In the Russian Empire the State and the Church authorities refused to recognize the Old Believer denomination as a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Old Believers were branded as schismatics and sectarians and therefore conversion to the Old Believer faith was considered to be a crime. To put an end to such a shift away from the Official Church the State authorities had to resort to administrative and violent actions. However, with all those tough measures taken, the Tomsk region in the 19th century witnessed either isolated or group instances of people tending toward the Old Believer Church. There were a number of contributing factors to this tendency. First, few large Orthodox parishes and a lack of educated and highly moral clergymen made it difficult for the State church to control the whole of the remote territory. Second, the Old Believer Church was well-represented in the region which naturally contributed to more close links between Old Believers and the State church people. Third, the Old Be

liever communities had a considerable potential for economic development and that was a good incentive for people to join the Old Believers.