From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Old Believers/David Scheffel
The classic works on the origins and early history of the Old Believers are in Russian, with Serge Zenkovsky, Russkoe staroobriadchestvo (Russian Old Ritualism; Munich, 1970), being the most comprehensive. Two general works in English that deal in part with the Old Believers are Walter Kolarz, Religion in the Soviet Union (London, 1961), and the monumental study by James Billington, The Icon and the Axe (New York, 1970).
The only monograph dealing specifically with Canadian Old Believers is by David Scheffel, In the Shadow of Antichrist: The Old Believers of Alberta (Peterborough, Ont., 1991). The same author has written several articles on the same topic, including “Russian Old Believers and Canada,” Canadian Ethnic Studies / Études ethniques au Canada, vol.21, no.1 (1989), 1–18, in which archival materials are utilized for a reconstruction of the conditions under which the Old Believers arrived in Canada. “Russische Altgläubige in der Mandschurei” [Russian Old Believers in Manchuria], Kirche im Osten, vol. 32 (1989), 109–19, describes the situation among the Old Believers in Manchuria prior to their immigration to Canada, and “Der altgläubige Bischof Michail Kanadskij und sein Bistum” [The Old Ritualist Bishop Michael of Canada and His Bishopric], Kirche im Osten, vol.34 (1991), 92–100, addresses the question of why the Old Believers of Moscow in 1908 decided to consecrate a Canadian bishop in their faith.
Archival documentation on the first wave of Old Believer immigrants can be found in the CPR papers held by the National Archives in Ottawa, especially in RG 76, vol.223, file 111908. Information on the second wave is preserved in RG 76, file 5760–16. Additionally, John Paskievich directed a documentary film produced by the National Film Board of Canada about the group in Canada titled The Old Believers (Winnipeg, 1989).
