Frederick C. Conybeare. Russian Dissenters. 1921

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45
H 3 4- HARVARD THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
X
RUSSIAN DISSENTERS
BY
FREDERICK C. CONYBEARE
HONORARY FILI.OW
UNIVERSITY Col , ,iKll
CAMBRIDGE
HARVARD UMVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: ilUMPHKEV M1LFORD
Oxvou> University Puss
HARVARD THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
HARVARD
THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
EDITED FOR THE
FACULTY OF DIVINITY
IN
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
BY
GEORGE F. MOORE, JAMES H. ROPES

KIRSOPP LAKE
CAMBRIDGE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: HUMPHREY MH.FORD
Oxjord University Press
1921
HARVARD THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
X
RUSSIAN DISSENTERS
BY
FREDERICK C. CONYBEARE
HONORARY FELLOW
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD
CAMBRIDGE
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OxrotD University Press
1021
COPYRIGHT, 19a I
t *\ f *
--- > \
PREFACE
This work was begun in 1914 and completed nearly as it stands

early in 1917, about the time when the Russian Revolution
began. It is too early yet to trace the fortunes of the Russian
sects during this latest period, for the contradictory news of
the struggle is not to be trusted; and few, if any, know what
is really happening or has happened in unhappy Russia.
Since, however, the future is largely moulded by the past,
I trust that my work may be of some use to those who sincerely
desire to understand and trace out the springs of the Revolu
tion.
It is not a work of original research. I have only read a
number of Russian authorities and freely exploited them. I
have especially used the History of the Russian Raskol by
Ivanovski (two volumes, Kazan, 1895 and 1897). He was
professor of the subject in the Kazan Seminary between 1880
and 1895. He tries to be fair, and in the main succeeds in
being so. Subbotin, indeed, in a letter to Pobedonostzev,
Procurator of the Holy Synod, who had consulted him about
the best manuals on the subject, wrote slightingly of the work;
but I think unfairly, for the only concrete faults he finds with
it are, first, that the author allowed himself to use the phrase;
'the historical Christ,' which had to his ears a rationalist ring;
and secondly, that he devoted too little space to the Moscow
Synods of 1654 to 1667.
Another Russian work I have transferred almost bodily
to my pages. This is the extremely rare brochure of I. Uzov
or Yusov, Russkie Dissidenty, St. Petersburg, 1881. This
is a work of impartial and independent criticism, and valu
able for its numerous and well chosen citations from earlier
works on the subject. In many cases where I have identified
these citations I have found them accurate.
After these two authors, I am most indebted to the works
of J. V. Liprandi, of H. I. Kostomarov, of Meliukov, of Maca-
rius, archbishop of Moscow, author of a History of the Raskol,
390532
PREFACE
published in 1889, of Kelsiev, of whose collectanea about the
sects several volumes were printed in London between 1860
and 1870, of Th. Livanov, of our own William Palmer, the
Historian of the Patriarch Nikon, of Paul Miliukov, of Father
Palmieri, author of an Italian History of the Russian Church,
of O. Novitski, and of a few other authors whose names I
have given in my pages.
It remains for me to express my gratitude to those who have
helped me in my work; first and foremost to the Harvard
Faculty of Divinity for their adoption of it; to the Librarian
of the Widener Library for the generous way he granted me
every facility for study; to Dr. R. P. Blake for reading the final
proof-sheets, and giving my readers the benefit of his great
knowledge of the Russian language; and to Professors George
Foot Moore and Kirsopp Lake for reading my work in advance.
If there is any good order in my presentation of the subject,
it is chiefly due to the latter of my two friends.
F. C. CONYBEARE.
Oxford, 1921.
LIST OF RUSSIAN PERIODICALS CITED
BaOjiioTeKa p,jin ^TeHia ; C. IleTep- Library for reading; St. Petersburg.

Oyprb.
Epa-rcKoe Cjiobo The Brotherly Word.
BpeMH Time.
BicTimK-b Eriponu; C. IleTepOyppb Messenger of Europe; St. Petersburg.
BicTHHKT> MocKOBCKoit 3napxiH Messenger of the See of Moscow.
To-iocb CTapooOpHûa The Voice of the Old believer.
/l,pyi*b HCTHHM The Friend of Truth.
^yinenojie3Hoe 'iTeHie Edifying Reading.
The Affair.
JKypHajrb KaBKa3CKoft Snapxia Journal of the Caucasian See.
3Hanie Knowledge.
H3B4cTia HMnepaTopcKaro OCmecTBa The Proceedings of the Imperial Society
Hcropia h ^.peBHOcreft npn Moc- of History and Antiquities at the
KOBCKOMt YHHBepCHTeT*B University of Moscow.
Ht'6opUHKT> The Elect One.
HcTHHa Truth.
MucciouepcKoe OoVop-BHie Missionary Review.
HeBCKift Cfiopimicb Neva Collection.
Ofcop-b Review.
IlepMCKan 3napxiajn>Haa TaseTa Gazette of the Perus See.
IlpaBoojiaHHhiH Bbcbabi Orthodox Conversations.
UpaBOCjaBHoe 0do3piHie Orthodox Review.
IlpaBOCJiaBHblft C()6<H-EAllHK'b Orthodox Conversationalist.
IlpaBoi-jiaBH wft j (jnvTnHK*b Orthodox Traveller.
npiuioxceuie Kb JKypnajiy KajryatcKoft Supplement to the Journal of the See
3napxiH of Kaluga.
PyccKift ApxHBi> Russian Archive.
PyccKia BicTH Russian News.
PyccKift Mipb Russian World.
PyccKaa Orapnha Russian Antiquity.
CiHOBO The Word.
GaoBO npaBAU The Word of Truth.
CoBpeMeHHbifl JlironhcH Contemporary Chronicles.
OrapoofipHaetrb The Old-believer.
Orapoo<5paaiecKift Bibcthhk,i> The Old-believer Messenger.
OrpaHa The Country.
OrpaHHBin. The Wanderer.
Tpyan KieBCKoft /tyxoBHoft Works of the Kiev Ecclesiastical
AKaêMiH Academy.
XpHCTiaHCKia ^TeHia Christian Readings.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface v
List of Russian Periodicals Cited vii
Introduction 1
PART I
THE OLD BELIEVERS OF GREAT RUSSIA
Chapter I. The Conditions leading to the Schism .... 13

Introduction. The Struggle against Centralization. Russia and
Tartar Influence. Russian Ritualism and Liturgical Controversy.
Nikon. Nikon's Reforms. The Council of Stoglav. The position
of affairs in 1655. The Fall of Nikon. From the Fall of Nikon to
1666. The Council of 1666.
Appendix to Chapter I 69
P. Aurelio Palmieri's Account of the Russian Clergy.
Chapter II. The Early Days of the Schism 79

The Rebellion at the Soloveteki Monastery. The Revolt of 1682.
The Ukaze of 1685 and its Results. Tsardom and Antichrist.
Chapter III. The Dispersion 101

The Settlements of the Popovtsy. The Search for Priests. Epipha-
nius, the First Raskol Bishop. The Uniat Movement. The Conces
sions of Paul I. The Persecution of the Raskol by Nicholas I. The
Austrian Hierarchy. The General Character of the Popovtsy.
Chapter IV. The Bezpopovtsy or Priestless Sect .... 151

The Various Settlements of the Bezpopovtsy. The Stranniki. The
Netovtsi and the Self-Baptizers. The Prayerless and the Sighers.
The Intellectual Development of the Bezpopovtsy. Opinion on
Priesthood and Sacraments.
Chapter V. The Question of Marriage 189

Marriage among the Stranniki. Varieties of Opinion among the
Bezpoptovtsy. Theodosius Vasilev. Ivan Alexiev. I. A. Kovylin.
The Present Situation.
x CONTENTS
PAGE
Chapter VI. The Organization, Legal Position, and Numbers
of the Raskol 215
Introduction. The Communes of the Vyg. The Communes of
Sopelok. General Organization. Legal Position of the Raskol.
Before Peter I. Peter I. Peter III to Alexander I. Nicholas I and
his Successors, to 1903. The Reforms of 1903. The Number of the
Raskol. Controversial Propaganda against the Raskol. The Publi
cations of the Raskol in Modern Times.
PART II
THE RATIONALIST SECTS OF SOUTH RUSSIA
Introduction 261
Chapter I. The Dukhobortsy 266
Chapter II. The Molokanye 289
The Evidence of their Confession of Faith. The Accounts of Uzov,
Stollov and Kostomarov. Ivanovski's account.
Chapter III. The Communists, Stundists and other Small
Sects 327
The Communists. The Righthand Brotherhood or Zion's Tidings.
The Stundists.
PART III
THE MYSTIC SECTS
Chapter I. The Khlysty 339
Chapter II. The Skoptsy 363
RUSSIAN DISSENTERS
INTRODUCTION
One cannot better approach the study of the Russian
Dissenters or Raskol (i. e. division, schism) than by repeating
the words with which I. Uzov begins his work upon them.
They are these: "Haxthausen need not have warned Russia
how serious a peril to her security her dissenters formed,
nor have warned her to have regard thereto ; l as if in order to
compass their destruction she had not all along resorted to
the auto-da-fe, the knout, gallows and every sort of slow and
painful death. Mindful of the proverb: 'Beat a man not
with a stick, but with roubles,' the Government has imposed
on them double taxes and curtailed their civil rights. Every
petty official has been at liberty to help himself out of their
pockets, and yet dissent has not weakened or diminished;
on the contrary it has struck roots ever deeper and stronger
into the life of the people." When at last the Government
realized that the old system of frank and fearless extermina
tion could not stand criticism, it was pretended that the best
way of getting rid of them was to encourage among them
reading and writing and general enlightenment. It may be
that if the Tsar's Government had given all its citizens at the
least a middle class education, Dissent in the form in which
it now exists might be weakened. But this was never done.
Such instruction as was usually reckoned to be good enough
for peasants was not of a kind to induce them to give up
dissent, as is shewn by the fact that most dissenters had al
ready received it. We have the testimony of an official,
Liprandi, commissioned by the Government of Nicholas I
to hold an inquisition into them, that "the range of their
1 Aug. Haxthausen. Researches into Inner Life of the People of Russia. Han
nover, 1847, i, 415. A. H. aims his remark at the Dukhobortsy only.
1
2 RUSSIAN DISSENTERS
activity is not lessened but extended by education." 1 Count

Stenbok, another official set to study them by the Govern
ment, affirms that "Dissent perpetually spreads and becomes
stronger," that, "notwithstanding a weakening of religious
interest, their adherents are no weaker as a body," and that
"all measures taken against them, by the government are up to
the present unavailing." - An anonymous authority, S. M. V.,
states as a fact fully known, that "as of old dissent flourished
upon persecution in secret, so now with freedom (?) it flourishes
in the open." 3 We could produce many more attestations
of the kind, but rest content with the above in order to avoid
reiteration.
Uzov infers that Dissent flourished just the same, no matter
whether the Government was strict or lenient; and that it did
so proved that it is not engendered by temporary or transient
causes, but is founded on deep cravings and satisfies daily
spiritual needs of individuals.
Yet "neither Russian administration, nor Russian polite
society understands thoroughly what sort of thing Dissent
is";4 and this not from want of facts accumulated by students,
but from their onesidedness. By preference they have di
rected their attention to the ceremonial peculiarities which
distinguish dissent from orthodoxy, without remarking, nay
rather, without wishing to remark, that the dissenters' out
look is framed on quite other principles than those which
underlie our present social structure.
"We believe," says Uzov, "that the period of social experi
ments made on the inarticulate masses is drawing to a close,
and that we are being driven to the conclusion that ameliora
tions of a community must be based on a profound study of
the nature of the individuals who compose it, because in no
other case can reforms reap any success.
"The intellectual and moral characteristics of our people
are peculiarly prominent in the Raskol; and that is why a
1 Lectures at Imperial Historical Society in Moscow University for 1870, Bk.
2, by Liprandi, p. 83.
2 Kclsicv, IV. 325. Stenbok had in view in particular the Stranniki.
' Strannik, 1871, 2nd Art. S. M. V. p. 93.
* P. Melnikov, Treatise (Piemo) on the Raskol.
INTRODUCTION 3
study of it is indispensable for any statesman who desires to
pursue with even tenour and without groping or guesswork,
the pathways of his activities and enterprises."
I have begun my study of Russian dissent with the above

words of Uzov, because they rightly insist on the importance
of understanding the social, moral and religious characteristics
of a great people in order to obtain a general comprehension
of its origin and character.
Dissent, by which I render the word Raskol, implies, like
our own word 'nonconformist,' the existence of a dominant
and established Church against whose doctrines, rites, and
oppressive tendencies (inherent in every such Church) the
dissenters are permanently in revolt. In Russia this Church
knows itself under the title of Orthodox, and has been from
its earliest age, when the first metropolitan, Leontius was dis
patched from Byzantium with a cortege of Greek bishops by
the patriarch Nicholas Chrysoverghes (983-996), a purely
exotic, imported and foreign product in all that regards beliefs,
discipline and ceremonies.
In this respect it is in strong contrast with the old Armenian
Church, in which, in spite of the fact that its doctrine and rites
were of Greek or Syriac origin, there nevertheless remained
much that was racy of the soil, in particular the institution of
animal sacrifice for the sins of the living, for the repose of the
souls of the dead, and for the support (by the assignment to
them of the Levitical portions of the victims) of the priest
hood. The Christian priest of Armenia was the direct heir
of the pagan priest who preceded him; the Armenian patriarch
was for long generations a scion of the Arsacid house which
occupied the throne, and when that throne finally disappeared
in the fifth century the Patriarch, or Catholicos, as he was
styled, retained a large portion of the loyalty which had
upheld it against the combined assaults of Roman Emperor
and Sassanid oppressor. Even as late as the crusading epoch
the patriarchs of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia boasted
themselves to be of the old Arsacid lineage. Ecclesiastical
office in Armenia was based on heredity rather than on charis
matic gifts, and none that did not belong to the old priestly-
families could be ordained.
In Russia, on the other hand, though the old pagan supersti
tions long survived, and survive to-day in popular magic and
song, the orthodox Church never possessed such an odour of
pagan antiquity as the Armenian. It was in no sense a native
product; and if the priesthood has tended to become heredi
tary, this is because the village popes began to own their
manses, and the difficulty of providing an incoming parish
priest with a residence was most easily met by choosing his
son to succeed him. It was not because sacerdotal gifts ran
in the blood of certain old families. Of the twenty-four
successors of Leontius, the first Russian metropolitan (who
died in 1004 or 1008), there are barely two or three during the
two hundred and thirty years that preceded the Mongol con
quest of Russia that do not bear Greek names, and they were
all nominees of a patriarch of Byzantium who regarded Kiev
and Moscow as mere provinces of his own church, or of a
Greek emperor who regarded the rulers of Moscow1 as bis
vassals.
In one respect, however, the Russian Church resembled the
Armenian, as it did other early Christian Churches, namely in
the predominance of the monasteries. Greek asceticism took
firm root among the Slavs. The convent, richly endowed
with fields, villages and serfs, was the teaching church; and
until Peter the Great forbade its inmates the use of pens and
ink, it was the home of all the intellectual work, and of all the
writers of the land. The parish priests, who must be married
men, have never counted. They are an inferior order of beings,
in spite of their white habiliments. The higher clergy and
episcopate have been recruited among the cowled and black-
coated monks. Peter the Great made a fierce attack on the
monasteries, raised the age of the noviciate to thirty, reduced
the number of m6nks by half, made most of them work with
their hands, denied them paper and ink in order to prevent
them from describing him as Antichrist, filled their houses
with his discharged soldiers, subjected them to a thousand
indignities; but even he did not venture to break with the rule
INTRODUCTION 5
that every bishop must be a monk. This exclusion of the
"white" clergy from all positions of emolument and authority
has created for centuries a chasm in the ranks of the clergy;
and under the rule of the Tsars the Russian bishop was a mere
courtier and functionary of the state; he stood for absolutism,
for oppression in every form and of every grade of society;
he was a spaniel fawning on the Government which distrib
uted the sweets of office. He detested above all things light,
liberty, free growth and living development of institutions;
he was a parasite, but, alas, he was the Russian Church, an
incarnation of Byzantinism. It is important to grasp this
distinction between the parish clergy and the monks. Possi
bly under the Mongol regime in Russia which began in 1237
the monasteries were hearths of Slav patriotism, but even in
1294 under the patriarch John XII the secular clergy were
already loud in their complaints of the exactions of the bishops.
Certain it is that the great schism of which the Raskol is the
permanent fruit was largely due to friction between the parish
clergy and the monkish agents of the absolutist and centralis
ing government of Moscow.
Historians of Russian dissent, no matter to what school
they belong, whether, like Uzov, sympathetic, or, like Prof. N.
Ivanovski,1 partisans of the Holy Synod, agree in dividing it
into three classes, or categories, of Old ritualists or Old believers,
Rationalists and Mystics.
Ivanovski seeks to load upon the dissenters and lift off
the Church, of which he is a modern spokesman, the onus of
blame for the great Russian schism of two hundred and fifty
years ago. He sets undue store by the old appellation of the
Raskol of Staroobryadets, "Old ritualist." He would have us
believe that the schism was created by ignorant people who
could not distinguish between what was "of faith," and what
was unessential, such as matters of discipline and posture and
vestment.
The Old ritualists took their rise in the XVIIth Century
by way of protest against the correction of church books and
1 History of the Raskol, 1897, Introduction, pp. 3 ft .
rites under the patriarch Nikon. Their essential characteristic
lay in their confusion of rite or ceremony with dogma, and in
the attribution to ritual and to the letter of the prayer books
of the Russian Church of a fixt invariability. Old ritualism
therefore consists in the upholding of the rites in vogue before
the time of Nikon, and rests on the false assumption that no
other rites but these went back to the age of Prince Vladimir
under whom Christianity was adopted as the national religion.
In fact, argued the dissenters, the rites introduced by Nikon
were new rites. They acted in separating themselves from
the Church as if orthodoxy was bound up with the preservation
of certain rites, and precluded all change in matters unessential.
For example, worshippers are to prostrate themselves exactly
as of old, to keep exactly the same fasts and in the same way;
even old customs in daily life are to be maintained as if a
religious interest was subserved in doing so. In church, for
example, the same garb is to be worn as was anciently in
vogue. In all such ways, Ivanovski concludes, these sectaries
cling to life as it was in the XVIIth Century.
It is probably true that the Raskol regarded such unessen
tial with what to-day would be considered superstitious
veneration. But did the Patriarch Nikon and the innovating
section of the Russian Church, which, having the Tsar and his
army on their side, were able to enforce their will upon the con
servatives, attach less weight to them? If the Raskol confused
mere rites with dogma, did their antagonists not do the same?
If the points at issue were so insignificant, why could not the
party of Nikon allow these simple folk to keep the religious
customs and forms of words which from time immemorial
had been in vogue, and be content themselves in their own
superior enlightenment to adopt the new and, as they in
most cases falsely imagined, correcter ones in their own
churches? Instead of saving the position by a little well-timed
tolerance, the Patriarch Nikon resorted to the knout, the
sword, the stake; and getting together a council of his parti
sans, excommunicated and anathematised his opponents as
heretics en masse. Now it is, as Ivanovski admits, quite
uncanonical for orthodox churchmen to have recourse to
INTRODUCTION 7
these extreme methods of argument, unless the unchange
able dogmas of the Christian religion be at stake and directly
impugned. It is evident then that the Russian Authorities
made the changes as much a matter of faith as did the Raskol,
who at least had on their side that prescription of antiquity
to which Christian Fathers like Tertullian and Augustine
regularly appealed as decisive against innovators and heretics.
The Fathers of Nicea in 325 professed to base their decision
on the rule: "Let what is ancient prevail." The Raskol
have never appealed to any other canon. They are accused
of 'blind adherence to antique details.' Was the adherence
of Nikon to modern details any less blind?
Quite other is the basis of the antagonism to the Church of
what Ivanovski labels the Rationalist sects, viz. the Dukho-
bortsywhose name is a translation of the Greek irvevfiarofiaxoi
or battlers with the Spirit, but which is usually rendered in
English Spirit-wrestlers, in the sense of men in whom the
Holy Spirit wrestles for utterance; the Molokanye or milk-
drinking sect; the recent sect of Stundists and some others.
These sects, in his opinion, an opinion which, as we shall
see later on, is erroneous reflect an intrusion about the year
1700 of the ideas of Western Europe. He terms them ration
alist because they reject the authority of the Church and claim
a liberty to interpret Scripture as they like. The Old ritualists
attach importance to ceremonies; the 'Rationalists' repudiate
them and reject all the externals of worship, sacraments, ikons
or holy pictures and relics. None of these aids to devotion
appeal to them. Of fasting in the sense of a rejection of this
or that diet they will not hear; and their worship consists
wholly of prayer and singing of hymns. They call themselves
'Spiritual Christians' in token that they set no value on the
outer husks of worship, but only on the kernel of religious faith.
The third group is the Khlysty or flagellants, of which the
Skoptsy or self-emasculators are an offshoot, dated by Ivanovski
at the middle of the XVIIth Century, though he admits their
origin to be obscure and that some features of their teaching
go back to remote antiquity, to paganism and old Christian
heresies. They were never, like the Old ritualists, champions
of externals, of the letter, nor like the Molokanye, of the human
reason; but are mystics, that is creatures of irresponsible
feeling, believing in the immediate relationship of man to God
to the extent of accounting themselves Gods, Christs, Prophets,
divinely born, soothsayers. These sects enshroud themselves
in almost impenetrable secrecy, but in presence of strangers
call themselves orthodox Christians.
Uzov's own preliminary account of the first two divisions is as
follows, and he claims to adopt the terminology of the sec
taries themselves: "The first division comprises the Old
believers; the second the Spiritual Christians. The Old
believers have split up into two chief groups, the Popovtsy,
or priest-sect, and the priestless, or Bezpopovtsy (Pope in
Russian = priest). The latter are divided into minor sects,
the Pomorskiye, Spasovo, Thedosyevo, Philippovo or Lipovany,
Wanderers (Stranniki or Beguny), and finally the Prayerless
Ones. And in this list we only enumerate the stronger and
typical sects omitting the minor ones. The most extreme
and typical of these is that of the Wanderers (Stranniki) and
particularly the Prayerless, who closely resemble the Spiritual
Christians and even so call themselves. Many writers, indeed,
who are ill acquainted with the Prayerless doctrine refer them
to that group; nevertheless their derivation from the Old
believers is so indelibly stamped upon them, that those familiar
with their teaching have no difficulty in recognizing in them
all the characteristic marks of the 'Old belief.'"
"The 'Spiritual Christians' are divided into Dukhobortsy,
Molokanye, Communists, and Evangelicals or Stundists.
"Over and above these main groups there remains," says
Uzov, "a diminutive residuum, the Khlysty and Skoptsy."
This group is very small and looked askance at by the common
people who have given it the appellation of the 'dark' sect (cf.
Iiprandi, p. 104), a sect which we may better define as being
of a mystico-religious character. The sects forming this
group have no future; their propaganda amounts to nothing,
notwithstanding their age (for they were derived from Byzan
tium along with Orthodoxy), and notwithstanding that they
are the only group of Raskol which can be called universal.
INTRODUCTION 9
In it courtiers are found side by side with peasants, Finns with
Great and Little Russians. The common people have vari
ous names for them according to the places where they are
found, for example, Liads, Vertuns, Medoviks, Khanzhas,
Kladentsy, Kupidons, Shaloputs, etc. The chief danger of
this group, according to Ministers of the Interior, is that it
venerates "some of the Emperors, that have already passed
away into another life, as being still alive"; in other words
"assumes the existence of a second lawful ruler." This ruler
was Peter III (Liprandi pp. 93 and 95). The only intelligible
basis of such a belief is to be found in an express ukase of Peter
III of Jan. 20, 1762, to the effect that the Raskolniks (dissen
ters) are not to be persecuted, because there "exist in the
Empire not only men of other faiths, such as Mahomedans and
idolaters, but also dissenting Christians whose superstition and
obstinacy are such, that it is hopeless to convert them by
duress and ill-treatment, from which they would only flee
across the frontiers." '
It is moreover clear that the Old believers of both groups
belong to Great Russia, and that Moscow is their centre of
origin, while the Spiritual Christians belong to the South, to
Little Russia the Ukraine, and to Kiev rather than
Moscow. It has therefore seemed best to divide the discus
sion into three parts, dealing with (1) the Old believers of
Great Russia, (2) the Spiritual Christians of South Russia,
(3) the Mystics.
1 Cf. Collection of Statutes regarding the Raskol, Bk. 1, p. 586."
Part I
THE OLD BELIEVERS
OF GREAT RUSSIA
CHAPTER I
THE CONDITIONS LEADING TO THE SCHISM
No Church historian believes that great schisms are wholly

due to the insignificant and unmeaning dogmatic problems
and differences to which ecclesiastical writers attribute
them. Who, for example, will believe that it was the question
whether the Spirit proceeded from both Father and Son or from
Father alone which caused the great schism of East and West?
It is obvious to a student of Mommsen or Gibbon that the real
cause was a difference of national temperament which divided
the Roman Empire into two halves, Greek and Latin. Long
before the advent of the new religion, there had arisen a funda
mental antagonism between the Greek and Romans in matters
political, moral, and intellectual. Similarly the schism between
Byzantium and the Armenians was the expression of a desire
for independence, an instinct of home-rule on the part of the
latter. They wanted an excuse for quarreling with the Greeks
and found it in religion, and in the Armenian Fathers it is not
uncommon to find the boast that they adopted such and such
a fashion in religion in order to "raise a hedge" between them
selves and the Greeks. The German and Anglican reforma
tions, so-called, were not motived by dogmatic, nor even by
ritual quarrels. Both nations wanted to eliminate Italian
clergy and to say their prayers in the vernacular, above all to
keep their spare cash at home instead of sending it abroad as
Peter's pence.
Such considerations suggest that in the genesis of the Old
believers, social and political causes must have co-operated
with those on which Russian churchmen insist, and several
Russian historians have given due weight to these. Kosto-
marov l for example wrote as follows:
"As we survey the history, phenomena and structure of the
religious life of the Russian people in the past, and try to seize
its characteristics, enduring even up to our own age, we are
1 Messenger of Europe, 1871. No. 4, April, p. 471 and p. 480.
13
struck by the fact that there hardly ever was, in all Christen
dom, a land less inclined to religious movements, less prepared
for them than Russia, especially Great Russia. That such
movements were not in keeping with the coldness of then-
temper in such matters, is often revealed in our history. We
hear nothing but complaints of the alienation of the people
from the Church, of its indifference thereto, of its failure to
live a Christian life. . . .
"It is the last thing one would have expected, that, among
people whose leading trait had for so long been religious indiffer
ence, heresy and raskol (dissent) should manifest itself, much
more that it should spread among the masses."
And Shchapov says:
"Popular indifference in respect of religious ceremonial
was so strong in the age which witnessed the emergence and
spread of the Raskol, that not only in the XVIIth Century
the Tsars Michael Theodorovich and Alexis Michaelovich,
but also at the beginning of the XVIIIth Peter the Great, had
to drive the people by means of ukases to go to church, to con
fess and communicate."1
"The Russian people," says Palmieri, p. 402 (following
Golubinski, ii, 871) "had a singular understanding of what
constitutes piety. Many took no pains to observe the essential
rules of Christian life, only attended Church two or three times
a year, very seldom went to confession or communion, and
waited for the deathbed before they could be induced to
receive the Sacraments." Golubinski also dwells on the cold
ness of religious sentiment and supine ignorance of the lower
classes in Nikon's age, and in the century which preceded.
Further back in the age anterior to Maximus the Greek we
have no data on which to base a judgment.
Nevertheless, writes Uzov, we are suddenly confronted in
Nikon's age with a vigorous propaganda and an obstinate
struggle. How shall we explain it? He believes the true
explanation to be that in the Raskol the true driving force
was not religion, but other factors, which may be summarised
as the struggle against centralisation and the growth of Tartar
1 A. Shchapov, Russian Raskol, p. 163.
CONDITIONS LEADING TO THE SCHISM 15
influence. The reforming zeal of Nikon, the liturgical con
troversy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centimes, and the
councils of 1551 and 1667 were only the more spectacular
symptoms of these deeper causes.
The Struggle against Centralisation

"In the XVIIth Century, before the time of the Raskol, it
often happened that the inferior clergy in an entire province
or in special districts refused to obey the orders of its arch-
priest and endeavoured to free itself not only from the payment
of legal dues, but from the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan.
Already prior to the Raskol, priests were occasionally found
imbued with a manifestly Raskol-like temper of insubordina
tion despising the hierarchical piety." More than once the
clergy had aspired to independence of the spiritual authority,
and laymen presumed to follow their example.
"Indifference towards the Church naturally led on to dis
obedience, opposition to Church authorities and in general to
suspicion of and want of respect for the clergy. Attempts
were already visible to achieve complete freedom from their
jurisdiction or at least to get control thereof."1 "In some
places and especially in Pskov and Novgorod there had oc
curred open revolts against Church jurisdiction and administra
tion. In Novgorod the movement in favour of independence
from Moscow was so strong that on one occasion they sent to
the Patriarch of Constantinople to urge their case: ' We do not
want to be judged by the Metropolitan,' they said, 'but we ask
for your blessing; and if you will not give it, then we will take
sides with the Latins.'"2 "The ills of the Russian Clergy,"
writes Palmieri (p. 253), reproducing the words of Golubinski's
History, "were due to the infiltration into Russia of Byzantine
ideals. The priesthood lacked from the beginning the char
acteristics of an apostolic ministry. The priests were looked
upon as artisans for whom it was enough to be able to read and
celebrate the rites. Their spiritual labours were miserably
1 Shchapov, op. cit., pp. 77, pp. 168, 169.
D. D. Sontsov, Hist, of Russ. People up to XVIIth Century, p. 60.
recompensed, and as a class they made no pretence of educating
and guiding the people. The difference of moral conditions
dug an abyss between the episcopate and the lower clergy.
The bishops needed vast sums to keep up their retinues which
often numbered a hundred persons. In their palaces, courtiers,
stewards, major-domos, chamberlains, exactors of dues, secre
taries, sacristans, hieromonachi (i. e. monks ordained as priests)
and so forth elbowed one another. Episcopal revenues were
beyond doubt large; thus early in the XVTth Century the
Metropolitan of Moscow possessed 100,000 desiatines (1 des.
= 2.70 acres), and he of Novgorod had still ampler estates.
Nevertheless such resources did not suffice them, and they
took to robbing in order to satiate the voracity of their satel
lites. Priests had to toil like slaves in order that their bishops
might live like princes. Nobles, pages and dignitaries had no
scruples in the petty episcopal courts against plundering the
country clergy who flocked in vain to the Tsar, the patriarch,
and the bishops, to protest against the injuries inflicted on them.
Their protests fell on deaf ears, and to losses were added jeers
and insults. It is no wonder if now and then the unhappy
popes, reduced to desperation, refused to pay the episcopal
dues and resisted violence with violence. The populace flew
to help them, and hunted away or roughly handled the episco
pal tax gatherers, as happened at Pskov in 1435 and later at
Vyshgorod, whose inhabitants after duly cudgelling the agents
of the Metropolitan Iona, expelled them from the vicinity."
"There is no age," he writes again (p. 256), "in which we do
not feel the deepest pity for the much ridiculed popes. It is
on them that the fatal consequences of the Byzantine system of
the Russian Church fell, and episcopate and State vied with
each other to sink them to the level of brutes and turn them Into
civil and ecclesiastical pariahs. Thus the latent schism of that
Church to-day has historical roots. The presbyterian move
ment of the present time, to use the expression of certain Rus
sian bishops, is the fruit of a policy of oppression which has
rendered the hierarchy hateful to the lower clergy, which has
drawn the latter closer to the people who share their misery
with them, and actually drives many of the rural popes into
the ranks of socialism and of those who are in revolt against

