Lippovan

Lippovans (Old Faith Believers, Old Rite Followers) are a small (about 40,000) Slavic ethnic group of Russian origin residing in the delta of the Danube River in the east of Romania in Tulcea county.

They emigrated from Russia over 200 years ago as dissenters with the mainline Russian Orthodox Church. They settled along the Prut River in modern Ukraine and in the Danube delta. They have maintained strong religious traditions that predate the reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church undertaken during the reign of the Peter the Great.

Sources

• Second-Hand Souls: Selected Writing by Nichita Danilov (translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter), [1]
• Les Lipovenes, qui sont-ils?, in Frech language, [1]
• Council of Europe: Romanian Site of Citizenship, [1]
• Agnosticism/Atheism with Austin Cline: Romania: Religious Freedom Report 1999 [1] at About.com