Metal detectorist finds centuries-old artifact outlawed by emperor

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Updated on: April 25, 2024 / 2:33 PM EDT / CBS News Metal detectors are a must for modern-day treasure hunters On the hunt with high-tech treasure hunters 03:59 A metal dectorist in eastern Poland recently uncovered a religious artifact that experts believe dates back hundreds of years.
Experts said the cross icon is likely a relic of the Orthodox communities that continued to practice after a series of reforms split the Russian church in the middle of the 17th century, and an example of the kinds of symbols that were outlawed during a later monarch's reign.
Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments Inscriptions on the back of this particular cross allowed experts to connect it to Russia's community of Old Believers or Old Ritualists, a group of Eastern Orthodox Christians who maintained the beliefs and ritualistic practices of the old Russian Orthodox Church after an overhaul of changes were implemented around 1650.
"For the Old Believers, from the beginning of the movement, in the middle of the 17th century, icons were at the center of their religious life," researchers wrote in a paper on the religious community's connection to iconography and its prevalence in their private worship.