Born in 1620 – Avvakum Petrov, Russian priest and saint. Among the first of Russia’s Old Believers.

Avvakum led the opposition to Patriarch Nikon’s reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church. For his opposition to the reforms, Avvakum was repeatedly imprisoned and exiled. For the last fourteen years of his life, he was imprisoned in a pit at Pustozyorsk above the Arctic Circle. He was finally executed by being burned at the stake.

Above: The Burning of Avvakum (1897), by Pyotr Myasoyedov