Church and State." ....
"Over against the bishops we behold the insurrection of
a down-trodden clergy, upheld in their demands by an
oppressed people. The popes cannot see why the highest
posts of the hierarchy should be kept for monkery alone. No
canon of councils, ecumenical or particular, sanctions such a
custom." (p. 689).
The truth is, writes Uzov, that in the times prior to the
Raskol the relations of the clergy to the people were utterly
different from what they are now. The clergy were "the toy
outright, the servant of what was then the all-powerful factor
in Great Russia, the mir or village commune, whose members
selected them and exacted of them a written pledge to obey
the mir, which formed the parish, in all sorts of ways. With
out permission of the mir they could not quit the parish nor
meddle with the economy of the church, still less of the mir;
the priest even had in celebrating the rites to consult the likes
and dislikes of his parishioners. In their court the members
of the mir tried priest and layman alike for violations even of
church regulations. The priest was like any other official
chosen by the community."1
Such was the status of the clergy when a man of severe
and despotic temper, Nikon Mordvinov2 was made patriarch;
and he lost no time in rousing against himself all the inferior
clergy, towards whom he conducted himself with such excess
of strictness and oppression that he was dubbed a second Pope.'
For Nikon a priest was a mere nobody. "For any negligence
in the discharge of his duties Nikon put him in irons, tortured
him in prison and dispatched him whither he chose to beg his
bread." *
I. Ya. Goremykin in his Sketches of Peasant History in Po
land, p. 13, has a passage which goes some way to explain the
antipathy of Russian peasants towards the Latin Pope that is
1 Quoted by Uzov from Nevskii Sbornik 1867, art. by Viahnyakov, p. 80.
* See further, pp. 41 ff.
* i. e. of Rome. A. Shchapov, Russian Raskol, p. 78.
4 N. Koetomarov, Russian History in Biographies, Ed. iv. pp. 178-9.
IS ET3SULS" DISSENTERS
implied in the above comparison with him of Nikon. "The
preaching." he says, "of the Byzantine missionaries of the
EXih Century met with success and encountered no opposition
en the part of the tribes, among whom h spread: the preachers
from the west did not achieve the same success. The reason
wac that the former chose as a means for their propaganda the
diffusion of Slav writing, and taking their stand on a popular
platform introduced together with the light of Christianity the
fight of a native learning that could be understood. It would
not appear either, that they meddled with the Government, or
tried in their own interests to influence the social order of the
countries they were nusekmudng. For this reason people
listened to them without misgivings and accepted their teach
ing of their own free wiD and readily. The Apostles of the
Roman Church on the other hand were for the most part
Germans, and, besides conducting their preachings in a tongue
the Slavs did not understand, they brought with them principles
of overlordship in society that were German and to Slavdom
repugnant. The Slavs resisted and defended their popular
rights with all their might."
The above extracts help to explain the popular fury which
Nikon's so-called reforms aroused. He imported State des
potism; introduced or rather enforced the German principles
of overlordship in every village; anticipated that harsh and
brutal officialdom, that despotism of bureaucrats and multi
plied ministries which we to-day associate with Prussia, but
which was really more rampant, and infinitely less plastic and
intelligent in Czarist Russia. One cannot but be reminded of
the words of the strange thinker Nietzsche, so often in
voked, so seldom read and so little understood which better
than all else explain the genesis of the Raskol:
"Somewhere there are still people and herds, but not with us,
my brethren: with us there are States.
"The State? What is that? Well, now open your ears,
for now I deliver my sentence on the death of peoples.
"The State is the coldest of all cold monsters. And coldly
it lieth; and this lie creepeth out of its mouth: 'I, the State,
am the people.'
"It is a lie. Creators they were who created the peoples

and hung one belief and one love over them; thus they served
life.
"Destroyers they are who lay traps for many, calling them
the State: they hung a sword and a hundred desires over them.
"Whatever a people is left, it understandeth not the State,
but hateth it as the evil eye, and a sin against customs and
rights."
Nikon, writes Uzov, encroached on the local life of Russia.
He overwhelmed every town and village with taxation. Not
a priest or deacon but had to pay tithes on every truss of hay,
every bushel of corn. Even the beggars were made to pay.
But in particular his reforms were aimed to strengthen the
grip of the higher grades of the hierarchy on the people, and
to make himself Pope on the Roman model. But while striv
ing to subject the clergy to the despotic power of the Patriarch,
Nikon at the same time devoted all his energies to releasing
them from subjection to the mirs. In his time the parish was
turned "as it were into a clerico-political circumscription." l
The reforms of Nikon drew on him the hatred of every class
of the people, to whom they seemed violations of their customs
and rights. The principle of authority which he invoked as
between the clergy and the people offended the customs of
both and was reckoned to be a form of Latinizing and of
Popery. "Nothing," wrote the protopope Avvakum in a
petition to the Tsar Alexis Michailovich, "so much engenders
schism in the churches as overbearing love of domination on
the part of the authorities." 2
Nikon's reforms encountered from the lower clergy in particu
lar a stubborn resistance, because they tended to strengthen
the powers of the archpriests. His despotic freaks aroused
the indignation of the upper classes as well. The Pious Tsar
Alexis in his letter to Nikon remarked that he had to find fault
with him, because "he drove men to fast by force, but could
not drive anyone by force to believe in God." 3
1 V. Andreev: The Raskol and Us significance in Russian popular tfiistory,
Petereb. 1870, p. 98.
Ibid. p. 58.
Ignatius, History of the Raskol, pp. 188-9.
One of the malcontents, the Boyarin Simeon Streshner,

"having taught his big dog to sit up on his hind-quarters and
to bless with his front paws in the manner of an archpriest,
gave him the name of Nikon. The mockery was carried on
in public without shame or fear." ] Nikon's comment reveals a
lack of humour: "If a mouse eats the host, it does not com
municate. So neither is a dog's blessing really a blessing."
After rendering himself odious to the lower clergy and the
people, Nikon embarked on the correction of church books
and of sundry rites, and carried out his plan with his accus
tomed masterfulness. It was less that the plan was destestable
than that its executor was; for, to begin with, the so-called
reforms, no less than the opposition to them, appealed to the
clergy alone, and outside its ranks textual emendations neither
interested, nor were understood by anyone. The majority of
the Russian people, as might be expected, regarded the matter
with ancestral indifference and phlegm.2 Andrew Denisov,
an early leader of the Raskol, admits that there was at first no
popular opposition to the new editions promulgated by Nikon.
The masses had no idea what it was all about. How should
they when the services were in old Cyrillic, a dead language
which they could understand no more then than now? For a
long time "they failed to discern that anything new was
happening and were wTapt in their usual pall of ignorance." !
Ecclesiastical dignitaries whose chief characteristic it was "to
be easy-going and indolent in their own affairs and occupations
were obviously not going to resist." 2 And this was just what
Nikon counted on, all the more so, because the changes had
already begun under his predecessors, and "the innovations
had already appeared outright in the newly printed books
under the four patriarchs who preceded Joseph." * "In
particular the books issued under Joseph were full of variants
from the earlier printed editions, as is evidenced by the very
ones to-day in use among the old-ritualists." *
"In order to bring about everywhere the suspension of the
1 Ignatius, History of the Raskol. pp. 188-9.
* Kostonmrov, in Messenger of Europe, 1871, No. 4, pp. 481-2.
Ignatius, History of the Raskol, pp. 140, 151.
old style of Church-service, Nikon ordered the old books to be

taken away in every parish, both in towns and villages. In so
acting he was merely following the example of the patriarch
Philaret, who not only everywhere removed, but even burned
the order for prayer and ministration printed in Moscow in
1610." 1
But Nikon, continues Uzov, by his rasping severity had
already inflamed the clergy against himself. They hated him
because he had done all he could to substitute for the old and
more or less fraternal ties which bound the common clergy
and ecclesiastical superiors together, a new relationship of
harsh subordination. In this connection we must not forget
that in the Eastern Churches the parish clergy must be mar
ried men like their parishioners, whereas the higher clergy have
taken monastic vows. A family man and a monk easily lose
touch with each other. The lower clergy were thus all of them
ready to oppose Nikon's textual innovations, so soon as they
were pointed out to them; and the tactless way he went to
work only hardened them in their opposition. It was at his
instance, as we have seen, that in the Council of 1656, the
higher clergy solemnly anathematized those who crossed
themselves with two fingers.2 This resort to anathemas gave
to Nikon's work the stamp of an abomination, for his oppon
ents could, and did, at once accuse him of levelling a curse
against all former generations of saints that had crossed them
selves in that manner. It gave them a good excuse for pro
nouncing in their turn an equally solemn curse on Nikon and
all his works.
More than all else this one innovation provided all who were
discontented with the administration of Church matters with a
battle-cry and a standard round which to rally. "As in
Moscow the capital, so in the provinces, the revolt of the lower
clergy and their leaning to dissent was due to a clerico-
democratic instinct to free themselves from the restraints
imposed by the higher hierarchy, and in particular from its juris
diction, its crushing imposts and dimes." * We must bear in
1 P. Melnikov: Historical Sketch of Popovshchina, Moscow, 1864, p. 14.
' op. cit. Melnikov, p. 14.
* A. Shchapov, Russian Raskol, p. 204.
mind that in the good old times the parish priest was amenall
to the jurisdiction of the village elders among whom he lived and
who knew him personally and intimately. Nikon withdrew
him from their jurisdiction and placed him under the surveil
lance of monks who lived far away and were foreign to him
Nor is there any reason to suppose that fees for ordinatioi
payable to the bishop were reduced by transferring to tht
latter so much of the authority which by ancient usage belonge
to the llir. The undivided Church, as is well known, recog
nized but a single charismatic dignity alike in bishop ant
priest, and accordingly one of the earliest Raskol teachers
the protopope Neronov, wrote to the Tsar that "the priestly
grade is one and the same in all. You cannot, he argued
speak of one man's holy orders as being perfect, of another'.-
as imperfect, for all priests are on a level. If archpriests are
successors of the highest Twelve Apostles, yet the priests and
deacons are successors of the Seventy Apostles; and among
themselves they are all brethren, servants of one Lord." For
the settlement therefore of ecclesiastical disputes, he proposed
the convening of a council at which should be present not onlj
archpriests, but archimandrites, hegumens, protopopes, divines,
priests and deacons, and "also those who inhabit the village
communes (mirs) and who, no matter what their rank, lead
good lives. . ." 1
The Old believers, in fact, were intent on defending the rights
of the locality and of the individual; accordingly when the
patriarch reproached them in public debate for not obeying
their archpriests, they pointed out that "respect is not due to
persons, when the faith is being tampered with or even when
the truth is at stake, and it must be proclaimed not only in the
pretence of the priestly caste, but of Tsars, inasmuch as tc
apofetatize from true religion is to apostatize from God." 2
At the beginning of their struggle with the Church authori
ties the Old believers imagined they would meet with the sup
port of the civil ones; thus it is that the Raskol began its
l KWinmov in Stoma, 1880, No. 57.
' 7 1st* I'ttUiarit, pp. 1 and 96. The one I cite is given by Will. Palmer, Tht
</ x luut tl* PatriotA, Vol. II, p. 449. It was presented to the Tsar Oct. 6, 1667.
history with petitions to the civil rulers.1 "Gracious Tsar,"

-wrote the monks of Solovets, "we beseech you with tears and
lamentations, suffer not this new doctor and ecumenic patri
arch to change our true Christian faith delivered to us by our
Lord Jesus Christ and his holy apostles, and by the seven
general Councils upheld. Let us abide in the piety and tradi
tions in which our wonder workers Zosimus and Sabbatius and
Germanus and Philip, metropolitan of Moscow, and all the
saints found favour with God." Here there is no accent of
disloyalty and revolt. But they were soon disillusioned, for,
in what was really a struggle between the democratic elements
and the authorities of the Church, the Tsar's Government
speedily took the side of the latter and proceeded to punish
the opposition with all severity. The Old believers promptly
made up their minds that Tsar Alexis Michailovich "was no
Tsar but a tyrant."1
The Church Council of 1666 decided to punish the dissidents
"not only with ecclesiastical but with imperial penalties, i.e.
by civil statute and execution."2 Persecutions and atrocities
began, and a talented Old believer, the protopope Awakum,
wrote in view of what was occurring: " 'Tis a marvel how little
they think of argument. It is by fire, nay by knout, by the
gallows, they want to affirm the faith. What Apostles ever
taught such courses? I know not. My Christ never bade our
Apostles to teach that fire, knout and halter are educators
in faith. . . . The Tatar God Mahomet wrote in his book:
Our behest is to strike off with the glaive the heads of those
who will not submit to our tradition and statute."3 But such
protests did not avail against the enemies of the Raskol, and
persecution waxed all the fiercer.
The intervention of the Tsar's Government in a dispute
between the people and Church Authorities could only result
in "the rebel movement, which the teachers of the Raskol had
begun on strictly ecclesiastical ground, being suddenly trans
ferred to the sphere of civilian and popular life ; and at the head
1 Imperial Society of History and Antiquities, 1863, bk. 1, p. 57.
' Some Words on the Raskol, by I. Nilski, p. 63.
* Life of the Protopope Awakum, written by himself, pp. 93-4.
of it popular leaders made their appearance and took command,

partisans opposed to the imperial Government, such as Kho-
vanski, Stenka Razin, the Denisovs and others."1 But this
doubling, says Uzov, of ecclesiastical protest by civil did not
come at once, but only gradually, and ill-success attended the
first essays of the Raskolniks to link their own fortunes with
revolution against the civil powers. Thus, for example, in
the time of the revolt of the Streltsy guards, the dregs of the
populace rose along with them against the princes and boyars
and massacred many...2 They tore up judicial writs and
ordinances affecting the serfs, burned the stores in the for
tresses, made havoc of legal decisions, declared the serfs to be
free, rescued from prisons the interned.3 When they began to
pillage boyars and princes, the Streltsy did not spare even the
Tsar's treasury. The Sovereign's enemies were joined by the
foes of the ecclesiastical authorities, and these Old believers,
though a small group to begin with, formed a welcome accession
of strength to the rebel soldiers, who regarded them as men of
learning; not that they had the least idea of how the party
of Old believers differed from Nikon's, indeed the majority of
them had not the least desire to know; they were only minded
to end the old regime, and so were led incidentally to demon
strate in favour of freedom of conscience. Meanwhile the
Government was well aware that the Streltsy took no interest
in the struggle of the Raskol as such and presently succeeded in
detaching them. "Why," asked the heads of State and Church
of them, "why sacrifice us and the whole Russian realm for
half-a-dozen monks?" The soldiers gave ear and answered:
"With that (viz: the quarrel of the Old believers with the
heads of the State) we have nothing to do."
The Old believers, however, were not disheartened by this
first repulse of fortune, but pursued their aims unswervingly
and with superhuman fortitude. The party of opposition
among the clergy was in itself weak, but allied itself with any
sort of popular agitation, however much the result of motives
1 A. Shchapov, Russian Raskol, p. 218.
* Three Petitions, pp. 72, 60, 89, 137, 142.
' Three Petitions, pp. 137, 142.
and convictions other than its own; among the people there
were great numbers who were ready to adhere to anything
which magnified, much more sanctified, their old grudge against
authority in general; and the Raskolniks ranged themselves
in opposition to the Government under the banner of holy writ
and of theology. Their protest against social abuses was
formulated in phrases culled from theological texts. Theology
of course was the only "science" known to the Russian of that
age, and it does not surprise us that he threw his feelings and
aspirations into the mould of its terms and conceptions.1
It really signified little in what form his feelings and ideas were
moulded, his chief concern was to arrange them in a system
of teaching intelligible to others, and here theology stood him
in good stead. Yet, asks Uzov, how explain the fact that dis
content with social institutions in thus moulding itself in
religious form, to wit in that of the Raskol, announced that it
could only be satisfied by a return to the ancient order? Why
did it not aspire to something newer, as is usually the case?
To answer this query we need to consider wherein consisted
this old order and who it was that was intent on its abrogation.
Russia and Tartar Influence
"In old Russia every province enjoyed a certain autonomy
of its own, freely evolved an independent life, conditioned only
by locality, by tribal character, by the special nature of its
occupations and activities. As the forces of centralization
waxed stronger, this independent life was levelled out and
conformed to a general current and plane. Localities, however,
that had enjoyed such independence and freedom gave it up
reluctantly; for they were loth to forfeit their privileges and
aspirations, and continued for long to oppose a centralizing
administration and policy that was new and alien to them.
In the turbulent age of the impostors the forced and artificial
unification of the provinces was temporarily relaxed, and every
local centre endeavoured to strengthen itself and recover its
old independent life, to regain its ancient rights. But when
1 Today (1919) the Political Economy of Karl Marx has taken the place of the
'Science' of theology of the 17th century.
with Michael Theodorovich and Alexis Michailovich Russia

was once more 'collected,' i.e. unified, the bonds were forged
anew.1
And why, asks Uzov, was the transition, when it came, one
from old and more liberal and humane institutions to those of
Moscow? Was this the natural course of development for the
Russian social organism? Here is a question which admits of
no other answer than this: the new institutions which now
developed in Russia were a consequence of the external pres
sure of the Tartar invasion. A savage people by dint of brute
force had wiped off the face of the land a genuine Russian civili
zation that was already maturing; and it was relatively easy to
do so, because it was not a warlike but a peaceful civilization.
All the dark forces latent in the Russian people leaned to the
side of the Tartars, accepted their civilization and by flattering
and shuffling before them fettered thanks to Tartar aid
the Russian people and riveted their yoke upon it.
"Thus Moscow fraternized with the Tartars, and under the
shadow of their anti-nationalist system managed to gather
round herself the provinces of Novgorod, Pskov, Tver, Ryazan,
Perm and Kiev. In a Moscow torn from Southern Russia a
Moscovite world emerged and entrenched itself. In the XVth
Century when the rest of the Slav nationalities were reviv
ing, when among Poles, Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, Bulgarians,
and in South Russia a popular literature was beginning to
appear, there opened in Moscow an era of final decadence.
The art of writing, enlightenment, literature, art, wholesome
international relationships, which had all aforetime culminated
in Kiev in the XIIth Century these perished in Moscow.
Russian equity took flight and fled to heaven, and in Moscow
quibbling chicanery and Moscovite intrigue took its place."2
To the Tartars Russia owes the introduction of iron rule
with all its attractions, and the institution of draconian statutes.
The code of Alexis Michailovich was a product of Tartar
character rather than of Slav. To the Tartars is due the sub
stitution of despotism and autocratic bureaucracy for the
1 N. Aristov, in Vremya (Time), 1862, No. 1, p. 76.
' History of Cabarets in Russia, by Iv. Pryihov, Moscow, 1868, p. 45-6.
ordinances of common councils and provincial autonomy.

Tartar civilization having forcibly cankered Russian society,
took Tartars into its service, for the insufficiency of its own
powers was realized, and it resorted to such means in order to
safeguard its own existence.
"In the XVIth Century a fresh flood of violence and bar
barity inundated Russia along with the irruptions of Kazan,
Astrakhan and Siberian Tsars, Tsaritsas, Tsareviches, princes,
petty princes, who offered their services to the Tsar's govern
ment in Moscow and married into the Russian noblesse, so
constituting themselves defenders of Russian territory and
acquiring control of the cities of Kasimov, Zvenigorod, Kashir,
Serpukhov, Khotun, Iouriev, along with many villages and
hamlets." 1 And thus in this period the proverb was coined:
"Live, live, until Moscow gets hold of you." Andreev states
that the forefathers of the majority of Russian nobles in the
realm of Moscow, were emigrants from Tartary or settlers
from Western Europe.2 We may thus unhesitatingly conclude,
writes Uzov, that in the age which gave birth to the Raskol,
Russian society under stress of violence on the part of these
Tartars had entered on a retrograde path. The latter were
installed in the highest administrative positions in the society
of the time, and were sustained in them by our own Russian
home-bred Tartars. Christian standards of morals were over
whelmed by Tartar ones, national peculiarities were wholly
lost sight of, all the more so because the governing caste, being
principally composed of elements alien to the Russian genius,
altogether lacked any idea of the character and aspirations of
the people they ruled.
Russian Ritualism and Liturgical Controversy
Though great movements have always great causes, never
theless relatively petty circumstances seem always to provide
their starting point. The great Russian schism was no excep
tion. It began not with any articulate protest against Tartar
customs, or Byzantine polity in general, but with opposition
1 ib. p. 48.
1 Andreev, The Raskol and its Significance, p. 14.
to small details of ritual and the corrupt text of service book-
Ivanovski gives a full account of these details, and the crit:-
cism to which he is justly subject is not that he is wronz
in what he states, but that he neglects the greater though les
spectacular points.
George Bourdon in his graphic history of the revolutionary
convulsions, which in Russia followed the ill-starred campaig:
of 1904 against Japan, describes the religion of the Russia:
peasant as consisting mainly in the kissing of dirty greasy
boards dignified with the name of ikon or holy picture, bu
often anikonic, in the sense that the images they once por
trayed are no longer decipherable. This superstitious respec
for representations of the human face and person was wel
exemplified in the invasion of East Prussia with which the war
of 1914 began. Then, as Mr. Stephen Graham attests in hi
work ffttma and the World (London, 1915), the only objects ii
Gorman houses which escaped the destructive real of the Rus
sian infantry were the pictures on the walls. Pianos, violins
books, furniture of all sorts were smashed to atoms, torn up
and cast into the gutters, or burned, but never a picture wa.;
touched. These poor barbarians, of whom, according to the
French statistics of 1911, nearly three out of four could neither
read nor write, had never set foot in a civilized dwelling before
and they assumed that the pictures and paintings which
adorned the walls harboured spirits or wexe holy ikons. Even
the busts of the Kaiser, so Mr. Graham assures us, were spared ,
no doubt because he was mistaken for a saint.
It is then to such a respect for the external trappings of
religion that Prof. Ivanovski traees the origin of the Raskol.
It was from the first, he thinks, the essential character of popu
lar religion among his countrymen, the expression of their souL
They were, he says, in their infancy when they irere converted,
and his argument requires us to beheve that they were still
'w their infancy' in the stvovui hah" of the XVTIth Century
when the Patriarch Nikon iv.*,:vvhv*\i his 'reforms-: and, to
judge from the hold winch l'hsser.? sill has upon them, they
haw not yet emerged from ch.'oihood- Their pohtical develop
ment had been arrested b\ the Mongol yoke, and religion sup
plied the only channel along which their inner life could flow;
but, like children, they could not embrace a religion which was
abstract and meditative; they needed rather one of external
aids and outside shows, in the absence of which they could
not be stirred to faith and prayer. Temple rites and adorn
ments, vestments, shrines, pilgrimages, miraculous pictures,
divine volumes, houses adorned in the style of churches, life
in strict accordance with ecclesiastical rule, all these, he argues,
were of the essence of religion in the age which gave birth to
the Raskol. At that time few minds rose to the level of dis
tinguishing between these unessentials and the essential dogmas
that embody eternal truth and are therefore unalterable. How
low the general level of intelligence really was is proved by the
frequent complaints to that effect on the part of the higher
clergy; thus in the year 1500 Gennadius, Archbishop of Nov
gorod, attests the general ignorance in his epistle to the Metro
politan Simon, and in the middle of the XVIth Century it had
reached its nadir. He complains that candidates for ordina
tion could not read the Apostle or chant the Psalms or recite an
ektenia.
As an example of lamentable confusion of ritual with dogma,
Ivanovski instances the dispute which arose in the XVth
Century as to whether the Alleluia should be recited twice or
thrice before the Gloria in the psalmody. The antecedents
of the dispute are wrapt in obscurity; but it is clear that early
in that century (1419) the clergy of Pskov began the triple
recitation by the advice of the Metropolitan Photius; never
theless in 1450, thirty years later, the abbot Euphrosynof Pskov
still entertained misgivings about it. In the hope of laying
to rest his doubts, about which he consulted the Elders of his
own Church, but in vain, Euphrosyn paid a visit to the Patriarch
Joseph of the 'Royal City' Tsargrad (Constantinople), where
in the churches of Sancta Sophia he observed that the Greeks
only recited it twice. This led him on his return to Russia to
insist on the Greek usage in his monastery, thereby making
enemies of the clergy of Pskov, where a certain Job, respected
by laity and clergy as 'a philosopher, a sound teacher and a
pillar of the Church' headed the opposition. Euphrosyn was
now accused of violating the canons of the Church, of denying
the Trinity, of being a heretic and so forth. He retorted that
he was following the usage of Tsargrad and of the ecumenic
Church, while Job was a pillar, not of the Church, but of dung.
This invited similar amenities from Job who persuaded his
followers at Pskov, whenever they passed by the Monastery
of Euphrosyn, not to bow, but to call out: 'There lives a
heretic, ripe for anathema.' Both parties appealed to the arch
bishop Euthymius of Novgorod, who saw no way to reconcile
them, and the quarrel went on after the protagonists departed
this life in spite of the efforts of a learned Greek, Demetrius
Gerasimus (Tolmach), to make peace between them. He
wrote in 1493 from Rome a letter to Gennadius, Archbishop
of Novgorod, to prove that one usage was as legitimate as the
other, seeing that the one manifested the trine hypostasis of the
consubstantial Godhead, the other the two natures in Christ.
Such impartiality was not good enough for Russians, and
finally the Council of the Hundred Heads1 (Stoglav) in 1551
decided in its 42nd canon in favour of the double Alleluia,
stigmatizing the triple one as a Latin heresy and as tantamount
to the inclusion of four persons in the Trinity!
Nor was this the only dispute which ruffled the calm of the
Orthodox Church in the XVth Century, for in its last years
princes and bishops were divided on the question whether in
solemn processions the priests and people should move ' wither-
shins ' or no. Over this point the Prince, Ivan Vassilevich III,
and the Metropolitan Gerontius shewed little of the love which
Christians should bear one another. The bishop Gerontius,
consecrating the Uspenski church in 1479, ventured to walk
with his cross withershins round the new fabric, so offending
against the Sun of Righteousness and outraging the feelings
of Ivan who had on his side not a few bishops and monks,
especially the lively archimandrite Gennadius, afterwards
Archbishop of Novgorod. The withershins party pleaded in
1 So called because their debates were resumed in 100 chapters. At this
council there were no representatives of Kiev. Orthodox Russians seek to impugn
the authority and even authenticity of the 100 chapters. For the description
of this important council see pp. 51 ff.
vain that they advanced not to affront and insult the Sun, but
to greet him; but as no canons existed to settle so vital an issue,
the parties remained irreconcilable. The Metropolitan would
not yield, retired in dudgeon to the Simonov Monastery, and
for several years refused to consecrate any more churches, until
the Prince gave way.
Another such dispute arose on the point whether documents
should be dated according to the era which began with Crea
tion or that which began with Christ; for a monk Philotheus
of the Eleazar Monastery revealed the fact to the world about
1500 that in old Russian MSS. both eras were met with. The
Armenians solved the riddle by setting down both in their
colophons, but then they were monophysite heretics. It did
much harm to Peter the Great that he banished the old era
for good. He was generally regarded as Antichrist because
of the innovation.
But the most formidable and fertile source of dispute was
the importance attached to the correct use of liturgical form
ulae, and notwithstanding this the almost infinite extent
of textual variation in manuscripts and books.
In that age in Russia prayer was barely differentiated from
magic spells; as is manifest from a fourth quarrel that raged
in 1476 over the issue whether in a certain passage of the
liturgy the clergy should cry 'Lord, pardon us,' or 'O Lord,
pardon us.' Ivanovski complains that in such cases the Old-
ritualist temper betrayed itself in those who demanded the
continuance of the usage to which people were accustomed
merely because it was the old one. It does not occur to him
that it was at least as reasonable to demand its continuance
as its discontinuance, and that if it mattered nothing one way
or the other, the old usage might as well have been tolerated
and not penalised with knout and rack.
If we open any collection of liturgical texts taken from
ancient MSS., for example the Greek Euchologion of Goar,
or that of Prof. Dimitrievski of Kiev, or my own Rituale Ar-
menorum, we are at once struck by the infinite variety of text
and rite in one and the same church. In the Church Books
of the Orthodox Faith variety was all the greater because
the Monks of Athos and other centres who translated them

