# The Russian Church and Russian Dissent/Chapter 11

CHAPTER XI.
Sects not Belonging to the Raskol.—Mystical and Rationalistic Sects.—Erratic Sects.—Recent Sects.—Vitality of Sectarian Spirit.—Attitude of Government towards Dissent.
There are in Russia, apart from, and independent of, the Raskol, strictly speaking, numerous other sects, harmonizing in some degree with its extreme ramifications, but drawing their inspiration from different sources, and, in most respects, separate and distinct from it. They did not originate in any rupture between ancient tradition and modern innovation, but in rejection of all Orthodox, in many instances of all Christian, doctrine or tradition.
Viewed as a whole, Russian sects exhibit singular contrasts: those which pertain to the Raskol are distinguished for scrupulous adherence to form and ceremonial, and are imbued with a rigidly conservative, reactionary spirit; while the others, making clean sweep of dogma and ritual, rush to the contrary extreme, and espouse the most advanced, novel, and revolutionary ideas.
This wide divergence is due to the character of the people, excessive in all things, in revolt as in submission, and also to the constitution of the Eastern Church. In it, as in the Church of Rome, the various elements are so combined, and are so mutually dependent, that difference of opinion on fundamental principles is inadmissible, and denial of one article of belief involves rejection of them all; minor questions of ritual and discipline only are open for discussion.
Amid the divers and contradictory characteristics of ​sects foreign to the Raskol, one feature is common to them all—disregard of form and ceremony, of tradition and authority. They proclaim contempt for the letter of the law, but pretend to cling to its essence; they boast the possession of spiritual religion, pure and undefiled. Freed from all trammels, independent of all control, exercising full liberty of opinion, they pursue their ratiocinations to their logical but, frequently, extravagant and absurd conclusions.
The original sources from which these various creeds arose cannot be accurately determined; they must be sought beyond the limits of the Russian race, both in the West and in the East, and are Oriental as well as European. Of these sects some are tinged with the forgotten Christian heresies of the first centuries, others are blindly groping in and about the theories which form the subject of modern thought and inquiry. Many, which appear to exhibit results emanating from contact with the west of Europe, are, from this possible historic affiliation, and a certain assimilation in their teachings, collectively designated by native authors as Russian Quakerism. But the term is not exact; their doctrines are too varied, too peculiar, notwithstanding some points of accord, for so comprehensive a classification. Others might, with more propriety, be called Gnostic; they present a curious mixture of realism and mysticism, of pagan and Christian ideas, and offer such strange analogies with notable heresies of the early Church that Russian writers have revived for them the ancient names, as, for instance, the "Montani," so called, probably, from the "Montanists," heretics of the third century, who, like their modern prototypes, "maintained an enthusiastic succession of prophecy."
They all proclaim the spiritual nature of their belief, ​and may be classed in two categories, according as they trust to inspiration, or as they rely upon reason and free inquiry.
The former are mystical, inoculated with Gnostic heresies, reproducing and exaggerating the eccentricities and aberrations of ancient fanaticism. The latter are rationalistic, proclaiming a reformatory, higher, more philosophic doctrine; they aim at a religion free from dogmas and ceremonies, similar to that of the more advanced denominations of Protestantism.
In the sombre and mysterious recesses of the Russian mind, in the constantly active workings of popular thought, there is a strange admixture of the fantastic and monstrous heresies of the early and middle ages fermenting with modern progressive ideas, crudely conceived and partially understood; the grossest and most materialistic impostures of the past are revived in presence of vague and indefinite aspirations for a better knowledge of the truth, as seen in the clearer light of the present day. These two groups of sects, antagonistic in the nature of their doctrines, the one appealing to the senses and the imagination, the other to reason and reflection, both claim to be striving after a purer, more elevated, and more spiritual religion.
The mystic sects all accept and depend upon prophecy; their adherents believe in constant communications with the Deity; they are instructed and led by inspiration, comforted and sustained by visions, and feel a deep conviction of supernatural guidance, which fills their souls with faith, the evidence of things not seen. The period of revelation has never been closed, or, if closed, has been reopened for them. Prophets still walk the earth; personal manifestations and incarnations of the Divinity still occur. Judæa is not the only country that has been ​blessed by the presence of the Son of God; there are Bethlehems on the banks of the Volga and of the Oka, where new Christs have been born "to bring glad tidings of good things."
"I am the God announced by the prophets, descended a second time upon earth for the salvation of mankind, and there is no other God but Me," is the first commandment of Daniel Philippovitch, the incarnate God of the Khlysti.
In no other country, among no other civilized people, would such cynical blasphemies be listened to, much less reverently accepted; and their success denotes a mental state as primitive, as credulous, and as expectant of divine revelation as was that of the Eastern world when Christ appeared.
The two most important of the mystic sects, the "Khlysti" and the "Skoptsi," or the "Flagellants" and the "Eunuchs," are generally considered to be closely connected; the latter to be, perhaps, an extension or a continuation of the former.
The "Khlysti" are so called from khlyst, a whip, in allusion to the practice common among them of selfflagellation; they take themselves the name of "Khrystovschina," or the "Community of Disciples of Christ," which, by a sarcastic play on words, is transformed into "Khlystovschina," or "Community of the Whip." The appellation they prefer is "Lioudi Bojii"—"Men of God," and they address each other as "brother" and "sister."
The origin of the sect is uncertain; it is supposed to have arisen about the middle of the seventeenth century, and to have been introduced into Russia by foreign traders. Some authorities give as its founder one Kullmann, a disciple of Jacob Boehm. This visionary came to Russia as the apostle of a new revelation; announced himself to be the Messiah, and preached the coming of ​the kingdom of the Holy Spirit. Accused and convicted of heresy, he was burned at the stake in 1689 at Moscow.
The Khlysti themselves claim to be of national, and also of divine origin; they have their traditions and a gospel, orally transmitted, for it is a principle of their creed, scrupulously observed, never to reduce their doctrines to writing. When their God appeared on earth he cast aside the Scriptures and prohibited all written testunony, in order that his disciples might never be disturbed by conflicting statements, or by disputes and differences of opinion such as distract the Orthodox and the Old Believers; by this precaution they hide the mysteries of their faith and the secrets of their worship, and give to personal inspiration its widest, freest scope, unfettered by any previously recorded revelation.
According to their traditions, the true faith was revealed during the reign of Peter the Great by the Father Almighty, who descended from heaven in clouds of fire, upon Mount Gorodine, in the government of Vladimir, and was incarnate in the person of Daniel Philippovitch, a peasant of Kostroma, and a deserter from the army, to whom his adorers gave the appellation of the God "Sabaoth."
By union with a woman a hundred years old, he begat a son named Ivan Timofeievitch Souslov, whom, before reascending into heaven, he proclaimed to be the Christ. His followers called themselves the "worshippers of the living God," and, like the Brahmins of India, who teach the constantly-recurring birth of Vishnu, they seem to have felt the need of a frequent re-apparition of the Divinity to keep alive the faith; and they have had a procession of Christs, succeeding one the other, by adoption or filiation, each reverenced as the living Saviour, the representative of the first incarnation.
​Ivan Souslov, who was a serf of the Nariskyne family, chose twelve apostles, and with them preached the twelve commandments of his father, Sabaoth. He was arrested by the police, scourged, branded, and tortured without revealing the mysteries of his creed, and was crucified near the holy gate of the Kremlin; buried on Friday, he rose again on the night of Saturday, and reappeared among his disciples. The legend, so far drawn from the Biblical narrative, was not sufficient to satisfy the cravings of his followers for miracles; and it goes on to relate that he was again seized and crucified, and his skin flayed from his body; that over the bloody and palpitating limbs a woman spread a sheet, which formed a new skin, and Christ, resuscitated again, lived many years on earth, and finally ascended into heaven to be joined with the Father.
Every relic of their incarnate deities, the villages where they were born, the dwellings they inhabited, their places of burial before ascending on high, are held in special veneration. Although the Khlysti rejected marriage as unclean, an exception was made for the families of Daniel Philippovitch and Ivan Souslov, in order that the blood of the first Redeemer might not die out from among men. Towards the close of the reign of Nicholas there lived in the hamlet of Staroë, thirty versts from Kostroma, a woman named Ouliana Vassiliev, to whom they rendered divine honors, as the last lineal descendant of Philippovitch. To put an end to the pilgrimages and manifestations of which she was the object, the government placed her in an Orthodox convent, but the house she had occupied is still venerated as a holy shrine, as "God's house," and Staroë has become their Nazareth; a well in the village furnishes the water used to make the bread for their communion, and ​is forwarded during winter in frozen blocks to their different communities.
