DENISOV, ANDREA e SIMONE. – Brothers (A. born in 1664 and died in 1730; S. born in 1682 and died in 1741), princes Myzeckij. At the beginning of the eighteenth century they were the most distinguished representatives of the Russian “Old Believers” without priests. In northern Russia, near the Vyg River, they founded a monastery for laymen, the Vygovskaja pustyn.
At the same time, they also distinguished themselves as prolific writers on asceticism and polemics. A. composed Pomorskie otvety, that is, the response of the peoples of northern Russia to 106 questions addressed by a “missionary” of the official Church to the “Old Believers.”
The book has never been refuted by the state Church.
BIBL.: N. Barsov, Bratisj Andrej i Semen Denisov, in Pravoslavnoe obozrenie, 18 (1865), pp. 55–91, 232–47, 412–38, 514–28; A. M. Ammann, Storia della Chiesa russa e dei paesi limitrofi, Turin 1948, p. 333. Alberto M. Ammann