'''Avvakum Petrov''' was a [[priest]] in the [[Church of Russia]] during the seventeenth century. He was a leader in the opposition to the reforms instituted into the Russian Church by Patriarch [[Nikon of Moscow|Nikon]]. For him, his opposition resulted in imprisonment, exile to Siberia, and numerous other hardships that continued even after Patr. Nikon was deposed as patriarch and culminated in Fr. Avvakum being burn at the stake. His life of opposition in recorded in his autobiography. The opposition groups that he led become known as the '''Raskolniki'Old Believers'' or '''Old Believers'Raskolniki''("schismatics," a term used by critics).