The moral law of the twelve commandments issued by Philippovitch is rigid and austere; the use of spirits, marriage, and presence at wedding-feasts or similar festivals, incontinency, theft, and swearing, are forbidden; brotherly love, belief in the Holy Ghost, and secrecy upon matters of faith are enjoined.
It is not possible to ascribe the rapid increase of this sect to the silly legends related of its founders, or to any special influence of its moral code, which is in itself neither new nor in any wise remarkable; its success and popularity must rather be attributed to the doctrine of personal inspiration, which it persistently inculcated.
Its adherents were taught to believe in the spirit as made manifest in themselves, to trust to the promptings of their own souls, to accept the effervescence of their own imaginations as evidence of the Holy Ghost working within them; added to this was the powerful stimulant of imposed secrecy; the ignorant and credulous love the unknown, and the mysteries of the faith and worship were concealed from strangers with a jealous care, which excited wonder and curiosity. "Keep my precepts secret," says their dodecalogue; "reveal them neither to father nor mother; though thou be scourged with the knout, or burned With fire, suffer without opening thy mouth;" and the proselyte, at his initiation, swears to preserve silence upon all he may see or hear, "without impatience ​and without fear of the knout, of the stake, or of the sword."
These injunctions to secrecy, common to all the mystical sects, together with the absence of all written testimony, explain why the existence of these communities remained so long unknown, and why, when it was first suspected, so little could be ascertained regarding them; the difficulty of detection was moreover enhanced by the fact that their disciples were ostensibly members of the established Church, and conformed strictly to its rites and regulations.
As has been the case with other secret bodies, the Khlysti have been accused of immoral and licentious practices; most probably, in recent days, these accusations are not unfounded, but when reprehensible excesses exist they are an incidental, not a necessary, consequence of their teachings, and may not be adduced as the attraction to which is due the rapid extension of the sect. In meetings of mystic enthusiasts there are always appeals to sensuous excitement, and appearances are often deceitful; similar suspicions were aroused against the agapæ of the early Christians. Exuberance of language and gesture, ardent and voluptuous expressions, tender and affectionate imagery, are resorted to, often involuntarily, as a means of quickening mental perceptions, kindling the imagination, and awakening the soul to holy ecstasy; even when the bounds of decency are passed it is with ulterior purpose, and not as an end.
Many of these Russian sectaries have, like their prototypes of old, or their modern Anglo-Saxon brethren, adopted violent and continuous corporal exercise as a part of their ritual. Dancing in some form, as well as singing, is an habitual ceremony. With the Khlysti a whirling rotatory movement, similar to that of Mahom​etan dervishes, or of American Shakers, is practised. The meeting is opened with hymns and invocations to the God Sabaoth and to the Christ Ivan; after which the chief elder reads from Acts the words of the prophet Joel: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams" (Acts ii., 17). Then follows a spectacle, such as may be seen among the dervishes of the East; the hearers commence the sacred dance, at first in solemn measure, turning in slow cadence, then with, quickly increasing rapidity, until the whole congregation is revolving round in a bewildering, giddy maze; men and women, old and young, in transports of contagious frenzy, are borne away in the crazy whirl with frantic distortions and gesticulations to imitate the flutter of an angel's wings, and lost to all sense of time or place. Each follows his own fancy, according to the devotional inspiration of the moment; one, seized with convulsive trembling, stands rooted to the spot in ecstatic rapture; another, with wild cries and sobs, stamps and bounds in the air; one goes whizzing round the room in a furious waltz; another spins upon his heels like a teetotum, with arms extended and closed eyes, rapt in inward contemplation; the veteran performers are so skilled in this holy exercise and gyrate with such rapidity that they seem more like whirling phantoms than human beings; their long dresses swell out around them, their hair stands erect, they are dead to all surroundings, and spin and twist and twirl until they fall exhausted, almost insensible, breathing out broken sighs and unintelligible exclamations from their parched and panting lips. Their faintness and the perspiration pouring from their bodies they ​liken to the agony and bloody sweat of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. These religions dances are provocative of intense sensual enjoyment; they act upon the nervous system like strong liquors or narcotics, and intoxicate like opium or hashish. The Khlysti call them their spiritual beer, "doukhovnoe pivo," and frequently stimulate their effect by scourging with rods; hence the name applied to the sect.
The crisis of supreme exaltation is the moment for prophesying; half-uttered phrases, frantic ejaculations, incoherent words, are accepted as revelations from on high, transmitted through their unconscious means, and if the message is incomprehensible, it is said to be in unknown tongues, which the elder may interpret at his pleasure.
The Raskol has, since the days of Peter the Great, been confined almost exclusively to the lower orders, but of these mystical sects some have penetrated into high places. Imperial ukases and official records show that their adepts were, in the eighteenth century, found at court m princely families, among foreigners of distinction and ecclesiastics of exalted rank, as well as among native Russians and laymen. Similar occurrences took place during the reigns of Alexander I. and of Nicholas. In 1817 a secret society of mystics was detected in the imperial palace of Michael, at St. Petersburg; it was dispersed by the police, and a few years later was again surprised in a neighboring suburb. Officers of the emperor's household, functionaries of high rank, both men and women, were among its members, all solemnly pledged to secrecy and possessed of the spirit of prophecy. To arouse the prophetic inspiration they had recourse to the whirling dance and scourging of the Khlysti; brotherly love, mystic union of the sexes, spir​itual marriage, and the inward presence of the Holy Ghost were their favorite topics of discussion.
It is worthy of remark that their doctrines, although eminently hostile to the Christian religion, were received with especial favor by monks and nuns, and by the peasantry belonging to monasteries. This singular circumstance has been attributed to the antagonism existing between the lower and the upper clergy, and considered a species of protestation on the part of the inferior orders against the domineering and corruption laid to the charge of their superior brethren. Religious communities, as, for instance, the convent of the Dyevitchi, at Moscow, were infested with these heresies; in Orthodox churches their leaders, dying apparently in the odor of sanctity, were entombed in holy ground, and pilgrims worshipped at shrines polluted by their remains. To check this scandal and desecration, when it was discovered, their graves were opened and cleansed and their bodies committed to the flames.
Russian society of this period, weary of Voltairian scepticism and encyclopedic materialism, agitated by vague devotional aspirations, was awakening to the seductions of a spiritualistic faith. Philosophic theories, mystical ideas, inspired by Cagliostro, St. Germain, and Mesmer; Freemasonry, with its secret mysteries; religious Catholic influences, diffused by Joseph de Maistre and the Jesuits, were mingling and commingling, working together in mutual action and reaction. Circumstances were propitious for the reception, even in polished circles, of the dreamy, fanciful illuminism of earnest enthusiasts, although of low and vulgar origin. It was, however, but the fashion of the moment, and, speedily forgotten, fell back into the depths from which it sprang. There, by contact with the gross ignorance and sensual ​proclivities of the people, it rapidly became materialized and polluted by all the aberrations naturally resulting from unrestrained exercise of personal inspiration.
Apostles of asceticism, chastity, and self-denial were succeeded by demagogues preaching and practising selfindulgence and license. Pure spirituality could not suffice, abstract morality had no meaning, aroused no enthusiasm; sensual gratification was more alluring than mere pleasures of the imagination. Carnal appetites were appealed to, and their satisfaction encouraged, as a prelude and excitement to the ecstatic trance. Embraces, kisses, and the intercourse of the sexes became, among the mystics, as among barbarous tribes of old, a part of their religious service; the sacred names of charity and love were prostrated to ignoble use.
An offshoot of the Khlysti, known as the "Shakouni," or "Jumpers," openly professed debauchery and libertinism to excess, as an efficient means of conquering the flesh by exhaustion and satiety, and of hastening the moment of prophetic revelation.
This branch sect, which was detected at St. Petersburg during the reign of Alexander I., differs from its parent stock in the style of gymnastics adopted by its members, but also and especially in the abominable obscenities it preaches and practices as a religious duty. It is supposed to be of foreign origin, having been introduced into Russia from the Finnish provinces. Whatever may have been the intentions of its founders, it has degenerated into a secret society for the encouragement of vice and sensual indulgence.
