about anything to support my family.
I had completed a six-year enlistment in the U.S. Army, including 18 months studying Russian at the Defense Language Institute, West Coast (DLIWC) and 18 months in Vietnam. I had a year of Russian literature at American University after my discharge. I could speak and read Russian well enough, but didn’t have much else going for me. Elizabeth and I and our boys moved into her parents’ basement in SW Portland.
I soon heard about the newly arrived Russian immigrants in Woodburn, a half-hour’s drive south on I-5 into the fertile Willamette Valley. So one day I drove down to Woodburn to find employ-ment. Perhaps someone would give me a job because of my ability to speak, read and write Russian.
Woodburn’s base population in 1970 was about 7,100 souls, most of whom were suffering from an acute case of culture shock dealing with the sudden influx of Russians among them.