from the Greek made so many blunders. Moreover some of
the books passed into Russian not direct, but through Mora
vian, Serb and Bulgar versions.1 Already in the XIIIth
Century the Metropolitan Cyril complained of the errors
which from these and other causes had crept into the service
books of his church. In the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries
such errors, duly multiplied by transcribers, passed at length
into the printed texts. One common source of error was the
intrusion into the text of glosses which should have been left
in the margin, and Ivanovski gives one curious example of the
sort in a MS. of the XIth Century. The passage is Matt.
XXVII. 65, where Pilate says to the high priests and Pharisees:
"Ye have got a guard." Here the Slav translator, puzzled by
the Latin word Custodia, assumed it to be the name of Pilate's
maiden chatelaine ! Ivanovski informs us that there is much
discrepancy between one text and another of the Baptismal
rite; and one would like to know if it was not in the Epiphany
rite celebrating the Benediction of Rivers in memory of the
Baptism of Jesus, that the variants occur to his mind so
deplorable which imply that Jesus was merely human until
the Spirit descended upon him in his thirtieth year. For this
was the old Ebionite or Adoptionist belief, which is prominent
in old Armenian Epiphany homilies and not wholly absent
from their hymns sung at the Blessing of the Rivers. We
need pay no attention to Ivanovski's conjecture that Jews had
tampered with these rites; for this very belief characterizes
the Dukhobortsy and Khlysty sects and is therefore very an
cient on Russian soil.
Slav divines already recognized in the XIVth Century how
imperfect were their versions, and the Metropolitan Theo-
gnostos (1328-1353) tried to correct the Trebnik, a book which
answers to the Roman missal. The Metropolitan Alessios
(1354-1378) compared the Slav N. T. with the Greek text,
and another Metropolitan, Cyprian, a Serb or Bulgarian it
is not known which devoted much attention to the correct
1 The Moravian Versions were the most ancient, and of them Serb or Bulgar
translations seem to have passed into Russia.
Ing of his liturgical books, as Mansvetov has pointed out in
his* appendix {Pribavleniya) to the great series of Russian
versions of the Fathers, Moscow 1882, vol. 29, pp. 152-305;
412-480.1
As an example of the dangers which beset a scholar,
Ivanovski relates the career of a Greek monk, Maximus,
invited to Moscow in 1518 by Prince Basil Ivanovich to take
charge of the royal library and make a fresh translation of
certain books. He was an Albanian by origin, had studied
in Italy, and was a member of the Vatopedi convent on Mt.
Athos. A man learned in Greek and Latin, he won the favour
of the Prince and the friendship of the Metropolitan Barlaam,
and was commissioned by them to revise the service books,
though he deplored the recent severance from Constantinople
of the Russian Christians and their new claim to constitute
an independent national church, to be in fact the only orthodox
body in the entire world. He did not possess Russian, and
was therefore supplied with two interpreters, named Deme
trius Gerasimov and Vlasius who also knew Latin, and with
their aid he corrected the Triodion, the Hours, the Menaion,
and the Apostolos. He rendered the psalter from Greek into
Latin and the Latin was turned by his coadjutors into Slav.
He is said, as we saw above, to have noticed gross errors in
these books, intentionally introduced by Judaizers, for Jesus
Christ was denominated in them a mere created man and de
clared to have died an eternal death.2
But neither the detection of these heretical opinions nor his
polemics against the Latin and Armenian Churches and against
Jews and Mohammedans saved his own reputation for ortho
doxy, and he was soon accused of having insulted the Russian
saints and workers of miracles of old and of deflowering the old
and sacred books of Cyril and Methodius. On Barlaam's
death, the new Metropolitan Daniel, formerly prior of the
Volokolam Monastery, openly charged him with arbitrarily
altering the texts, and, like Henry VIII, the Tsar withdrew
1 Palmieri, Chiesa Russa, p. 400. I have not been able to gain access to this
publication of Mansvetov.
See Plotnikov, Istoriia russkago Raskola, Petersb. 1905, p. 13.
his patronage for the excellent reason that he would not join
Daniel in sanctioning his divorce of the childless Empires
Salomona.
In 1525 Daniel convened a council of doctors and condemned
Maximus as a heretic, it is said because he had tripped in Rus
sian grammar. He was deported to the Volokolam Mon
astery where, illtreated by the monks, he nearly died of smoke,
cold and hunger. In 1531 another council, at the instigation
of Daniel, accused him of altering the creed by eliminating the
epithet true used of the Holy Spirit. He was banished to the
Otroch Uspenski Monastery in Tver, and forbidden to receive
the Sacraments, for him a great privation. In vain the
Greek patriarchs interceded in his behalf and the bishop of
Tver befriended him. The utmost concession made was to
permit him to communicate, and he died, almost friendless,
imprisoned in the Laura of S. Sergius in 1556.1
Yet he left behind him rules, simple and sagacious, for the
guidance of future revisers, and described the corrector's art
as a gift of the Holy Ghost. Above all he prescribed a knowl
edge of tongues, which must be studied under good teachers.
His rules were expressed in the form of Greek stichoi or
stanzas. A century later under Nikon his principles triumphed
and the intimacy of the Russian with the Greek Churches was
revived and encouraged.
We noticed above that Maximus gave offence by expurging
the one word true in the Creed. It comes in the eighth clause :
And (we believe) in the Holy Spirit Lord true and giver of life.
The older Slav MSS. are said to omit the word, and prior to
Nikon some Service-books contained it, others not. The
Stoglav2 (or hundred-headed) Council in 1551 decided in favour
of omitting either Lord or true, but did not say which. A
glance at the original Greek explains the difficulty. It runs:
Kal c to irvevpa to aytov to Kvpiov to tyooiroiovv. Now the
word Kvpiov may be rendered either as true or as Lord,
and an early Russian translator had set one rendering in his
text, the other no doubt in his margin, whence it had crept into
1 Ivanovski has 1566.
1 See p. 51.
the text, so that many MSS. had the conflate reading: Gospoda,
istinnogo, i. e. 'Lord, True.'
Somewhat later than the accession to the throne of Tsar
Michael Theodorovich a tragic dispute arose over a variant in
the Epiphany rite of the Benediction of the Waters, a variant
that must itself have had a long history behind it. In old
copies it was asked that the water might be sanctified "by the
Holy Spirit and by Fire," a reminiscence perhaps of a variant
found in some ancient sources which add after Matt. 3, 15, the
words: "And when he was baptised, a mighty light shone
around from the water, in such wise that all who had come
thither were struck with fear." This addition, if not suggested
by, at least accords with John the Baptist's prophecy contained
in a preceding verse (3, 11) that the Messiah "shall baptise you
with the Holy Spirit and with Fire." However this may be,
the words 'and with fire' were expunged from a revision of the
Russian Euchologion or Potrebnik, made chiefly from Slav MSS.
by a certain archimandrite Dionysius of the Trinity-Sergius
Monastery, who found the phrase in only two copies of the old
Slav version, and in no Greek copy at all. He had two collabo
rators in his work of revision, which occupied a year and a half,
the Elder Arsenius and a priest of the village of Klementev
attached to the Monastery, named Ivan Nasedkin. Another
important change they made was to exclude the two prayers
before the liturgy in which the priest seeks remission of his
sins.
The excision of the words 'and with fire' drew down on these
correctors the wrath of a member of the Laura of St. Sergius,
Longinus, who is said to have regarded the arts of reading and
writing as almost heretical. He had himself passed these sup
posed errors in his edition of the year 1610 and prided himself
on his learning. He now accused them of denying the Spirit
to be composed of fire a very ancient opinion. Philaret,
his abbot, encouraged him and by the joint efforts of the two
Dionysius and his fellow-students were in 1618 haled before
the Patriarch Iona's court, and subjected to torture in the cells
of the Ascension with the approval of Martha Ivanovna, mother
of the Tsar. The mob raged against them, being told that
they were guilty of the unparalleled heresy of banishing fire
from the universe, and they were accused of heresy in front
of the Kremlin and pelted with mud. Dionysius and Ivan
Nasedkin were excommunicated by a council over which Iona
presided, and imprisoned in the Novospasski Monastery,
to be dragged in fetters on festivals to the feet of Iona the
Patriarch. Arsenius who was deaf was imprisoned in the
convent of S. Cyril. In the end however the new patriarch
Philaret (1618) who had been ordained by Theophanes,
Patriarch of Jerusalem, entertained Ivan Nasedkin's plea for
mercy, and in 1619 they were pardoned. Ivan even received
marks of the Tsar's favour, and was made priest of the court
church. Dionysius also came into favour. Philaret at first
did not venture to eliminate the words 'and with fire' from the
printed editions of the rite. In 1625 however, the patriarchs
of Alexandria and Jerusalem decided against them, and Philaret
had them struck out in all editions, although the immersion of
lighted tapers in the water remained part of the Epiphany rite
commemorating the Baptism of our Lord. Thus an ancient
and respectable rite was mutilated of one of its most char
acteristic traits. It could hardly be otherwise in that ignorant
age. A corrector was more likely to deprave a text than better
it, for a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
In short, as Ivanovski himself recognizes, such corrections
as scholars of that age could make, were as likely to be for the
worse as not, for how could they distinguish good from bad?
Any attempts of the kind were sure to bear the impress of
arbitrariness and ignorance; and it was futile for the Stoglav
Council of 1551 to complain of church books being faulty.
Their canon prescribing to copyists the use of correct versions
and warning the higher clergy to supervise their industry was
as difficult to observe as it was well meant.
The first printing press was set up in Moscow in 1552, in the
reign of Ivan, Vassilevich; it had been brought from Denmark
by a printer named Hansa, who was assisted by the deacon
Ivan Thedorov or Feodorov and Peter Timothy Mstislavets.
Only church books were issued from it, and the Apostolos x
1 Rambaud, History of Russia, more correctly, says: Acts of the Apostles.
was the first book printed. It was followed by a Description
of Moscow and the Book of Hours. It was hoped that the
texts issued would be more correct, but the printers confessed
their ignorance of what was or was not correct, and the press
could but stereotype the errors of the particular MS. used.
No better success greeted the laudable efforts of the Patriarch
Hermogenes (1606) to obtain more correct texts by attaching to
his press at Moscow a corps of scholars charged to compare the
books already printed with the MSS. and to collate these with
each other. It would seem that they confined themselves to
Slav MSS., and those recent ones, sparing themselves the
trouble of following the precept of the wise Maximus to study
the Greek originals. As an example of the inefficiency of
Russian scholars of that time, Ivanovski instances the Canon
or Rule of divine service (Ustav = tvttikov) printed in 1610, of
which the Patriarch Philaret was obliged subsequently to
collect and burn all copies, because its contents were of so
startling and unauthorized a character. I should conjecture
that they were merely archaic and original, and not in accord
with then current standards of orthodoxy. I once saw the
copies of old Nestorian codices upon which was based Bedjan's
great repertoire of the liturgies of that ancient church, so
beautifully printed at the Propaganda press in Rome. The
copies were plentifully scored and underlined with red and blue
chalk; the red signifying, so I was informed, passages to be
entirely removed, the blue those to be amended in the interests
of Roman orthodoxy; and I regretted greatly that these origi
nal readings were not given in an appendix or otherwise re
corded for the use of scholars. In mentioning this case, I
convey no censure of the Roman Propaganda, for I am sure
that the only intelligible procedure is that on which Rome
insists, namely, on the one hand to print for modern church
use officially authorized texts agreeable to current standards
of orthodoxy, and on the other to allow scholars and liturgiolo-
gists to edit for the learned world the more ancient texts
exactly as they stand in the most ancient codices. This
procedure the Roman Church follows in the case of Latin
texts, and it encourages the Uniat Churches to do the same.
No objection, for example, is placed in the way of the Armenian
Mekhitarists of Vienna and Venice, if they like to print for
liturgical scholars an Euchologion containing the ancient
rites for the sacrifice of birds and fourfooted animals; but they
would not be allowed to print these interesting but out of
date rites and disseminate them for popular use.
A number of grammarians and rhetoricians were employed
by the patriarch Philaret (1612) to assist in editing the Church
books, among them the Elder Arsenius the Deaf, Antony
Krylov, the priest Ivan Nasedkin already mentioned, Elias
the hegumen of the Theophany convent and even a layman
Gregory Onisimov. One or two of these could read Greek, but
made no use of their gift. But it marked a real advance when
the Patriarch ordered a search to be made for older MSS.
in other cities besides Moscow. Even texts written by the
western Slavs were collected, though sparingly consulted from
fear of their having been contaminated by Latin influences.
Philaret's efforts were of course doomed to disappointment,
and Ivanovski remarks that between later and earlier editions
of the same service book wide discrepancies were discovered as
soon as they were compared, especially in the rites of Epiphany
and of Baptism; again, the Euchologia printed in 1625 and 1633
included the rites for the adoption of children and of brethren
(a8e\<f>0TTCHt-a) given in Greek prayerbooks; that of 1623 omitted
them. It is clear that what the Russian Church dignitaries
were intent upon was uniformity, and it was bound to be a
mere accident if, in arriving at it, they did not exclude much
that was old and had better have been retained, and include
much modern rubbish which it was better to omit.
The Patriarch Joasaph who succeeded Philaret in 1634, and
died Nov. 28, 1640, issued edition after edition of Psalter,
Euchologion, Menaea, Hours, Gospels, Triodion, Nomocanon,
etc. Though he too insisted on old MSS. being consulted,
he only made confusion worse confounded; and some of the
books printed by his authority were in startling disaccord
with his predecessor's editions, especially the Euchologion
of 1639, which stigmatized Philaret's rite for the Burial of
Priests as having been drawn up by the heretical pope Jeremia
of Bulgaria. Among the new books issued by him were a
spelling book, an anthologion, a Triodion in four volumes,
and a life of Nicholas the Wonder-worker.
The activity of the Moscow Press was great under the
next Patriarch, Joseph, who acceded in March, 1642.1 He ap
pointed Ivan, sacristan of the Uspenski Church; Joseph Nased-
kin, the controverier of the Lutheran propagandist Prince
Valdemar of Denmark, Protopope Michael Stephen Rogov;
Silvester, archimandrite of the Androniev Monastery, Joannes,
Protopope of the Alexandronevski Church along with certain
presbyters and laymen as a college of "correctors." But they
did not go beyond Slav books in their quest for correcter
texts, and the press under the direct management of the Tsar's
favourite divine, Stephan Boniface, and of John Neronov, Pro
topope of the Kazan Church, for the most part merely issued
reprints of the earlier editions of the Patriarchs Job, Philaret,
and Joasaph. Some slight changes, however, were now made to
suit the prescriptions of the Stoglav Council of ninety years
before. Thus the passage where in earlier editions the Alleluia
was thrice repeated, was now printed: "Alleluia, Alleluia,
glory to thee, O God." At the same time a Cyrillic rubric
appeared in the Psalter, enjoining the faithful to cross them
selves with two fingers instead of three conjoined. Editors
and controllers of the new presses generally adopted the two
fingers, though within a few years the question of two or three
fingers was to become a burning one. The Stoglav Council
had enjoined the use of the two fingers only. A Russian
grammar was printed in 1648, a Lives of Saints in 1646,
Homilies of Ephrem Syrus in 1643, a catena on the gospels
by Theophylact the Bulgarian, Anastasius Sinaita, and others
in 1649.
It speaks well for the Tsar Alexis Michailovich, that he
undertook in May 1649 an edition of the Russian Bible revised
from the Greek original, and wrote to the half Polish Metro
politan of Kiev, Silvester Kossov, to send to him scholars
competent for the task.2 Two monks arrived, Epiphan Slave
1 Macarius Hist, t. 11, pp. 94-97.
1 Macarius Hitt. t. 12, p. 112 foil. Christian Readings 1883, Nov.-Dec. Art.
Materials for Russian History.
netski and Arsenius Satanovski, an ill-sounding, but really

local name. A young seigneur, Theodor Michailovich Rtish-
chev (1625-1673), shared his prince's enthusiasm, and at his
own expense erected outside Moscow, on the Kiev road, two
versts away, a monastery in which the newly arrived teachers
of Greek, of grammar, and of rhetoric, were to find a home. He
himself was their first pupil, and the learned men assembled there
began at once the work of collating Slav texts with the Greek,
and presently gave their results to the world in a new edition
of the Church book called the Shestodnev (Hexahemeron) ;
first printed in Cracow in the year 1491. This was the first
work to be revised from 'good' Slav MSS. and at the same time
from a Greek text, and Nikon put it forward as an example for
future editors of sacred texts. At the instance of this Tsar
sundry Greek divines now began to visit Moscow, where alone
in the Orthodox world they could collect alms for themselves.
One of the best-known was Paisius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who
stayed there four months during which he consecrated Nikon
archbishop of Novgorod, and had time, according to Nikon,
to notice not a few ritual discrepancies between his own and
the Russian Church. The result was that a Russian Presbyter,
who knew Greek, Arsen Sukhanov, was commissioned in 1649
to accompany Paisius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, on his return
in order to report upon Greek rites. Arsen was a cultivated
man for his age and architect of the Theophany convent
in the Kremlin, a dependency of the Trinity-Serge Laura,
and a partisan in religion of the old national tradition. On
their way they halted at Jassy, in Roumania. In the sequel
he twice went to Greece and back, and in the course of one of
his journeys brought back some hundreds of Greek codices
which are among the treasures of the Synodal library of
Moscow. For this alone his name deserves to be remembered.
He also published the results of his investigations in four "Dia
logues upon Faith with the Greeks," 1 in which he somewhat
1 Prtmia o Vitrtt. It is doubtful if they were written as early as 1650; the
Protkinitari (i. e. Worshipper), on which see below p. 44, was written after his
return from the East in 1653. In the first dialogue held April 24, 1650, the
Patriarch Meletius, Metropolitan of Braila, challenges the Russian use of two
fingers only in blessing, and Arsenius defends it as the usage of St. Andrew, the
.-'
^
wravered over the use of the three fingers in blessing, though he

observed it among the monks of Athos. We shall see later on
that members of the Raskol appealed to Arsen's work in evi
dence of the fatal decadence and even apostasy of the Greeks;
judged from an old Russian standpoint, with no little reason.
About the same time Gabriel, metropolitan of Nazareth visited
Moscow, and while there took no less exception to the use of
two fingers than his colleague of Jerusalem.
Nikon
In 1652 the patriarch Joseph died, to be followed by one whose
fanaticism was to break the orthodox church in two over
utterly insignificant issues, and originate a schism which lasts
until to-day with results to Russian society and polity of which
the importance can hardly be overestimated.
This was Nikon,1 named Nicetas in the world before he
donned the monastic garb. Born in 1605 of peasant and pos
sibly Finnish stock in Veldemanov, a village in the province of
Nizhegorod, he learned to read and write at the village school,
bringing to his task the rugged strength and superstitious
temperament of a common peasant. At twelve years of age
he entered the monastery of St. Macarius of Zheltovody on the
Volga in the same Government, where he soon distinguished
himself above other novices by his application to learning and
his asceticism. When he was twenty his parents persuaded
him to marry, and, ordained one of the white clergy, he took a
cure of souls in Moscow; before he was thirty his three chil
dren died, and, persuading his wife to take the veil, he himself
took monkish vows and retired to the Skete or hermitage of
Anzer on the White Sea. His was an imperious nature, and
within five years, in consequence of a quarrel with his col
leagues over the building of a church, he departed thence to
become the hegumen or prior of the Kozheozerski 2 Monastery
illuminator of Russia. Arsenius equally maintains the Russian baptism by triple
immerson to have been introduced in Russia by the Apostle and condemns the
Greek usage of baptising sick infants by sprinkling only.
1 Strannik 1863, t. 3: Macarius Hist. 1. 11: Solovev. Hist. Russ. t. 11.
* Perhaps Kusheryetskoe, close to Onega, in the railway map of A. Ilin of 1908.
Waliszewski, however, locates it in the district of Kargopol in the eparchy of
Novgorod, so also the Russian Encyclopedia, xxi, 139.
on Lake Kozhe on the western shore of the White Sea. In that

capacity he had occasion to visit Moscow to attend a council
held there in 1645-6. There he attracted the notice of the
Tsar Alexis who preferred him to the position of archimandrite
in the Novospasski convent in the Capital. The Tsar entrusted
him with the fulfilment of many public duties and invited him
every week to the Kremlin in order to converse with him, and
it is a good trait in the ecclesiastic that he availed himself of
his intimacy with the Prince to intercede in behalf of widows
and orphans denied their rights by venal courts of justice.
Two years later he was made Metropolitan of Novgorod
where he helped to put down the revolt of 1650, sheltering in
his own house the Voivoda Khilkov, when his own life also was
threatened by the populace. In July 1652, at the age of
forty- seven, he was chosen patriarch at the Tsar's instance,
though on his own terms, and with the approval of Synod,
clergy and people, who had to go down on their knees to him
before he would accept the Patriarchate. He was already,
as we saw, a favourite with the Tsar, who presently (1654)
conferred on him the title and authority of grand vizier,
Gosudar or Regent, never till then conferred on anyone except
Philaret, Patriarch in 1618, and the father of Michael Theo-
dorovitch the first of the Romanov's. When the Tsar was
away conducting his wars, it now devolved on Nikon to look
after his family, govern the State and control the Boyars or
great nobles who had to make to him the reports which they
ordinarily made to the sovereign, and render to him an account
of all their doings.
Historians give no unfavourable picture of his activity at
the beginning of his patriarchate. He was severe indeed with
his clergy and so rigid a disciplinarian that some charged him
with being a tyrant, but in so disorderly an age it was necessary
to be strict. One step he took at once which commends itself
to all Church reformers. Instead of the ready-made homilies
for all sorts of occasions he tried to revive the art of preach
ing, and encouraged his clergy to use their natural gifts of
eloquence. This was to innovate on old custom, and contrasts
with the system which was in vogue in the Russian Church a
ew years ago, if it is not still,1 of obliging the clergy to submit
heir sermons to censors before they are delivered from the
pulpit. Another of his aims was to introduce uniformity, a
measure which needed much tact in view of the discrepancies
which existed between the rites of one place and another, for
editions of church-books differed and still more widely the
manuscript copies still in vogue; and in different localities the
clergy and monks were likely to be jealous of interference with
rites already in use. But there was also much disorder in
Church Services that called for instant correction ; for example
it was only decent that prayers and canticles should be recited
or sung in one tone unisono, and not in several at once, and it
was a scandal that in order to get through the liturgy as quickly
as possible it was customary for one priest to be reading,
another singing, and the deacon crying his ecteni, all three
at once. In the church singing it was also usual to interpolate
vowels and prolong the voice upon them to the detriment
of the sense. This was, it appears, an offence in Nikon's eyes,
though it is not unknown in other Churches, and as it is the
rule in the Armenian Church, it may have been ancient in the
Slav Churches. Most of these irregularities had already
been reproved by the Stoglav Council, as well as by the Patri
archs Hermogenes and Joseph, but in vain. Nikon now set
about to correct them by sterner methods, and he also lost no
time in chastising the fashionable artists who were beginning
to paint ikons for rich men's houses in the gaudy style of the
Latins. He collected their masterpieces, burned them, and
on pain of anathema forbade painters for the future to prosti
tute in such a manner their sacred craft. In spite, however,
of such conservatism in the matter of art, Nikon threw the
weight of his authority on the side of those who favoured the
correcting of the old rites and service books, and even headed
the new movement, choosing Greek and Slav of western origin
as his models. "Though I am Russian,' he said at the Council
1 Pobedonostseff, Procurator of the holy Synod, in his Reflections of a Russian
Statesman (London 1898), after insisting on the want of simplicity, unnatural
intonation, conventional phrases of Protestant preachers, adds: "We feel here
how faithfully our Church has been adapted to human nature in excluding sermons
from its services. By itself our whole service is the best of sermons," p. 214.
of 1656, 'I am in faith and convictions a Greek." Accordingly
he introduced Greek ambons, Greek pastoral staffs, Greek
cowls, cloaks, hymns, painters, silversmiths, Greek architec
ture. He invited Greeks to Moscow and followed their advice
in everything.
We have already mentioned the trips to Greek centres under
taken by Arsen Sukhanov at the instance of the Tsar Michael.
When he returned to Moscow in June 1653 he dedicated a vol
ume entitled Proskinitari to his prince and to the new Patriarch
Nikon; to this book, although it barely influenced the latter's
reforms, as it had been intended to do, a certain importance
attaches, because upon it, as upon his four discussions with the
Greeks, alluded to above (p. 40), the Raskol teachers later
on based their charge of apostasy against the Greeks, a charge
sufficiently absurd in view of the fact that the author expresses
no sort of doubt about the orthodoxy of the Greek Churches
and even regards them, especially that of Alexandria, as a
court of appeal for the resolution of doubts which had arisen
in Russia with regard to particular points of ritual. It con
tained a pilgrim's guide to the Holy Places, of the kind familiar
in the early literature of every church, along with the answers
of the Alexandrine Patriarch to certain questions propounded
by Arsen. One of these regarded the Alleluia, as to which
the Patriarch decided that it ought to be repeated thrice with
the addition of the words: "Glory to thee, 0 God!" Arsen
notes sundry liturgical variations in the Greek Churches from
Russian usage, e. g. the use in the Eucharistic office of only
five proxphorai instead of seven, withershins processions, etc.
But it was especially the concessions to Western or Latin
usages that shocked him; for example, they admitted baptism
by sprinkling, they had adopted Frankish vestments; they as
sociated with the Franks even in church, ate in their society
and intermarried with them. In Jerusalem the orthodox and
Armenian patriarchs visited one another and went to church
together. The Armenian even delivered the Benediction in
church, and afterwards entertained the Greek patriarch, the
Turkish pasha being among the guests.1
1 From time immemorial the monophysite Armenians have shared the Church
Arsen also criticised the slovenliness with which the

Greeks conducted their services. Their priests, no less than
their laity, wore turbans in church, and the monks attended
without their cloaks. Their Patriarch ate sweetmeats in Lent
and on fast days; at Bethlehem on the feast of the Nativity a
mass of pilgrims slept in the church and defiled it. The ref
erence here is hardly to the usage of incubation in a church,
which still lasted on in the Caucasian Churches, especially
on the night of the Feast of St. John. Probably the pilgrims
used the Church of Bethlehem as a caravanserai. Is it possible,
however, that Arsen merely witnessed the all-night service
which we find in old Eastern prayerbooks, e. g. in the Armenian?
It is noteworthy that he says nothing in the book either for or
against the use of the two fingers in blessing.
This wholesale canonization was both cause and effect of
the growing belief that Moscow was the third Rome. Russia
was no longer beholden to a Constantinople that was become a
centre of Mahommedan heresy. The Sunof righteousness there
eclipsed shone afresh on the Moskva.
Three men above others had worked for this triumph of
nationalism in the ecclesiastical sphere, Joseph Sanin, prior and
founder of the Volokolam monastery and his disciples Daniel
and Macarius, both metropolitans of Moscow. They repre
sented three generations from 1500 to 1550. Their monastery
was a fashionable training school for the higher clergy and a
focus of nationalist propaganda. They had not however
Nikon's idea of asserting the rights of the Church as such;
and consolidation of the spiritual ran for them hand in hand
with aggrandisement of the Moscovite despotic state. The
Church consecrated the State which in return protected it and
guaranteed its privileges. The way was marked out for the
Church in Russia to become what it was in old Byzantium, the
humble servant of secular despotism. Nikon a century later
essayed to free the Church of which he was the head from
of the Sepulchre with the Latins and Greeks and great pictures of their saints
adorn its walls. If ever the Holy Synod of Moscow acquires jurisdiction oyer
the Holy places, the Armenian heretics certainly, and the Latin schismatics
probably, will be served with notices to quit.
Erastian control. He met the fate of St. Thomas of Canter
bury. He championed the Patriarchal against the Imperial
prerogatives, and failed. His failure signified the erection in
Russia of a lay Papacy of the Tsar which lasted until yesterday.
Nikon's Reforms
Shchapov fifty years ago compared the Raskol to Lot's
wife who looked back, and in the act of doing so was turned into
a pillar of salt. The comparison is unfair; for the schism was
for those who engaged in it the beginning of religious emanci
pation, of inward liberty and comparative enlightenment.
It is the dominant orthodox Church which may rather be
accused of petrifaction and putrifaction. It remains true
however that the Raskol leaders in the 17th century stood for
the exclusive nationalism in spiritual matters that had tri
umphed a hundred years earlier under Ivan in the Stoglav
council. They could not rid themselves of the old suspicion
of the Levantine Greek. Nikon conquered it, and even headed
a reaction against a nationalism which prejudiced the ecumen
icity of his country's Church, and was an implicit negation of
its claim to be a worldwide and ancient faith. In his ignorant
zeal for ecumenicity he was ready to adopt from the fawning
Greek ecclesiastics, whom he invited to Moscow and who were
ready to deceive him, much that was merely modern, much that
was trivial. The partisans of antiquity were shocked to note
how whimsical were his alterations of the old service books.
Why substitute temple for church and vice versa? Why change
children into scions, cross into tree, and so on? Why was a
new fangled phrase better than an old one? How did the old
reading violate divine writ? They discerned accordingly little
in his corrections but wilful hatred of the old, and parodied his
instructions to Arsenius thus: "Print the books as you like,
provided only you discard the old way."
Their disgust with the correctors was complete, when it was
found what modern scholarship confirms that they did
not in practice adhere to their own canon of comparing the
Cyrillic texts with old Greek books. Recent liturgical scholars
in Russia have shewn that of the 600 Greek MSS. brought to
Moscow by Sukhanov for Nikon's use from the East only
even were consulted in editing the service books afresh. The
Jreek euchologion printed by the Latins at Venice in 1602 was
.lmost the only text which they regularly employed. Nikon's
Qtentions no doubt were good, but he and his band lacked the
cholarship necessary to carry them out. Well might Awa-
cum, the Raskol leader, write to the Tsar as follows: "Thou,
Vlichailovich, art a Russian, not a Greek. Then use your
>wn native tongue, and forbear to depreciate it in Church, in
lome and elsewhere. Does God love us less than the Greeks?
Has he not given us our books in our own tongue by the hand
of Cyril and Methodius? What do we want better than that?
The tongue of angels? Alas, that we may not hear until the
general resurrection comes!" It was Nikon's substitution,
probably suggested by Latin texts in which it survives, of
Kyrie eleison for the old Russian equivalent Gospodi pomilui
which motived this outburst. Awakum and his partisans,
notably Ivan Neronov and Stephan Boniface, were not in
principle opposed to the use of Greek texts in editing the
Russian ones. Under the patriarch Joseph (died 1652) they
had even participated in the work of revision led by the
learned monks whom Rtishchev brought from Kiev; and the
old believers still use today the editions printed under Joseph.
Their revolt was due to three causes: the violence of Nikon,
the capricious manner in which under his auspices their Church
was being Grecized, and the insolence with which the monks
of Athos condemned their earlier essays in correction and
made a bonfire of the service books printed in Moscow.
Having equipped himself, as he imagined, with the authority
of the Sister Churches, Nikon took the first step in 1653 of
imposing the use of three fingers in blessing. This at once
evoked a protest from Paul, bishop of Kolomna, from Ivan
Neronov, Protopope of the Kazanski church and from another
Protopope Awakum, or as we say, Habakkuk, of the ancient
Yurievets convent on the Volga who was staying in Moscow.
"It looks like winter coming," the latter is said to have
remarked; and with the aid of another Protopope, Daniel of
Kostroma, he proceeded to draw up a catena of authorities in
support of the use of two fingers no less Greek in origin
than the rival use and of the old fashion in the matter of
prostrations. They presented their catena to the Tsar, thereby
embittering not a little their relations with Nikon, to whom the
Tsar passed it on and whose election as patriarch they had
opposed. They pretended that any books corrected before
Nikon were orthodox, any after him Latin and heretical.
There was nothing he could do or suggest that was right.
But Nikon was too strong for them and Neronov quickly
found himself relegated to the Kamenski Monastery on the
Kubenski lake near Vologda. Awakum also found himself
excluded by bis fellow clergy from the Kazanski Church when
he went thither prepared to celebrate as usual and read bis
sermon to the congregation; thereupon he retired to Neronov's
house, where he read vespers in the bath-house and succeeded
in getting some of his old parishioners to attend his ministra
tions. He did not, however, despair of the Tsar, and, in con
junction with other Protopopes, Daniel of Kostroma and
Longinus of Murom, who had been correctors of Service books
for the press under the Patriarch Joseph, drew up a petition
and despatched it to his prince. The only result was that
Daniel was unfrocked and exiled to Astrakhan where he died;
Longinus was also unfrocked, and banished to Murom. Awa
kum, still a young man (he was born near Novgorod in 1620)
was spared at the Tsar's instance and banished with all his
family to the depths of Siberia, to the region called Daura.
On his way thither he sowed the seeds of religious revolt.
Such was the result of trying to preserve a mode of blessing
himself which every Russian had learned on his mother's knee,
Nikon himself among others.
From his place of exile Neronov wrote to the Tsar, accusing
Nikon of heresy, and the latter, aware of the fact that his prince
was not yet won over to the use of two fingers, as according
to Ivanovski, Nikon himself was not at this stage, having only
taken action to please his Greek colleagues, resolved to lay
matters before a Council, which was accordingly convened in
1654 in the royal palace. Before it Nikon, no doubt ignorantly,
condemned the secret recitation at the beginning of the liturgy
>f the priest's prayer for remission of his sins, a topic I have
iiscussed above; and he also urged the practice of depositing
relics under the altar when a church was first consecrated.
He thus reserved the issue of the two fingers, but in other
respects aspired to change old customs in accordance with the
Greek books. The plan of issuing corrected service books was
not opposed, though it was found impossible to come to an
agreement about prostrations and genuflexions. In support
of the old rule on such points observed in Moscow, Paul of
Kolomna, appealed to an old parchment, and recorded his
opinion in the acts of the Council. By doing so he drew down
on his head the wrath of Nikon who objected to learning when
it did not accord with his views. No sooner was the Council
at an end, than Paul was expelled from his see, subjected to
corporal punishment and locked up in prison where he lost
his reason and died in a manner unrecorded. The Raskolniki
of the time, however, testify that he was burned alive near
Novgorod.
Nikon had already despatched afresh Arsenius Sukhanov, on
his return to Moscow, to Athos and other centres of the East
in quest of Greek originals on which to base the revision he had
in mind of the old Russian service books; for the proceedings
of 1663-4 seem to have inspired even him with misgivings, not
to be silenced by any knouting and exiling of his opponents.
Accordingly he had resolved in 1654 to send a fresh mission of
enquiry to Constantinople, and this time he selected a Greek
named Manuel, who had lived for a time in Moscow, to lay
his queries before the Patriarch Paisius and the doctors of New
Rome. A year later about May 1655, Manuel returned with
the answers which Paisius l of Constantinople had penned
Dec. 1654 to the twenty-eight queries put to him by Nikon,
and being on his own ground Paisius, after dealing with them,
ventured to address to Nikon some very sound advice as to the
necessity of compromise in such trumpery disputes: "You
complain," he wrote, "of discrepancies on certain points of
ritual which exist in local churches, and you apprehend harm
to our faith from these differences. For that much I commend
1 Christ. Readings, 1881, No. 3-4.
you, since one who so keenly fears to slip in small things is

likely to safeguard himself in great; nevertheless we would
correct your timidity If it should happen that certain
churches vary from others in usages of no importance and
unessential for the faith, for example with regard to the time 1
when the liturgy is performed or over the question with what
fingers a priest ought to bless,2 and such like, these issues should
provoke no dissensions. . . Nor ought we to imagine it to be
prejudicial to our orthodoxy, that somebody or other enter
tains other modes of ritual observance than ourselves in matters
that are not essential to the Faith." He appeals to Epi-
phanius and other Fathers in proof that rites had grown up
little by little and were never uniform.
As to Nikon's queries with regard to the Sacraments he
writes: "As touching the polemics which you raise over the
rite of the divine Sacrament, we implore you to put a stop to
them; for a servant of the Lord it is unbecoming to embroil
himself over trifles which do not belong to the articles of
faith." This good advice Paisius tendered in the name of the
Council he had convoked at Constantinople to discuss the
Russian business. It was attended by 24 metropolitans.
None the less Paisius tempers these mild rebukes with stern
reproaches against Nikon's opponents, Paul of Kolomna and
Ivan Neronov, who had denied their signatures to the decrees
of the Moscow synod of 1654. They are corrupt and stiff-
necked schismatics whom Nikon will do well to excommunicate,
because they have impugned the validity of the prayers that
Paisius and other Greek Patriarchs have approved. As to
the number of fingers, although, as we have seen, Paisius
regarded it as a matter of little importance, he recognizes
that ancient Greek custom in making the sign of the cross was
in favor of joining the first three fingers, for the three joined
together symbolized the Trinity better than two. The epistle
of Paisius was accepted later on as authoritative by the Russian
Council of 1667.
1 The Greeks celebrated at the third hour, except on Holy Thursday and Sat
urday, when the service was held in the evening, as in Armenia.
* Palmer in his work "The Patriarch and the Tsar," vol. II, p. 408 inexplicably
omits the words: "with what fingers to bless."
To return to Nikon. Duly installed as patriarch, he pre

ceded to search the library of his residence, and in it he found
i chrysobulla or patriarchal document relating to the estab
lishment of the Russian Patriarchate in 1589, It was dated
May 8, 1590 and bore the subscriptions of the Eastern patri
archs, who assisted, Jeremiah of Constantinople, ecumenical
patriarch, and others. In it, it was stipulated that the said
patriarch must in all matters agree with them, and it contained
the symbol of faith in Greek, with the single epithet to xvpiov
(Lord or chief) in the eighth clause. He found the same
symbol inscribed in Greek letters upon a cope brought to
Moscow two hundred and fifty years before by the Metropoli
tan Photius. He also noted sundry omissions and additions
in the service books of his Church.
A visit was paid to Moscow in April, 1653, by the deposed
Athanasius Patellarius, formerly Patriarch of Constanti
nople, nine months after Nikon's elevation to his new dignity.
Athanasius died in April, 1654, on his return journey, at the
monastery of Lubni in the Government of Poltava, but during
his stay in Russia in receipt of royal alms, he had urged
Nikon not to insist on the use of the two fingers in blessing, and
also to promulgate the rest of the so-called 'reforms' which
he was minded to introduce, regardless of the circumstance
that they directly violated the decisions of the Council of
Stoglav or a hundred heads.
The Council of Stoglav

