The Opelousas courier., 1903-08-15
OF RELIGIOUS FtD
QUEER PRACTICES WHICH RUS.
SIAN GAR MUST TOLERATE.

aSSES mat hSISCG Priests anu prayer
-~stransest Jumbles of Piety and In
fidelity and License to Be Found
AnywI1ere-The Runners and Jump
ers-The switchers.
If the Car Of Russia really is in
earnest in issuing his edict of religious
liberty, the queerest lot Of outlandish
faiths any nation ever saw will have
full license to practice their ideas.
How outre are same Of their doctrines
may be inferred from the nicknames
applied to the deyotees-Judaites
Adamites, Mutes, Sighers, Switchers,
Runners, Jumpers, and what not. All
Of which proves the truth that it is but
a step from the strictest tyranny to the
widest license; from hidebound ortho-
doxy to blasphemous ~heteTodoxy.
For no Christian government has
been more severe in matters CT pub
lie worship than the Russian. Nomi-
nally it has tolerated all sects and
creeds-except, possibly, the Hebrew
but in reality these dissenters are
bound in their activity, hand and foot.
They r1ust not win a convert by pro-
~seIyting, and no member Of the es-
tahlished or orthodox church is per-
mitted to change his communion. But
in religious matters, repression and
persecution usually defeat their own
ends, SO the crop Of odd ~persuasions
is more rank in Russia than in any
free country.
Recently one of these sects has been
brought to the notice Of Americans
by the emigration CT many Of its men,
bers TO Canada and by their strange
performances thcre-libeTating their
live stock, hitching their women to
plows and refusing even to wear
shoes because they are made from the
skins of slaughtered animals. Yet the
practices of the Doukhobors are no
more peculiar than the customs of a
hundred other dissenting denomina-
tons in the Cars doninions.
Russia was converted 10 Christiani-
ty by force to begin with. That was
In the first VladiGir's time. He had
his subjects immersed by wholesale,
three times, one each in the name OF
the Father, of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost. Yet now there is not to be
found a cor profoundly religious peo-
pie than the Russians.
The Orthodox church has two class
es Of ~priests-black-robed religious
brothers, monks, wno are celibates,
like all the Roman Catholic clergy;
and white-robed secular priests, who
not only may, but must, be either mar
ried Or betrothed. Worship is con-
Quoted in the old Russian or SlaVonfc
tongue, as much Of a dead language
as Angio-Saxon is to Americans.
AS a reaction against these rigorous
orders Of priesthood, most Of the dis
senting sects Of Russia are priestless.
As a general rule they have neither
clergy nor ~sacraments. At their meet
ings some lay member reads the Scrip
lures and the others comment thereon
as the spirit moves them.
Since there can be no legal n%larriag-
es in Russia that are not solemnized
by priests or the Orthodox church,
there a be no legal marriages in
these priestless sects. With them
nuptfals are by mutual consent, Of by
declaration of parents in the presence
of friends. Sometimes the ceremony
consists merely of bride and groom
holding the corners Of the same hand
kerehief between them, not a word
being spoken. Of course, unions thus
contracted are just as easily severed,
and divorce may be had by mutual
consent.
Generally, these priestless seets
froWn upon permanent alliances. Hold
ing marriage to be a weakness Of the
flesh, they contend that the more
transient is love the better. These
anti-matrimonial cults run the full
ganut of extremes, from absolute cell
back to free love. their only point of
union being opposition to marriage by
priest.
Then there are the no~n-prayfng
sects, a revulsion from the rhetoric OF
the Russian pr~ayerbook. God is a spirit,
they say, and must be Worshipped in
spirit only, not in words, not even in
mental prayer. Even the singing Of
hymns they hold to be sinful. Every
thing in the Bible is allegorical, moth
ing to be taken literally, and all must
be construed in a spiritual sense. The
Virgin Mary is merely a personifica-
ftion of the Good Deed. Of whom was
born the Divine Word. They divide
the history Of the weird into four peri
DDS:
Spring-From the creation to Moses.
Summer-From Moses to Jesus.
Autumn-From Jesus to A. d. 1866,
when the corrected Orthodox ritual
was adopted.
Winter-From 1866 TO the present
time, the reign of the Holy Ghost. All
priests and religion, they say, will
cease 1000 years from the creation of
the world.
The sect of sighers is a modification
of the non-praying cult, believing that
God should be worsnlped only in
signs.
The Doukhobors offer a strange ex-
ample profoundly religious skepticism.
They deny the divinity of Christ, even
the personal existence Of God outside
Of the soul man. Believing that the
Deity lives only in the hearts of the
faithful they publicly worship Him
only by bowling to one another. The
Bible they consider as imperfect and
childish, and the only trinity they