In Leskov's "The Sealed Angel," which Old Believers convert to the ruling church and in what order? Who are the two characters most responsible for this?

Luke is converted first to the Orthodox Church, followed by Maroe and the rest of the Old Believers. The responsibility for this conversion is harder to pin down because of the story's ambivalent attitude toward the faith of Luke and the others. The chain of events that leads to the theft of the icon theoretically begins with the double-dealing of Pemen, so, in a sense, he could be held responsible. The Englishman's sympathy for the Old Believers also emboldens Luke and the others to attempt the theft, so he (and his wife) can be thought of as responsible as well. Of course, the priest to whom Luke confesses and who provides absolution is also responsible for their conversion.
True responsibility, however, perhaps lies with the notion of belief itself. The Old Believer's reliance on miracles is behind both their belief in their icons and, ironically, their turning toward Orthodoxy, when Luke is made to believe that the "miracles" that enabled their escape over the river were the work of "the angel of the Orthodox Church."


Luka, sometimes referred to as Luke or Uncle Luke, is the first of the "Old Believers" group to convert to the ruling Orthodox Church. Luka is persuaded when an elaborate scheme to steal a church icon is foiled by his conscience. Threatened by a movement to clean and restore religious texts and icons to remove errors within them, the Old Believers wish to keep their iconography the way it is. To do so, they are willing to go to great lengths and even steal from the ruling church. The group is obsessed with the icon of an angel that is due to be restored by the Orthodox Church, so they hire an icon painter to create a duplicate of it. The original icon has been sealed for safe transport, so the artist removes the wax seal and places it on the copy. The group takes the original angel, but a strange occurrence makes them question their plan. During a church service, the wax seal falls off the fake icon on its own.
Upon witnessing what he perceives to be a miracle, Luka is the first to be filled with regret, and he repents to the bishop. Although he asks to be thrown in jail for his sin, the bishop is understanding and decides that the copy angel is better than the original since the seal fell off on its own. He invites Luka and the other Old Believers to rejoin the Orthodox Church and tells them that the seal falling off the copy angel is proof that the Orthodox Church is in the right. In this sense, both the bishop and Luka are the ones responsible for the group's conversion. Uncle Maroe converted alongside Luke the day after the kindly bishop's pardon. Following their conversions, the narrator also agrees to convert on behalf of the other Old Believers who are present, saying, "We agree with you, Uncle Luke, and so we shall all be gathered under one shepherd like lambs."
https://archive.org/details/russiansketchesc00tolliala

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