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In 1658, Patr. Nikon left the office of patriarch and entered the Ascension [[monastery]] as he was pressured about his assumption of sovereign styles. He was finally deposed by a council that included representatives of the other patriarchates in February 1666. While ‘out of office’ and deposed his reforms remained, being enforced vigorously by the State.
Fr. Avvakum was allowed to return to Moscow in 1662, but his continued opposition to the Nikon reforms and his vigorous defense of his principles resulted in deportation again, the time to northern Russia. In 1666, the same council that deposed Nikon affirmed the reforms Nikon instituted and condemned Fr. Avvakum’s opposition. Then the council anathematized and deported Fr. Avvakum and his followers to Pustozersk in the extreme northeastern part of European Russia. Over the next fifteen years with the presence of Fr. Avvakum and his followers Pustozersk became the spiritual center for what became the [[Old BelieverBelievers]] movement. At Pustozersk, Fr. Avvakum remained relatively free for the first three years, but in the following years he and his followers came under increasingly harsh treatment and imprisonment including torture and mutilation. It was also during this time that Fr. Avvakum wrote his autobiography and many [[epistle]]s and treatises as the movement continued to grow. His autobiography, ''The Life of Archpriest Avvakum by Himself'', remains a masterpiece of 17th century Russian literature.
Then in 1682, the government, unable to control the growth of the Old Believer movement, sentenced Fr. Avvakum and his three followers, Deacon Fedor, [[monk]] Epiphany, and Fr. Lazar, to be burned at the stake. Fr. Avvakum died on [[April 14]], 1682.