This Council had been held in 1551 expressly to decide
many of the issues now to be decided by Nikon according to
bis newer lights. The first of these regarded the number of
fingers to be extended in blessing or exorcising oneself or others
(it is all the same thing) with the sign of the cross. The
Council was motived in its decision by various reasons: because
Christ had so blessed his apostles at his ascension; because the
ikon of Tikhvin at Novgorod, of the Mother and Child, painted,
like so many holy pictures, by St. Luke, represented the
Messiah extending two fingers, and not one, as the Monophy
52 RUSSIAN* DISSENTERS
sites, or three, as the Latins were supposed to do. Ivanovsk
irreverent"}- suggests that the said ikon was never paintec
by St. Luke at all. Thirdly, the Council appealed to a passage
of the Father Theodoret, which Ivanovski, who is monstrously
critical when by being so he can upset Old believers, declare
to be supposititious. He deals similarly with a certain legend
about S. Meletius, bishop of Sebaste and later on patriarch
of Alexandria, and shews that the Stoglav misinterpreted their
Theodoret and Sozomen.
The same Council had insisted on a double Alleluia as
opposed to a triple one, and had argued, with more subtility
than we might expect from such an assembly, that as the word
Alleluia already signified the same thing as Glory to thee God.
therefore, if you repeated it thrice and added that formula,
you really repeated it four times, at the risk of implying four
persons in the Trinity instead of three, a shocking impiety
of which in the fifth and succeeding centuries the Armenians
and other monophysites commonly accused the adherents of the
Council of Chalcedon. In favour of the double Alleluia the
Stoglav Fathers also adduced an old 'Life' of S. Euphrosyn of
Pskov according to which the Virgin herself stood sponsor, in a
dream she vouchsafed to the saint, for this particular usage.
But the Council of 1667, which could be critical at the expense
of a theological antagonist, unkindly voted this 'Life' to be
an apocryph. We have already noticed that the Stoglav
decided in favour of reciting in clause 8 of the symbol not
both, but only one, no matter which, of the rival epithets
which in many MSS. dignified the Spirit. Another of their
canons, No. 95, is of peculiar interest, because it prescribes
the keeping of the Sabbath, no less than of the Sunday, as a
holy day or feast, in accordance with the so-called canons of the
Apostles, already abrogated by canon 29 of the Council of
Laodicea of A. D. 343-381. In Russia it seems that the former
set of canons were ascribed to Saints Peter and Paul, and
Joasaph, a Patriarch who preceded Nikon, had anathematised
those who sabbatised1 and blasphemously invoked in favour of
doing so the authority of St. Peter. This Sabbatarian precept
1 The Sabbatarians still exist in Russia as a separate sect.
af the Stoglav Council the Raskol themselves set aside, so

exposing themselves to a charge of inconsistency.
Nikon's adherents in 1667 imputed no malice to the Bishops
who formed the Stoglav Council in 1551, nothing worse than
simplicity and ignorance, as if Moscow had made a great
stride in the matter of enlightenment during the hundred
years. What had really happened in the interim was that the
Rulers of Moscow had got into touch with the leading Greek
sees in the epoch of their deepest decadence and darkest igno
rance, with the result that a certain revival of Greek learning
was observable in the higher ranks of the Russian clergy.
Any revision of Slav rites and texts could under such conditions
only lead to elimination of much that was ancient and sincere.
But the chief significance of the Stoglav council lay in
this : it marked the triumph of a tendency, which had long
been at work, to elevate the Russian Church from being a mere
see under the jurisdiction of Constantinople to the dignity of
an independent national Church. It was a grave shock to Rus
sian Christians when the Patriarch of Constantinople insisted
that the metropolitan Isidore, lately consecrated by him, must
attend the Council of Florence. He did so, but on returning
to Moscow was deposed. The fall of Constantinople was
regarded in Moscow as a punishment of the Greeks for their
apostasy, and the conviction gained ground that, old and new
Rome having both of them apostatised, Moscow was the third
Rome and the Tsar the only orthodox prince. Russian divines
now began to cast about for an apostolic origin of their Church,
and the legend grew up that St. Andrew had founded it.
Nikon accepted this myth.1
A legend was also started that the rulers of Moscow derived
their secular authority direct from Prus, a brother of the
Emperor Augustus. With the triumph of the centralized
state at Moscow over the appanages, or more or less autonomous
1 Similarly the Armenians, when they began to quarrel with the Greeks and
wanted their Church to be something better than a dependency of Caesarea of
Cappadocia, invented the fable that Christ had descended in person at Valar-
shapat before the eyes of a Catholicos who was really a Greek missionary.
Simultaneously they appropriated to themselves the Syriac legend of King Abgar
and Addai.
local Slavonic provinces, it was also felt to be necessary t*
assemble in the capital the local cults of saints dispersed all
over Russia in almost every town and village. It was like the
ancient Roman adoption of the gods of Veii, which were draggec
with due pomp from their own city to Rome. The famous
ikon of the Saviour reverenced at Novgorod was now removed
to Moscow, as were countless relics and miraculous pictures
from other places. By order of Ivan the terrible, a search for
local saints and legends began in 1547; and 40 were promptly
discovered, whose miracles entitled them to a place in the
new national pantheon. Macarius the metropolitan was
charged to compile an all-Russian hagiology, and thenceforth
the Russian Church could not be accused of lacking saints and
miracle-workers.
The position of affairs in 1655

We are now at the year 1655, and twelve years are to pass
before the Council of 1667 consummates the schism already
begun in the bosom of Russian Christianity. During those
years no effort was spared to bring Moscow into closer associa
tion with Greek centres of piety, to assimilate old Slav rites
to such Greek models as were obtainable. Russian prelates
could not but reverence the Greek Church as the parent of their
own religion, and their first patriarch Job had been conse
crated by Jeremiah of Constantinople, as Philaret by Theo-
phanes of Jerusalem. It was after all a slender minority that
raised among themselves doubts as to the orthodoxy of the
Greeks, and Stefan Bonifatsi, Nikon's rival for the patri
archate, expressly bore witness thereto in his Book on the Faith,
printed in Moscow in 1649, a work much appealed to at a
later date by the Raskol on account of the chronology it
afforded them of Antichrist's reign on earth. Nevertheless,
as Ivanovski candidly recognizes, there was always a school of
thinkers in his country that distrusted the Greeks. The early
chronicler of Kiev, Nestor, wrote that they were ever deceivers,
and the natural antipathy of a virile race for the debased
Levantine was intensified by the open apostasy to Rome of
the Greek Emperor, John Palaeologus and his higher clergy
at the Council of Florence in 1439, when under the guidance
of the Patriarch Ignatius even Isidore, the Greek Metropolitan
of Moscow, became a backslider, to the horror of Prince Vasili
and his subjects. The result was that Russian Christians
then formed the conviction that no orthodoxy survived in the
entire world outside their own pale, and the fall of Constanti
nople was regarded as a judgment upon backsliders. As for
the Western Church the Russians consistently regarded it as
the vilest of heresies, and have never ceased to empty the vials
of their wrath and scorn upon the Poles, because, being Slavs,
they are filled with the spirit of apostasy. The recent war, as
regards Russia and Austria, was, from one point of view, an
episode in the age-long struggle of Byzantium and Rome. It
reproduced once more the quarrel of the Patriarch Photius
and the Pope of Rome for jurisdiction over Bulgaria just over
a thousand years ago.
Abominating the West and suspicious of the East, it is not
wonderful that the Orthodox Church has ever suffered from
intellectual anaemia and chosen for its motto: "no learning,
no heresy." Nikon's patronage therefore of Greek learning
only served to rouse distrust of his new methods and placed
a fresh weapon in the hands of those whom his autocratic
violence had already alienated. His associations with Kiev
and the doctors of South Western Russia did not in any way
weaken these prejudices, for Kiev during the XVIth and
XVTIth Centuries was little more than a centre of Latin culture ;
amid the Little Russians there had been a movement in the
XVIth Century for union with Rome; and not only in Eastern
Galicia, but also in the Polish province of Cholm (or Holm),
there are still found millions of Ruthenes or Little Russians,
who were educated by those greatest of teachers, the Jesuits,
three centuries ago, still retaining the Cyrillic Slav rites, but
recognizing the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome.
It deepened popular suspicions against the "Correctors,"
that they allowed to be printed in Moscow various books of
doubtful orthodoxy written by divines of these outlying and
more or less Latinized Slav churches. Such was the "Cate
chism" of Laurence Zizania (an ominous name) of Korets,
now in the Volynski or Volhynia Government. Zizania wrote
in Lithuanian about 1600 and was a teacher at Lvov, or Lem-
berg, in doctrine opposed to the Uniats. Nevertheless, as we
might expect in a book written in a city so deeply influenced by
Jesuit learning, his Catechism was tainted with Latin heresies
and even inculcated the doctrine of Purgatory. The Boyar
Rtishchev incurred censure because in his school near Moscow
he admitted teachers from Kiev; and in 1650 three conserva
tive Russian divines, Ivan Yasilev Zasetski, Luke Timothy
Golosov, and Constantine Ivanov, clerk of the Blagovesh-
chenski or Annunciation church met at the monk Saul's lodg
ings in order to formulate their indictment against an institu
tion in which Greek and Western Slav learning was held in
esteem.
In the Spring of 1655 Nikon * availed himself of the presence
in Moscow of two foreign prelates, Macarius of Antioch and
Gabriel of Servia, to convene a synod, which he hoped would
support him in his emendations of the Russian Service books,
and in the use of three fingers instead of two. There was also a
dispute as to the right ceremony of reconciling Latins, which
meant Poles, to the Orthodox Communion; some holding that
they should be rebaptized; others, merely anointed. Nikon
here shewed better sense than the Greek Church did, by rang
ing himself with the latter party, who had on their side the
weight of the ancient and undivided Church. The synod met
in March and confirmed the decisions arrived at by the Council
of the year before. It also gave its formal approval to a new
edition of the Sliuhebnik or missal which was printed and dis
tributed towards the close of the year to all the churches in
Russia; it was the first of the corrected books to be thus dis
tributed "by authority."
Nikon, in spite of his dictatorial instincts, was consistently
anxious to present his reforms as an expression of the mind of
the entire Orthodox Church and not of the Russian hierarchy
alone. For this reason in 1655-56 he had printed and distrib
uted a collection of writings, called Skriihal, relative to the crisis,
penned in 1653 by Paisius of Jerusalem, which|Arsenius had
1 Macarius Hist. vol. 11.
rendered into Russian. The Synod of April 1656 ratified its

contents. Skrizhal was the Russian equivalent for the tables of
the Mosaic commandments or a bishop's pectoral. The book
contained a commentary on the liturgy and other priestly rites,
-with the Byzantine prelate's letter on the use of the two
fingers and the credo. In a later edition were included Nikon's
address to the Synod of 1656 and other controversial tracts.
In that year Nikon thought the time was at last come for
putting an end to the differences which prevailed in the rites
and books used in the churches all over Russia, and he resolved
to call in en masse, in order to bring about their destruction,
all the discordant texts, and to issue instead to all parishes his
authorized versions. He was willing to brave the chorus of
disapproval sure to be roused by the wholesale condemnation
of books printed by his predecessors as well as of MSS. which
had been for centuries the object of almost superstitious
reverence and had been from the beginning ip/ the hands of
Russian saints and workers of miracles; for he had secured in
advance the approval of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, of
Gabriel of Serbia, of Gregory of Nicea and of Gedeon of Mol
davia, who were all staying in Moscow and present at his
Synod in 1656. The Synod met on February 12, the day of
St. Meletius, and began with the perusal of an apocryphal life
of the Saint, in which it was related how, when engaged in a
controversy with the Arians, he had drawn sparks of fire from
heaven by joining two fingers together and then adding a third
in crossing himself.1 Next Macarius was formally asked to
interpret the legend, and answered that it signified the usage on
which Nikon had set his heart ; whereupon the Synod ratified
it as an act symbolic of the Holy Trinity. The members of
the Council then proceeded to the Uspenski church to hear
mass which was performed by the prelate Macarius, Gabriel
1 The usage condemned was that of extending the index and middle finger,
while crouching the fourth and fifth over the thumb in the palm of the hand.
The extended middle finger was slightly bent. The explanation now given of
this usage by Greek monks is that the first two fingers represent IC, the other
two and the thumb XC, i. e. the customary Greek abbreviations for ' Jesus
Christ.' Nikon substituted the rule to make the sign on the forehead with the
first three fingers of the right hand.
and Gregory, Metropolitan of Nicea; and solemnly standing
before the Tsar who was present, these three anathematize:
the use of two fingers as an Armenian heresy approved by
Theodoret, the Nestorian, all present joining in their anathema
But this somewhat mechanical unanimity did not yet satiay
Nikon, so he summoned yet another Council in the following
April (25th), at which he adduced the authority of Athanasu-
and Paisius, the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem
for the change; once more the use of two fingers was anathema
tized, this time as an innovation (!) and as savouring of the
Arian and Nestorian heresies.
The rebaptism of Latins was also condemned, and more
wisely, and six Poles were marched in ad hoc and reconciled
to the Church merely by unction with the Muron or holy chrism
mixed by Nikon on the Great Thursday. Some of the Russiac
clergy present were nevertheless scandalized at such facility
of conversion being granted to Latin heretics; but in the end
they yielded to the arguments of Macarius who adduced pre
cepts in favour thereof from the nomocanons or books of eccles
iastical law and discipline, and the Tsar clinched the matter by
lending the weight of his authority to a recognition of the orders
and baptism of the Catholic and Southern Russian Churches.
The decision, we may remark, was nevertheless in direct contra
vention of the earlier rituals (potrebnik) issued under the
Patriarchs Joasaph and Joseph and of the rule made by the
great Patriarch Philaret; for these authorities laid it down that
not only Latins, but orthodox White Russians as well, who had
received baptism by sprinkling only, were to be rebaptized.
Orthodox historians naively remark that these "reforms"
roused the opposition of many who by reason of the excessive
belief in mere ritual were unable to distinguish it from dogma,
as if the older practices had not been anathematized by the
subservient Greek patriarchs mustered in Moscow as heretical,
e. g. as Armenian, as Arian, as Nestorian. If Paul of Kolomna
could not distinguish ceremony from belief, neither could
Nikon and the Tsar. You do not excommunicate and hurl
anathemas except at heretics, still less whip and burn alive
men who are perfectly orthodox, and only err by being simple
minded and conservative. The "reforms" outraged not a few
of the higher clergy; some openly murmured, others kept
silence from fear of sharing the fate of Paul; and their stiff-
necked obstinacy and restlessness, as Ivanovski styles their
feelings of dissatisfaction, rapidly spread beyond the clergy
and took hold of the masses of the people, who could not be
lieve that men whom they so deeply venerated were misguided
heretics.
The Fall of Nikon
And now a reaction set in against Nikon and all his works,
provoked by his headstrong courses, cruelty and violence.
For a time the stars seemed to fight in their courses against
him . As is usual in times of popular excitement, portents were
seen, the heavens were darkened and comets sped across the
void. Dreams and visions were of the order of the day. The
Almighty himself appeared demanding'that the printing presses
should be suspended from their impious work and destroyed.
The Virgin and St. Paraskeve joined in his expostulations.
Not only the inferior clergy were outraged; their indignation
spread to the Boyars or great proprietors above and to the
peasants below; it even penetrated the Palace of the Tsar.
Plague and war were endemic then as now in the land, and
served to enhance the general discontent. In August 1656
the mob broke into the Uspenski Church and assailed Nikon
with the accusation of having set a heretic, Arsenius Sukhanov,
to tamper with the holy books. Overwhelmed by their menaces
Nikon hastily quitted Moscow, and retired to the Voskresenski
monastery of New Jerusalem built by himself in 1656 in
imitation of the Church of the Anastasis.
The very forwardness of Nikon in exiling his antagonists
served indirectly to diffuse over Russia the rumour of his Own
impiety and apostasy. He had had Awakum (Habbakuk)
deported to Siberia, but he had forgotten to cut out his tongue
beforehand, a precaution he took with many of his antagon
ists. The result was that the exile spread the tidings, as he
travelled, of the profanation of the old religion. In scores of
villages they listened to his seductive preaching, and at Tobolsk
he even converted to his views the Archbishop Simeon. Nero-
nov, we saw, had been incarcerated at Vologda in the Simonov
Spasso-kamenski monastery, but the conditions of seclusion
in that day were not so rigorous as a modern State knows how
to impose. Villagers anxious to know what was passing in
Moscow flocked round him and eagerly imbibed his teaching,
for men are everywhere more prone to believe evil than good
about the men in authority, especially in Russia. For a time
it looked as if Nikon might share the fate of Maximus, the over
bold Greek corrector of a generation earlier. Even in modern
England it is easy to get up a heresy hunt. How easy then
must it not have been in XVIIth Century Russia. Western
Europe was in those far-off days, as in our own, envisaged by
all "true" Russians as a contaminated region, the home oi
Satan and of every Satanic innovation. Even to-day there
are innumerable Old believers in Russia who eschew tobacco
and potatoes on the ground that they were brought in from the
West by the accursed nemtsy, i. e. Germans and Scandinavians.
When the first Duma was instituted in 1905, and certain liberals
therein ventured to ask questions about how the money of
taxpayers was being spent, Russian conservatives denounced
them as infected with the "Western Poison." It was worse in
the XVIIth Century to be accused of Latinizing than of Judaiz-
ing. Nikon accused some of his opponents of using tobacco,
but that was barely so grave as the charge of Latin heresy now
spread abroad against himself, and the grand Seigneur or
Boyar Pleshcheev reminded Neronov of the prophecy con
tained in the Book of Faith (see above p. 54) of schisms and
dissensions in the Church; that book, he said, was full of warn
ings concerning the backsliding of the West and the apostasy
of the Uniats to the Western Church. Let Nikon beware lest
thereby they also should suffer. Most of Nikon's little
improvements in ritual were set down to his Latin heresy, in
particular the use of three fingers in blessing, the impressing on
the eucharistic wafer of a four-cornered cross, the triple Alle
luia, and the substitution in the phrase "offering the thrice
holy hymn" (trisagion) of the word chanting or intoning for
offering. For the word substituted among the Latinized
Slavs signified accompaniment by the organ of the voice,
and of the organ the Eastern Christians had the same horror
as John Knox of the "box o' whistles." Nikon was freely
likened to the Greek apostates Isidore and Ignatius, and
accused of truckling to the Pope of Rome.
Ivanovski and Macarius set before us a graphic account of
the events which ensued and culminated in the emergence of
the Raskol as a counter-Church after the Councils of 1666-7.
In lt?58 the opposition to Nikon, confined five years before to a
few of the higher ecclesiastics, began to swell into a popular
movement of such dimensions as to engender misgivings in the
Tsar. It was in vain that Nikon at the eleventh hour was
cowed into making a few concessions; for example, to the
clergy of the Uspenski Church in Moscow permission was given
to use as they liked either the old or the new Service books.
This was because Neronov, who had now been shorn as a
monk and taken the name of Gregory in religion, had from fear
of schism relaxed his opposition to Nikon's revision of the
church books. Nikon had many enemies in the hierarchy itself,
in especial Pitirim of Krutits. Not a few ladies of the court
and relatives of the Tsar were inflamed against Nikon by Awa-
cum's denunciations. Boyars or nobles whom he had treated
with such rigour, when in the Tsar's absence he was entrusted
with the administration of the realm, now saw their oppor
tunity to retaliate. They cast all their influence with the Tsar
against Nikon, who in 1658 suddenly found himself fallen
from the royal favour.
On July 6th of that year Teimuraz, the prince of the neigh
bouring little kingdom of Georgia, whose capital was at Tiflis,
visited Moscow. He was a Christian and orthodox, for early
in the Vllth Century his ancestors had abandoned their com
munion with the monophysite church of Armenia and gone over
to the Byzantines. In an age when few independent Christian
states survived in the East, the warriors of Georgia retained
their freedom; it was natural therefore that this prince, who
bore the ancient name of Teimuraz, should be accorded a splen
did reception in the Tsar's capital. On such an occasion the
Patriarch would naturally have taken, after the Tsar, the most
prominent part in the ceremonies, but it was noticed that he
was absent. He had not been invited, and his emissary on hi?
way to the reception was assaulted by the Tsar's attendants
and told to get out of the way. On July 8th, the feast of the
Kazan ikon of the Theotokos, the Tsar in turn absented him
self because Nikon was celebrating. On the 10th he also took
no notice of Nikon's invitation to him to attend the Hours,
and he sent a noble to inform the prelate that he was offended
and would not come to hear him repeat the liturgy.
Nikon was not the man to admit himself in the wrong or to
take the first step in reconciliation with his prince. He quitted
the church on foot leaning on a common crutch, and turned
his steps to Ilinka, where lay the hostel of the Resurrection
Monastery. There he halted three days and then quitted
Moscow for good, declining any more to occupy himself with
the business of the patriarchate. His quarrel with the Tsar,
according to Ivanovski, was due to nothing in particular.
They no longer sympathized; the nobles had stirred the Tsar's
distrust, and the latter looked askance on Nikon as one who
had pressed him to undertake the unsuccessful war with
Sweden from which he had lately returned. The chief reason
was that Nikon interfered in the administration. There was
no room for two heads of the State.
From the Fall of Nikon to the Council of 1666

A time of chaos followed the departure of Nikon. The
affairs of the Church were entrusted to his enemy Pitirim, the
Metropolitan of Krutits, the nobles had succeeded in thor
oughly poisoning the mind of their Sovereign against him, and
even incited the people to protest openly against his reforms.
The Raskolniki now began to shew themselves in public, and
Awakum after many years exile in Siberia was recalled and
given a position in the Kremlin. The Tsar patronized him
afresh and went out of his way to ask his blessing. There was
even talk of his being made the Tsar's chaplain. The renewal
of Court favour, however, did not abate Awakum's Raskol
enthusiasm. He undertook to debate with Theodore Rtish
chev the subject of Nikon's reforms, and these discussions
degenerated into noisy scenes.
About the same time the monk Gregory Neronov returned
from his place of confinement. Haunted with the fear of a
schism between the Russian and the Eastern Churches, he
had, as remarked above, left the ranks of the Raskol; but he
continued to agitate against the correction of the Service books,
and addressed petitions to the Tsar stigmatizing Nikon as a
son of perdition and demanding his condemnation by a Coun
cil. In this agitation he was joined by several notables who
till now had maintained a guarded silence. Among these were
Spiridion Potemkin of the Pokrovsky Monastery, an uncle
of Theodor Rtishtchev, and Theodor Trofimov, deacon of
the Church of the Annunciation, Dositheus and Cornelius.
Dositheus later on headed the Raskol among the Don
Cossacks of Olonets. Nicetas, a pope in Suzdal, and Lazarus
of Romanova also repudiated Nikon's reforms.
The populace of Moscow was by now infected with enthusi
asm for Awakum; his adherents ran along the streets and
stood in the public places proclaiming "the grace of the old
piety." Street fanatics pursued the Tsar's equipage, appeal
ing to him to restore the ancient religion. In the provinces
equally agitation raged against Nikon and petitions from the
clergy and bishops poured in to the Tsar, denouncing the book
Skrizhal which Nikon had disseminated in defence of his policy.
Raskol and Boyars joined in demanding the expulsion of Nikon
from the patriarchate. Even members of the royal family
joined in the outcry, for example Theodosia Morozov, one of
Awakum's penitents and widow of Glieb Ivan Morozov, with
her sister the Boyarina Eudokia Urusov. They even went to
the length of repudiating Nikon's baptism. They died in
1675 after being scourged, racked and imprisoned in under
ground cells at Borovsk in the Kaluga Government, their
martyrdom aiding the spread of the Raskol.
It is not wonderful if the clergy in many places resumed the
old books and modes of singing; and if the authorities had been
capable of good sense and moderation, they would have
accepted the warning. The spiritual temperature was indeed
rising, and as has happened again and again in times of stress,

fanatics began to read the signs of the time in that fertile
storehouse of religious dementia, the Apocalypse.
When the year 1000 of the Christian epoch arrived it was
generally supposed that the reign of Antichrist was at hand and
preluded the end of the world. It had passed away however,
without much harm, and now the year 1666 was at hand, a
date which the Raskol teachers connected with the number of
the Beast, which, as everyone knows, was 666. The Book of
Faith, widely current, as we have seen, in Russian religious
circles, prophesied that this mystical date would witness a
grand apostasy from the faith and the advent of the precursor
of the Man of Sin or Antichrist, if not of that personage him
self. Men's minds were stuffed with such speculations, and a
seer from the Volga, a compatriot of Nikon, appeared on the
scene with stories of his visions. He had passed a night in the
company of Nikon and had witnessed a number of demons
install him on a throne, crown him as if he were a king, pros
trate themselves before him and cry: "Of a truth thou art our
beloved brother," and so forth. Another fanatical monk,
named Simeon, had his vision also of a huge serpent coiling
his scaly folds around the palace of the Tsar and whispering
into the latter's ear the blasphemies of the contaminated service
books. Needless to say, the serpent was Nikon. The Tsar
himself wrote despairingly to Nectarius, the patriarch of
Jerusalem: "In our entire Church rites there lacks all uni
formity, everyone in the churches follows what order he
chooses." A Tsar of that age could not perhaps be expected
to realize what is even among ourselves on the threshold of the
XXth Century so little understood or desired that in religion
the important thing is not conformity but communion.
And now the pendulum began to swing once more the other
way,1 for those who had brought back Awakum and their
partisans from the obscurity of their places of exile or of hiding,
began to tremble at the wild success of their propaganda, which
seemed to strike at the roots of all authority in ecclesiastical
1 Acts of the Moscow Council* of 1666-7, Moscow, 1881, with introduction
by Prof. Subbotin: Macarius Hist., t. 12, p. 640 foil.
and even in political matters. Hatred of Nikon had tempo
rarily won for the Raskol teachers the support of the Boyars,
but this alliance now began to crumble. The Tsar was per
suaded in 1664 once more to relegate Awakum to exile, and
sent him this time to Mezen near Archangel. In those days
travel was slow, and prisoners less circumscribed in their
activities than to-day. It amounted in effect to a missionary
tour; the following year Awakum started back to attend the
Council of 1666. On his way to and from Archangel he had
spread his tenets right and left.
The Council of 1666
The Council of 1666 was ostensibly summoned by Imperial
decree to pass sentence on the fallen Nikon, still the victim
of the Tsar's displeasure and doubtless unpopular with many
powerful people. In the first session, after the credo had been
duly recited by all the members, three leading questions were
put to each and all: " Do you accept the four Greek Patriarchs
as orthodox? Do you accept as such their printed books and
MSS.? Do you accept the findings of the Council of 1654? "
These questions only bore indirectly on Nikon and removed
the question of his personal actions from purview. The
Council could condemn him, yet accept his handiwork, the
corrected books, the three fingers and the rest. They did both.
The result of the manoeuvre was what might be expected.
All present answered the questions in the affirmative and gave
their signatures in that sense. The next session was held
under the presidency of the Tsar himself, in his Stolovaya or
banqueting hall, his privy council assisting. The Tsar took
up his parable against the Raskol propaganda, declaring it to
be directed against the Church and its sacraments. He
recited the symbol from the Chrysobull of 1593, in the eighth
clause of which, as we saw, the one epithet Kyrion was used of
the Holy Ghost. As he was certainly unacquainted with
Greek, this was for a Tsar of that age a very impressive feat.
Pitirim, formerly Metropolitan of Novgorod, who had taken
charge of the affairs of the Church when Nikon was disgraced,
tendered in the name thereof its thanks to the Monarch for
his defence of orthodoxy, which the Raskol had never in any
way assailed. All who were present, Pitirim affirmed, unfeign-
edly accepted the said symbol.
In the third session the Raskol teachers were called up for
judgment singly or in batches. They were invited to accept
the corrected books and to repent, the charge preferred against
them being, not that they adhered to the pre-Nikonian texts
and rites, but that they condemned the new ones, that they
decried the authority of the Eastern patriarchs, calumniated
Nikon and falsely accused the Muscovite clergy of denying
the dogmas of the Incarnation and Resurrection. Some of
the accused remained impenitent, led by Awakum and Lazar ;
some sincerely abjured the supposed errors, as Alexander,
Bishop of Vyatka, who in 1663 had protested to the Tsar
against Nikon's correction of the creed and service books.
An abjuration of his errors was also forced from the monk
Gregory Neronov: others abjured, but, as the event proved, in
sincerely, such as Nicetas and the Deacon Thedor or Theodore,
who eventually had his tongue cut out. The obstinate were
excommunicated and sent to prison; the rest were hurried off
to monasteries to undergo discipline and be subjected to further
examination. The synod closed its deliberations by unani
mously condemning the new sect and ordaining that all incum
bents should use the new books.
The Raskol leaders were confirmed in their opposition by the
knowledge that the Greek Ecclesiastics brought to Moscow
were ignorant of the issues at stake. The latter could not
speak Russian and were tools in the hands of Nikon and of
the court party who alternately cajoled and overawed, bribed
and menaced them. They countersigned Nikon's edicts, but
did not in the least understand them. The Raskol leaders had
tin their side a learned Greek, named Dionysus, a monk from
Athos. who had lived in Moscow for ten years before the
patriarchs arrived and was familiar with the ins and outs of
the quarrel, for he knew the Russian language and liturgies
thoroughly well. A letter of his survives, written in 1667, in
which he accuses them of being deceived, of knowing nothing
of what was going on. of behevirg whatever they^were told.
* ltV* be writes. "you would exercise your own j-odgment. avoid
honours and gifts from princes and ecclesiastical authorities.
But if you do, I warn you that you will share the fate of
Maximus. They will intern you in a monastery, and you will \
never see your homes again." * J
Never was a great schism forced on a great Church upon a