Instead of a rotary motion, its exercise consists in leaping, springing from the ground in successive bounds, and hence the name applied to its adherents. They meet secretly at night, the leader chants the prayers, ​commencing in a low, monotonous tone, gradually increasing in rapidity and loudness, and, with the growing excitement of his hearers, he begins a slow jumping movement, modulated on his song, and becoming more and more violent as his voice rises higher and the chanting quickens; the audience, arranged in couples, engaged to each other in advance, imitate his example and join the strain; the bounds and the singing grow faster and louder as the frenzy spreads, until, at its height, the elder shouts that he hears the voices of angels; the lights are extinguished, the jumping ceases, and the scene that follows in the darkness defies description. Each one yields to his desires, born of inspiration, and therefore righteous, and to be gratified; all are brethren in Christ, all promptings of the inner spirit are holy; incest, even, is no sin. They repudiate marriage, and justify their abominations by the Biblical legends of Lot's daughters, Solomon's harem, and the like. Other of their rites are abject and disgusting; their chief is the living Christ, and their communion consists in embracing his body; ordinary disciples may kiss his hand or foot; to those of more fervent piety he offers his tongue!
These fanatics are vigorously pursued by the police, their meetings are dispersed, men are imprisoned and women confined in houses of correction, but, notwithstanding, they have spread from the capital to cities of the interior; their performances in their different communities have varied, but have been always of the same licentious nature.
At Riazan a prophetess assumed the title of "Mother of God;" chosen adepts performed the sacred dance in couples before her with blasphemous obscenities too horrible to name, while she exhorted them in the words addressed to the wise virgins whose lamps were trimmed; ​and the congregation around repeated the sign of the cross and bowed in prayer.
At Smolensk they danced naked, and the people, in derision, nicknamed them "Cupids." All mystical and religious symbolism disappeared, and their meetings are simply disgusting orgies.
To the erotic and libidinous rites of these and similar sects were sometimes joined cruel and bloody ceremonies, which are relics of ancient paganism, preserved in popular tradition. Suffering and death, as well as voluptuousness and sensuality, the mysteries of the grave like the wonderful reproduction of life, appeal strongly to the imagination of a simple, childishly ignorant, and credulous race.
Human sacrifices and a species of devout cannibalism, exalted to religious significance, are alleged against some of these crazed fanatics. It is said they baptize and slay an infant born of an unmarried woman, and commune with its heart and blood, mixed with honey, as emblematic of the blood of the Lamb; and that on Easter night, when they celebrate the worship of the Mother of God, they cut out pieces from the breast of a young girl, and share the morsels among them, while they sing and dance around her. The victim, who is persuaded by promises of glory in the life to come and honor in this world, to offer up herself a living sacrifice, is ever afterwards held as holy. Ferocious and savage practices of this nature are totally at variance with the naturally mild and kindly character of the Russian peasant; but under the influence of religious exaltation he is transformed into a wild beast, reckless of consequences; ready in the past for murder ​or for self-immolation, as his frenzy might dictate, and capable at the present day of excesses as brutal and as extraordinary.
In no other country has a moral and religious system ever been based upon deliberate and degrading mutilation of the body. It were vain to seek a parallel during the darkest days of paganism, or in the most carefully hidden mysteries of Grecian mythology. Enthusiasts, like Origen, may have sacrificed their manhood in order to secure tranquillity of mind and perfect freedom of thought, but neither the priests of heathen deities nor Christian fanatics have ever raised the act to the height of a moral obligation, or endeavored to found upon it a creed and a religion. This has been reserved for Russian zealots.
The severity of the early fathers in whatever related to the connection of the sexes sprang from abhorrence of any enjoyment which might gratify the sensual, and degrade the spiritual, nature of man. They averred that if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator he would have lived a life of virgin purity, and, by some harmless mode of vegetation. Paradise would have been peopled with a race of innocent and immortal beings; but they preached sobriety and continence, not mutilation. The "Skoptsi," or the "Eunuchs," with the inexorable logic of the Russian peasant, push their reasoning further.
Emasculation is, according to them, simply the most radical and effective form of asceticism, as it removes all incentive to indulgence, and therefore it should be practised. The surest way of attaining the holy gift of prophecy, and of being at one with God, is to free the ​soul from the influence of the senses, and, by destroying the carnal appetites, to make the mind independent of the body; this they inculcate as a solemn obligation. They teach that man should be like the angels, without sex and without desire. Their poetry and hymns are filled with allusions to this ideal excellence. They call themselves the "White Doves," "Belye Goloubi;" the "Holy Ones," the "Pure and Saintly" in a world of sinners; the "Virgins," who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth (Rev. xiv., 4).
Marriage and the relations of the sexes have in Russia given rise to the most contradictory opinions, with diametrically opposite results—unbridled license and enforced continency by mutilation.
The Skoptsi, on this question, agree with the most radical sects of the Raskol, and resemble them also in some other particulars, and in the tendencies of the doctrines they profess. Like the Feodocians and the Stranniki, they disregard consequences, and push their logical deductions, without faltering, to the end. They manifest ' the realism inherent to the Russian character, and, with it, the reverence for the letter of the law which distinguishes the Old Believer; they materialize asceticism, reducing it to a surgical operation, and giving a literal interpretation to scriptural injunctions. They lay great stress on the Saviour's commands: "If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off;" and, "if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee" (Matt. xviii., 8, 9). They base their peculiar tenet on Christ's saying: "There are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb, and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it" ​(Matt. xix., 12). They believe in the millenniuin, and rely upon the prophecies and upon the Apocalypse for their authority.
For the consummation of their self-consecrating sacrifice, the "baptism of fire," they prefer that men should wait until they have passed the age of puberty; they are then capable of judging for themselves, and the operation, being then more dangerous to health, implies greater devotion; it is rarely inflicted on children. The mutilation may be complete or partial, and is designated, accordingly, either as the "Royal Seal," "Tsarskaïa Petchat," or as the "Second pureness," "Vtoraïa Tchistota." It is not obligatory upon women, although many voluntarily submit to it; for them the usual ceremony consists in deforming, or destroying the breasts.
While they repudiate marriage in principle, they do not, in the interest of their sect, ignore it altogether. Some among them, believing that they only are the elect of God and depositaries of the true faith, deem themselves authorized by a higher law to transgress this precept, in order to provide for the transmission of their doctrines; they delay the final sacrificial rite until they have begotten children, whom they train up in their belief and in expectation of its penalty. A son of theirs, who, arriving at manhood, should rebel, and endeavor to escape his fate, becomes a renegade and a traitor against whom every hand is raised, and whose life is in jeopardy.
They are zealous propagators of their creed, in order to attain, as speedily as possible, the full number of one hundred and forty-four thousand "of them which are sealed" (Rev. viii., 4), when they expect the Messiah will come to establish his kingdom, and give the empire of the world to his saints.
This heresy, which is the most modern of all, probably ​owes its origin to influences from the East, slowly filtering through the lower ranks of the population. It made its appearance as a distinct sect at St. Petersburg about 1770, the year of the plague at Moscow. Its founder, Andreï Selivanov, died, a centenarian, in 1832; his followers worship him as the incarnation of the Son of God. Their religious belief and their practices resemble those of the Khlysti, from whom they sprang, and are either an exaggeration of the doctrines of the parent sect, or the result of an attempt at reform; an ascetic reaction against the license and sensuality into which the votaries of Souslov had fallen.
The "White Doves," like the "Men of God," base their religious system upon personal inspiration and prophecy, and rely in a similar manner upon bodily exhaustion, caused by violent exertion, to produce the holy trance. At their meetings, which they call "Radenie," "Zeal," or "Earnestness," held in the evening or at early dawn, the disciples, clad in long linen robes, girded about the loins with girdles of peculiar make, worship their Lord seated upon a throne, and listen to the revelations of those whom the Spirit moves.
Proscribed and pursued by the police, they avoid detection by maintaining their membership of the Orthodox Church, and scrupulously conforming to its ordmances.
The peculiar rite enjoined by their creed is not merely an act of asceticism; it has a symbolic sense also, and is based upon a singular interpretation, not, however, originating with them, of the fall of Adam and Eve. They aver that the carnal union of our first parents was the original sin, which must be atoned for by mutilation; they acclaimed Selivanov as the Redeemer, and his emasculation as the scriptural atonement, in which all who ​would be saved must participate. While they rejected Jesus as the Saviour of mankind, and deny the efficacy of His death upon the cross, they recognize Him and His apostles as precursors of Selivanov, and assert that mutilation was taught by them in secret. This doctrine was the hidden Eleusinian mystery of Christ's teachings; as in time it became corrupt, or was forgotten, the redemption of the world demanded a new Saviour to preach and practice the true Gospel in all its purity and might, and the Son of God became again incarnate in the person of their prophet.
