6th century icon, depicting Christ giving a blessing. Two digits appear straightened, three folded. The Old Believers regard this as the proper way of making the sign of the Cross.

Popovtsy

The Popovtsy represented the more moderate conservative opposition, those who strove to continue religious and church life as it had existed before the reforms of Nikon. They recognized ordained priests from the new-style Russian Orthodox church who joined the Old Believers and who had denounced the Nikonian reforms. In 1846 they convinced Amvrosii Popovich (1791–1863), a Greek Orthodox bishop whom Turkish pressure had had removed from his see atSarajevo, to become an Old Believer and to consecrate three Russian Old-Believer priests as bishops. In 1859, the number of Old-Believer bishops in Russia reached ten, and they established their own episcopate, the so called Belokrinitskaya hierarchy. Not all priestist Old Believers recognized this hierarchy. Dissenters known as beglopopovtsy obtained their own hierarchy in the 1920s. The priestist Old Believers thus manifest as two churches which share the same beliefs, but which treat each other's hierarchy as illegitimate. Popovtsy have priests, bishops and all sacraments, including the eucharist.

• Belokrinitskaya hierarchy—The largest Popovtsy denomination. One can refer to the Russian part of this denomination as the Belokrinitskoe Soglasie (the "Belokrinitsky Agreement") or as the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church.
  • Neokruzhniki (extinct)
• Novozybkovskaya hierarchy or Russian Old-Orthodox Church
• Beglopopovtsy (extinct, now the Russian Old-Orthodox Church)
• Luzhkane, also known as Luzhkovskoe soglasie; in some places, they had no priests and so belonged to the Bespopovtsy (extinct).