flimsier pretext, and the feverish anxiety of the triumphant
faction to obtain the approval of foreign prelates for their
innovations shewed plainly that in their hearts they felt many
misgivings. This was why a few months later, in November
1667, the return to Moscow of Paisius of Alexandria and of
Macarius of Antioch after a lapse of eleven years was made the
occasion of a fresh meeting, this time to deal expressly with
Nikon. The other Eastern prelates who had attended the last
council were present along with sundry of the Greek clergy.
Nikon was condemned Ivanovski does not seem to know
what for, but really of course because in an autocracy there
is no room for two supreme authorities and exiled to the
Therapontov cloister; none the less the Synod approved of his
revision of the Church books, as also of the book Skrizhal
which as we saw above, was a stumbling-block in the path of
old-fashioned Churchmen. The condemnations of 1666 were
reaffirmed and those who resisted were anathematized, on the
ground that, in adhering to the old order, they thwarted ecclesi
astical authority and calumniated the orthodox eastern church
as an heretical body. The excommunications pronounced
against the dissidents were superfluous, for most of them had
already withdrawn from communion with the Church. Three
Patriarchs, fourteen metropolitans and eight archbishops, and
others, in all 76 ecclesiastics signed the acts of this Synod which
were then laid up for a perpetual record in the cathedral of
Moscow.
But the decisions of the Stoglav council a century before had
also to be got out of the way. It had solemnly anathematized
the practices now declared to be orthodox. Accordingly its
anathemas were as solemnly revoked as they had been pro
nounced, and the doctors who had attended it declared to have
been the dupes of dreams and forgeries. Thus began that
famous Raskol movement which still divides Russians, yet
has undoubtedly contributed much to the social, moral and
intellectual progress of the people and is destined, we may hope,
to contribute yet more in the future.
K. Waliszewski, the historian of the first Romanovs, in his
work (Paris 1909) entitled Le Berceau d'une dynastie, insists
hardly less than Kostomarov and Miliukov on the fact that the
events of 1667 laid the foundations of liberty and revolution in
Russia. In respect of its originating causes and conception?
the schism, he freely admits (p. 416), "wore the air of a petrified
fragment of old Moscovy. And yet its heart beat with an
intense life, and it shewed itself capable of such a power of
resistance and propaganda, of such a capacity for independent
development, as two centuries of persecution could not master
or subdue. It was to endure and grow, and in doing so itself
to unfold new phases in spite of the immobility which its
initial principle seemed to impose on it. It was to diversify
itself in an infinity of ways; robust organisms were to spring
up in its bosom and seek to bring about manifold phases of
existence in harmony with all sorts of creeds. A day was
also to come when revolutionaries, freed from all confessional
interests, and also reactionaries, no less indifferent to dogmatic
controversies, will contend for this problematic ally, the one
party hailing him as an instrument of their socialistic and even
anti-religious agitation, the other as an element of political and
social regeneration. . . The Laxars and Awakums vowed the
society of their time to eternal fixity, and yet none the less and
all unconsciously implanted therein principles that utterly
contradicted their postulate. Stationary or retrograde in
regard to the intellectual movement of their country along the
paths of civilization, they nevertheless were sharers in that
progress and added to the awakening of thought the awakening
of conscience. The subjection of the Church to the State
was only rendered possible by the general indifference of those
concerned. By attracting to itself such believers as were
more jealous than the rest of the liberties thus set at nought,
the Raskol facilitated that policy: but at the same time it
furnished the spirit of independence with an asylum of refuge
of a kind to keep it alive and develop its energy."
\
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I
P. AURELIO PALMIERI'S ACCOUNT OF THE RUSSIAN CLERGY
It is opportune, in illustration of Uzov's contentions, to add

here the strictures on the status of the Russian country clergy
in La Chiesa Rxissa by P. Aurelio Palmieri, O. S. A. (Firenze,
1908). He writes, p. 164, as follows:
" Dobroklonsky, an esteemed historian of the Russian
Church, thus speaks (t. ii, p. 147) of the defects which the
inferior clergy contracted from the very beginning of Russian
Christianity, and which still paralyze its mission: The chief
defects of the clergy (in the 17th century) were the multi
plicity of its members, the dependence of parish priests, their
want of means, their intellectual ignorance and moral short
comings. Against these drawbacks provisions were indeed
made, but they did not avail to eradicate the evils and neutra
lized them only for a short time. The result was that they
became inveterate."
"This author," continues Palmieri, "does not touch upon
one of the principal defects, the absence of abnegation and of
apostolic spirit in the clergy, a direct result of the servility to
which it was habituated by the social conditions of Russia and
the draconian laws of the Government.
"The inferior clergy live in parishes which in Russia have
undergone the strangest vicissitudes, and have been reduced
step by step from an unlimited autonomy to the level of mere
succursals, branch offices, of the police or bureaus of the State.
The Russian inferior clergy, from the first dawn of Russian
Christianity, appear to us to have been already predestined
to servitude. In the pre-Mongol epoch the material and
moral conditions of the priesthood were so low that it was not
the sons of boyars or of merchants or of well-to-do families
that aspired to it, but only persons belonging to the lowest
social strata, who regarded it as a rise morally or an employ
ment for the sake of making both ends meet. This resulted,
as Golubinsky, the historian of the Russian Church, express
it (i. p. 448), in a priesthood of cossacks and proletarians.
"The ancient Russian Church was not organized, and tit
choice of priests belonged more to the faithful than to tfc
bishops. In the Byzantine Empire, owing to the large num
ber of dioceses, there was more familiarity between the hier
archy and lower clergy. Christian Russia in contrast possessed
to begin with a very limited number of sees, which were ti
great territorial extent. There were no schools for the eduefr
tion of the clergy, and the bishop was not in a position to grasp
the needs of the new forms of Christianity growing up among
the Russian pagans who were embracing it. At first the
monasteries supplied the deficiency of pastors. The churches
of the cloister were transformed into parish churches, and
certain monks also devoted themselves to the task of sacer
dotal ministry in the cities.
"The Parish churches were, to begin with, founded by
Russian princes or by private individuals or by the communi
ties themselves. The first were kept up at the expense of the
princes, the second belonged exclusively to those who had
built them; they could be alienated or let, and formed part
of the hereditary patrimony. This gave rise to abuses, and
Russian councils, especially that of the Hundred Capita (or
1 lends, Stoylav), sanctioned measures intended to put an end
to this traffic in edifices of worship. The other churches were
the property of the mirs or communities which erected them
In cities and villages. To the right of ownership the mir
utltltul that of supervision, particularly in respect of the goods
belonging to the Church. The mir chose delegates whom it
charged to look after the economical interests of the parish,
one only at first, later on two. There were no laws relative
to the parochial clergy, and the faithful could increase or
diminish it at their pleasure. This right was a corollary of
the material conditions of the clergy in that age, for they
derived their livelihood from the community or mir which
sought their services.
"The priests of parishes were chosen by popular suffrage.
The choice made, a candidate presented himself before the
bishop, who laid hands on him, and ordained him, if he was
not a priest : or, in case he were such already, he blessed him.1
The bishop had no right to refuse a candidate so proposed, and,
moreover, the ample gratuity which he received for the ordi
nation of any priest whatever effectually silenced conscientious
scruples, if he felt any. As years rolled by, the ease with
which the priesthood was acquired and the lightness of the
work required by the ministry produced a plethora of popes . . .
It was enough for a candidate to secure a few votes or to
adduce two witnesses to affirm that a certain parish needed a
priest, and the bishop ignorant of the real facts, ordained the
postulant. So the caste of popes assumed the aspect of a set
of sweated operatives. The priests remained under the thumb
of the laity, which could deny them the means of livelihood
and expel them from their offices. Among the many com
petitors who presented themselves for the posts vacant in
parishes, the mir chose those who most lowered the scale of
their salary and of their tariff for ecclesiastical functions.
This led, as a Russian bishop deplored, to lazy or drunken
priests being chosen in preference to priests that were lettered
or led good lives.2 The nobility contributed to the decadence
of clerical prestige. In fact many nobles scrupled not to
present to the bishops, as candidates, their own serfs in order
to secure for themselves part of what they earned as priests
He continues on p. 168:
"Notwithstanding, the progressive decadence of the autono
mous regime of parishes and of the free choice of priests, though
it led to so many evils, is deplored nowadays by reformers of
the Russian Church, as an element in the dissolution of ortho
doxy. The ancient parish was considered a juridical unit,
legally organized and in political and religious aspects enjoying
autonomy. The bishops had not the right to make what rules
they liked in parishes, and if occasionally they attempted to,
conflicts arose which dragged on for years. The mir had its
atarosta or head who together with the parishioners and clergy
1 Dobroklonsky, iii, p. 53.
* Znamensky Uchebnoe Rvkovod&tvo po Istorii russkoi Tserkvi, 144-5, " School
Handbook on the History of the Russian Church."
conducted the affairs of the Church. The constitution of
parishes was in consequence lay rather than ecclesiastic, and
it is exactly this lay character which so much recommends it
to apostles of a laicization of the church of such a kind as would
assimilate priests to municipal counsellors and the bishops to
parliamentary deputies, the one group like the other subject to
the jurisdiction of their electors.
"In the 18th Century the autonomy of parishes, opposed by
the hierarchy and looked askance at by the Government, gradu
ally declined, and its diminution contributed to the enslavement
of the peasants, the spread of the Raskol and anaemia of religi
ous sentiment.1 In the Ecclesiastical Code of Peter the Great
the parish is still regarded as a juridical personality, a legal
association invested with the right to elect its own priests and
those who served in the Church, and to agree with the clergy
on terms that were legitimate. The parishioners also retain
the right to nominate the starosty, who were allowed out of the
collections made in church to raise hospices for beggars and
hospitals or asylums for foundlings . . . Peter the Great limited
the parochial right of choice by requiring that only men should
be chosen as ministers who had completed their studies in
diocesan schools. In the reign of Paul I, in order to render
the parish clergy more docile instruments of Government, the
Synod, in accordance with an imperial ukase, decided that the
worthiest and best instructed candidates should be given prefer
ence over those who enjoyed the confidence and goodwill of the
people; in this way Government candidates won a preference
over parochial ones. At last an ukase of July 24, 1797, decreed
the abolition for good of the custom of electing the parish
clergy, and also annulled the permission given in the 18th
century to the parish to present to the bishop for acceptance
and confirmation a list of candidates enjoying the people's
confidence. Later on the statute of ecclesiastical consistories,
promulgated March 27, 1841, cancelled the last traces of paro
chial autonomy, and laid it down that sacerdotal ordination is
a right which belongs immediately and exclusively to the
eparchial or episcopal authority. Thus the political slavery
1 Papkov, in Revue Internationale de Theologie, 1900, t. 8, p. 554.
jf the Church entered the last phase of its evolution. The
ower clergy, withdrawn from the free choice of the people,
became a laughing-stock in the hands of the hierarchy, and the
latter in its turn, transformed into one of the many cog-wheels
of the State, ceased to feel any solicitude for the liberty of the
Church, and took its orders blindly from the lay bureaucracy
of the Synod. In addition the parish clergy were condemned
to truckle to a hierarchy they cordially hated just because,
being enrolled in the monasteries, it was dominated by ascetic
ideals, and could not understand the wants of married priests."
He continues on p. 174:
"The movement of reform now (1908) afoot in Russia aims
at the resurrection of the parish as the chief factor in a renova
tion of the Church. The memorandum of Count Serge Witte
on the present situation of the Orthodox Church published in
the Slovo of March 28, 1905, insists before all things on the
reorganization of the primitive Russian ecclesiastical communi
ties. The ancient parish, so his memorandum runs, was as it
were the channel in which religious life flowed. The pernicious
revolution in ecclesiastical administration, thought out and
effected by Peter the Great, paralyzed its energies. In the
parishes religious and social life before his time excelled in
intensity. They formed juridical entities, autonomous units.
The community built its own church, chose its own pastor and
parochial ministrants. The parochial budget was regarded
as of considerable importance, and out of the resources of the
members of the community were maintained the church, the
manse, the school and works of charity. The parochial balance
also took the place of an agrarian bank, and could be used to
aid the necessitous. The community judged its members and
scrupled not even to penetrate the sanctuary of the home in
order to restrain it from moral ruin. And yet an institution so
useful for the development of religious sentiment and social
harmony crumbled to nothing after the reforms of Peter the
Great were adopted, and of it nothing remained but the name.
" What causes produced the fall of the parish? Witte shows
it with a sincerity rare in a statesman, and therefore, if we
quote his words, we run no risk of deserving the epithet of
systematic detractors of the Russian Church. The aggrandise
ment in the 18th century of the rights of the nobility over the
bondmen of the glebe suffocated ever more and more the
initiative of the communities which had lost their religious
autonomy. The Government policy of concentration, pur
sued with such obstinate ferocity that any union of people
which took the name of a fraternal association was looked upon
as a revolutionary or secret society, dealt pitiless blows at the
autonomous organization of the parishes. More than that,
the reformer of Russia looked upon the Church as part of the
complex mechanism of the State, and linked with its holy
duties a policeman's and inquisitor's tasks, utterly out of keep
ing with the dignity of its character. The priest was charged
to draw up an exact list of those who paid the imposts and was
obliged, in violation of the secret of the confessional, to draw
up a report of political plots or offences. With the change of
their character from that of shepherds of souls to inspectors of
police, the clergy forfeited the confidence of the people, and the
ties which united them with it were snapt for good.
"The decadence of the parish brought with it another in
convenience. The community ceased to take an interest in
the material conditions of its pastors, and the latter had to
provide for the support of their families out of the scanty
glebe the State allotted to the parochial clergy and out of the
legal contributions of the villagers. The result was that they
fell into extreme indigence, and often the Government was
obliged to assign to their orphans lands intended for the main
tenance of the churches; by consequence the clergy little by
little took on the aspect of an hereditary caste and alienated
still more completely the sympathies of the people.
"For the resurrection of the parish it is needful to reestab
lish the participation of the parishioners in the economic
management of the goods of the parish and in the choice of the
clergyman.
"In the first centuries of Christianity, not only priests, but
bishops as well were chosen by the people, with the result that
the one and the other came before their flocks as true pastors,
and not in the character of intruders sent to govern a church
by way of an act of grace or of rigour on the part of the political
authority. In the case of the bishops the day seems still to
be far off when their nomination will be made with the assist
ance of the people."
With these views of Palmieri may be compared those of
Miliukov in his Russian Civilization, 1905, pt. 1, p. 149. He
allows that the Raskol, though more attached to the letter and
form of rites, yet were more penetrated than the masses around
them by their inward spirit, and anyhow lived their religion.
But he doubts whether it was so much a protest, as the above
writers contend, against new restrictions imposed by the
authorities of the Church on the free spiritual life of parishes
and on their choice of parish priests. It is true that the priest
as the elect of the mir little by little had his place taken by the
nominee of the bishop, in such wise that the parish became a
half administrative, half religious unit. But the change was
less due to systematic crushing out of the interest taken by the
laity in church matters than to the fact that most who were
so interested went over to the raskol. Indifferentism was not
forced on them, but was a natural growth. That is also, as
we saw above, the view of Waliszewski.
Indeed the free election of the pope, even when it was a
reality, formed no spiritual tie between pastor and flock, just
because they exacted of him no gifts of teaching or knowl
edge. They wanted mass to be sung regularly and the Sacra
ments administered, especially to the dying, and no more;
consequently they used their right of election to procure a
pope as cheaply as possible, and they wanted in their deacon
just one gifted with a big voice for the responses. His func
tion was that of a deep tongued bell. He also served them as
a clerk to keep accounts etc., but was in any case a luxury,
and was usually the gift of a rich elder, like the chorister of
today. The government never overruled the choice of the
parishioners, and it was their indifference which turned the
ministry into a sort of trade. " What made you turn priest?"
asked Dimitri of Rostov of one early in the 17th century.
"Was it to save yourself and others?" " No," was the answer,
"but to support my wife and children."
The mere fact that parochial election was conducted on
such grounds did not in itself cause episcopal nomination to
take its place. The bishop did not grasp a privilege the
parishioners resigned. They were not his rivals, but merely
let things take their course; and the result was that parishes,
like other offices, became hereditary, and particular families,
son succeeding sire, held particular benefices generation after
generation, very much as is the case in England, where 'family
livings' are equally an institution. In some parishes one
family owned the office of priest, another that of lector, and
every clerical grade was hereditary. There was in fact a
tendency for the clergy to become a close guild, not through
legislation to that effect, but as the result of social tendencies
working equally in other spheres of administration, to which
free access was as difficult for all and sundry as to the clerical
office. Officially the priest was supposed to feel a vocation;
in practice he became a wheel in the bureaucratic machine,
and in this he occupied no exalted position, but was humiliated
to the lowest rung of the ladder. It was only in 1796 under
Tsar Paul that proprietors lost the right of knouting the village
priests; their wives were only exempted under Alexander I
in 1808, their children under Nicholas I in 1839. Moreover
the Government, while closing all other careers to the sons of
popes, set itself to cut down the number of parish clergy to the
lowest possible limit, and so forced the younger sons into the
army. These disabilities lasted from the reign of Peter I
until 1869, when at last other services and professions were
thrown open by Alexander II to clergymen's sons. In earlier
days, when the office of pope was still open to others than sons
of the clergy, those who assumed it usually did so not from
religious impulse, but in order to avoid the taxation which
pressed so hard on the individual in other walks of life.
The Raskol were sensible of this regress and naturally
preferred the old institutions to the innovations. They set to
work to defend national peculiarities on the plea that the
innovations were borrowed from the Latins, which was partly
true, inasmuch as the outward veneer of the Government set
up in Moscow was borrowed from the West. They were the
champions of personal liberty and maintained that the new
and harsh system of law was an anti-Christian institution.
The Code of Alexis Michailovich was and still is regarded as a
violation of Christian faith.1 Accordingly in constituting
themselves the champions of the old, they really took their
stand not on the side of what was old as being old, but as being
better.
1 A. Shchapov, Russian Raskol, pp. 468, 477.
CHAPTER II
THE EARLY DAYS OF THE SCHISM
With the council of 1666 the Old believers began their his
tory as a body separate from the official church. The prin
cipal events of the next few years were the Rebellion at the
Solovetski Monastery, and even more important the
Revolt of the Streltsy in Moscow, which led up to the great
dispersion of the Old believers far and wide in Russia and
even beyond its borders.
The Rebellion at the Solovetski Monastery
Ivanovski gives a graphic account of the rebellion which
took place in the Solovetski Monastery, on the White Sea;
and as it was typical of the age, it is worthy to be narrated.1
Already before the final rupture took place the inmates of
this convent had shewn themselves hostile to Nikon's
ecclesiastical improvements. It is true their abbot Elias
attended the Council of 1654 and even subscribed to the reso
lution passed by it in favour of more correct Service-books.
But he could not get a hearing for such a project among his
brethren, who formally declined in June 1658 to accept the
new editions and adhered to the old texts. Even before that
date their archimandrite during the Great Fast had induced
them to sign an abjuration of such impious novelties, and forti
fied by the assent of his monks had administered a sort of anti-
modernist oath to the clergy of the villages grouped round the
Monastery. Elias' leading supporters were the Cellarius Serge,
Sabbatius Obryutin, Gerasimus Thirsov and some other Elders.
Three of the brethren, however, dissented and sent a petition
to Nikon, which never reached him, for he had already fallen
into disgrace with the Tsar before it arrived.
1 Simeon Denison's homeric account of the Siege is accessible to English readers
in Will. Palmer's the Patriarch and the Tsar, vol. H, p. 439. He also gives the peti
tion sent from the convent to the Tsar in Oct. 1667.
79
In 1659 Elias died, and his successor Bartholomew of Vol

ogda was irresolute. He had indeed been consecrated Archi
mandrite at Moscow according to the new rites, and he went
thither in 1660 and 1664 to take part in Nikon's Synods.
Nevertheless he took no steps to impose Nikon's decrees in his
monastery, and for eight years the brethren continued in the
old ways without the clerical bureaucrats of Moscow taking
any notice of them. It was quite in keeping with Bartholo
mew's toleration of the old rites that in other respects he was a
martinet, maintaining an iron discipline among his monks.
He even went to the length of imprisoning and scourging such
of them as offended by rioting in church or complaining of bis
rigour. The Monastery, however, remained a centre of Old
believers; and the Government did not mend matters by send
ing thither for confinement numbers of rebellious clerks and
elders, as well as sundry of the laity, exiled from their homes as
criminals or notorious Raskolniks. A militant complexion
was lent to the monastic society gathered there by various fugi
tive Cossacks who had belonged to the band of Stenka Razin.1
The ringleaders of the place were Gerasimus Thirsov, Genna-
dius the Elder, Jona Bryzgalov, a runaway deacon of Tula who
had taken monkish orders, John Stukalov and the deacon
Ignatius. Among the exiles sent to the convent by way of
punishment was Prince Lvov, who had directed the Moscow
printing press. The name is familiar as that of a leader of the
first revolutionary government in Petersburg; another exile,
who presently led the revolt, was the archimandrite Nicanor,
who was in villeggiatura there after being prior of the Mon
astery of St. Sabba at Zvenigorod, the Tsar's summer residence.
He was a friend of Nikon's two arch-enemies, the Elder Theok-
tistus and the Protopope Awakum.
In 1666 the monks addressed a petition to their archi
mandrite, then attending the Council at Moscow, to be laid
before the Tsar. It contained a request that they should be
permitted to continue with the old rites; but instead of pre
senting it, Bartholomew did penance for observing them so
1 A Don Cossack who revolted and after ravaging all the cities of the Volga
was caught and executed in Moscow in June 1671.
EARLY DAYS OF THE SCHISM 81
long and rejecting the new. In this he set the example to the
other members of the Council on July 13. Nicanor was not
present at the Council, and had pleaded old age as an excuse
for keeping away from it. Offended by the subserviency of
Bartholomew, the monks at the instigation of Gerasimus
Thirsov, petitioned to have him replaced by Nicanor, and in
this demand Prince Lvov supported them. But Gerasimus
in turn was now summoned to Moscow, required to do penance
and despatched to the Volokolamski Monastery, where accord
ing to Denisov he was strangled. The rebels at Solovets were
thus obliged to choose new ringleaders and they selected
Alexander Stukalov, Gennadius and Ephrem.
The authorities in Moscow now began to feel concern, and
sent Sergius, archimandrite of Yaroslav, to reduce the mutinous
monks to order. He was to communicate to them the decision
of the Council in favour of the new rites and to hear their
complaints against Bartholomew. To support him, there
were sent with him members of the Tsar's bodyguard. But
before he arrived Stukalov and Nicanor had overcome the
hesitancy of the brethren, deposed the Cellarius Sabbatius
and appointed in his stead an illiterate monk Azariah, whose
function was to awaken the brethren of a morning. At the
same time a fresh remonstrance was despatched to Moscow.
Sergius when he arrived was treated with contumely, confined
with his suite in dark cells, and guarded by men armed with
clubs. No monk was allowed to communicate with him
except in a general audience, and the population of the neigh
bourhood made as if they would stone him as an emissary of
Antichrist. Ultimately he managed to escape, and warn the
authorities at Moscow. He was no sooner departed than the
treasurer, who bore the Coptic name of Barsanuphius, no
doubt in honour of the monophysite monk of Gaza of that
name, was deprived of his office, and Gerontius, a hiero-
monachus, entrusted with his functions. Stukalov at the
same time was sent with an elder and a couple of attendants
to Moscow to lay a fresh petition before the Tsar who by now
was thoroughly incensed at the spirit of insubordination
evinced by the brethren. It seems, however, to have been a
principle with this Tsar, in cases of ecclesiastical squabbles,
to punish the ringleaders on both sides; and accordingly,
while he sent the petitioners to monasteries under ecclesiastical
censure and restraint, he also sent Bartholomew about his
business. Nicanor too was doomed to disappointment; for
though he was in Moscow at the time, he was not preferred
to the vacant priorate, which was assigned instead to the
Elder Joseph, architect of the Hostelry in Moscow. The
comparative benignity, remarks Ivanovski, with which the
Tsar treated the recalcitrant monks only served to excite
their fanaticism and tempt them to commit further excesses.
There speaks the orthodox historian.
The three, Joseph, Nicanor and Bartholomew, all quitted
Moscow for the Monastery at one and the same time. The
first two were intended to stay there for good, the last no
longer than he would need to do in order to make over the
conduct and goods of the convent to Joseph. Nicanor, how
ever, gave his companions of the road the slip in Archangel,
and sent the brethren a letter by his valet warning them not
to admit Joseph or receive his benedictions, and this advice
they carried out. Ten days later, Sept. 23, Nicanor and his
partisans sent the Tsar another petition by the hand of an
Elder, Cyril Chaplin, whose English name recalls the discovery
of Russia by the Merchant Adventurers more than a century
before; he also bore a missive from the archimandrite Joseph,
whom, along with Bartholomew, the monks were treating
with disrespect, confining both of them to cells from within
which they could hear abuse lavished on them by all without.
They were boycotted and threatened and forbidden to ap
proach the altar, to kiss cross, gospel or ikons. Finally they
were bundled out in mid-winter on to the bank of the river.
Simultaneously the monks sent the Tsar a fifth petition, drawn
up by Gerontius the treasurer, more stringent than any of the
former ones. It is not known if it ever reached the hands of
the Tsar; but in any case it was printed later on and scattered
broadcast among the Raskolniks.
Joseph's letter denouncing the mutinous conduct of the
brethren reached the Tsar, who promptly ordered the goods
X
of the convent to be sequestrated; while the council of Moscow
-which had not yet broken up, excommunicated them. But
confiscation and anathema had lost their terrors for the ring
leaders, who merely set about to strengthen their defences
against the Tsar's officer Volokhov who in the autumn of 1668
was sent with a troop of soldiers to reduce them to obedience.
They began by allowing such of the inmates as were unwilling
to face a siege to depart, and of this privilege, eleven of the
monkish and nine of the white clergy availed themselves,
and crossed over to the Sumski bank of the river which the
convent over-looked, a circumstance that alone enabled
its defenders to stand a siege.
Volokhov unsuccessfully beleaguered the place for four years,
at the expiration of which Clement Iovlev, captain of the
Moscow imperial guard, took his place; a year later he in
turn gave way to Meshcherinov the voevoda or general.
Nicanor meanwhile was life and soul of the defence, ably
seconded by his valet or body servant Thaddeus. The garri
son sustained a heavy blow, however, in the loss of Azariah
the Cellarius, who, before Volokhov took his departure, was
caught out fishing by the enemy along with a few other monks
and sundry laymen, assisting in so necessary a sport. Their
boats armed with small guns also fell into the possession of
the enemy. Early in 1670, against the better judgment of
several of the monks, the ringleaders had determined to use
the Dutch artillery, with which the convent was armed, against
the imperial troops, and Nicanor having mounted the tower
and sprinkled the guns with holy water, had apostrophised
them in the words: 'Little Dutch mothers, our hopes are
centred in you, protect us!"
Eventually internal quarrels led to the downfall of this old-
believing fortress. Several monks who wanted to surrender
are said to have been starved to death, and it is possible that
the more resolute in their determination to hold out kept
the dwindling stocks of provisions for themselves; the victims
are said to have courted their fate by insisting on continuing
to pray for the Tsar in the liturgy. After they had been got
rid of in this cruel manner, certain unordained monks, says
Ivanovski, ventured to celebrate the rites and to hear confes
sions and grant absolution, while some even were left, if indeed
they had any choice, to die without the Sacraments.
Among the few brethren who, escaping from the fortress on
the arrival of Meshcherinov, went over to the enemy, was an
Elder named Theoktistus, and he revealed to the Voevoda a
secret entrance by way of a conduit under the White Tower, so,
Denisov quaintly adds, betraying the convent as Aeneas and
Antenor betrayed the Trojans. Through it the troops gained
access to the interior, and in a moment, the siege, which had
lasted eight years, was at an end, Jan. 22, 1676. All the monks
were pitilessly executed, and a fresh company of celibates,
more amenable to the new discipline of Moscow, was sent to
take their place.
The importance of this episode, rightly remarks our historian,
was not to be measured so much by its military aspects as by
its effect on the imagination of a reUgiously-minded peasantry.
For ages the convent had been a centre of popular pilgrimage,
and continued to be so all through the siege. It was the shrine
of the great Christian athletes Zosimus and Sabbatius. The
pious arrived beneath its walls and, finding it beleaguered,
so that they could not gain admission, returned to their homes
with indignant tales of the oppression and violence exercised
by the ecclesiastical authorities of Moscow. Not only the pil
grims, but inmates of the convent who escaped before and
during the siege, carried far and wide over The Pomorye, as the
drear coastlands of the White Sea are called, the legend of the
brilliant exploits and ultimate martyrdom of its gallant defend
ers. Forty years later Semen Denisov, a poet of the Raskol,
celebrated the siege in an epic which has enjoyed an enormous
success for two centuries. The poem of course teems with
visions and miracles; the rebels are extolled as martyrs, the
Tsar is an emissary of Satan, who perishes on the very day the
convent fell. He really died a week later; but the religious,
like the patriotic propagandist, prefers poetical justice to that
of dates, and the sacrifice of truth in this case was slight.
Ivanovski plaintively remarks that Denisov and his readers
. should have borne in mind that Christian martyrs never either
\
rioted or rebelled against an emperor's authority, and argues

that the defenders of the Solovets convent had no title to be
called martyrs, for they were only mutineers. He is strangely
ignorant of the Acta, Sanctorum.
The Revolt of 1682.
On May 15, 1682, a revolution l broke out in Moscow which
continued until it was repressed with ruthless energy by Peter
the Great in 1698. In essential respects this resembled that
of 1917. For it, too, was a joint revolt of the Streltsy, the
Praetorian guard of the day, and of the populace. After
rioting for three days, and murdering many who were obnoxi
ous to them, the soldiers proclaimed the two striplings John
and Peter Alexeevichi to be both Tsars under the regency
of their elder sister Sophia. A certain Prince Ivan Khovanski
who possessed a mansion in Moscow was a partisan of the Ras-
kol, and had long incurred suspicion by harbouring fugitive
priests and using the old books in his private chapel. He was
captain of the Streltsy and had little difficulty in investing
what was in origin a mutiny of soldiers with the character of
an Old believer rising. To him as officer of the guard was
presented a petition for the restoration of the old piety drawn
up by a monk Sergius. He professed his readiness to cham
pion the cause and promised to allow the Raskolniks to dis
cuss publicly their faith in the square where executions took
place. It sounds a grim project, but we must not forget that
the finest open spaces in Europe were but a few generations ago
consecrated to such uses. The petition was naturally approved
by the mutinous soldiery who can have had no idea of what
it was about. Nicetas Dobrynin, also named Pustosviat,
who had been pope or parish priest of Suzdal and had hypo
critically given his adherence at the council of 1666 to the new
church regulations, was chosen to conduct the debate in the
presence of the young princes and the regent.
The project failed however for the moment, and the petition
alone was presented to the royalties. On June 25 took place
1 Macarius, Hist, of Raskol: Solovyev, Hist, of Russ. 1. 12: BratskoeSlovo, 1875,
bk.4.
the coronation of the two little Tsars, the rite being performed
from the new books, and in the liturgy instead of seven, only five
prosphorae l were offered, a number displeasing to the Raskol-
niks. Nevertheless Nicetas held a service in honour of the
occasion in the Uspenski Church along the old lines as a sort of
counter-demonstration with the permission of Khovanski;
and this modest success inspired the partisans of the ' old piety'
to conduct a procession through Moscow with ikons and books.
Street preachers denounced the profanation of the churches
and service-books, and appealed to the multitude to defend
the old faith. Adherents of the new order were roughly
handled by the crowd.
On July 3 the Raskolniks began a public discussion with
Joakim the patriarch in his palace of the Cross, of which
Sabba Romanov, one of those who took part in it, has left us
a description. It was renewed two days later in the square
of the royal palace. The Old believers came with their books
and their cross, their pulpit and their lighted tapers, and
Nicetas standing on a dais began to read his diatribe before
the people. He wanted a public discussion of his thesis, but
the authorities declined this as unseemly and invited him
into the palace, where the lady regent Sophia was present with
several other princesses, her aunt Tatyana Mikhailovna, her
sister Maria Alexeevna and the Tsaritsa Natalia Kirileovna.
There were present also the patriarch and sundry archpriests.
Asked what he wanted, Nicetas returned: "To supplicate
humbly concerning the correction of the books. A new faith
has been introduced among us." Athanasius, bishop of
Kholmogory, replied for his patriarch, whereupon Nicetas,
according to the official report of the case, struck Athanasius
and abused the Patriarch. Sabba however who was present
states that he merely led him slightly aside with his hand.
The Princess Sophia then began to reproach Nicetas with
having recanted in 1666, and Nicetas replied, no doubt truly,
that he had only done so out of fear. The Princess thereupon
irritated by the way her father Cyril and brother Ivan were
1 i.e., the bares from which bread for consecration was taken. These loaves
were offered in the deacon's chamber and not at the altar on the bema.
\
spoken of in the petition (both of them had been murdered
by the mutinous soldiers) threatened to withdraw from Mos
cow with the rest of the Royal Family. At the same time,
Joakim, gospel in hand, proceeded to address a reprimand to
the Old believers, who received his remarks with derision,
signing themselves with two fingers their most effective
method no doubt of exorcism, and shouting 'Thus, thus!'
The interview then broke up, and the Raskolniks proceeded
to promenade about the city, entered the churches and said
prayers in their own fashion, and beat the bells.
Sophia, a capable and determined woman, like most of the
women who have from time to time controlled the fortunes of
Russia, now took prompt steps to separate the cause of the
revolted soldiery from that of the populace. She succeeded
by means of her donatives, and so far regained their loyalty
that they made themselves the agents of the arrest of Nicetas,
who was instantly beheaded for rebellion. This was July 21,
1682. His followers were banished to monasteries for correc
tion. The revolt of the Streltsy, it is true, was not quelled
and went on simmering; but henceforth it had little or no
connection with the grievances of the Old believers. J
The Ukaze of 1685 and Its ResvMs
There followed the Tsaritsa Sophia's ukase of 1685, one of
the most draconian statutes on the page of history. It
utterly proscribed the dissidents and forbade their very exist
ence. If detected, they were to be subjected to three-fold
torture, after which, if they did not recant, they were to be
burned alive. If they repented they were to be sent for
correction to an ecclesiastical prison. Those who had re-
baptized a convert were to be put to death, no matter whether
they repented or not; those they baptized to be knouted in
case of repentance, but, in the opposite case, slain. Anyone
who harboured them, even unwittingly, was liable to a fine of
5 to 50 roubles, in those days a great sum of money.
As might be expected, the dissidents did not wait to be
caught, and a great flight of them followed into the farthest
forests and deserts of Russia and even across the frontiers,
for it was impossible to draw such a cordon that they could

not escape from the Empire.
"In order the more freely to wander from city to city and
from village to village, the itinerant preachers and mission
aries cleverly assumed all sorts of disguises. Sometimes they
made their way in the garb of beggars, with wallet on back.
This was supposed to hold the alms of the charitable, but more
often it concealed Raskol books and tracts; at other times they
assumed the garb of pilgrims; often they travelled as peddlers
and colporteurs, with bags on their backs in which equally
they hid the literature of their teachers." 1
For all that, remarks Uzov, they were caught often enough,
and it was not for nothing that the teaching grew up among
them of the expediency of suicide en masse. P. Miliukov
(Outlines of Russian civilization, 4th ed. pt. 1, p. 71) estimates
that from the beginning of the Raskol to end of 1689 as many
as 20,000 burned themselves alive, and most of these in the
last nine years when Sophia's ukase was being executed against
them.
"The self-immolation of the Raskolniks was in their time as
heroic an exploit as we should to-day account a similar action
on the part of the defenders of a fortress." 2 "Let us baffle
Antichrist," s was the cry with which the Raskolniks rallied
one another's courage and declared it preferable to burn them
selves alive than give themselves up into the hands of a Govern
ment they detested. For the rest, it must be admitted that "it
was perfectly logical reasoning on their part; it was better
once for all to settle accounts with this life than be deprived
of it by inhuman tortures; moreover, they argued, you may
fail in the trial and against your will deny your convictions
after all." * "Many have affirmed that self-immolation was a
peculiar dogma of the Raskolniks. Had this been so, we should
meet with cases of voluntary self-immolation, provoked by this
teaching, without any other incentives. But in fact in all the
1 Shchapov, Russ. Ratk., p. 313.
* Vestnik, Evrop. 1871, No. 4, KostomaroT'e art., p. 494.
' The Raskol revealed in their oxen Hist. p. 228.
* Vremya, 1862, No. 1, art. by Aristov, p. 95.
known cases this form of death was chosen as an alternative to
forcible capture by army commandos, and for the most part it
was only adopted when their homes were being attacked.
What was there to induce a few fanatics, who had won over
ignorant peasants, to resort to so horrible a measure? They
furnish themselves an answer to the question in the historical
and trustworthy pictures they penned of contemporary perse
cution: "Everywhere blows resound; everywhere thrashings
and subjugation to his yoke follow in the train of Nikon's
teaching; everywhere whips and rods soaked daily in the
blood of confessors. The preachers of Nikon's new ideas
breathe, not the spirit of gentleness, but that of fury, wrath,
tyranny. Beatings and wounds, such are the methods of their
instruction, and not the grace of Christ; guile and evil deceit,
and not apostolic humility; with these they would spread
their faith, and the outcome of their cruel violence and tyranny
is a rain of blood. Village and field are bathed in tears,
wilderness and forest are loud with weeping and moaning and
groaning . . . Some suffered for the faith, others hid themselves
wherever they could, others when the invaders, the persecutors,
shewed themselves with guns and weapons, assured of martyr
dom, burned themselves alive." l Now and then, when they
saw the forces sent against them to be weak, they tried to
escape, and for a time were successful. Thus, for example,
they one day forced a commando to retire, having slain the
captain, Portnovski; but on that occasion they only fired with
the wads, out of terror; but irritation against the authorities
took the shape of cutting the dead body of Portnovski to bits.2
We may thus affirm without injustice to the facts "that self-
immolation was their last mode of escape. In no other sense
was it ever adopted as a dogma than as a way of avoiding per
secution and of escape from the rack, which was always in store
for such Old believers as fell into the hands of the Govern
ment." 3
1 Hist, of the Vygovski Old bel. hermitage, By Ivan Philippov, V and VI.
ibid. ch. 7.
Nation. Memorials, 1863, No. 2, art. by Esipov, p. 607.
Peter the Great

