Heresy of the Judaizers

The Heresy of the Judaizers (Russian: ересь жидовствующих, romanized: yeres zhidovstvuyushchikh) was a religious movement that emerged in Novgorod and later Moscow in the second half of the 15th century which marked the beginning of a new era of schism in Russia. Initially popular among high-ranking statesmen and even the royal court, the movement was persecuted by the hegumen Joseph Volotsky and the archbishop Gennady of Novgorod. Several councils of the Russian Orthodox Church later condemned the Judaizers as heretics.

Some scholars see them as a Russian variant of the pre-Reformation era. Any filiation with the strigolniki, who appeared in the 14th century, remains conjectural, but highlights the religious situation in Novgorod at the time.

Terminology and beliefs

The term zhidovstvuyushchiye (Russian: жидовствующие), as it is known in the sources, is derived from the Russian word жид (zhid, from Judea, an older Russian term for Jew which is now considered pejorative). Zhidovstvuyuschiye may be loosely translated as "those who follow Jewish traditions" or "those who think like Jews". The hegumen Joseph Volotsky, the main critic and persecutor of this thought, considered the founder of this religious movement to be a certain Skhariya (also known as Zakhariya or Skara; Russian: Схария, Захария, Скара). This was Zacharia ben Aharon ha-Cohen, a scholar from Kiev brought to Novgorod by Mikhailo Olelkovich from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1470. Zacharia translated a number of Hebrew texts on astronomy, logic and philosophy.