Founded in 1800, edinoverie was a missionary mechanism that offered converts from ‘schismatic’ Old Belief the use of their anathematised rituals within the Russian Orthodox Church. However, the edinoverie clergy's distinctive social characteristics and working conditions stymied successful integration into the caste-like clerical estate. These representatives of an alternative form of Orthodoxy chiefly championed by Old Believers therefore remained on the periphery of the confession. This demonstrates the limits of intraconfessional diversity within the imperial Church: even when championed by ethnic Russians, the Church was reluctant to sponsor alternative visions of Orthodoxy in its own ranks.