This impostor appeared during the reign of Catherine II.; of his previous history and antecedents nothing positive is known; he was ignorant and illiterate, unable to read or write, and was probably a peasant who had escaped military conscription by taking refuge with the Khlysti, among whom he became prominent. An aged prophetess, Akoulina Ivanovna, who presided over one of their communities, recognized him by inspiration, and proclaimed him to be the Son of God; his followers rapidly increased, and attracted suspicion; he was arrested, knouted, and exiled to Siberia, from whence he was allowed to return by Paul I. Besides his divine character, he assumed that of temporal lord, and like the Raskolnik Pougatchev, claimed to be Peter III., who had not been put to death, as supposed, but had escaped to Irkutsk, and a soldier had suffered in his place. Selivanov declared that Peter was the incarnation of Christ, who had never died, but was immortal, and wandered over the world, variously and at various times, manifest in the flesh, without sex, consecrated by God; the fulfilment of divine grace ("ispolnen blagodati"), speaking by inspiration; the Son of God, but not God; revealed in due season by the Father to His true children, and who now ​appeared again incarnate in his own person as Christ and Tsar.
The history of Russia is full of similar impostures, which have always found ready acceptance among a people credulous and excitable, greedy for the marvellous, and ever wildly dreaming, in their degradation and misery, of a deliverer to come.
Selivanov doubtless thought to strengthen his spiritual pretensions by claiming to be the true "White Tsar," and his disciples, in their worship, addressed him as "King of Kings and Lord of Lords" (Rev. xix., 16).
According to the Skoptsi, Paul was curious to see the man who pretended to be his father, and recalled him from Siberia for that purpose, but his return was not triumphant; he was confined as a lunatic in an insane asylum, and recovered his liberty only under Alexander I., at the intercession of a Polish noble, Elinski, who, with a few others in high position, was, in secret, a convert to his creed.
For eighteen years longer, favored by the singular moral state of Russian society at that period, and protected by the influence of wealthy partisans, he lived at St. Petersburg, sedulously laboring to spread his doctrines, and worshipped by his patrons as God and Tsar. Finally, in 1820, he was confined in the monastery of Souzdal, where, imbecile from old age, he died in 1832.
The Skoptsi do not admit his death, but declare that he still lives in the depths of Siberia, whence he will come, at the appointed time, to establish the kingdom of righteousness. Some of them believe that Napoleon will marshal the angelic hosts who will surround their leader and will share his triumph. Napoleon's fame has left ​an indelible impression upon the Russian popular mind, and there are sects, obscure and little known, akin to the larger mystic bodies, still convinced that he was the true Messiah, who is to come again, and which worship before his image. His memory, and that of Peter III., who is confounded with Selivanov, are held in profound reverence by the Skoptsi, and portraits of the three replace among them the holy pictures of the Orthodox. They have other typical emblems of their faith, and chief among them are representations of King David dancing before the ark, and of the crucifixion, with the figure of a monk upon the cross instead of that of the Saviour.
Notwithstanding their precautions, the Skoptsi are betrayed by their pale, sallow complexion, their scanty beard, shrill voice, effeminate, peculiar gait, and hesitating, wavering look. They are numerous among the money-changers of the large towns; like the Jews, they have a marked predilection for pursuits that involve the handling of coin. Their probity and their financial skill are universally recognized; they possess, in a high degree, the practical spirit of the Great Russian, and the mercantile instincts of the Raskolnik; their eagerness for gain, and their success in its acquisition, are proverbial. To amass wealth is their engrossing preoccupation; severed from family ties and affections, passionless, not tempted as other men are, old before their time, they devote a life-long energy to the accumulation of property with keen, calculating, systematic perseverance. They are untiring in the propagation of their belief, and the lavish expenditure of the wealth they delight in acquiring accounts for the wide diffusion of their repulsive doctrines.
Imprisonment and exile are insufficient to repress their ​proselyting zeal; they have been forced into the army; whole regiments have been formed of their adherents, and sent to garrison frontier posts; entire communities have been transported to the Caucasus and to Siberia, or driven to seek refuge beyond the border; but they remain steadfast in their faith, and ardent in their missionary labors, patiently awaiting the reappearance of their Lord and King, and their numbers increase rather than diminish. Although no longer molested, if they refrain from active propagation of their doctrines, they are under strict police supervision; their condition is inscribed on their passports, and all who lodge or employ them must notify the authorities.
It is a remarkable anomaly that the partisans of these unnatural and revolting practices are usually, in the ordinary avocations of life, the most respectable and honest of men. They are frugal, sober, and industrious; they avoid meat and fish; use neither spirits nor tobacco; and the flesh of a white lamb, with bread made of white flour, consecrated by lying in the grave of one of their saints, serves for the communion feast, which they celebrate on the first day of Easter, their only festival. Their religious services are conducted with propriety and decorum; chaste and simple hymns are sung, of which the following, quoted by Haxthausen, is an example:
"Hold fast ye mariners! Let not the ship perish in the storm! The Holy Spirit is with us! Fear not the breakers! fear not the storm! Our Father and Christ is with us! His mother Akoulina Ivanovna is with us! He will come! He will appear! ​He will sound the great bell of the Uspenski. He will collect all the trae believers together! He will plant masts that will not fail! He will set sails that will not rend! He will give us a rudder that will steer us safely! He casts his anchor in a safe harbor! We are landed! we are landed! The Holy Spirit is with us! The Holy Spirit is among us! The Holy Spirit is in us!"
This nautical phraseology is explained by the system of their organization, arranged with the remarkable aptitude for self-government displayed by Russian schismatics, from the "Old Believers " to the "Men of God" and the "White Doves."
They form themselves into "korabl," which may signify either "ships" or "naves of a church," and their confederation recalls that of Free-Masonry with its lodges; this latter institution was introduced into Russia at about the period of Selivanov's appearance.
Each korabl comprises the disciples of a city, a town, or a district, and is under the charge of a prophet or prophetess, whose inspired revelations are its law and guide. That of St. Petersburg, ruled over by Selivanov in person, was, in their mystic language, the Royal Ship, having for its pilot and commander the living God, who directed the evolutions of the squadron of smaller vessels.
​The Skoptsi still form a close corporation with secret signs of recognition, one of which is said to be a red handkerchief spread over the knees, and which they strike with the right hand. This distinguishing mark is frequently seen in their portraits of Peter III. and of Selivanov.
The Khlysti and the Skoptsi, with their various affiliations, can scarcely be termed Christian denominations, or even heresies, properly speaking; they are parodies of Christianity, with their special saving deities, thenown dogmas and systems of morality, reproducing and exaggerating the heterogeneous teachings of the ancient Gnostic creeds.
In opposition to these mystic sects are the communities animated by advanced ideas and liberal tendencies, similar to those developed in modern tunes, among civilized nations.
In endeavoring to escape from the superstitions and trammels of ritualism, the Russian peasant has not been swayed solely by mystical symbolism, dreams, and chimeras; he has also felt the influence of intelligent reflection, and, by the exercise of his sober reasoning faculties, has evolved doctrines and beliefs of a highly philosophic and rationalistic nature.
The reformatory, Protestant aspirations of the Russian mind are exhibited in two sects of similar tendencies, connected together by the character of the creeds they profess, as also in their historic development, and each having many divisions and ramifications.
They are the "Doukhobortsi," or "Champions of the Holy Spirit," and the "Molokani," or "Milk Drinkers." ​The latter are probably so named because they refuse to keep the Lenten fasts, and partake freely of milk, and of food prepared from milk, on the days when its use is prohibited by the Orthodox Church; this designation, which is contemptuously applied to them, is also supposed to be derived from the name of the Molotchnaya, the Milky Stream, a river of the south of Russia, so called from the chalky white color of its waters, along the banks of which their first and principal communities were originally established.
The adherents of both these sects are distinguished for their utter disregard of all ritual, and of the traditionary religious festivals, fasts, and forms of which the Bussian people generally are scrupulously observant. The lines of demarkation between them are not strictly drawn, and their members pass frequently from one to the other. They call themselves "Istinie Khristiane," "True" or "Spiritual Christians," and reject all external practices and ceremonies, as being, in their nature, materialistic and idolatrous.