In the year 1689 another political revolution took place;
Sophia was driven from power and sent into a convent; and
her brother, Peter the Great, mounted the throne. He was
for some time too occupied with more pressing matters to
turn his attention to the Raskol, and they made use of the
precious respite accorded them to establish their various
settlements, which were at first formed, if not along strict
monastic lines, at any rate with a show of monastic terminol
ogy.
One of his first actions was to suppress the lingering revolt
of the Streltsy. "Rumours of their awful punishment were
carried all over Russia and struck terror into the hearts of
the people," 1 who regarded their Emperor with horror, and the
word Antichrist, whispered by the Raskolniks, was now
bruited far and wide. "But Peter annihilated the Streltsy,
and the popular risings came to nothing. The power was in
the end in his hands . . . After his terrible vengeance was wreaked
on the Streltsy, he could do exactly as he pleased." 2 So-called
"European reforms" were forthwith sprung upon the people,
tax-gatherers and press-gangs were everywhere, the peasant
labourers were lowered to the condition of serfs. A hundred
thousand of the people perished on public works, i.e. in the
building of Petersburg, of fortresses, canals; for the Sovereign
in his reforms had at heart the strengthening of his own prerog
atives and not the happiness of the people.
"The system of aalministration he raised was mechanical
and arbitrary, centralization was carried in dry hard style into
ridiculous details. Multiplication of provincial bureaucrats,
division of his subjects into castes, contempt for Russian popu
lar life with all its traditions and leanings to local peculiarities,
all this served to rouse the hostility of the people for the
amelioration of whose fate he did nothing at all." 3 Under
Peter the Government steadily pursued its work of centraliza
1 Raskol Happenings in 18th Century, by H. (G) Esipov, t. 1, p. 8, and t. 2,
p. 162.
Ibid.
Aristov in Vremya (Time) 1862, No. 1, p. 77.
tion, yet the masses "impelled by mediaeval tendencies to

separation and setting at naught the new ideas of administra
tion, refused to submit to a scheme of unification, and with
considerable resilience strove to maintain the ancient system
or, as the documents characteristically put it, to break off." 1
The administrators "did everything they could to bind the
people with eternal bonds, spared no effort to reconstruct
society according to an arbitrary plan which lacked all basis
in life and reason nor had any roots in popular ideas, feelings or
aspirations." 2 A fresh swarm of about 10,000 foreigners from
the West, mostly Germans, descended upon Russia, and were
concentrated by Peter in Moscow, "illuminated instructors
who made no effort to grasp the deeper popular tendencies and
needs of the national spirit, but held the people tight by the
bearing-rein of their methods and regarded them as so many
country bumpkins." 2 But "in the soul of the people was
engrained a deep and powerful bias against royal prerogatives,
and a profound distaste for a flat governmental rule the same
for all, an instinct to be free from the strict regime of a single
absolute authority, to assert their own will and manage their
own affairs. The very idea of a supreme authority, of autoc
racy, which attained full development in the rule of an
Emperor had never yet penetrated the entire people." *
"Seditious" tracts were published, penned, by the admission
of the authors, " because of their sympathy with the people,"
or "for their advantage and in order to alleviate the weight of
taxation." In these it was contended that God made man
"in his own image and likeness, and that it was God's own
ordinance that man should be absolute master of himself." *
The Russian steam-roller invented by Tartar tyranny and
perfected by Peter the Great was never much admired by the
Russians themselves.
The Old believers led the opposition to the reforms of Peter I,
alleging that he "was an agent of all wickedness and of Satan's
will, and had raised himself on high above all false gods."
1 Shchapov, Russian Raskol, p. 465.
Vremya, 1862, No. 1, art. by Aristov, p. 78.
Sbchapov, op. tit., p. 471.
4 Esipov, op. tit. t. 1, pp. 166, 182.
He was, they declared, a false Messiah who magnified himself

and surrounded himself with glory before all. In 1721 Peter
assumed the title of Patriarch, took the name of Father of his
country, as the pamphlet 'Kingdom of the Dead' attests
against him (p. 115), made himself head of the Russian Church
and autocrat; he now had no one on an equality with himself,
and appropriated not only the authority of Tsar, but of priest
hood and Godhead. He became absolute shepherd of a head
less church, the adversary of Christ, in a word Antichrist." 1
As Shchapov remarks, the Old believers ominously com
plained that Peter the Great "called himself Emperor and
Monarch, that is to say sole ruler and sole authority, thereby
assuming the title of God of Russia, as is testified in the pam
phlet 'Peter's Cabinet' in which it was said: "Behold thy God,
behold thy God, O Russia!" 2
Accordingly the Raskolniks rose against all the statutes
and edicts by which Peter set himself to uphold his autocratic
rule. They declared the census list to be Antichrist's list,
and taught the people not to inscribe their names in it. " We,"
they wrote, "have been instructed by Christ in his law, and
we keep his commandment and preserve the holy faith; and
therefore we refuse to submit ourselves to such a false Christ
and to obey him; never will we inscribe ourselves in his books
and share the transgressions of the impious, nay, we will not
counsel anyone to do so who desires to be saved." "Verily
we see fulfilled the mystery of the Apocalypse; the reign of
the primal beast is established among us, and the earth and
all that live thereon are made to bow the knee to Satan and
say: 'Settle our account, we beg you humbly to grant us pass
ports.' He will answer: 'Out with your poll-tax for the new
year, and are there no other arrears to pay up, for you live
on my earth?' There you have a deep pit for the destruction
of the human race." 3
From the time of Peter the Great the Russian Government
1 Proceedings of the Imperial Society of History and Antiquities, 1863, bk. 1,
pp. 53 and 63.
Shchapov, Rws. Rask., p. 478.
* Imperial Society of History and Antiquities, 1863, vol. 1, pp. 55, 58, 59.
spent time and trouble on the compilation of statistics, of
which, however, it never made much use. If we bear in mind
that the project of a methodical census of the inhabitants of
the United Kingdom when it was first mooted late in the
XVIIIth Century, provoked angry protests from religious
people, and was actually rejected in the House of Lords on the
ground that, like the similar experiment of King David, it
might call down upon the land the wrath of God, we shall
not be surprised at the acute displeasure of the Raskol when
Peter the Great imposed a census and a poll-tax on them nearly
a century earlier. In 1890 it was still one of the chief griev
ances of the Armenians under Russia's rule, that the Govern
ment obliged them to register their births, deaths and mar
riages. They had suffered no such indignity under Turkish
and Persian rule, and it partly explained the saying, then and
now common among them, that whereas the Turk only slew
their bodies, the Russian slew their souls. We shall have occa
sion, however, to point out later on that the religious census
prepared under the auspices of the Russian State and Church
has no statistical value whatever and was only contrived to
deceive and conceal facts. It is noteworthy that the Raskol
also, in combating a census under Peter, adduced the warning
example of King David's reign.
"The Raskol rebelled against the very structure and organi
zation of the imperial government, beginning with the Senate
and the provincial administration. Everywhere the dissidents
found fault with aspects of the administration which conflicted
with the welfare of the people, and exploited the disorders
which broke out in the provinces for strengthening their
influence and extending it." x
Pitirim, bishop of Krutits, Nikon's successor, in his report
to Peter I, said of them: "Wherever you find them, instead of
being pleased with the good fortune of the Sovereign, they
delight in his misfortunes." 2
Such was the attitude of the Old believers to the policy of
Peter the Great, and they continued their hatred of his govern
1 Shchapov, Russ. Rask. p. 515.
1 Imperial Society History and Antiquities, 1860, bk. 4, p. 281.
ment to that of his successors: "We behold," they said, "what
a spirit of impiety works and shall work to the end of the world
in all holders of power." 1 They remained obstinate, and to
this day, says Uzov, the Old believers retain this conviction;
only a fraction of them under the influence of the reforms of
the present regime (1881), have begun to relax the severity
with which they judge the Government. Their spokesman,
Macarius Ivanovich Stukachev, an adherent of the Theo-
dosian sect, in his address to the Tsar Liberator in the Sixties,
intimated as much: "In the innovations," he wrote, "of your
regime we seem to behold our good old time." 2 In such words
we detect the point of view of the Old believers in their opposi
tion to the Government and seize the meaning of the ' good old
times' for which they stood.
Tsardom and Antichrist
Almost from the dawn of Christianity the teaching about an
Antichrist or counter-Messiah, if not Satan himself, at any
rate his lieutenant, has furnished enthusiasts with a theme for
prophecy and dreary dissertations; and it has been cynically
observed that no student can long preoccupy his mind with
that most characteristic work of mixed Jewish and Christian
piety, the so-called Book of Revelation, without jeopardizing
his reason. Never have the Kings of the Gentiles raged furi
ously and devoted themselves to the ever congenial task of
violating the essential spirit and precepts of Jesus of Nazareth
by setting their subjects to cut one another's throats, without
an appeal being made by each side to this bizarre monument.
During the recent war French divines found in it a prophecy
of German barbarism, and their German counterparts read in
it a record of French, Russian and English impiety. We are
not therefore surprised to find that such vaticinations filled a
large space in the mind of the Russian dissidents. Their
attitude towards Nikon and the Tsar of the time was summed
up in the belief that the two men were the instruments, if not the
impersonation, of Antichrist.
1 Ibid., 1863, Bk. 1, p. 59.
s Istina (Truth) 1867, bk. 2.
\
The Messiah himself, according to an early tradition, had
disclaimed knowledge of his second advent on earth, but was
sure that it would on the one hand usher in the end of the world,
on the other be preceded by the appearance of Antichrist ; and
accordingly in the 24th and 25th chapters of the first Gospel
we find enumerated from some contemporary apocalyptic
document the signs that are to herald the last days. But in
every age Christian teachers have claimed a knowledge which
was denied to the Founder; and the author or redactor of
the Book of Revelation which closes the canon of the New
Testament was already acquainted with the exact chronology
of Antichrist and knew that Satan was to be bound for a
thousand years, whence it was argued that the world would
end in A. D. 1000.
But alongside of this belief was current another, equally
ancient, that this great event was timed 7000 years from Crea
tion, because one day in the Scriptures symbolizes a thousand
years, and as the world took seven days to complete, so it will
run for an equal period. Rome, the imperial city, was to
endure to the end. When old Rome fell in the fifth century
the religious imagination found no difficulty in readjusting itself
to events, and it was agreed that the prophecy regarded not
old but new Rome or Byzance. Presently new Rome fell also
into the power of the Turks in 1453, and then it looked as if the
visions of the seer were really to be fulfilled, for 5508, the tale of
years which according to Christian chronologists had preceded
the birth of Jesus added to 1453 made a total of 6961 which was
not far from 7000. The full period would mature in 1492.
That year also came and went without any cataclysm; and
then in Russia arose a new interpretation of the prophecy, of
which few echoes ever reached Western Europe. This was
the remarkable theory that in default of old and new Rome,
Moscow was the imperial city, was the third Rome of which,
as was thought to be foretold by St. Paul in II. Thess. ii,
7, the mission is to be the last refuge of orthodoxy and to
hold down the Antichrist. The Russians shared the Hussite
belief that by A. D. 1000, if not earlier, the Pope of Rome had
become the precursor of Antichrist, and this view is enunciated
in the so-called Book of Cyril compiled by Zizania. The

author of another work, which circulated in XVIIth Century
Russia, the Book of Faith, shewed that in 1439 at the Council
of Florence the Western Slavs had apostatized to Rome and
therefore to Antichrist, and hinted that the turn of the Great
Russians and of Moscow was coming. Chance arranged the
year 1666 as that of the final triumph of Nikon's 'reforms.'
Now 1000, the date of old Rome's final apostasy, added to
666, the apocalyptic number of the Beast, just made that date.
It was inevitable that the Raskol teachers should put two and
two together and teach that the prophecy of the Book of Fatih
was being fulfilled before their eyes. About that they were all
agreed.
The only point left doubtful was this: in whom was the
Antichrist to be recognized? Who was the Man of Sin?
Was it Nikon or the Tsar? or both? It was not difficult to
find, among the martyrs of the Raskol, incarnations of Etias
and Enoch who according to ancient prophecy were to confute
Satan and his emissaries; but neither Nikon nor the Tsar bore
the distinguishing marks of the Antichrist, beyond the fact
that they were real men of flesh and blood. That much the
Antichrist was to be, but then he was also to reign for three
and a half years ; his mother, like Christ's, was to be a virgin,
and even the traits of his personal appearance were prescribed
in old prophecies. In some ancient documents, for example,
the picture of St. Paul in the Acts of Thekla was adopted
unchanged as that of Antichrist an indication of a Judaizing
source hostile to the Apostle of the Gentiles. An Elder of the
Raskol, Abraham, set about to prove that Nikon was Anti
christ, with the aid of passages from St. Cyril of Jerusalem and
from Hippolytus' tract on the subject; but his arguments did
not please everybody, and Awakum more modestly pretended
that Nikon was only the Precursor of Antichrist, for as Christ
had a precursor in John the Baptist, so it was necessary for his
antitype to have one.
Theodore the deacon broached a third view to the effect that
Antichrist was no other than Satan himself, an invisible spirit
who issues from the abyss at the end of a thousand years to
v\
V
corrupt Rome with heresy and Lithuania with apostasy. In
1666 this serpent entered into his two chosen vessels, the Tsar
and Nikon. Thus there came into being a counter Trinity of
serpent, beast and lying prophet. This theory of the incar
nation of Antichrist in these two men was a step in the develop
ment of a doctrine which the Bezpopovtsy adopted later on;
they broached the view that the entire series of Tsars from 1666
onwards were and are incarnations of the Evil One. Anti
christ to their imagination is rather an ideal of evil, a tendency
that makes for Hell rather than Heaven, than a real person.
The excellent Ivanovski sets out arduously to overthrow these
old world opinions and argues seriously that Antichrist when
he appears will be a circumcized Jew of the tribe of Dan, of
miraculous birth, etc. in the same spirit as is found in pseudo-
Hippolytus, in John of Damascus, and in Andrew of Caesarea's
Commentary on the Apocalypse.
The mediaeval Cathars were on rather safer ground when
under stress of Papal persecution they argued that this world is
already Hell, so that we need not wait for another existence in
order to experience its tortures. For them as for the Raskol
the government of Kings and princes was a manifestation of
the power of Satan. The regime of persecution under which
they groaned was hardly worse than that which until yesterday
existed in Russia. It would be interesting to know what the
Raskol thought of the Russian Revolution. Did they see in
the deposition of the Tsar an end put to the reign of Antichrist?
Will they be grievously disappointed if the end of the world
and the last great assize fails to ensue? Intellectual progress
had undermined for many of them these grotesque beliefs,
but the war may have revived them. If there were any
Cathars left to-day they might justly hail it as a confirmation
of their beliefs.
Excommunicated by the Council of 1667 the Raskolniks1
resolved to hold no more relations with the dominant church.
"It behoves us," they said, "as orthodox Christians not to
accept from the adherents of Nikon either benediction, or
ceremonies, or baptism, or prayers, not to pray with them
1 Material for the History of Raskol, t. 5, pp. 217 foil, and 231 foil.
either in Church or in private, not to read their heretical books

nor follow their heretical chantings." The Cathars of Europe
pronounced the prayers of the Roman Church to be magU
execrabilis quam impetrabilis, "worthy rather of execration
than of being asked for " ; the Raskolniks regarded the devotions
of the Holy Russian Church in exactly the same way.
But in an age of fierce and searching persecution it was
difficult to carry out a program of complete and unconditional
abstention; Awakum therefore drew up rules by observing
which the dissidents might as far as possible keep themselves
uncontaminated by Nikonian rites. "If they drag you into
Church, then," so he wrote, "whisper your prayer to Isus";
They objected, it may be remembered, to the substitution in
the Service-books of the correcter spelling Iesus for Isus. " On
no account," continues Awakum, "join in the singing; nor
salute the Saviour's image along with the rest, but so soon as
the Nikonians cease to pray, then make your own prostration.
"Whenever on a feast day the Pope comes to your house with
cross and holy water and wants to sprinkle your home, follow
him round and sweep it out with a broom." One recalls the
way in which on certain holy days the Greek islanders sweep
the evil spirits out of their houses crying etja> *apev, 'out with
the unclean ghosts.' "Tell your children," he continues, "to
hide away from him behind the stove, but go forward yourself
and your wife and give him a drink and say : ' We don't deserve
to be blessed.' He begins to sprinkle about, but get him into
a corner, give him another drink, and tip him a coin or two.
Your wife can go about her household affairs and say: ' I have
no time. You've a wife of your own, father, and can under
stand how busy I am.' If they haul you off to make your
confession to one of Nikon's priests, talk rubbish to him. But
any one who takes the Sacrament in an orthodox church, even
involuntarily, must do six months' penance, must not communi
cate with the faithful, but weep for his sins." Awakum like
wise imposed penance on anyone who even in mockery crossed
himself with three fingers. By such devices he trusted to
keep alive the spirit of the Raskol, and at the same time ward
off persecution. In the churches the ikons of ancient saints
might be venerated, but only after the congregation had left
the church.
It is pathetic to observe that the dissidents cherished as long
as they could the belief that the Tsar was the victim of fraud
and had been deceived by Nikon. They continued for long
to think that he had only to be undeceived, and continued to
address petitions to him 1 pleading their cause. The dismissal
of Nikon and the favour shewn to Awakum 2 by members of
the Royal Family, like Fedosia Prokopievna Morozova and
Eudokia Urusova, encouraged them to beseech their Sovereign
to restore the old piety, to abolish the use of the three fingers
which was the sign of Antichrist, to let them retain the old
books. It was only gradually that the fire of persecution
burned into their souls the conviction that the Tsar was him
self the Antichrist. At first, accordingly, the tone of their
petitions was loyal and humble. They approached their
liegelord in tears, praised his piety, termed him a child of light,
a son of the resurrection. But presently they began to hint
at impending calamities, a menace to which then as now the
Russian despot was singularly susceptible; they even invoked
against him the judgment of Christ. Nikon, so Awakum
warned him, had slain his soul and he would answer for it in
the great assize. He had given ear to the flatterers of this
world, the Nikonian doctors to wit, wrote Abraham, and the
consequences would be war and discord. Terrible dreams, as
always in such times, were in fashion. Awakum at last wrote
to the Tsar that he had in a vision beheld a gaping wound in
his back and belly; and after the Tsar's death he wrote in
1681 and informed his son Theodor or Fedor that he had been
vouchsafed a vision of his father in the torments of Hell.
The Tsar's answer was to condemn the writer to the stake along
with his three companions, Lazar, Epiphan and Nikiphor.
Awakum died crossing himself with two fingers and consoling
his friends as the flames rose and encircled them. : :
1 Mat. for Hul. of Raskol, vols. 3-7.
1 Rusik. Viestnik, 1865, Sept., p. 33.
CHAPTER III
THE DISPERSION
The death in 1656 of Paul of Kolomna, the only bishop who

had joined the movement, had left the seceders without
priests and split the movement into two wings, called Popovtsy
or Bezpopovtsy according as they fell back on the use of priests
who came over to them from Nikon's heresy or made up their
mind to dispense with priests altogether. The Popovtsy can
be taken first.
The Settlements of the Popovtsy
The Popovtsy were a more united body than the priestless,
and as with the aid of runaway orthodox popes they merely
continued the old orthodoxy, there was nothing except the
need of hiding from the Government to cause scissions among
them, but they were widely dispersed.
In Nizhegorod their earliest leaders were contemporaries
of Nikon, the hieromonachus Abraam, the monk Ephrem
Potemkin, the Elder Sergius. They built the Kerzhen settle
ments among the forests of the Balakhnovski district, which
were called after the Elder Onuphrius, who was their prior
in 1690. Onuphrius inherited the writings of Awakum and
these became for the Popovtsy what the writings of Luther
are or were for the Lutheran church. This however, did not
prevent microscopic dogmatic errors being detected in them
about Christ's descent into Hell, which almost led to schisms.
Onuphrius' followers were numerous early in the 18th century
among the forests of Bryn in the Kaluga government and in
the see of Rostov. Awakum at first had insisted on the rebap-
tism of Nikonian converts, but his followers, when they found
themselves dependent on fugitive priests of the dominant
confession relaxed their severity. In Nizhegorod and the
surrounding district 3000 followers of Awakum burned them
selves alive early in the movement, and many more starved
themselves to death to avoid the rack and the glaive.
Other Popovetsy settlements were organized on the Don and
101
the Kuban rivers, by the Elders Job and Dositheus, who also
founded the monasteries of Rakov and Nikolski in the district
of Tver. A third monastery, the Lygovski, was founded as
early as 1669 in the Rylsk district in the Kursk government by
Job, who was a Lithuanian monk. He built a fourth on the
River Chir in the Don region to which he had to flee. There
Dositheus, hegumen of Tikhvin, consecrated the first Raskol
church after Job's death about 1683. In 1688 the flight
extended to Astrakhan where Dositheus with the help of two
priests Pafnutius and Theodosius organized settlements on
the River Kum on the Cherkess steppes. Others followed near
Tambov, in the Crimea, and on the Terek. In 1708, a rebel
against the Tsar's government named Ignatius Nekrasov after
raiding Saratov, Tsaritsyn and Dmitrevsk, fled with his clan
to the River Kuban, where he made his submission to the Khan
of the Crimea and founded the Raskol community known under
his name which subsequently was settled in Turkish territory.
The famous rebel Pugachev was also a Raskolnik of the Don,
and was assisted in his exploits by Nekrasov and his followers.
These active Raskolniki of the Don and Kuban were in
regular communication with communities of Popovtzi estab
lished at Vetka in Poland and at Starodub in the Tchernigov
Government. The latter was founded by Kosmas, once priest
of All Saints in Moscow. Condemned in 1667, he had fled
with 22 of his parishioners. He was befriended by the military
officer of Starodub, Gabriel Ivanov, who got permission in
1669 from the Ataman Lamak of Kurkub for Kosmas to settle
on the River Revna at Ponurov. In the surrounding forests of
Starodub the fugitives multiplied and organized four villages,
where one Stephanus, who had been ordained before 1666,
aided by his son Dmitri, celebrated Mass and other rites for
the inhabitants. In 1682, at the death of Tsar Theodor
Alexiev the regent Sophia ordered the Starodub fugitives to
be driven back to their homes. Thereupon Kosmas and
Stephanus with their followers fled into Poland and settled at
Vetka, which soon became a leading focus of propaganda.
A dispute over the use and making of the holy chrism led
to the formation of a group called the Diakonovo by a deacon
THE DISPERSION 103
Alexander. Its members continued to live in Kirzhen, Staro-
dub and other Popovets centres.
When the Vetka settlement was wrecked by Col. Sytin and
his five regiments by order of the Empress Anna Ioannovna in
1733-4, the survivors asked permission to transport their
church called Pokrovski or of the Intercession to Starodub.
They took it down, made a raft of the beams and planks and
floated it down the river Sozh as far as the village Svyatki,
where a storm wrecked it and they only saved the Royal door
and the two side doors and four ikons. They also had the
ikonostasis in bits, for they took that by road. Sytin wanted
to leave them the relics of their four founders and patron
saints, Joasaph, Theodosius, Alexander and Antony. But
near Novgorod Sieberski the Tzar's agents violated the reli
quaries, opened them and cast the remains into the river.
Then, relates Macarius, the modern orthodox prelate and
historian, "the victims of superstition saw in the coffins not
incorruptible relics, but just a few old bones. They smelled
their stench, and left off boasting about their pretended saints.
The coffins were burned"!
The Starodub colony inherited something of the old glory
of Vetka when the latter after being again and again raided
was finally destroyed in 1762-4. It had been founded, as
we saw, in 1682, under John and Peter Alexeievich, the young
Tsars. As many as 17 hamlets in time grew up amidst the
impenetrable forests of the region. In 1708 when Charles
XII of Sweden, by reason of the treason of Mazeppa, invaded
little Russia and reached Starodub, the sectaries attacked him
with much vigour. As a reward of their loyalty Tsar Peter I
granted them lands and certain immunities.
In 1775 two laymen, originally of Vetka, who had settled
in Starodub, broke off because of some small dogmatic dispute
and settled in Chernobol in Poland on the estates of the Pan
Khatkyevich. Their names were Nikephorus Larion and
Pavel Grigorev. The Suslovo sect of Popovtsy was founded
from Starodub by one Theodor Suslov who disapproved of
runaway popes being accepted from Little Russia where in
certain places they accepted baptism by sprinkling only.
But the two chief fresh settlements to which the final de
struction of Vetka gave rise were on the River Irgiz in Saratov
and in Moscow itself. As many as 120 families settled on the
Irgiz where now is situated the city of Nikolaevsk. They
built shrines and sketes after the Raskol custom in the sur
rounding forests, and in 1770 obtained a regular priesthood.
In the next year 1771, the sect managed at last to establish
itself in some force in Moscow itself, a century after the first
flight thence. The Priestless sect had set an example which
the Popovtsy now followed. This was the establishment of a
hospital for the sick called the Kladbich in the village of
Rogozh, just outside the capital. Two shrines were dedicated
to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, and adherents all over
Russia sent liberal gifts for its endowment. By 1800 it had
several hundred inmates, and 20,000 parishioners in Moscow.
As to the early history of Popovtsys in Siberia few data are
preserved, but entire villages fled thither at an early date with
their priests, and took refuge in the regions where iron and
gold were mined. In 1722 ukases were issued against further
flights thither, and enacting penalties against priests of the
orthodox church who should join them. Nevertheless their
colonies were numerous, and Ekaterinburg became their
centre. Many rich merchants and citizens there belonged to
the sect, which obtained popes from Irgiz. As early as 1800,
there were more than 150,000 Popovtsys in the governments
of Orenburg, Perm and Tobolsk, and in Ekaterinburg they had
a church built of stone.
Ivanovski, dwelling on the above facts, strives to shew that

the dissidents were not punished on account of their religious
opinions, but for opposing the Tsar's Government, as if such
opposition itself needed no explanation. A modern historian
is astonished rather than the reverse, that so slight resistance
was shewn throughout to the centralizing policy of Moscow.
Had the Raskolniks been Quakers they could hardly have
shown less. In contrast with the Huguenots of France, the
Protestants of the Netherlands, the Roundheads of England,
even with the Anabaptists of the continent, they were emi
THE DISPERSION 105
nently peaceful people, inspired with the spirit of a Tolstoy
rather than of a John of Leiden. In the few cases Ivanovski
enumerates of their offering resistance, one discerns, what
Macarius equally admits, that they were the assailed and
not the assailants. Thus he describes their "attack" upon
the Paleostrovski Monastery in Pomorye, where they seized
the treasury, bound the hegumen or abbot, and fortified
themselves in it. They only did so because here, as in the
Solovets Convent, they had the sympathy and approval of the
monks; so also at Pudozh, where two hundred of them took
possession of the church and held services in it of the ancient
style. In the case of the Paleostrovski Convent and of
Pudozh, Ivanovski's further narrative confirms this interpreta
tion of the facts, for he relates that in both places the Raskol-
niks committed themselves to the funeral pyre rather than be
taken, and that in the first-mentioned of them they burnt
the hegumen and the monkish inmates along with themselves.
It is obvious that the brethren were in sympathy with the
Raskol, for they could easily have escaped, if they had wanted
to. In general the dissidents fled into the forests, just as did
the Latin Uniats of the Ruthene province of Kholm during the
last thirty years; there, they fasted, prayed, confessed to one
another and then perished of hunger, fully persuaded that the
end of the world was at hand. They even dug their own
graves and lay down in ditches, momentarily expecting the
last trump to strike their ears, now that Antichrist was come.
The Search for Priests
The Russian Orthodox Church, from which the Raskolniks
of 1667 were driven, possessed, like the other great churches
of the East and West, a threefold hierarchy of bishop, priest
and deacon; and the chief external difference which has for
centuries separated the Eastern Churches, not only those
which arrogate to themselves the title of orthodox, but the
Monophysite Christianity of Armenia, Egypt and Abyssinia,
and still older Nestorianism, is one of discipline. In the East
the Parish Priest, the Papa or Pope, must be a married man,
though, if his wife dies, he cannot take a second. In the West
ever since the age of Hildebrand, if not earlier, the parish
elergy are celibate, and have taken in effect not only the ordi
nary vows of ordination, but monkish vows as well, though
they are known as secular clergy in opposition to the Regulars
who live under a monastic rule. In the East, in strong con
trast to the parish clergy, the bishops or 'higher clergy' are
monks, usually of St. Basil's rule, and have all at one time or
another been inmates of a monastery.
In both East and West, the priest alone can administer the
Sacraments, and to that effect can only be ordained by the
laying
i; on him of a bishop's hands.
n In 1667 the Russian seceders were faced with the difficulty
that the entire body of Russian bishops submitted to the
Government, very much as early in the English Reformation
the entire bench of bishops, with one or two honourable excep
tions, submitted with indecent haste to the decrees of Henry
VIII. The difficulty was even greater in the Russian Church
than in the English, because the myron or holy chrism, used
for various sacramental acts of unction, can only be consecrated
on Thursday in Easter Week by a Patriarch. Then again
as the pope or priest could only be ordained by a bishop, and
as no pope is immortal, the time was bound to come when the
seceding clergy would be as extinct as the dodo and none left
to administer the sacraments. As early as 1681 the Raskol
teacher Awakum wrote to the Tsar Theodore that "their
patriarchate was in ruins, their priesthood decayed, and their
entire clergy moribund." Of dire need he had to counsel bis
followers to follow the precept of the Apostle James, and dis
pensing with the services of a priest, confess to one another
and repent before God. They might communicate in the
reserved host, without a priest being present, and for the pur
pose might carry it about with them a practice for which
they might, had they known of it, have found a precedent in
the Church of Africa in the days of Tertullian. Until the
death of the Tsar Alexis they procured reserved hosts in Pomor
from the Solovets Convent. The hegumen Dositheus built a
church in 1686 at Chir with pre-Nikonian Antiminsia and
accumulated a quantity of reserved hosts for distribution
THE DISPERSION 107
among Old believers. But how could they hope to obtain on

