The BKH
The BKH understand that it is a sin to cut the beard. That when ever you trim or shave your beard you must confess this sin. If you trim or shave then you are becoming like the world and Christians don’t imitate the world. I saw a sermon from a priest in Russia that started out like this: “Salvation is not hard. All you have to do is be good, go to church, and don’t shave your beard.” Some churches do not let you kiss or venerate the icons or Cross. To receive communion you must grow out your beard.
The Priestless
The Priestless sects go a little further and say that it is not just a grave sin, but it is also a heresy. And if you trim and shave your beard, you stand a good chance of losing your salvation. In fact, any man who trims or shaves cannot pray with the faithful. It is considered shameful to do such a thing. One of the sayings are, you were created in the image and the likeness of God and if you trim or shave, you remove the image of God in yourself. So wearing the beard is non negotiable. You must have it. If you don’t, you remove the image of God in yourself. One very ugly and disrespectful saying from this sect is, “Look the clean faces are receiving communion and being saved. I guess our dogs and cats can have communion also and be saved.” An interesting trend that I see developing with the priestless is that many men have started to color their hair and beard to get the grey hair out. Old wise men who have the hair color of young strong men.
ROCOR
ROCOR believes that it is neither sinful nor heretical. It is not a sin to trim or shave your beard. It is a sin however, to try and make yourself beautiful so that women look at you and sin. God created some fine specimens of men that even woman struggle with. Do you remember the story of Joseph when he was a slave in Egypt and belonged to Potiphar his master. Joseph was handsome in form and appearance and his masters wife looked at him with longing eyes. Joseph did not succumb to the temptation of abusing his beauty. But this beauty gets to men's heads. They do not glorify God, but themselves because they are very good looking. To this even the apostle Paul commented, “Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him? But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering.” The women covered their own glory, their beautiful hair, so that all glory went to God, but the men of Corinth began to parade themselves, braid and dress their long beautiful hair in front of everyone. This caused chaos and disorder in the church and the apostle Paul was very against this. This was sinful and is a sin, but the regular act of trimming and shaving is not.
We also, do not believe it is a heresy. A heresy or heretic is someone who holds beliefs that differ from the established Orthodox Christian dogma. Just because you trim or shave does not mean that you deny Christ, or changed the teachings of the church, or that you have some how changed the Nicene Creed, or altered the image of God in yourself and so on. Lets think about it. If I trim or shave do I deny the resurrection, or do I deny that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, or do I deny the Trinity, or do I change the teachings of the church? Of course not. It would be silly to make that connection.
Instead of worrying whether or not trimming and shaving is wrong and dams you to hell, let us instead strive to learn virtue and through virtue, attract grace, which will restore that which was lost, the image and likeness of God in us. When we work on restoring this union through faith in Christ, our deeds become God pleasing again and it is like a wonderful aroma which flows up to Gods throne.
What I mean by that is this. Christ did not overeat. Overeating leads to gluttony and that is a sin. I don’t want to sin so I am going to imitate Christ and eat moderately. I have learned this virtue from my master Christ. Christ did drink but was never drunk. I want to imitate my master and learn from Him. For this reason, I will now strive with my whole heart not to drink because I want to become like Him. I have learned this virtue from my master Christ. Now I want to have a stronger faith so I can struggle against sin and attain victory against it. I will read what Christ did and learn from Him. He fasted and prayed to give us an example of what we can do to increase and become stronger in faith. I will imitate Him as best as I can, according to the measure of His grace in me. We learn virtue by Christ. We attract grace through Christ. We begin bringing forth God pleasing deeds in Christ. In other words, through the intercession of the Holy Spirit and by the mediation of Christ, the Father receives a sacrifice which is a wonderful aroma. In this Spirit, Christ will lead you to Himself and form an inseparable union with you, right in your heart. Do you now see how Christ is becoming your Teacher, Master, Mediator, Healer, Shield, Conqueror and most important of all, your Saviour.
Some say that Christ wore a beard, therefore, you should wear a beard. They are correct that Christ wore a beard and they are correct that we should to imitate Him. It is good to learn from Christ and imitate Him in all aspects of His life, not just wearing a beard. Through it, we acquire the Spirit of Christ and begin to resemble Him. But the spirit some use is a spirit of fear. You are punished and looked down upon if you do not wear the beard. In this way, you only wear it so that you wouldn’t be punished or shamed and the spiritual advantage of imitating Christ has withered away. Through this means, wearing the beard loses its virtuous benefit. The Old-Rite have written many books in Russian and some in English about the importance of the beard and how it has taken on the form of an identification symbol for the community. For many the standard is, if they have a beard, they have faith. Every book describing Old Believers has a couple chapters dedicated to the beard. If you want to learn more about the beard you can read as many books as you are able to about the importance of facial hair. My main objective in these two, three paragraphs was to point out that the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia does not consider it a sin or a heresy. You do not have less faith if you trim or shave, but in all things strive to acquire virtue and imitate Christ! Glory to Thee O God, Glory to Thee for all things!