The article deals with the «Inochentist movement» in the early 20th century in connection to the «national question» in Bessarabia. It shows the preconditions of the movement’s emergence in its pre-1917 history and explores the reactions of ecclesiastic and secular actors to the phenomenon. The threat of Moldovans’ falling away from the official Russian Orthodoxy made the authorities of eparchy and gubernia to seek a compromise. As a result, the struggle with the Inochentist movement led to the legalization of the «cultural current» in the Moldavian nationalist movement.