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In [[1551]], the [[Stoglavy Sobor|Moscow Stoglav Church Council ]] declared in favour of revision. The council's purpose was to regulate the church's relationship to the state, reform its internal life, strengthen the authority of the bishops, and eradicate non-Christian folk customs from among the populace. It would not introduce anything new but would purify the Russian church of irregularities. The council called for many irregularities in church life to be corrected. Among other things, drunkenness among the clergy was to be eradicated, parish priests were to be better educated, and priests and laity alike were to be protected against rapacious episcopal tax collectors. "Pagan" and foreign practices popular among the laity were prohibited, such as minstrels playing at weddings and the shaving of beards. Patriarch [[Patriarch Filaret (Feodor Romanov)|Patriarch Philaret (Romanov) of Moscow]], during the reign of his son Tsar Michael, took part in abortive attempts to reform the church books; and under [[Tsar Alexis of Russia|Alexis]], the second of the Romanovs, in [[1654]], a council of thirty-six bishops assembled at [[Moscow]], over which the Patr. [[Patriarch Nikon ]] presided, and earnestly recommended the long-contemplated project to the attention of the Tsar. Macarius, the [[Patriarch of Antioch]], with his archdeacon, [[Paul of Aleppo]], and the head of the Serbian church, were present upon this occasion. At length, under the auspices of the Moscow Sobor of [[1667]], attended by the [[Patriarch of Alexandria]] and the [[Patriarch of Antioch]], with delegates from both the [[Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem]] and the [[Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople]], the revision of the liturgical books of the Slavonic church was effected; and the revised texts were formally declared to be the only true, lawful, and authorised copies. Alexis in person presided over this conclave. By its voice the ambitious and turbulent [[Patriarch Nikon ]] was deposed from the Russian patriarchate and the canon against shaving was repealed.

The effect of the above salutary measure in the [[Russian Orthodox Church]], and that of the nearly contemporaneous [[Act of Uniformity ]] in the [[Anglican Church]], was in some degree similar. Dissent arose on an extensive scale, and persecution was vigorously applied to reclaim or crush the nonconformists.

Internal dissensions troubled the Russo-Greek communion at an early period, leading to separation Russian Orthodoxy from the Greek. The earliest controversies referred to trifling or ridiculous points of difference, yet were none the less furious on account of the causes being trivial. There was warm contention whether the [[hallelujah ]] should be repeated two or three times at the end of the psalms, and whether the [[sign of the cross]] should be made with three fingers, symbolising the Trinity, according to the [[Byzantine Rite]], or with two fingers, in allusion to the two natures in the person of [[Christ]], as prescribed by the [[Armenian Rite]]. But in [[1375]], [[Strigolniki|Karp Strigolnik]], a citizen of [[Novgorod]], touched upon topics of greater moment. Accusing the clergy of [[simony ]] and abuse of the rite of confession, he raised a violent outcry against them, and proclaimed doctrines in which the fanatical blended with the sober. Towards the end of the 19th century, the Russian Orthodox Church realized that the forced introduction of the so-called "new rite" was carried out in a violent and uncanonical way, and that the old rite kept in Russia is actually a historic rite of the ancient Antiochian Patriarchate{{citation}}. At least three Fathers of that Patriarchate (namely, [[Meletius of Antioch]], [[Theodoret of Cyrus]] and [[Peter of Damascus]]) had given homilies on the sign of the cross being made with two fingers, in the manner of the Russian [[Old Believers]]. Perhaps the fact that [[Michael of Kiev|St. Michael]], the first Metropolitan of Kiev, was of Syrian origin, can explain how this tradition arrived in Russia. What cannot be understood is how the tradition was lost in Antioch itself. However, St. Nicodemus, in the Rudder also mentions that Christians made the sign of the cross with two fingers, in honor of the two natures of Christ, and that the current custom is now to use three fingers, for the [[Holy Trinity]].