The Doukhobortsi reject the sacraments, the Molokani receive them only in their spiritual sense. They both appeal to reason and to conscience as against the formalism and superstitions of the Orthodox and of the Raskolnik, empty sources of endless and vain disputes. "The Rasknolnik," they say, "will die a martyr for the right to make the sign of the cross with two fingers; we do not cross ourselves at all, either with two or with three fingers; we strive to attain to a better knowledge of God."
The Molokani, like the Bezpopovtsi, recognize no priesthood, but for a different reason; not because the Church has lost its sacerdotal power, but because, in the true Church, there is no need of a clergy. What the "No ​Priest" deplores as a calamity, they acclaim as righteous doctrine. According to their belief there is no bishop, no pontiff, no master save Christ; their elders, who read and expound the Word, are appointed by themselves, as God-fearing men, whom they choose as directed by the apostle Peter, and who have no priestly character nor authority, and wear no special garb.
"God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth" (John iv., 24); this is the fundamental maxim of their creed, which they apply and follow out with the inflexible logic of the Russian peasant. All ceremonious observances during prayer, the repeated cross-signing, the "pokloni," or genuflexions and prostrations, dear to the heart of the Raskolnik and the Orthodox, they abstain from; the holy images, which all, save the most fanatic of the Bezpopovtsi, worship and revere, they deny as useless, unmeaning symbols. "God is a Spirit," they repeat, "and images are but idols. A picture is not Christ; it is but a bit of painted board. We believe in Christ, not a Christ of brass, nor of silver, nor of gold, the work of men's hands, but in Christ, the Son of God, Saviour of the world."
Their idea of a Church is according to the words of Christ: "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." They have no sacred edifices. "Solomon built himself a house, but the Almighty dwells not in temples made by the hands of men;" "the heart of man is God's only temple."
Their services are simple and plain; they meet at each other's houses to listen to the Scriptures, repeat the Lord's Prayer, and sing Psalms.
They acknowledge the sacraments only in their spirit​ual sense; while they meet and break bread together on the anniversary of the Last Supper, they do so in commemoration of the event, and attach no religious or mysterious significance to the act. "The true communion of the body and blood of Christ is," they say, "to read and meditate upon His Word; all else is vanity."
Of baptism they declare: "We understand, not the earthly water, but the spiritual cleansing of our souls from sin in faith, and the destruction of the old Adam within us, with all his works."
Of confession: "We hold by Paul; confess your sins one to another, and pray for one another; any thing further we do not allow."
Regarding prayers for the dead, they are silent.
These statements are taken from confessions of faith, drawn up, not for their own use, but for their justification with the government, and may be liable to suspicion in some particulars, but they are corroborated by what can be ascertained of their practices. The conclusion of their profession is thoroughly Protestant in its character. "Besides the Holy Sacraments, we accept the Word of God and inward faith as our guides. We do not consider ourselves as not sinful, nor as holy, but work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, in the hope of attaining it solely, and alone, through belief in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and the fulfilment of the commands of the Lord; we have no power of ourselves to effect this, but obtain it only through living faith in our Intercessor and Redeemer, Jesus Christ."
The origin of these rationalistic sects is obscure. Kullmann was burned at Moscow, in 1689, for teaching the philosophy of his master, Jacob Boehm; Procopius ​Lupkin was condemned, in 1710, for asserting that the Church had lost the true spirit of Christianity, and that he had been appointed to set it right; Dimitri Tvaritenev was convicted of spreading Calvinistic ideas, by a synod, in 1714. These various doctrines may have aided the development of new opinions, but the Molokani themselves pretend to date from the sixteenth century, when, in the reign of Ivan the Terrible, an English physician introduced among Muscovite friends the reading and study of the Bible. The seed fell on fertile soil, and from it sprang a reformation more radical in its principles than that of Luther and Calvin; a Protestantism of the most advanced type, rigid, rational, and unitarian, recognizing God as supreme, and His Word only as law, but withholding from Christ the full attributes of the Deity, and considering the Holy Ghost as simply a manifestation of Divine Grace.
These ignorant peasants, in reasoning out their faith, seem instinctively to have arrived at conclusions regarding the unity of the Godhead similar to the belief of Locke and Channing in later days.
The Doukhobortsi evince more of the Oriental spirit, and were, perhaps, somewhat influenced by the Bogomile heresies of the Middle Ages, some hints of which may have permeated into Russia with the Bulgarian colonies which settled in the neighborhood of Kiev prior to the thirteenth century, during the wars between the French empire of Constantinople, the Hungarians, and the Turks.
​The doctrines of the Molokani are more sober and practical, more positive and rational, while those of the Doukhobortsi have a strong tinge of mysticism and naturalism.
The broad principles which guide both these bodies of sectaries may be readily discerned, but the exact nature of their opinions, especially as regards the Doukhobortsi, is more difficult to comprehend. They are, for the most part, peasants, with little or no education, and in their own minds, doubtless, their belief does not assume the form of a complete or perfectly defined system of theology.
The Milk Drinkers base all religion upon the Bible. The Champions of the Spirit treat the Inspired Sook with less respect, and look beyond its teachings; they aver that Christ preferred the spoken to the written word, and that every man is a gospel unto himself; "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. iii. 6), and they consequently pay less attention to the strict construction of the Scriptures; most of the Christian traditions and dogmas they either reject entirely or understand in a symbolic sense; they also reject a priesthood, but they go beyond the Milk Drinkers in ascribing divine powers to their leader, whom they acclaim as Christ. They seem to have vaguely forestalled Hegel's method of interpreting the sacred mysteries, and do not consider the incarnation as an isolated, solitary fact in human history, but as an ever-recurring miracle in the life of every Christian; in each one Christ lives, teaches, suffers, and is resuscitated, and the consequences which they drew from this allegorical method of explanation ​inclined them to belief in metempsychosis. This doctrine of an ever-renewing presence of the Saviour was seized upon and advocated to his own advantage by Kapoustine, the most distinguished of their leaders, a man of genius, originality, and eloquence, who ruled like a prophet of old in Israel. He taught that Christ is born again in every believer, that God is in every one. When God descended into Jesus, as Christ, He chose Him because Jesus' soul was the purest and most perfect of human souls, and being favored by God above all human souls, it had, from generation to generation, animated new bodies, always retaining, by God's will, a remembrance of its former condition, and every man in whom it resided was conscious that Jesus' soul was within him. In the early days it lived in the persons of the popes and heads of the Church, who were, for this reason, universally acknowledged, but later the Church fell into error, and this divinely appointed chief was thrust aside by human passions and ambition; his place usurped, he wandered away, unrecognized by all save a chosen few, but always existing. "Thus," said he, "Sylvan Kolisnikov, whom the older among you knew, was Jesus, but now, as truly as the heaven is above me and the earth under my feet, I am the true Jesus Christ your Lord!" and his followers fell down and worshipped him.
He introduced among them the principle of community of goods, and under his firm and sagacious direction they rapidly increased in numbers and prosperity, their villages along the Molotchnaya river were named after the Christian virtues, as Terpenie (Patience), Bogdanovka (The Gift of God), Troïtchatka (The Trinity), Novospasskaya (The New Salvation), etc.; in 1833 they counted about four thousand inhabitants. A small number ​among them, called "Obstchii," or "Communists," carried their theories to extremes, and advocated conmmnity of women, as well as of property, but their views were never generally accepted.
Like the Quakers and Moravians, both the Molokani and the Doukhobortsi are strongly prejudiced against all oaths and against military service. War is utterly opposed to their ideas of charity and brotherly love. The radical nature of their religious belief influences their opinions on social and political questions, and as their inclinations are democratic, even communistic, they have been accused of preaching resistance to all authority, temporal as well as spiritual, and of giving refuge in their villages to criminals and fugitives from justice; but while this is an exaggeration, socialistic opinions have aroused among them a general expectation of the millennium. They have dreams of a regenerated world, of an "empire of Ararat," soon to come, when peace and righteousness shall prevail. Although they passively submit to the present order of things, they do not sympathize with it, and cherish obscure traditions of a Western hero, the "lion of the valley of Jehoshaphat," destined to overthrow the false emperor and restore the throne of the White Tsar. The fame of Napoleon awakened their hopes, and it is said that, in 1812, they sent a deputation to inquire of him if indeed he were the deliverer announced by the prophets.
