I specifically chose this title because that's how I felt when I saw the photos of Marian and Daniela Sterea. I wrote about their project, called Lipovenesc, here.
Before I let you admire the photo gallery, here's what Marian told me at the launch of the project. “The Lipovenesc Project started from the love of beauty, but especially from the curiosity to discover a culture that I didn’t know much about. Thus, I easily, easily came to explore as much as possible and to fall more and more in love with the Lipovenesque area of Dobrogea. Being an ethnic group of Slavic origin, the Lipovenesque Russians are the descendants of the Starovers, that is, the followers of the Old Rite Orthodox faith in Russia, who left their homeland in the 17th-18th centuries, following the schism in the Official Russian Church, as a tragic consequence of the religious reform initiated by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov (father of Peter the Great) and Patriarch Nikon of Russia (1652-1658). The reform, begun in 1654, which aimed to modify the church ritual, was adopted by the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1667. Those who did not obey the new canons they were anathematized, being considered heretics, seditious (erroneously called so, because they were not the ones who initiated the seditious - schism)"
Meanwhile, Marian and Daniela are working on restoring a traditional house in Jurilovca, and the community of Lipovi Russians adopted them.
On January 7, 2021, the Old Rite Orthodox, those who follow the Julian calendar, celebrated Christmas. Marian was in the middle of the community and this is what came out.