all occasions even a reserved host? l
In the presence of this difficulty Awakum sanctioned re
course to the ministration even of priests whose ordination
dated from after the year 1667, and was therefore heretical.
But another Raskol teacher, Theodor the deacon, altogether
rejected the ministration of heretically ordained priests and
would hear of none ordained later than 1666. On those who
took up this attitude the situation was bound to press with ever
increasing weight, and in the course of a generation to become
irremediable; at first it was in some degree masked by the
belief that Antichrist was come and the end of the world was
at hand, but this belief began to fade or replace itself with
the milder theory that Antichrist was a tendency that makes
for evil.
As might be expected, the need of a hierarchy would be met
in different ways according to circumstances, and Ivanovski
points out that the North of Russia, which was densely wooded,
sparsely populated, and contained few churches and fewer
roads, was more favourable than other regions to the growth
of Bezpopovets usage, i. e. of those who, making a virtue of
necessity, resigned themselves to dispensing altogether with
a hierarchy and to getting along with no rites and sacraments
at all, or at most with those which according to ancient ec
clesiastical usage laymen can in cases of dire need themselves
discharge, for example baptism, confession, burial (which a
monk can canonically perform), the Hours, Te Deums and
Pannychidia or all night long vigils. In such rites the parts
reserved to priests could be omitted. Such was the solution
adopted by the settlers on the Vyg, and their example was soon
copied far and wide.
In all this the Raskol leaders had no thought of depreciating
the Sacraments of the Church or of minimising the importance
1 Miliukov (Outlines, pt. 2, p. 56) states that the last of the pre-Nikonian
popes Theodosius, having escaped from persecution, led a group of Old believers
from the forests of Kirzhen to Vetka in the Polish marches, and on the way pre
pared in a ruined church at Kaluga a number of reserved hosts, which later on
made the reputation for a time of Vetka, where in 1695 he consecrated a church,
the only one after the destruction in 1688 of that at Chir.
of a hierarchy. They had nothing in common with Protestants
who understand that Sacraments whether pagan or Christian
are magis opinione quam re, and so have learned the secret of
each believer being his own priest. It was indeed all the other
way with the Raskol; through no fault of their own they found
themselves marooned without a priesthood, yet thoroughly
convinced of its need and efficacy for salvation.
The so-called Pomorian Responses of the year 1720 were the
first official recognition of the Bezpopovski or No Priesthood
I position. It rested on the distinction between sacraments
universally necessary to salvation, and sacraments not so
necessary; to the former class belong baptism, repentance and
communion; to the latter all the rest. It was decided that in
case of need a Church could do without the sacraments of
unction with holy Chrism, of marriage, of holy orders. There
were, as remarked above, precedents for the celebration of the
sacraments of baptism -and penitence by jaymen. the appli
cability of which to the case of the Raskol Ivanovski somewhat
ineptly disputes; but how dispense with a priest in the Com
munion? It was decided in the Responses that it was enough
to use a reserved host and substitute for the presence of the
priest an ardent desire for Communion; they might even
content themselves altogether with a "spiritual Communion."1
Thus was laid by urgent need and force of circumstances the
basis among these poor people for a worship of God in spirit
and truth alone.
In their Responses of 1720 the Raskol teachers furthermore
urged that the advent of Antichrist had exterminated both
the priesthood and the divine sacrifice, that under the circum
stances the individual Christian becomes his own priest. In
such an exceptional era it is legitimate, they argued, for laymen
to conduct the sacraments of baptism and confession and to
celebrate sundry rites. They also claimed the right to re-
, baptize converts from the orthodox church, a pretension
L_gomewhat galling to the latter.
The Old believers of Starodub, a portion of which later on
removed to Vetka, had, when they first fled from Moscow,
1 Subbotin, Materials Vol. V, p. 224, 230; VI, p. 60-79, 310-312.
\
THE DISPERSION 109
priests among them who had been ordained before the schism;
thus first Cosmas and after him Stephan ministered to them.
These two were followed by Joasaph, a black or monkish pope,
whose baptism was anterior to 1667, but as to whose ordina
tion there were doubts whether it was not posterior. After
him Theodosius, who was ordained by Joasaph's predecessor,
supplied their needs, and under his guidance they built a
church, and so were able for the first time to conduct the divine
liturgy. As long as they had at their disposal priests of the
old ordination, such communities were inclined to reject those
of the new; but in time, as the stock of old priests more and
more exhausted itself, they had to face the same problem which
the Bezpopovtsy settled in the negative; and they settled it
in the counter-sense. They felt they must have priests at
any cost, and decided to adopt those of the new order in
case they could be persuaded to join them and were willing
to use the rites they considered ancient. The settlers on the
Don, at Kerzhen and in general those of middle and Southern
Russia, adopted the same solution. From the circumstance
of their adopting fugitive or runaway priests the sect came to
be known as Begstvuiushchiye, sometimes as Oratorians or
Tcha8ovennyie, the latter term implying that (except in Vetka
or Starodub, and later on in Irgiz and the cemetery of Rogozh)
they had no churches, but only chapels or oratories, proseuchai
as the Greek Jews called of old their synagogues.
By accepting the ministration of runaway popes the Popovtsy
sect exposed themselves to a crossfire of criticism both from
the orthodox and from the priestless sect; for both these parties
urged against such a compromise that it mined the position
the Popovtsy had in 1666 taken up, when they abandoned the
Nikonian Church as an heretical body. If it was heretical,
how could its baptisms and ordinations also not be heretical?
How again, urged Ivan Alexev, a doctor of the priestless
sect, can you retain an order of priests, if you have no bishops?
It was in vain that the Popovtsy tried to justify their position
from early Church history, pointing out that the see of Chal-
cedon at one time got on without a bishop for thirty years,
that the see of Hippo had done likewise. The Orthodox
replied that no Church claiming ecumenical authority can
permanently exist without a head, and that, the triple ordi
nation being indispensable in a real Church and the three
orders indissolubly bound up in one another, you cannot
logically have a clergy without a bishop. They are a trunk
without a head.
The Popovtsy were then reduced to analogy and prophecy;
and argued that, as the temple fire of the Jews lay hidden dur
ing their Babylonian captivity in a dry well, so it was possible
for the true charismatic gift of priesthood to lurk in an hereti
cal medium. There would have been something in this con
tention, if the Popovtsy had not repudiated the baptism of the
Orthodox Church; but baptism is the portal of all the Sacra
ments, and they scrupled not to rebaptize converts who came
over to them, so contravening a canon of procedure established
in the undivided Church as early as the third Century.
How heavily the difficulty weighed upon the Popovtsy is
shewn by the many attempts they made in the next 150 years
to secure an episcopate for themselves, attempts which Ivanov-
ski relates with sardonic humour. From the first the sect
cherished the belief that a genuine church still existed some
where in the World, and their aim was to discover it and link
up with it. One is reminded of the similar endeavours of the
English non-jurors. Oddly enough the latter entered into
long-drawn-out negotiations with the Orthodox Russian
Church, which the curious will read in Monsignor Louis Petit's
Appendix to the new edition of Mansi's concilia. If the non
jurors had been better informed they might, when the Russian
Government abruptly and in an Erastian spirit repudiated
them on discovering that they were ranged in opposition to
the English monarchy, have opened negotiations with the
Popovtsy whose case strikingly resembled their own, with the
exception, however, that the non-jurors, had bishops of their
own. They could have supplied the Raskolniks with bishops.
One of the earnest doctors of the Russian sect, the deacon
Theodor, was convinced that a real Christian community
survived in Jerusalem, preserving the use of two fingers in
blessing, the double Alleluia and other peculiarities dear to the
\
THE DISPERSION 111
Raskol. Others among their teachers held that a genuine

piety survived in Antioch, and that the Patriarch Macarius
of that see did not really represent the faithful there when
he came to Moscow and prostrated himself before Nikon and
the Tsar. It will be remembered that he died on his way
back, and in this the Raskol discerned the finger of God.
In the XVIIIth century a doctor of the rival and priestless
sect came to their aid. This was Mark, an inmate of the
Topozer Skete in the Kemski district of the Archangel Govern
ment. He adduced the evidence of a traveller to Japan to
the effect that in Belovod in that land there existed a church
subject to Antioch and endued with all charismatic gifts, with a
patriarch of its own, 179 places of worship and four metropoli
tans. This tale was an echo of the Latin Christianity im
planted in Japan in 1549 by St. Francis Xavier. It enjoyed
a vigorous life, and by the end of the century numbered 250
churches, and nearly half a million adherents; but the Japan
ese had extinguished it with horrible cruelty a hundred years
before its echoes reached the ears of Mark, and when he wrote
its martyrs were already being enrolled in the Roman calendar.
There is a strange irony in the Russian Raskol teacher imagin
ing that ancient piety was to be restored from such a quarter.
Still more romantic was another legend which in the early
years of the XVIIIth Century floated before the eyes of these
desolate sectaries in quest of a bishop. There was a sub
terranean Church in the city of Kitezh on the bank of Lake
Svetloyar. Kitezh was a town in Suzdal which disappeared
from human ken on the approach of the conqueror Batus.1
It was to abide invisible until the end of the world, and it
contained churches and monasteries and a large population.
Of a summer's evening the dwellers on the lake could hear
beneath its waters the sound of the Kitezh bells; and a letter
was circulated addressed to his father by a son who lived below.
It told how happy he was in a holy monastery, hidden from
human eye, and besought the habitants of this dull skyward
1 Grandson of Chingis Khan of the Golden horde and hero of many Russian
legends. The Russian Encyclopedia locates the legendary site of Kitezh near
-Semenov in the Nizhigorod Government.
earth not to repine nor say mass for his soul; for he was not
dead, but alive in a realm, terrestrial indeed, but blest with all
the joys of happy repose, replete with delights, not gross and
carnal, but spiritual and refined.
Japan, however, was far away, and Kitezh was a dream, and
it was hopeless to try to win over to themselves a bishop of the
orthodox church, for as we saw Russian bishops were not of the
stuff of which martyrs are made. The only hope was to secure
one across the frontiers, and as early as 1730 they besought the
bishop of Jassy, the metropolitan Antony, to ordain as their
bishop a certain monk of Vetka named Pavel or Paul; but the
latter could not conscientiously subscribe to the twelve tenet*
imposed by the Metropolitan, says the Bezpopovets writer
Ivan Alexev. Jona Kurnos, a Popovets author, relates that
the same community made fresh overtures to Jassy the next
year, when the Pope Basil of Kazan, who in religion bore the
name Barlaam, was dispatched thither for ordination. But
this scheme bore no more fruit than the former.
Epiphanius, the First Raskol Bishop

Epiphanius was a monk of the Kozelski monastery in the
see of Kiev, where he had relations, to whom he ever shewed
kindness and consideration. At Kiev he was in good repute
with the Archbishop Varlaam Vanatovich, who according to
one account took him as his lay-brother and afterwards made
him hegumen of the Kozelski monastery; according to another
he was steward of the archbishop's household. From the
Kocel treasury, however, he was accused of having stolen 240
roubles, and to escape the consequences forged himself a pass
port. Armed also with a forged seal of the Archbishop of Kiev
as well as with another genuine one of the metropolitan of
Lvov or Lemberg which he found in the church archives of
Kiev, he now crossed the frontier and passed himself off
as an archpriest in partibus, an easy thing to do, as there
were many such nomads in Podolia and Galicia, men who
without belonging to any particular see undertook the task of
ministering to the Uniats of Poland. He also bore with him
THE DISPERSION 113
an apocryphal letter purporting to be from the hand of the

archbishop of Kiev and to represent the clergy of the Ukraine.
This complained of a recent act of the Moscow Synod which
deprived the metropolitan of Kiev of his old grade and dig
nity, and besought the metropolitan of Jassy to confer on
Epiphanius episcopal orders. To this letter was attached the
supposititious seal he had cut out. As it was necessary by
canon law for a candidate for episcopal ordination to bear a
letter from the faithful of the see he was to occupy, Epiphanius
had forged one from the inhabitants of the city of Chigirin in
the Ukraine. The metropolitan of Jassy fell into the trap and
ordained him July 22, 1724. Instead, however, of repairing
to his see Epiphanius betook himself to other parts of the
Ukraine, where at the request of the Raskolniks he ordained
for them fourteen priests and several deacons. But he did not
long enjoy episcopal freedom, for the Russian Government
pounced on him, and the Senate sentenced him May 6, 1727,
at the end of Catharine's reign to seclusion for life in the
Solovets Convent. Thence he escaped after nearly three
years (in 1729) in the disguise of a pilgrim, but was twice
rearrested and was sent to Moscow in November 1731. There
he foregathered with the Old believers who offered to smuggle
him across the frontier to their settlement at Vetka in Poland.
This was in 1733. He had been previously condemned first
to seclusion in Solovets as a monk, and then later on to be
unfrocked and sent to Siberia.
Ivanovski contends that he had scant regard for the sect,
and knew that he was betraying the orthodox church, yet
yielded to their importunities because he yearned for rest and
freedom in Poland. The doubts, however, which he casts all
through on the genuineness of Epiphanius' transactions con
tradict one another no less than they do the general situation,
as he depicts it. Why, if Epiphanius was a convinced adherent
of the Orthodox Church, should he have wanted to put himself
out of reach of the Russian Government? Ivanovski's arrikre
pensie is evident. He can not admit that any genuinely
ordained bishop ever sided with the Raskol. Why again
should the sectaries have rescued him from the Government
convoy charged to transport him to Yaroslav and Vologda?
Yet they did so, and got him safely to Vetka.
There it was established to the satisfaction of the Popovets
community that his orders were genuine, though some reserves
were made as to his baptism, which was reported to have
been performed, not by immersion which alone they regarded
as canonical, but by aspersion. Ivanovski relates that they
were reassured when they learned that as a small boy he had
been ducked in play by his companions. The apocryphal
character of this part of Ivanovski's narrative is evidenced by
the fact that this incident is derived from the life of St. Athana-
sius.
In August 1734 Epiphanius was accordingly installed as their
bishop by the Old believers of Vetka, though he was not recog
nized by all the Russian congregations; for example that of
Kerzhen repudiated him, and accused that of Vetka with being
victims of a phantasy offensive to heaven and little conducive
to salvation.
The new bishop did not enjoy at Vetka the peace and calm
he longed for. He so openly displayed his contempt for the
Raskol, was so little disposed to comply with their rules and
grew so weary of their long-drawn-out ceremonies and strict
fasts as to make himself unpopular; and their distaste for him,
already excited by the doubt about his baptism, was changed
to dismay by the discovery of a letter written by him to his
relatives in Kiev, in which he accused his new congregation of
having deceived and kidnapped him into their 'cave of heresy.'
Epiphanius then discharged his episcopal functions for no
more than eight months, until April, 1735, when the Tsarina
Anna Ioannovna, profiting by the weakness of Poland and the
disturbances that arose over the election of a new king to suc
ceed Augustus II, ordered her general Sytin to make a descent
on Vetka and drive the Old believers who had fled thither,
back to their homes. Epiphanius was hunted back along with
the rest and jailed in Kiev; but shortly afterwards fell ill and
died, in communion, according to Macarius and Ivanovski,
with the Orthodox Church. The Old believers, however, who
were surely in a position to know the facts, had another story
.' V.
THE DISPERSION 115
and declared that he died a martyr by the violence of the

Government, and in communion with themselves. That is
the more probable account. His tomb in the fortress church of
S. Theodosius at Kiev became a resort of Old-believing pil
grims, and many were called after his name. The clergy
ordained by him never entertained any doubts as to the validity
of their orders. The last pope consecrated by him died in
1790, when there was still at Starodub a church dedicated to
him. Such was the history of the first Raskol bishop; and
in spite of the jaundiced character of Macarius' and Ivanovski's
narrative, we discern the fact that he was a success.
The Uniat Movement

Ivanovski relates with the same parti pris the fortunes of
four other bishops obtained from one quarter or another by
the Popovtsy during the XVIIIth Century. These need not
delay us, and we come to the effort made by one Nicodemus, a
monk of Starodub, to make good the want by summoning a
council of Old believers at Moscow in 1765. It was chiefly
remarkable because both sects were represented at it, a proof
that they had not then drifted so far apart, as they have to-day.
It was resolved to discuss whether they could, compatibly
with the ancient canons of the Church, appoint a bishop de sua,
in other words by presbyteral appointment only. It is still
a burning question to-day whether in sundry ancient churches
the episcopate had any other origin, but of these deeper prob
lems of church history the Raskol knew little, and no one
apparently questioned the doctrine of apostolical succession.
One of them, according to Ivanovski, had found a story in an
old chronicle to the effect that Clement, a metropolitan of
Kiev, had been created such behind the back of the Greek
patriarch by use of a holy relic, to wit the head of St. Clement
of Rome, a mode of ordination to which apparently the
orthodox historian has no objection provided it is a chapter
of bishops who make such use of a relic. His only criticism
of the Old believer's project is that laymen, not bishops, were
to work the miracle. As they had no head of St. Clement,
it was proposed to use the hand of St. Jona, a much venerated
relic in the Uspenski Church. The idea of laying the dead
hand of a saint on the head of a living man for purposes of
ordination was a familiar one in the Middle Ages, and the
Armenians were accused of making similar use of the dead
hand of Gregory the Illuminator which is among the relics
of the patriarchal church at Valarshapat. In 1765, however,
the project fell through for the excellent reason that in order
to have true ordination there must be an intention to ordain
on the part of the priest who lays on his hand. Of every sacra
mental act such intention forms a part. Now who was to
guarantee such an intention on the part of the defunct saint?
Who moreover was to recite the pontifical prayers? Should
it be a Popovets or a Bezpopovets? A fugitive pope out of the
Orthodox Church or a Pomorski elder? Surely too the dog
matic complexion of the new bishop would alter according as
one or the other officiated? We learn from Ivanovski, per
haps rightly, that the two parties in the Council parted on
terms less friendly than those on which they met, and he
unkindly suggests that the project was a sacrilegious one.
But Nicodemus was not discouraged, and began to cast
about for a patriarch who would appoint him a bishop. He
seemed for a little time to have discovered one in the patriarch
of Georgia, Athanasius, who was staying in Moscow at the
time. By his advice Nicodemus set out for Tims, but by
reason of a war that was raging failed to reach his goal. Better
hick attended an application to the patriarch of Antioch,
Daniel, who no doubt was not disinclined to receive ordination
fees even from Russian Old believers. Anyhow he turned
Joasaph. one of the monks of Starodub, into a archimandrite,
and another of them. Raphael, into a bishop: but, as bad luck
wouki have it. the latter died on his way home, so that both
the Russian Government and the Raskol were cheated out of
him. Joasaph on reaching ârodub had the mortification of
finding that Nicodemus was intent on asking the Orthodox
Russian $ynod to appoint a bishop for hi* adherents, and this
movement uhimate^y led to the formation of a body of Uniat
tXvi behevers,
Am Uniat i* one who eooditioaalty en;ers into communion
THE DISPERSION 117
with a Church which he esteems to be orthodox, retaining his
own rites and traditions. The Uniat Ruthenes for example
used the Cyrillic rites which are those of the Russian and
South Slav Churches, but recognized the Bishop of Rome's
jurisdiction in matters of faith and dogma. The Uniats we
are now to consider were Old believers, and were allowed the
continued use of the old service-books, of the two-fingered
blessing and other peculiarities they set store by, on condition
they went back into communion with the Orthodox Church.
Macarius and Ivanovski, as is natural, relate the fortunes of
this movement at greater length than its results warrant,
because from their standpoint it was an act of resipiscence on
the part of the Raskol.
In 1781 Nicodemus, who had sent Raphael and Joasaph to
Antioch, found himself on the estate of a Count or Graf
Rumyantsev, then viceroy or, as we should say, lord-lieutenant
of Little Russia. The latter, aware of the scruples he enter
tained respecting the ministry of runaway popes and his
anxiety to obtain a bishop for his communion, advised him to
apply for one to the Russian Government and promised to
interest the Empress in his behalf. Nicodemus mooted the
project in his own sect of the Diakonovski (p. 102) which
admitted orthodox priests to minister for them without insist
ing on their being anointed afresh as did other Popovets groups.
Just then a certain monk Gerasim Knyazev, who was in his
confidence, was starting for Petersburg, and he undertook to
sound the Holy Synod there about the matter. On his way,
being still in Moscow, Gerasim called on the venerable bishop
Plato, and, when he reached Petersburg, on Gabriel the metro
politan and Innocent archbishop of Pskov, and on Prince
Potemkin-Tavricheski, who all three favoured the scheme.
Not so however Nicodemus' co-religionists at Starodub, for
when he returned thither a considerable party of them were
inclined to stone him. But Nicodemus persevered, and wrote
to Gabriel and to Prince Potemkin, and Graf Rumyantzev-
Zadunaiski, whom he had come to know, for their advice.
They answered him sympathetically, and Nicodemus in 1782
went to the Capital where Potemkin presented him to the
broadminded Empress Catharine II, who, touched by his
appeal, promised her aid. The result was that in 1783 as
many as three thousand 1 Old believers drew up a petition for
reunion and sent it with Potemkin's and Rumyantsev's recom
mendations to the Synod, while Nicodemus was advised to
return to Petersburg to plead his case in person.
The conditions proposed by him were three: that the Ortho
dox Church should withdraw the anathemas pronounced in
1666-7 against Old believers, that the latter should be allowed
to conduct their services from the old books, and that the
Holy Synod should appoint a bishop or a chorepiscopus and
send him to Nicodemus' monastery, the Uspenski at Starodub,
to regulate their clergy all over Russia, to consecrate churches,
and ordain pastors; the said bishop was to be under the control
of the Synod, but the Raskolniki were everywhere to retain
their ancient service books and rites.
Nicodemus' expectations were not destined to be realized in
their entirety. It was objected that the canons of the Russian
as of any other Church, forbade the presence of more than one
bishop in a diocese; it was also argued that the institution of
Chorepiscopi had died out, and that a bishop presiding over
the Raskol all over Russia would be equivalent to a patriarch.
Peter the great had done away with Patriarchs. Potemkin
himself after encouraging Nicodemus to make the demand, no
longer urged it when the latter reached Petersburg at the end of
1783; and finally an ukase of March 11, 1784, addressed to
Gabriel, merely contained a license for the archbishop of
Mohilev to allow the Old believers the priests they desired, but
was silent about the grant of a bishop. Nicodemus however
professed himself satisfied, and went back to Starodub, where he
died on May 12, 17S4, in communion, according to Ivanovski,
with the Orthodox church.
Four of his adherents now journeyed to Petersburg to ask
Gabriel to consecrate Joasaph. one of themselves, and, as we
have seen an archimandrite, abbot of the Uspenski convent at
Starodub; but a year elapsed before so moderate a demand was
granted, and the favour was coupied wi;h a requirement that
1 Ace. to Pitwim, ffaw **. p. 4c& ostjr gt ^:'.-^.^
THE DISPERSION 119
the villages of Old believers round Starodub should be trans
ferred to Potemkin's property in Novorossia. The truth
was, this grand seigneur was trying to exploit the Old believers
in his own interest, and, though they would not fall in with his
schemes, he did induce Joasaph to become prior of a monastery
he had built in the new locality, so leaving the Uniats of
Starodub without a clergy. If one bears in mind the fact that
Russian proprietors reckoned their wealth not by the number
of their acres, but of their serfs, one understands the anxiety
of Potemkin to acquire such valuable colonists for his new
estates.
The Starodub uniats made a despairing appeal to Gabriel
to influence Ambrose to ordain them a priest, but he was
afraid of Potemkin and presently sent them one named Andrew
Ioannov Zhuravlev, a missionary appointed by the Orthodox
Authorities to convert the Raskol and a frank enemy of every
thing connected with them. A renegade himself, "he knew
from experience how most successfully to influence the hearts
of Raskolniki."
Nevertheless he was well received when he first arrived in
1788; but he immediately set himself with the help of the armed
forces of the Government to oust the majority of the Old believ
ers of Starodub, who had not fallen in with Nicodemus' Uniat
movement, from their churches and other buildings, in particu
lar from their Pokrovski Church and monastery. The Old
believers, in a work entitled the Synaxary, i.e. the Church
hagiography embellished with records of their own saints who
had suffered for the truth as they understood it and answering
to Foxe's Book of Martyrs, described the violence, robbery
and martyrdom to which they were subjected by this "uniat"
apostle. In the end, it is pleasing to relate, he was worsted,
though he is said to have converted some of Nicodemus'
adherents to the ministration of orthodox popes.
Nor was it in Starodub alone that a handful of the Raskol-
niks entered into the Uniat movement, merely to find that the
Government took advantage of it to fix a noose round their
necks to be drawn tight on the first occasion. In Irgiz also
the monk Serge, Abbot of the upper Preobrazhenski monastery,
took up the idea, influenced it is said by the scandalous life of
the renegade clergy on whom his sect depended for the adminis
tration of the Sacraments, though it is difficult to conceive,
in view of what one knows of Russia in that age, how they could
differ for the worse from the orthodox clergy. He took council
with Nicephorus Theotoki, bishop of Astrakhan, who at his
instance addressed in 1786 an epistle to the Raskol, conceived
in a spirit of charity. Serge thereupon drew up fifteen ques
tions relating to the differences which kept the sect separate
from the Orthodox Church, and embodying the conditions upon
which they would make their peace with it. He then pro
ceeded to call together a number of the heads of Irgiz, and
Raskol monasteries in Moscow and Petersburg and read his
document to them. They approved and in 1790 it was for
warded to Nicephorus for him to lay it before the Governor of
Saratov whose rule extended over Astrakhan. Serge received
an answer in due time and, having converted a rich merchant of
Volsk of the name of Zlobin to his point of view, set about to
realize his scheme. But the merchant had not consulted his
own wife Pelagia who was a stubborn Raskolnik, and who,
having acquainted herself with what was afoot, set herself
to frustrate what she regarded as an act of treachery with the
aid of Serge's own sister Alexandra, prioress of a Raskol nun
nery and as resolute as herself. The plan was to arrest Serge
and hold him prisoner or even slay him, but he made good his
escape to Petersburg before the two ladies could execute it.
Zlobin also reached the Capital, and the two having gained the
ear of Gabriel, by his advice petitioned the Holy Synod to send
priests of their own to Irgiz ; and Serge was himself allowed
to select two from the Tikhvin monastery. But the two
encountered no friendly reception; Serge, who on his return
to Irgiz took up his quarters in the Uspenski monastery in the
room assigned to the Abbot, was all but suffocated by the
Cellarius and two other monks. They set upon him by night
and locked him up in the larder, whence he was only rescued by
the local police of Volsk, warned by his nephew of his grave
plight. The brethren appointed another Abbot, Prokhorus,
in his place, and Serge despairing of Irgii retired with his
THE DISPERSION 121
nephew and some of his kindred to a Starodub village where
Nicodemus had a monastery at his disposal. Of this he was
made hieromonachus, and having frankly joined the Orthodox
Church avenged himself on his former co-religionists in a book
entitled "A Mirror for Old Believers." His confederate
Zlobin, after a feeble attempt to convert the village of Volsk,
where he lived, to the Uniat faith, died, according to Ivanovski,
a sincere believer in the same, though he had wavered much in
his opinions. Orthodox historians, it will be noticed, rope in
on their death-beds all Old believers who ever made even the
least rapprochement towards orthodoxy. In the Nizhegorod
the Bishop Paul in 1797 represented to the Synod that they
ought to send priests to the Raskolniks of his see, of whom
according to him there were a thousand in favour of reunion;
the Tsar Paul I accordingly issued an Ukase allowing priests to
be sent in such cases without an appeal being on every occasion
addressed to him. We realize from the necessity of such an
ukase how thoroughly the Orthodox Church was subordinated
to the State. It was a mere department of it.
About the same time a number of the Old believers of Kazan
asked for orthodox priests; and the archbishop, Ambrose,
prevailed on the Synod to allow him to place at their disposal
the church of the Four Evangelists on lake Kaban along with
a priest named Andreev.
In Petersburg in 1799 an Old believer Ivan Mylov found it
expedient on being ennobled to desert so plebeian a cult as
that of the Raskol; he had a private chapel, which he enlarged
and had it consecrated to St. Nicholas. Whereupon the Tsar
Paul I paid him the compliment of hearing mass said in it.
The Concessions of Paid I
About this time the Tsar sanctioned a code of rules for such
Popovtsi as could be persuaded by force, fraud or personal
and spiritual advantages to join the Orthodox Church. The
occasion was a request made in 1799 by the Old believers of
Moscow that the Church would supply them with Priests
and Holy Chrism. It was addressed to Plato the Metropoli
tan, who refused on the suspicion that they were not sincere.
They then applied to Ambrose, archbishop of Kazan, where
upon the Tsar put an end to these negotiations. The would-be
Uniats however did not acquiesce in the refusal, and formu
lated sixteen conditions under which they would renew com
munion, which after examination by Plato were sanctioned by
the Tsar Paul I, Oct. 27, 1800. Of these conditions, some old,
some new, the chief were the remission of the anathemas of
1666-7 and permission to use the old books. The priests to
be accorded to the Raskol were to be of the Orthodox rite or
expressly ordained for the purpose; but in no case were they
to be fugitives from the Church. Such of the Raskol as had
taken monkish orders were to be accepted as monks, and chrism
was to be provided by the bishop of each see in which it was
required.
Under these conditions the Uniats were to retain their own
ecclesiastical establishments, but for the consecration of new
churches Uniat priests were to be employed. In case an ortho
dox pope officiated in an Uniat church he was to use the old
books; nay even prelates were to do likewise. They were
also to cross with the two fingers. On the other hand Uniat
clergy were forbidden to take part in public services or pro
cessions, and were only to officiate inside their own churches.
If an Old believer desired it, an orthodox priest was free to
confess and communicate him, but not rice versa. Plato was
willing that an Uniat priest should administer the last Sacra
ments to members of the Orthodox Church, but only if no
orthodox pope was at hand. So much anxiety was felt on the
point that every precaution was taken to prevent any leakage
from the orthodox into the Uniat camp. All these privileges
however, were of narrow range, for they were confined either
to the registered Raskol. who as we have seen tended to be a
small majority, or if to others than them, only to those who
rxxsvssed the warranty of an orthodox prelate that they had
never tried to pass themselves off as orthodox. A mixed mar
riage might be held in whichever church the parties could
agree upon, and children of the marriage bapuied in accord
ance with a similar agreement. The demand of the Raskol-
nlfcs that the Uniats should receive the Sacraments of the
THE DISPERSION 123
orthodox and vice versa with complete reciprocity was rejected
sans phrase.
The above provisions were liberal if we consider the age and
time in which they were drawn up; and if Nikon had been
less intransigent and had granted them 140 years earlier,
schism would have been avoided. All the same, as Ivanovski
allows, many Uniats were not satisfied with such concessions,
for they wanted permission for the orthodox to join them
selves and they also wanted a bishop of their own. These
concessions the Church would not make, although it was ready
to facilitate in any way the transference to the Uniat body of
unregistered Raskolniks; and at the instance of the Bishop
of Perm it was arranged that Raskolniks of ten years' standing
might join the Uniats. In 1881 the Holy Synod reduced this
term to five years, and at the same time it was conceded that
an Uniat priest might hear confessions from orthodox laymen
and administer the Sacraments to them on condition the
orthodox priest of the parish was informed of the same in
writing. In the same year the Greek Patriarch of Constanti
nople gave a faculty to the clergy under his jurisdiction to use
pre-Nikonian rites. This concession was made chiefly in
view of a colony of Old believers who had long before settled
at Maenos on the Bosphorus. At the same time a priest was
ordained in Moscow for this congregation.
The Persecution of the Raskol by Nicholas I
The Uniat concessions made by Paul I might conceivably
have borne fruit in the XlXth Century except for the incom
prehensible ferocity of the attempts made under Nicholas I
to force orthodoxy upon the Raskol at large.1 These attempts
began in 1827 with a threat on the part of Prince Golitsyn,
Governor of Saratov, to break up the monastery of Nizhni-
Voskresenski, unless they became Uniats. He went in person
among the monks and read them an imperial ukase to the
effect that all the monasteries of Irgiz should be destroyed in
the event of their non-compliance. The next day the prior
Adrian and a dozen of the brethren submitted to the bishop
1 Sokolov, Raskol in Saratov, p. 297.
of Saratov, Moses; by their craven action they so incensed the