The adherents of both these sects have, by the testimony of all who, either in official or private capacity, have known them, always been distinguished for honesty, sobriety, industry, and peaceful obedience to the law. The government has frequently interfered to prevent the extension of their doctrines, and has transported their settlements hither and thither to isolate them, ​but, wherever established, they have invariably evinced the same docile submission and useful qualities. Agriculture is their favorite pursuit; they have been active pioneers in the southern steppes, making the wilderness to blossom like the rose, creating little republics, animated by a strong theocratic spirit, realizing, as it is possible only in small communities, imbued with ardent faith and under strict moral discipline, the Utopian theories of practical socialism.
Their flourishing colonies on the Molotchnaya river fell into anarchy and disorder at the disappearance of their leader, Kapoustine, about 1814; he was accused of attempts at proselytizing, and thrown into prison.: Although he was soon afterwards liberated, nothing positive is known of his subsequent career. His son and grandson, who succeeded him in turn as the Christ, were weak and inefficient, and all authority fell into the hands of a council of elders, who were accused of frightful and revolting practices, substantiated by a government investigation in 1834. The emperor Nicholas, always intolerant of Dissent, seized upon this pretext to break up their settlements, and in 1840 ordered the transportation to the Caucasus of all, both Molokani and Doukhobortsi, who refused to join the established Church.
In their new home the Molokani, less extravagant than the others, have, by their frugality and industry, again built up thriving and prosperous villages.
Among the reformatory Protestant sects there is one with Jewish tendencies, recruited chiefly among the lower population, whose history, is obscure, whose doctrines are but little known, but which merits notice from the singular fact of its existence amid a people obsti​nately and universally hostile to the Israelitish race. Its distinguishing characteristic is their substitution of Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, for Sunday, and its adherents are accordingly designated as "Soubbotniki," or "Sabbatarians."
They do not pretend to know from whence they derive their belief, to which they are ardently attached, and, when questioned by the authorities, attempt no explanation, but, like the Raskolniks of old, take refuge in passive and obstinate resistance. "It is the creed of our fathers; leave us that, and we will submit to all else," is their reply.
Jews and Jewish sects have existed in Russia from time immemorial, and these Sabbatarians may be the successors of the Judaizing heretics of the fifteenth century, whose doctrines, at that period, penetrated among the upper clergy of Novgorod, and, for a moment, threatened the stability of the Orthodox Church; or possibly they may be descendants of Jewish families, converted long ago by force, or from selfish motives of interest, and who preserve among themselves the traditions of their ancestors. They are found chiefly in the southwest, near the Polish provinces, where Jews are numerous and Jewish influence is strong.
The denial of the Trinity, common to the reforming sects, has inclined some of them towards the Mosaic dispensation, and, in the study of the Bible, they have given preference to the Old Testament over the New. Notwithstanding the hatred and contempt felt by the common people for the Jews, this point of contact in their religious belief has inspired efforts for a reconciliation of the Jewish and the Christian creeds. Recently Nicholas Ilyne, a learned, eloquent, but visionary man, was confined in the Solovetsk monastery, on the White Sea, for ​the crime of preaching a gospel which, in suppressing alike the dogmas and rites peculiar to Church and Synagogue, should unite them both in one faith, based on belief in the Unity of God and on righteousness of life.
The servile formalism of the Raskolnik, the extravagant mysticism of the Khlysti, the gross asceticism of the Skoptsi, the reformatory radicalism of the Protestant sects, all bear witness to the seething agitation and distressing anxieties which disturb the popular mind in Russia. In its groping after the truth it is borne hither and thither, towards ritualism, mysticism, or rationalism. However numerous and diverse the old paths indicated by religious enthusiasm, they have not sufficed to content the aspirations of an eager and imaginative race, still seeking, in questions of faith, as in other great problems, the true and final solution. Sects are constantly arising and disappearing. As old creeds die out new ones are being born. In the active effervescence of a vigorous people, young in civilization, freshly emancipated from ancient servitude, mental and corporeal, still inexperienced and undisciplined, brought into sudden contact with modern progress and ideas, while yet strongly imbued with old prejudices and superstitions, imposture and fanaticism assume the language of inspiration, favored by the religious instincts of the masses, and feebly opposed by the doubting spirit of the few. Popular credulousness and individual scepticism combined produce astonishing and contradictory results.
Striking characteristics of the Russian people, who, though ignorant, are naturally intelligent and quick, are their childish simplicity, their naïve enthusiasm, their facile credulity; they are still capable of welcoming false ​Christs and false tsars; the most fabulous stories yet have credence, and the most barefaced mystifications find dupes.
In 1874, scarcely at a day's journey from the capital, in the neighborhood of Pskov, it was currently reported, and actually believed, that the government had the intention of sending five thousand young girls to the Black Sea for distribution among the Arabs, and of bringing back as many swarthy maidens to fill their places. Marriage became an epidemic throughout the district, and every youth or damsel, of suitable years, was quickly provided with a mate to escape either deportation or a copper-colored wife. An inquiry established the fact that the tale originated with an innkeeper named Iakovlev, as. an ingenious method of increasing his custom, inasmuch as, at a marriage ceremony, the tavern is as well patronized as the church.
If the fable have its religious side, it is the more readily believed. In the same vicinity a sect was discovered, in 1872, composed almost entirely of women, the creation of a runaway monk named Seraphim. Its proselytes were called the "Strijenisti," or the "Shorn," as at their initiation their hair was cropped, and the sale of their tresses was a source of income to its founder. His peculiar doctrine, which was the special allurement, taught that sin must precede, and is an indispensable preliminary to atonement; as their chief, he provided his disciples with the means of grace.
Similar instances abound, and explain the severity of the Russian code against false prophets and religious impostors.
Besides rogues and charlatans, there are many who sincerely believe in their mission, who have a devotional craze, which imposes upon a people whose emotions are easily aroused, and who share the belief, common ​throughout the East, that the insane are peculiarly blessed of God, and possess his Holy Spirit. Prophecy is the general characteristic of sects founded by these enthusiasts or demoniacs. The revelations are of diverse nature, enunciated in diverse ways. They pronounce the actual fulfilment of scriptural promises and threats, or, predicting the future, they deal with the mysteries of heaven and hell, and proclaim the approaching end of the world and the coming of Christ. Vague, incoherent, fluent declamations, clothed in ambiguous, but terse and Biblical, language, are devoutly received as inspired utterances, and are personally applied by credulous and imaginative listeners.
Women are especially endowed with the gifts of preaching and prophesying. The Russian peasant looks upon them as inferior beings in the usual avocations of life, but concedes to their feebler practical intelligence greater powers of comprehension of divine influences, and greater susceptibility to them. He considers religion as essentially a domestic matter, and, as such, especially within the domain of the weaker sex. These female leaders often bear the title of "Bogoroditsa"—"Holy Virgin," or "Mother of God," which is taken in a mystical sense, or sometimes literally, by those who are awaiting a new Messiah. These "Virgins," or "Mothers," are usually accompanied by a "Christ," but often exercise an authority equal to or superior to his. Souslov, among the Khlysti, and Selivanov, among the Skoptsi, each had a "Holy Mother," and their successors, likewise. Akoulina Ivanovna, the first Bogoroditsa of the Skoptsi, is still invoked and worshipped with divine honors; their traditions declare her to have been the Empress Elizabeth, and, in defiance of history, the mother of Peter III., whom they confound with Selivanov.
​Youth, beauty, or even virtue are secondary considerations; Akoulina was very aged when she proclaimed Selivanov, and of her successors many have been of mature years and of dubious reputations, owing their elevation to talent for intrigue, or gift of prophecy, or a fluent tongue.
The predominance of female influence in matters of religion cannot be attributed to indifference on the part of the men, nor is it peculiar either to Russia or to Russian sects. In England and America the Shakers and similar denominations have had at their head a "mother" or a "bride," the "Lamb's wife" (Rev. xxi., 9); and the practice seems a natural consequence of the more emotional, excitable temperament of the "pious" sex.
The ever-changing manifestations of the spirit of unrest pervading the Russian people present a dreary spectacle, as monotonous in its general character as it is diversified in its special aspects. They are as evanescent as clouds flitting over a landscape; scarcely more persistent or more definite. Every important crisis, every national event, evokes a corresponding spiritual movement to satisfy the aspirations or emotions of the moment.
