The study explores discourse and narrative structures and strategies of the Old Believer Life «Tale of Bojarynja Morozovoj (hereafter "Life"» by an anonymous writer and «Lament for Three Martyr Women (hereafter "Lament")» by Archpriest Avvakum. Both texts are almost contemporaneous, written about the same protagonist, Old Believer Saint Feodosija Morozova, and share the same socio-cultural, religious contexts. Two comparable texts, however, are strikingly different in narrator perspectives, discourse strategies, agendas and purposes. Thus the same factual events are packaged very different. The author of Life portrays Morozova's life according to his own subjective time frame: the last 4 years of her life, namely her passion for the Old Belief are highlighted, while the rest years of her previous life are presented as sketchy and insignificant. The narrative skeleton consists of 10 episodes of Morozova's verbal confrontations against the Nikonian priests and the Tsar, which develop, culminate, and calm down as time advances: the first and final struggles are less intense, whereas the seventh and eighth are the most intense and climactic, and accompany physical struggles. The overall emotive stance of the narrator gets increasingly sympathetic with the protagonists toward the end of the narrative. The exchange of direct quotations is another locus of authorial narrative strategy showing his subjective stance. Morozova's utterances are longer, as compared with the antagonists'. The fast shifts of turns between two opposing parties speed up the narrative and increase the tension of conflicts, whereas focusing on Morozova's long quotations slows down the narrative speed. The narrator of Life appears to be distanced and detached from narrated events and characters, and yet his emotive and evaluative stance can be inferred from the narrative structure and discourse on deep level. Authorial empathy with Morozova is conveyed not through conventional, stylized authorial interventions, but through a seemingly objective biography with authorial predilection for the protagonists deeply embedded in the narrative structure. Avvakum's Lament, in contrast, is not so much a biographical narrative developing on temporal plane, as an expository discourse and the main protagonist is not only Morozova, the apparent hero, but also Avvakum himself. Thus, his selection, presentation, and foregrounding of Morozova's life stories reflect his own narrative agendas: Avvakum is more interested in 'here, now, the first person' than in 'then, there, the third person'. Avvakum's version of Morozova's life focuses on the years of her life before becoming a nun and focus on his personal relationship with her. Further, unlike Life, polemic and eulogistic (panegyrical) agendas override narrative or documentary agendas. He downplays Morozova's independence by emphasizing her auxiliary role, and by manipulating the discourse and rhetoric. Both texts are far from being canonical lives, and assert the importance of perspective, narrative mode, strategies and goal in discourse production.