The state-church reform that was initiated by Patriarch Nikon and Tsar A. M. Romanov demanded uniformity between Russian and Greek churches; it was the ideological bases of imperial pretensions of the Russian state to unite all Eastern Orthodox countries. The main consequence of this reform was the abolition of Russian Orthodox traditionalism. Most of the church hierarchy with its numerous followers refused to follow the church innovation and stated that it did not recognize or accept this reform; as a result, there was a schism between the representatives of the state (imperial) part and the folk (traditional) one in Russian society. A fundamental feature that characterizes the traditional Russian (Old Believer) version of orthodoxy was its nationality, primarily, a separation of faith and state. The Old Believers preserved and developed the doctrine of special traditional historical path of the Russian people. In 1929, the Russian Orthodox Church recognized the unnecessary and violent nature of the church reform of the XVIIth century. Former anathemas against the Old Believers were canceled.