The Raskol, so to speak, was stillborn. Unless they retraced their steps, there were but two paths to take--either to admit priests consecrated by a Church they had condemned, or to dispense with the clergy, who alone could celebrate the rites in defence of which they had revolted. There was little to choose between the two self-contradictory courses, and each had its partisans. This first check split the schism into two groups, whose hostility has not been allayed by the lapse of two centuries. According to some, as Christianity cannot exist without a priesthood, its complicity with Nikon's heresy has not deprived the Russian Church of apostolic powers--of the _cheirotonia_, or right to consecrate bishops and priests by the laying on of hands; and as their ordination is valid, the schismatics have only to bring back priests of the official Church to the observance of the ancient ritual. To this it is answered that by abandoning the ancient books and anathematizing the ancient traditions the sect of Nikon has lost all claim to the apostolical succession, so that the established clergy constitute no longer a Church, but the synagogue of Satan. All communion with these emissaries of hell is a sin, and ordination by the apostate bishops a defilement. The Oriental patriarchs have shared the heresy of the Russian prelates by agreeing to their anathemas against the ancient rites, and orthodoxy has carried with it in its fall the episcopate, apostolical succession and the lawful priesthood.