It was natural to suppose that the abolition of serfdom, by removing the heaviest grievance bearing upon the people, would have been a fatal blow to sectarian protestations against existing evils, but, after a short lull of expectation, they were, on the contrary, aroused by it to new life and productive energy. The discontent of the peasantry at the conditions affixed to the purchase of land found vent in demonstrations taking religious form, and based on religious and Biblical grounds.
At Perm, in 1866, Pouschkine, a small burgher of unsound mind, became notorious by proclaiming that the ​"earth is the Lord's, and all that therein is" (Deut. x., 14); and that "the seed of the righteous shall inherit the earth" (Psa. xxv., 13). He thereupon founded a sect and preached the doctrine that enfranchised serfs were entitled to the land by right, without payment and without rent. Elsewhere equal distribution of land was advocated as ordained by Scripture, and peasants refused to pay taxes, on the plea of revelations from St. John and St. Varvara in the seventh heaven; that the promised days had come when "God should wipe away all tears from their eyes," and the "former things bad passed away" (Rev. xxi., 4).
Similar misconception of the emancipation led to opposition all over the empire to the new regulations regarding the tenure of land, and the peasant evinced a comprehension of his material interests as keen as it was unfounded, and as strong as was his reverence for divine injunctions.
Movements of this nature, however, which invariably assume a religious guise, need only police interference for their suppression, but they are, in their form of manifestation, indicative of the inveterate habit of the Russian peasant to connect every event with religion.
The sects that have come to light within the last few years are generally radical in both their political and moral aspect.
They may be generically classed under the two heads already specified, as either mystical or rationalistic, and whereas formerly the first named were the more prolific and prosperous, at present the latter are the more numerous and important. The recent manifestations are comparatively petty and obscure, limited in their extent ​and influence. A few illustrations will suffice to indicate their nature, which exhibits the singularly contradictory tendencies still existing among the people, ranging from gross materialism, combined with fanciful mysticism, to exalted spirituality and rationalism.
In 1866 the "Tchislenniki," the "Counters," or "Enumerators," proclaimed, in the government of Saratov, a new revelation contained in a book brought down from heaven by angels. Their leader was an illiterate peasant who preached a new gospel to the effect that God's people must be "counted" and set apart, that the order of time had been disturbed, holy festivals and fast days were wrongly calculated, and hours which should be sacred to the Lord were profaned by secular work. They kept Wednesday as the day of rest, instead of Sunday, and celebrated Easter on Ash-Wednesday. They rejected the priesthood, and held that every believer may administer the sacraments; they declared the established Church to be an institution of Satan's devising, ridiculed its ceremonies, and cursed it with all belonging to it. Their doctrines are said to resemble those of the renegade monk Seraphim, and teach that sin is the only way to salvation, the necessary prelude to pardon. In practice they seem to unite the ritualism of the Old Believers with the radicalism of the Milk Drinkers, and the license of the Jumpers.
In the government of Tambov a small burgher, named Panov, gave himself out as Christ, and collected a band of followers who claimed to be the only pure and righteous ones, and held themselves carefully aloof from a world of sinners doomed to hell-fire.
At Troïtsa and Zlotooust, the "Pliasouni," or "Dancers," appeared in 1870; ostensibly belonging to the Church, but following the lead of a male and a female ​prophet who preached doctrines similar to those of the Khlysti.
In 1872, at Belevski, an army officer proclaimed a creed based upon that of the Skoptsi.
Among the sects of the other category, which are both spiritualistic and rationalistic, there is greater variety of opinions; they range from the most abstract mysticism to negation of all religion.
The "Nyemolyaki," or "Prayerless People," content themselves with inward meditation, without any outward expression or ceremony. The "Bezslovestnie," or the "Dumb," abstain from speech altogether. The "Moltchalniki," or the "Taciturn," push their extravagance to denial of all religious belief; they reject the Bible and all traditions; recognize no priesthood nor Church; have no forms, ritual, nor prayer; disbelieve in a future life and in God, and carry their principle of negation to extremes. Every man is a revelation and an authority to himself, which suffice for the present day.
Another sect worship the portrait of the "Beatified" Redeemer, and give themselves up to the holy ecstasy which its fixed contemplation arouses. The object of their adoration is a picture in the Troïtsa monastery, of which the legend is that a very pious Byzantine emperor felt the greatest longing to behold the face of the Saviour, and wearied Heaven with his prayers, which at last were answered. In a dream Christ appeared to him in the glory of His Transfiguration; before vanishing from his sight He pressed to His face a cloth lying upon the emperor's bed, and in the morning, when the emperor awoke, he found upon the cloth the likeness which he had beheld in his vision.
It is the counterpart of the legend of the Western ​Churchy and of St. Veronica's napkin, upon which was leprodaced the features of the "Suffering" Redeemer.
The sect of the "Vozdoukhantsi," or the "Sighing Ones," was discovered about 1871, among the petty merchants and traders of the city of Kalouga. Their founder was Ivan Tirkhanov, a shoemaker, who preached the abrogation of all Church ceremonies and the ritual; he declared the sacraments to be vain and useless in themselves, and that they should be taken only in a figurative spiritual sense. Man needs no intermediary between himself and his Maker; real religion consists in mute adoration, in mental communion. Prayer uttered by the lips, the spoken word, is too gross and too material for the worship of God, who is a Spirit; in the heart alone should mortals draw near their Creator: the sighings of a contrite heart, the aspirations of a devout soul only are acceptable in His sight, and these sectaries, with the simple-minded, credulous realism of the Russian, appeal to the Deity, and adore Him by silent, long-drawn breathings and heavy sighs.
The "Stundists" appeared first in the neighborhood of Odessa, where there are many German Lutheran communities, and are probably the earliest, perhaps the only, sect of a distinctively foreign origin, and having direct affiliation with Western Protestantism; their name, as well as their doctrine, is German.
Among the Teutonic colonists were sectaries, under the leadership of Michael Katuzhny, who called themselves the "Friends of God" ("Gottesfreunde"), and who met together for the reading of the Bible during their leisure hours ("Stunden"), whence their appellation of "Stundists." They endeavored to spread their doc​trines and practices among Christians of all denominations, and, about 1870, their disciples were found in Little Russia. The dissemination of their teachings in this portion of the empire is remarkable, from the fact that Little-Russians have generally evinced but slight interest in religious movements without the pale of the Church, and feel no sympathy for the foreign population in their midst. From Odessa and the government of Kherson the Stundists spread into the adjoining provinces of Ekaterinoslav and Kiev. Their religion appears to be a Protestantism of a very decided type, and in the few church ceremonies which they retain, such as a second baptism for adults, they resemble the Anabaptists and Mennonites of Germany. They reject external observances, fasts, images, the invocation of the saints, and all the rites of Orthodox worship as simply useless and unnecessary; they seem to be animated more by a spirit of calculation and of economy, of indifference to outward form, rather than by religious scruples or any deep-seated repugnance to church ceremonies; they appear to regard them as unprofitable and a needless waste of time, rather than as being in themselves impious or idolatrous.
In private life they are distinguished for sobriety, frugality, and industry; they evince remarkable intelligence in the management of their affairs, are obedient to the laws, and exact in the payment of taxes and imposts, but, in spite of official pressure, they refuse to have recourse to the clergy, whom they consider to be a costly and useless parasitical excrescence. They advocate the equal repartition of the land, are inclined to socialistic opinions, and form a community of brothers and sisters, all enjoying equal rights.
The policy of the government towards them has been similar to that adopted with the Molokani, and has pro​duced similar results. Instead of preventing the spread of their doctrines it has had rather the contrary effect, as, by breaking up their settlements and distributing them through the Caucasus and Siberia, it has sent forth, in the persons of the exiles, an army of zealous missionaries.
The sects of which mention has been made are but a few of the many recently brought to light. The vitality and persistent energy of the sectarian spirit are remarkable, inasmuch as most of the causes provoking its manifestation either exist no longer, or are rapidly disappearing. Effects, however, are often perceived after the first impulse has ceased to act. Sect begets sect, as the plant is reproduced by its yearly seed. It is hopeless to expect to stifle the spiritual aspirations of a vigorous, quick-witted, eager race, and to arrive at the dead level of unity of faith and obedience to one Church, which the emperor Nicholas conceived to be the consummation most devoutly to be wished; nor is such an achievement desirable; but to check the extravagances resulting from superstition and ignorance, to direct the restless spirit of the people to proper channels and towards a legitimate end, demands wide diffusion of education and knowledge, for "ignorance is the mother of devotion;" moreover the gap still yawning between the extremes of Russian society must be bridged over by liberal measures, in accordance with the spirit and requirements of the age. It is a work of time and patience, for the Russian people are tenacious and slow to change. The century and a half, since the days of Peter the Great, have not sufficed to cement the nation together as a homogeneous whole, and less than a generation has elapsed since the abolition of serfdom inaugurated the present era of reform.
