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| Belief in the pagan gods of nature never quite died out even after Russians embraced the Christian God of history—creating the condition of dvoeverie or duality of belief.
The traditional pagan protector of the home was the domovoi, an elongated carved wooden statue. |
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| The new Christian protector of hearth and home, St. Paraskeva, seemed to acquire some of the appearance as well as the function of the domovoi the very pagan figure she was replacing.
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