122 - [RUSSIA - OLD BELIEVERS]. THE SHIELD OF FAITH. PART FIVE. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE ANTICHRIST. [THE SHIELD OF FAITH. Part Five: Questions and Answers About the Antichrist]. Moscow, Christian Printing House of the Transfiguration Hospice [Preobrazhenskoe], 7420 [1912]. In-quarto, brown calfskin on wooden boards, covers decorated with fillet borders and cold-stamped scrolls, spine with flat raised bands and cold-stamped decoration, title cold-stamped “ЩИТЪ ВѢРЫ О / АНТИХРИСТѢ” [The Shield of Faith Against the Antichrist], two clasps with brown leather tabs and scalloped metal fittings, decorated with embossed fleurons and volutes (antique binding); (3) ff., 245 ff., (1) p. of colophon. Paper slightly browned, foxing, stains, and handwritten annotations in Cyrillic; some scuffing and wear on the binding; interior hinges reinforced with gauze. FIRST PRINTED EDITION of this part, as indicated by the “printed” notice. It was based on a manuscript from the Pomor tradition of the “Old Believers,” that is, Russian Orthodox Christians who remained faithful to the Russian rites predating Patriarch Nikon’s reforms, particularly those beginning in 1653. Published separately, this fifth part of the “Shield of Faith” is devoted to the Antichrist and belongs to the theological and polemical literature of the “Old Believers.” The text is in Church Slavonic, printed in old Cyrillic script in red and black, with ornamental headpieces, initials, and footpieces. The copy is preserved in a traditional binding on wooden boards, possibly a rebinding in an antique cover. ¶ N. V. Silvestrova, “Study of the Collections of Religious Literature at the Kozmodemiansk Museum,” pp. 57–58.