In further explanation of the present mental state of ​the Russian people, and for better comprehension of the continued eccentric, fantastic manifestations of a religious character, it may be observed that while the ultimate results of the thorough transformation of national life, still progressing, will be to calm and pacify the agitation which it excites, for the time being it tends to encourage and stimulate aspirations for new things, and these aspirations, in accordance with the character of the race, invariably assume religious guise and expression. Although socialistic ideas, and tendencies of an economic and practical nature, are engrafted upon the doctrinal teachings of many of the new sects, there is among the people a deep-seated, devotional craving which the formalism of the Raskol, and the rigidity of the State Church with its official clergy, fail to satisfy, which inevitably finds relief in new creeds and more spiritual religions, and to which education only can give intelligent direction.
The attitude of the State towards the Raskol and the various independent sects has varied according to the necessities of the times and the circumstances of the moment.
The tsar Alexis and his son, Feodor, persecuted dissenters as heretics and enemies of religion. Peter the Great pursued them as perturbators of the public peace and opponents of imperial reform, or he tolerated them as industrious, tax-paying subjects, sources of income for his impoverished exchequer. Catherine II. and her successors have treated them alternately with kindness or with severity, endeavoring at one time to allure them back into the Church, and at another solicitous only to bring them into submission to civil authority.
During this latter period, that is, since Catherine's accession to the throne, the policy of the government ​towards them has been fickle and changeable. They have been in turn persecuted and tolerated, threatened and encouraged, according to the whim of the sovereign or the prevailing influences of the moment. This shifting, fluctuating legislation, and the contradictory nature of the measures adopted are attributable to the general ignorance which existed regarding the different schismatic movements—ignorance the more gross, from the indifference and contempt felt for any popular manifestation of opinion, and which led to the careless and erroneous comprehension of all the various bodies, with their heterogeneous doctrines, under one head, the Raskol.
As a consequence of this grave misapprehension the same remedies were indiscriminately applied to them alL Orderly Old Believers, with a regular hierarchy, anarchical No Priests, with none, Flagellants and Champions of the Spirit, reactionary conservatives and revolutionary radicals—all confounded together with reckless disregard of reason or propriety—were treated alike.
As public opinion became by degrees more enlightened, and the apparition of eccentric and immoral sects rendered it necessary to make distinctions, insufficient classification again led to further confusion and error.
All Dissenters were included in two categories, "pernicious" sects and sects "less pernicious," as if the only difference between them consisted in the degree of evil.
The "pernicious," or dangerous sects, so called, comprised all whose doctrines appeared to threaten public or social order, to set at naught the moral law, or endanger the unity of the Orthodox Church. The peaceful Molokani and ignorant Sabbatarians figured in the official lists with the rebellious Stranniki, the fanatical Khlysti and Skoptsi.
In dealing with them the government seemed actuated ​at different times by various motives, now acting simply in defence of political and social interests, and, again, solicitous for the welfare of the Church and the advancement of religion. It had no fixed, permanent policy, and adopted no clear or well-defined system of legislation. Authoritative enactments, dictated by the presumed necessities of the moment, or by the caprice of the sovereign, followed one upon another, the last abrogating or modifying the preceding. Such laws as did exist were arbitrarily applied, altered by special instructions, and tampered with by venal officials.
The emperor Nicholas, for the first time, ordered a special investigation of the subject, and was amazed at the extent and influence of the movement, which, with his accustomed energy and decision, he attempted to regulate with a view to its entire suppression. A secret commission was charged with the affairs appertaining to the Raskol, and administered them under ordinances framed by itself, but never publicly promulgated. Dissenters of every creed and denomination, subjected to regulations of which they were frequently left in ignorance until enforced, became a defenceless prey to the cupidity of government employees and to the rancorous hostility of the lower clergy. Such of them as belonged to the peasant class were inhibited from holding positions of trust in the rural districts; those who were traders or merchants were excluded from mercantile guilds, and deprived of the privileges of their order. A Raskolnik could not testify in courts of justice against an Orthodox; he was not allowed to change his residence without permission, and was forbidden to leave the empire; the erection of new churches and the repairing of the old ones were prohibited.
To these severe and legally authorized restrictions was ​added the more grievons persecution of almost irresponsible government agents, the "tchinovniks," against which the only protection and means of redress was bribery.
This melancholy state of things could not fail to attract attention when Alexander II. commenced the era of reform which dates from his reign. Imperial commissions of able and distinguished men were appointed by him for the serious and impartial examination of the question of Dissent, and their efforts were encouraged by the assurance of his personal interest and co-operation. Their work is still in progress, but provisional enactments, applied with comparative justice by a more honest administration, have already greatly alleviated the condition of the Raskolniks.
A circular, issued in 1858, firmly established the principle of toleration by allowing to all Raskolniks, born such, the exercise of their religious faith; it is probable that this privilege will be eventually extended, and that similar provision will be made to guarantee their civil rights, which now exist by sufferance only. The measures contemplated will, it is believed, leave them free to change their residence at will, to travel abroad, to enter mercantile guilds, to create schools for their children, and, what is especially gratifying to Russian pride, to accept and wear decorations or honorary distinctions. The marriage difficulty has been already solved by the edict of 1874.
The old classification of the sects is still preserved in theory, but while such as are reputed dangerous will probably be kept under rigid supervision, active persecution has ceased; their meetings in private may be tolerated, so long as they do nothing to violate public decency or to offend against the requirements of social life. ​Other sects, "less pernicious," and especially the Old Believers, will, it is believed, be permitted to meet together at their houses, chapels, and cemeteries for prayer and religious service; the seals closing their sacred edifices will be removed and necessary repairs allowed; only the public celebration of their worship and the erection of new churches will remain prohibited. The Raskolnik priests and readers, even their bishops, consecrated by the pontiff at Belo-Krinitsa, will be exempted from pursuit, and, as a matter of fact, they already freely exercise their pastoral and clerical duties. They must, however, and the rule applies to all religious denominations in Russia, whether foreign or domestic, refrain from making proselytes among members of the Orthodox communion. This is not only a sin against the Church, but is a crime against the law.
* ↑ The commandment forbidding theft, a very common weakness of the Russian peasant, is conveyed in figurative and singularly impressive language: "Thou shalt not steal: whoever shall have stolen even a kopeck shall bear it upon his head at the judgment day, and his sin shall not be forgiven him until the kopeck shall be melted in the flames of hell." A kopeck is a large copper coin, of less value than a cent.
* ↑ Archbishop Philaret, "History of the Russian Church."
* ↑ Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 258.
* ↑ Gibbon, vol. ii., p. 323.
* ↑ Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 249.
* ↑ W. H. Dixon, "Free Russia," p. 140.
* ↑ The "Uspenski Sabor," or Great Cathedral of the Assumption, at Moscow. Uspenie, the Assumption.
* ↑ Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 249.
* ↑ Free-Masonry, founded in Russia by Schwartz and Novikov, was widely extended, and had considerable influence during the reigns of Catherine II., Paul I., and Alexander I. All secret societies, and Free-Masonry with them, were abolished by Nicholas in consequence of their connection with the insurrectionary movement of 1825.
* ↑ Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 251.
* ↑ From doukh, spirit, and borets, a wrestler or champion.
* ↑ From moloko, milk.
* ↑ Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 288.
* ↑ Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 284.
* ↑ The Bogomiles were followers of a Bulgarian doctor named Basil, who rejected the Old Testament and most of the New; denied the resurrection of Christ and the mysteries of the Catholic faith, the sacraments, the necessity of a Church or a priesthood, prohibited marriage, and preached community of goods and of women, and utter reliance on the infinite mercy of God. The name of the sect is derived from the Slavonic words "Bogh" ("God") and "Milotti" ("have pity upon me"). Basil was condemned by a council at Constantinople, in 1118, and burned at the stake.
* ↑ Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 289.
* ↑ Haxthausen, vol. i., p. 291.
* ↑ Dixon, "Free Russia," p. 134.
* ↑ Dixon, "Free Russia," p. 180.
* ↑ Haxthausen, vol. i., pp. 77 and 255.