rest of the settlement that the police had to be called in to
protect them, and the recalcitrants having been either pressed
for the army or sent to Siberia, the fabric was handed over to
the servile minority. Such was the fate of this one convent.
The others remained defiant, and enjoyed a certain respite
from Nicholas' fury, for the two successors of Golitsyn in the
Governments of Saratov, Roslavlev and Pereverzev, to their
credit, did their best to protect them.
But the calm did not last long. In 1836 a certain Stepanov,
was made Governor of Saratov; and in appointing him the
Tsar remarked 1 on the abundance of sectaries in that region
and especially in the monasteries of Irgiz. Stepanov prom
ised he would reduce them to a single denomination. The Tsar
assented, but deprecated violence. "Proceed warily," he said,
"and do not exasperate them." Stepanov determined to
begin with the Middle-Nikolski convent which was at the vil
lage of Mechetnoe within the pale of the newly constituted
town of Nikolaev; and advised the Minister of the Interior
that the task was a feasible one. The monks, if they would
become Uniats, were to retain the premises, but their house
was to pass under the control of the archimandrite Zosimus,
prior of the Kostroma Vysokovski Uniat Monastery; and it
was resolved by the Governor with the connivance of Jacob,
bishop of Saratov, to execute the measure by surprise and by
way of a coup de main. Accordingly, the provost of Nikolaev
and the Commissioner of Saratov suddenly presented them
selves on February 8 before Cornelius the Abbot, shewed him
the imperial edict and demanded the keys and property of the
house. Cornelius refused, unless the surrounding population
assented, and, as the secret had been badly kept, some three
hundred of the latter had gathered round and shouted: 'fWe
will not give up the Monastery, no matter how much you shed
our blood." 2
1 Russkaya Starina, 1879, 1. 553.
1 I was once the witness of a very similar scene at Yalarshapat, when a detach
ment of cavalry took possession of the Armenian convent in order to carry off
two harmless and aged monks, suspected by the Russian Government of favouring
the election as Armenian Patriarch of Monaignor Onnanian, Armenian Patriarch
THE DISPERSION 125
Cornelius made no attempt to resist, but took the keys of his

house and laid them on the table, whereupon Zosimus took
them up and went towards the church to unlock it; but a
crowd had collected in the porch and barred his way, while
others sounded an alarm on the big bell, crying: "Help, Help!"
Zosimus was not authorized to resort to force, so he retired
with his officers to the town and wrote a minute of the affair to
his superiors.
In February a large posse of officials, with gendarmes to assist
them, repaired afresh to the monastery, and found a crowd of
some 500 gathered inside the precincts, ringing the bells to
attract their fellows outside, and once more the officials retired
after making a few arrests. Information was conveyed to
Saratov, and now the Governor himself appeared on the scene,
only to find some 2,000 sectaries mustered inside the convent,
who fell on their knees in a circle round the church, clasping
each others hands and vowing that it should only be entered,
if at all, across their dead bodies. Thereupon the Governor
returned to Saratov and wrote to the ministry accusing the
poor people of sedition and riot.
The inevitable in Russia, then ensued. The Governor
appeared once more with a force of Cossacks and artillery.
A rumour was set abroad that the Raskolniks intended to
burn down the monastery, so a fire engine was brought on the
scene, and streams of water pumped over them as they lay on
the ground, with clasped hands. It was a glacial day, and
presently, unable to stand the cold water, they proceeded to
flee inside the buildings. In the melee which followed the
soldiers beat them with the butt ends of their muskets and
arrested many of them, after which the monastery was handed
over to Zosimus. At the same time the women's convent of
Uspenski was closed, and such of its inmates as were registered
obliged to migrate to the Pokrovski convent in Upper Irgiz,
the rest being sent to their homes. But not a single monk
or nun turned Uniat. All of them were scattered far and wide,
of Constantinople. It was a time of interregnum, when the old Patriarch was
dead and the time drawing near for the election of a new one by all the Armenian
congregations of the entire world. The Russian Government dreaded the election
of a Turkish prelate, and had a creature of their own for the post.
some to the Ural, others to the Don, many to the deserts of
Siberia, where they spread the tale which enhanced the propa
ganda of their sect. Nor did Stepanov gain anything by it,
for, as is usual with despotisms, the sins of the system were
atoned for by the unsuccessful instrument. He was cashiered
and one Bibikov sent to take his place, but not without a
direct admonition on the part of Nicholas I on no account to
lose sight of any opportunity that might offer itself of annihi
lating the Spasopreobrazhenski Monastery of the Raskolniks.
In 1841 its conversion to the Uniat body was actually ef
fected under the new Governor Thadeev. A sudden descent was
made on the place, and bursting into the church, the authorities
with the Uniat clergy in their train sprayed it with their own
holy water. The monks were ordered to join the Uniats or quit
the place, and all but two quitted it. The monk Trifilius, a
creature of the Bishop of Saratov, was then made Abbot.
With the same secrecy, suddenness and violence the Pokrovski
nunnery was assigned to the Uniats, but not a single nun
apostatized.
Such measures in Irgjz contributed enormously to the spread
of the Raskol, and they were related in verse all over Russia.
They revealed what Tsardom was capable of.
I have outlined from Macarius' and Ivanovski's pages the
Uniat movement initiated at Starodub by Nicodemus. We are
not surprised to learn from the same author that after his death
it made no way, and that the true Raskol waxed stronger and
stronger under Alexander I. The Tsar Nicholas Pavlovich
on his way to the Crimea in 1847, halted at a Starodub village
named Dobryank, whose inhabitants proffered him the usual
bread and salt of old-world hospitality. He declined it harshly
and addressed the village deputies as follows: "I regret deeply
to see you all in error; whenever you make up your minds to go
to church, I will accept your bread, and will myself build you a
church." And to suit the words a Uniat Church was instantly
built and consecrated in the presence of the commandant of
Starodub; and a Uniat priest named Timothy Verkhovski was
sent thither from Petersburg. On his way back the Tsar find
ing the church built accepted bread and salt.
THE DISPERSION 127
In Moscow also under Nicholas an attempt was made to

implant the Uniat faith in the Raskol centres of the Popovtsy
and Bezpopovtsy (Thedosievtsy) sects, known respectively as
the Rogozhski and Preobrazhenski cemeteries.1 In the former
one Vladimir Andreevich Sapelkin acquired some influence,
and according to Ivanovski he neither shared the doubts still
entertained by many of the Popovtsy of the validity of ortho
dox orders nor tolerated the ordination by the stray bishop
they had procured of peasants and tradesmen who had no
learning or sense of vocation. In 1854 accordingly he ad
dressed himself to Philaret the metropolitan with a view to the
reconsecration of one of the oratories of his sect as a church,
and this was effected much to the indignation and surprise of
the faithful who in the course of the vigil of the eve of the
ceremony surrounded his house crying: "Let us burn down
Sapelnik's house!", a demonstration of hatred which the
latter's faith in God and the Russian police combined qualified
him to bear with equanimity, and the entire convent was
handed over to the Uniats. In 1856 the old rites were resumed,
priests being provided of Austrian ordination. This led to the
closing of the Popovets Church and the altars remained sealed
until May 3, 1883. In 1854 the priestless cemetery of Preo-
brazhen, which Haxthausen visited ten years before and has
described, was similarly invaded with the magnificent result
that sixty-four persons became Uniats. One chapel was then
consecrated by the metropolitan, and another in 1857. In
1866 an Uniat Monastery for men was established under the
archimandrite Paul of Prussia and the library of the merchant
1 The right to possess these cemeteries and to construct in them hospitals and
chapels and monastic buildings was conceded by Catherine in 1771, and as Leroy-
Beaulieu remarks (iii. 405), they remind us of the Roman cemeteries of the early
Christians. They were and are vast compounds in the suburbs surrounded by
walls; round them were grouped the houses and workshops of the two sets of
sectaries; inside them were their chief bureaux for the management of their
affairs all over the Empire. Each establishment had its directors, its treasury,
its own regulations, its charter, its seal. Each, as the same author says, was
at once a convent, a seminary, a sort of chamber of commerce and a bourse.
Nicholas I. suppressed the one and the other; the altars in the Rogozhski were
rtill sealed when Leroy-Beaulieu visited Moscow and only released on the occa
sion of the temporary fall from power of Count D. Tolstoi, procurator of the
Holy Synod.
Alexis Ivan Khludovo deposited therein. Paul had come to

Russia in 1847 and had written many books about the Raskol.
In 1848 a skete of the Popovtsy had long been sealed and
sequestrated by the Government in the province of Semenov
in the Nizhegorod Government. Tarasius, formerly prior,
tired it would seem of the nomadic life inflicted on him, had
promised the local bishop to become a Uniat, if he might be
readmitted with his monks, of whom a certain number shared
in his submission. It would seem as if the policy of the Russian
Government all through was that of which Pobedonostsev
under Alexander III secured the ratification by law, namely
that if any member of any family, man, woman or child, any
where in the Russian dominions, joined the Orthodox Church,
the entire family should be regarded officially as such. One
can conceive of the hatred for the Church engendered by such
legislation. It is obvious that the Popovtsy recognition of the
validity of the orders of fugitive priests who came over to
them from the Orthodox Church furnished the latter with a
certain pretext for its use against them. The Bezpopovtsy
held a more logical position and one less assailable by a perse
cuting Government such as until yesterday was Holy Russia.
Beside the few centres in which the origin and fortunes of
the Uniat Movement have been detailed, it was pushed far
and wide over the whole country between 1825 and 1854, as
many as one hundred and fifty Uniat Churches being built in
that period, largely in consequence of the zeal and energy for
the cause of Jacob, Bishop of Saratov, and Arcadius, Bishop
of Perm. Yet the historian Ivanovski seems dubious of the
ultimate success of the movement. Many of the Uniats, he
states, having obtained a clergy and permission to keep up the
old rites, set themselves to emphasize their peculiar status
and their independence of the Orthodox Church. They took
no pains to conceal their leanings towards the Raskol, and were
careful to convey to their neighbours the impression that they
were genuine Raskolniki. Here and there they even refused
to accept the popes sent them by the Synod without first
Hubjecting them to "correction or amendment"; they did so,
fur example, in the village of Krivolych (in the Nikolaev region
THE DISPERSION 129
of the Saratov Government). Occasionally they refused to
allow an orthodox bishop to officiate in their churches. In the
Kostroma Government many professed themselves Uniats,
yet remained Raskol, and subjected the popes sent to minister
to them to every sort of oppression, indignity and servitude.
Others continued to clamour for a bishop of their own, for
free permission to be given to the orthodox to join them and
for the annulling of the anathemas of 1667. A leading Uniat
agitator of this kind was the priest, Joan Verkhovski of Peters
burg, who as late as 1885 was on that account unfrocked by
the Synod and found it consonant with his personal safety
to retire across the frontier to the Raskol abroad.
Palmieri (Chiesa Russa, 1908, p. 456), whose opinion carries
weight, is equally convinced that the Uniat movement or
edinovierie, as it is called, has no future before it. In spite of the
mild flattery of the Synod, he declares it to be a hybrid organ
ism in Orthodox Russia. "Its separatist tendencies, inherited
from the Raskol, are accentuated every day: it would form
alongside of the official Church modernized, a second official
Church on ancient lines." He reviews the Uniat attempts
to secure a hierarchy, so nearly successful under Alexander I
in 1824; and he gives an account of the debate held in the
Holy Synod in 1864, when some members shewed themselves
favourable to the institution of an Uniat bishop; Plato, how
ever, the bishop of Kostroma, insisted that it would diminish
the prestige of the Orthodox Church, violate ecclesiastical
canons by placing two bishops in one eparchial jurisdiction,
confuse parish and administrative records, alienate Raskolniks
still more completely from Orthodoxy, lower the episcopal
dignity, and encourage the founding of an independent Church.
Other bishops feared it would pave the way to a fresh schism
and strengthen the Raskol argument that the Church is infected
with error. It appears, however, that in spite of these argu
ments ten bishops against twelve upheld the Uniat plea, as the
only method of strengthening the Uniats in their struggle with
the Raskol hierarchy. In general, says Palmieri, the Uniats
are viewed with contempt by the Orthodox, with hatred by the
Raskol. It is a half-way house that disgusts both, and most
Raskolniks would prefer to go straight back into the Church.
What the influence of the present revolution will be, in case it
permanently succeed, we must wait to see. The immediate
result will be that the Raskol everywhere will enjoy the same
privileges as the Orthodox Church, in which case the Uniats
might well rejoin the Raskol; but as the white or parochial
clergy will inevitably assert themselves against the monkish
higher clergy, it is possible that the lines of demarcation
between Raskol and orthodoxy may be more or less obliter
ated and a return be made to the state of things that prevailed
in the XVth Century when the Popes were the servants of the
Mirs.
On the other hand Ivanovski notes a tendency among sincere
Uniats to draw nearer to the Orthodox Church, and he ascribes
this tendency to the spectacle of bishops officiating in their
churches and using there the old rites, the two fingers, etc.;
for such incidents prove to them that the Orthodox Church no
longer regards them as heretics. In Moscow and Kazan the
rival clergy have even gone so far as to officiate together at
the same altar, so proving that they really form a single Church.
Owing to the complaint of some Uniats that the condemnation
in 1666-7 of the old rites weighed upon their consciences, the
Holy Synod in 1886 issued an 'Explanation' to the effect that
these censures and ancient polemics reflected nothing more
than the personal opinions of over-zealous writers and "were
neither shared nor upheld by the Orthodox Church itself."
This explanation evinces a laudable regret for its past on the
part of the Orthodox Church and Synod, and an anxiety not
to commit such follies in future as Nikon was allowed to com
mit; but historically it is a direct contradiction of the events
which led to the schism as related by Ivanovski himself.
In 1890 the Uniats appealed afresh to Government to be
granted their own hierarchy, but Pobedonostsev opposed the
!-cheme, although in 1905 some of the members of the Synod
favoured the institution of a Uniat see at Uralsk near Orenburg
where 55 % of the population were Raskolniks. This was after
the proclamation of liberty of conscience, which encouraged
the Uniats to renew their demand for a bishop of their own.
THE DISPERSION 131
Late in the same year they founded a journal for the defence
of their interests.
The Uniat movement was due to the widespread desire of
the Popovtsy to secure a hierarchy of their own. It is now
time to narrate a less equivocal endeavour towards the same
end, which was crowned with comparative success.
The Austrian Hierarchy

It is worthy of remark that the Empress Catharine was more
tolerant in spirit towards the Raskol than any of the Tsars,
except perhaps Alexander I, no steps being taken in their reigns
to cut off the supply of runaway popes upon whom the Popovtsy
depended for the administration of the Sacraments; this
enabled them to hold as many services as they liked and to
spare nothing to make them as elegant and elaborate as those
of the Orthodox Church. But Nicholas I after his accession,
in 1827 abruptly cut off the supply both at the Rogozhski Ceme
tery in Moscow and elsewhere, subjecting to dire penalties
popes who quitted the orthodox fold in order to minister to
heretics. In 1832 all older laws mitigating the fate of the
Raskol were repealed, and by the new law the Popovtsy could
only retain popes who had joined them before 1826.
Those who remained were perpetually dwindling, if we may
believe Ivanovski, and, being able to magnify their office as
they pleased, shewed much disregard both for the holy rites
and for their congregations. The latter could not afford to
dismiss them for private irregularities nor for negligence in
their ministrations. One priest would baptize several children
at once, a justifiable procedure of old when a St. Gregory
was converting a whole nation of pagans on the spur of the
moment, but illegitimate in a Christian age. He would also
marry several couples in a group and confess the faithful not
individually and privately but collectively, the deacon reading
out a list of sins from the Euchologion, while the people cried
peccavi a scandalous procedure since it involved the admis
sion by women and children of sins consistent with neither
their sex nor age. Instead of going about in the open the
dissenting clergy under Nicholas I had to steal hither and
thither in secret, always in fear, and, says Ivanovski, often
drunk, a vice which, if they really had it, was also not
unknown among the orthodox clergy and monks at that time
as attests the proverb popular with the muzhik: "The pope
is drunk and his cross a bit of wood"!
It was in vain that the Popovtsy of the Rogozh Commurrion
agitated for a return to the tolerant law of March, 1822, which
had outraged the Holy Synod by allowing the Raskol openly
to employ runaway popes, in case the latter before joining
them had committed no criminal offence. Meanwhile the
old dreams of a genuine clergy somewhere surviving in the
East revived; and Heraclius, prior of the Kurenev monastery
in the Podolski government, dispatched several of his own
monks to join in a search for a hierarchy with the Old believers
of Moldavia. Sixteen in all started and roamed through
Turkey as far as Egypt. Only four lived to return and they
had found nothing suitable.
Next the settlers of Irgiz were induced to go on the same
quest by one of their persuasion, Athoni Kuzmich Kochuev,
a man of affluence with a hobby for collecting old books and
MSS. So much was he esteemed as a bibliophile even outside
his sect, that he was elected in 1847 a member of the Moscow
Society of Antiquaries. When the idea was mooted in a
Synod held in 1832 at the Rogozhski Cemetery (or hospice)
in Moscow, the merchant Tsarski scouted it; but it had the
support of the rich family of the Rakhmanovs, and eventually
it was resolved to consult the Old believers in Petersburg.
There the Popovets family of the Gromovs, timber merchants
on a large scale, members of the Korolevski congregation, had
influence, and Serge Gromov even consulted on the point
Count Benkendorf, head of the police, who assured him that,
although the Tsar would never allow of their resumption of
deserters from the Orthodox Church, he might not object so
strongly to their setting up a hierarchy of their own. In the
end Serge Gromov resolved to seek a bishop himself, but said
nothing about it for the moment, because he distrusted Rakh-
manov s loquacity. He took steps however to find a man
THE DISPERSION 133
suitable for the prosecution of the quest. Such a one he met
with in Peter Vasilev Velikodvorski, son of a notary of a
village among the Valdai Hills, a man of inflexible will and
untiring energy, qualities which were written in his face, if we
may judge from a photograph taken of him in old age and
preserved in Chernovitz.
It is related that on one occasion St. Nicholas, patron saint
of this young man, had appeared to him attired in full canoni
cals in order to reassure him as to the future of the Popovtsy
Church of which he was an adherent; and the tale fits in with
the report that he was a mystic, an ascetic enthusiast and a
devout student of hagiology. It is probable that at anytime
dreams and visions were more in vogue among the Old believers
than in the bosom of the Orthodox Church, of which the
leaders had the police at their disposal, and were not so much
in need of spiritual and inner aids to faith and confidence in
their future.
Though we may distrust the tale, repeated by Ivanovski,
of how Peter went a-hunting for a church treasure and failed
to find it, we may well believe that he entered as a youth the
Old believers' monastery at Starodub, assuming in religion
the name of Paul, that he cherished lofty but correspondingly
vague aspirations and that he felt an inward assurance that
Providence had assigned him a lofty mission he did not
exactly know what. He was in this state of exaltation when
Gromov met him in 1835 and launched him on a quest for a
real bishop. He forthwith chose another enthusiast as his
fidus Achates, to wit, Gerasimus Kolpakov, in religion Geron-
tius, of the Serkov convent in Bessarabia, son of a peasant
near Moscow and more practically minded than himself.
When the Emperor Justinian closed the schools of Athens,
certain of the neo-Platonic and pagan philosophers of that
city set out in search of a purer air and more liberal environ
ment for Persia, whence they afterwards returned shocked
and discouraged by the vices of polygamy and worse which
were rampant in the dominion of the Great King. Like them
in 1836 our two seekers after a genuine episcopate turned
their thoughts and their steps to Persia; but they were not
destined to reach that ecclesiastical elysium; for, having in
curred the suspicion of the authorities, they were arrested in
the Caucasus and sent back under police surveillance, the one
to the Valdai, the other to Bessarabia.
But hope springs eternal in the human breast. The summer
of 1839 saw them re-equipped for their project; they had not
abandoned as their guiding principle the old motto ex oriente
lux, but they took care to start this time by way of Austria,
with the intention of making their way to the Far East along a
route on which the Russian Government would not be able to
lay hands on them. In due course they came to the Popovtsy,
and other Raskol settlements at Bielo (white) Krinits in
Austria.1 Here their co-religionists had enjoyed liberty of
worship ever since 1783, thanks to the liberal laws of the
Emperor Joseph II; and the thought now struck Peter Vasilev
that it would be safer to establish his episcopate in this home of
freedom than in Russia. He therefore urged the authorities
of the Lipovan 2 convent to supplicate the Austrian Govern
ment to permit them to appoint a bishop. The local Austrian
authorities (Kreisamt) consented, but the Government refused,
possibly because they realized even then that any step taken or
allowed to be taken in Austria in mitigation of the iron religious
oppression of the Holy Synod would in due time call down
upon them the wrath of the Tsar Nicholas I and furnish him
in the future with an additional incentive for wresting Galicia
and the Ruthenes from that connection with the Austrian
Empire with which they were perfectly content. The Ortho
dox Church, which till yesterday pulled all strings of govern
ment and international policy in Russia, would be certain to
resent it, if the Emperor of Austria allowed a focus and hearth
of Raskol propaganda to be established on Austrian soil.
The convent moreover, had only been allowed to exist there
1 Liprandi: (Short sketch of Raskol, 1853) describes the routes from Russia
into Austria and Bessarabia taken by Raskolniki in his age and bitterly assails the
Austrian Government for allowing them horses and guides 1 This was in the days
before railways.
* This was a general name given by their neighbours to Raskolniki who had
taken refuge in Transylvania.
THE DISPERSION 135
on the assumption that its inmates were of a purely contem

plative order.
But there were those in Vienna who were quite ready to do
the Holy Synod a nasty turn, among them the Minister of the
Interior, Count Kolovrat, and the Arch-Duke Ludwig; and
to them Peter and his companion turned, with the result that,
after all formalities had been complied with, the Emperor
Ferdinand in 1844 gave permission for a foreign bishop to be
imported into his dominions by the Raskol and established
at Bielo-Krinits, where the monastery was to be under the
charge of himself and his successors.
The two emissaries, it will be noticed, had passed several
years at Bielo-Krinits, during which time Gerontius had been
elevated to the dignity of Superior of the monastery there, in
succession to the monk Joel. He now returned to Russia,
only to find Serge Gromov dead. The latter until now had
financed the enterprise, but the Rakhmanovs stepped nobly
into his place and undertook the expense, computed at 200,000
roubles, of installing the future prelate, if one could be procured,
in due style and of rebuilding the monastery, for the church of
which the faithful were already providing ornaments and plate.
Having as it were built the nest the enthusiastic Peter now
started afresh for the East in order to find a phoenix bird to fill
it choosing as his travelling companion another monk named
Alimpius. He was minded, if he could not discover a genuine
Old believer, to be content with a schismatic bishop whose
orders and ordinances the canon law of the Church allowed him
to regard as valid. For generations there had been, as we saw,
communities of Old believers in European Turkey, refugees
from Russian violence and cruelty, and to these the Raskolnik
in quest of a bishop naturally first turned his steps. In our
own generation we have examples of Poles who, to avenge
wrongs done by the Russian Government to their compatriots
have taken service under the Turkish Government. Already
in 1844 there existed at the Porte a Polish section led by a Pan
or member of the Polish nobility, by name Tchaykovski, and
known in Turkish circles as Saduk Pasha. To him the Raskol-
niki obtained an introduction from the Ataman of the Nekra
sovtsy Goncharov,1 and found him only too willing to render
a disservice to the oppressors of his native land. He seems
even to have had a list of stray bishops of the Greek rite
resident in the Turkish capital and in want of employment.
Peter, however, determined to try further afield before adopt
ing one of these, and, filled with high hope, continued his
quest in the East, where he met with the debris of Nestorians,
Eutychians and Severians, but with no Old believers. But he
was able to satisfy himself that the Greeks shared his own
meticulous distrust of baptism by aspersion and insisted on
trine immersion, regarding the former as no baptism at all,
but only a Roman tradition. Accordingly when he had found
his way back again to Constantinople, he wrote to his friend
Gerontius that he could find no suitable candidate in the East,
but that they could, without violating their consciences, acqui
esce in the choice of a Greek.
Among other candidates his Polish friends especially com
mended to him one Ambrose, who had formerly been metropoli
tan of Serajevo in Bosnia, but whom for political or other
reasons the Turks had expelled from his see. He was a Greek
from Enos, a widower, and he was living in Constantinople
in great poverty. Peter got hold of a dragoman, a Serb,
Constantine Ognianovich by name, who could talk both
Greek and Russian, and through him opened negotiations with
Ambrose, but failed, it would seem, to convince him at first
of the canonicity and orthodoxy of the Popovtsy communion.
Ambrose, according to Ivanovski, was dismayed at the pros
pect of being constrained, in order to take up his new episco
pate, to anathematize an orthodox body of believers like the
Russian Church and himself to submit to the indignity of
being re-anointed as if he were a schismatic.
Henri IV found Paris worth a mass, and orthodox scruples
have too often yielded to cupidity; and this proved to be the
case when Peter turned from the Bosnian prelate to his son
George, and dangled before his eyes the prospect of a country
residence with ease and emolument on Austrian soil. He
1 Nekrasov was chief of a tribe of Don Cossacks who fled from Russia in the
days of the Streltsy revolt. The Turkish Popovtsy bore his name.
THE DISPERSION 137
yielded and undertook to procure his father's assent to the

scheme; Ambrose gave way, much against his instincts and
better judgment, if we are to believe Ivanovski. What, accord
ing to this authority, most awoke his religious scruples, was the
Raskol use of two fingers in blessing instead of three; however,
Peter proved to his satisfaction that this usage went back
behind Nikon; and, his last scruples overcome, Ambrose on
April 15th, 1846, accepted the position on condition of receiving
500 ducats a year with a country house for his son George.
Perhaps the promise that he should appoint his son successor
and so found a hierarchy flattered the native pride seldom
absent in modern Greeks, and it is anyhow better to begin even
a spiritual lineage than to end a carnal one. His happiness
must have been complete when he was put on board a steam-
packet en route to Austria. On his way he was exhibited to the
Old-believing congregations settled on the Duna (Danube);
then resuming his disguise, and successfully avoiding detec
tion by Russian agents, he reached Vienna, and was at Bielo-
Krinits on October 12th, 1846.
Ivanovski gives a somewhat splenetic account of the cere
mony arranged a few days later, October 27th, for the recep
tion of Ambrose into the true Church of the Popovtsy. It
was held in their church of the Theotokos, Gerontius presiding
with many outward embellishments and much pomp, but, if
we can believe Ivanovski, not without internal misgivings on
the part of the main actors in the scene. The Popovtsi could
not agree among themselves on the point whether, as was
usual with runaway popes, Ambrose should be re-anointed
with the holy myron. Peter had written a book about it,
but had failed to create unanimity; and finally the discussion
became so acrimonious that the congregation had to be ad
journed, without Ambrose, who knew no word of Russian,
realizing in the least what the uproar was about. They
eventually agreed to consult Ambrose himself on the morrow
about which rite of reception he preferred. Anointers were
in a majority, but Peter who urged the use of the third rite
for the reconciliation of schismatics as found in the old Slavonic
Euchologion, visited Ambrose by night and represented to
him that in order to quiet the conscience of the weaker brethren
he should submit to the rite most in vogue. "You mean your
own conscience, you idiot," was Ambrose's reply.
Finally the hieromonachus arranged the rite for the follow
ing day, and Ambrose who only understood of it such passages
as his Serbian interpreter translated for him, offered no re
sistance, reciting with much idai as he stood before the
royal entrance of the Sanctuary or Bemathe Slav anathemas
against all heresies which had been written out for the purpose
in the letters of the Greek alphabet. This much achieved, he
retired behind the screen into the Sanctuary together with
Hieronymus, to whom he was to make his confession, a religious
act none the easier of accomplishment because one of them
knew no Greek and the other no Russian. The monk Onuph-
rius, who was present, has testified, according to Ivanovski,
that the entire rite was uncanonical. Presumably he was a
votary of re-anointing with myron, but was outraged at the
fact that Hieronymus, having stared for a couple of minutes at
Ambrose who returned his stare, this under the rubric of
confession anointed him, not with myron, of which they
had none in stock, but with common oil. Next Hieronymus
proclaimed that Ambrose was worthy of his new dignity and
deposed in writing that he had searched the secrets of the
candidate's heart. Ambrose now issued forth through the
Royal Gate in full canonicals and, grasping in his hands
the three and two-branched candlesticks, proceeded to bless
the people.
Ambrose was now a Raskol prelate or metropolitan and
proceeded to celebrate the liturgy and ordain a clergy of every
grade, reading the prayers in his own native Greek, the deacon
making the proclamations in Slavonic. In the following year,
1S47, on January 6th, Ambrose consecrated a bishop for the Old
believers settled at Maenos. The canons of course required
the presence of three bishops at the ceremony, but the Raskol
justified the irregularity on the score of necessity. This was
the day of Epiphany when Eastern Churches celebrate the
Baptism of our Lord by a solemn blessing of the waters. For
this rite the Popovtsy produced on this occasion two archpriests.
THE DISPERSION 139
Ambrose read the gospel, Cyril, the newly consecrated bishop
of Maenos, the prayers; he had been secretary of the place
under the lay name of Kiprian Timofeev. The imminence of
the ceremony had been noised abroad all over the Bukowina
and the commander of the local forces as well as the civil
Governor attended, a banquet being given in their honour by
the monks.
The Austrian Government was clearly glad of an opportun
ity of sticking pins into a Schismatic Church like the Russian
which had nursed for centuries a sleepless hostility to Rome;
and the dismay and irritation of Petersburg is voiced by Lip-
randi (Short Sketch of Raskol), who insists that the Popovtsy
by their connivance with the authorities of Bielo-Krinits in
erecting an alien hierarchy in Russia had ceased to be a re
ligious body and constituted themselves a source of grave
political danger to the Tsar's Government. Liprandi was an
inquisitor appointed by Nicholas I and the right hand man of
Protassov, the hussar officer appointed by that Tsar to keep
the Holy Synod in order, so it could hardly occur to him that
a little religious toleration was a better and more dignified
way of exorcising the imaginary menace than to expostulate
with the Austrian Government. In their self-assumed role
of protectors of orthodoxy all over the world the Tsars con
stantly addressed reprimands then and later to foreign govern
ments through their Procurators; for example in December,
1886, Pobedonostsev assailed Austria for favouring Catholi
cism, and Rumania for negotiating a concordat with Rome.
Turkey, Greece, Servia, Bulgaria, were equally regarded by
the Tsars as in a way amenable to their religious jurisdiction.
Meanwhile any foreign criticism of pogroms was actively
resented in Petersburg.
In August, 1847, Ambrose ordained a second bishop, Ar-
cadius, for the Nekrasovtsy or Raskol diaspora of Turkey.
He was called the Slav bishop, and the Popovtsy now had the
minimum of three bishops needful to assure the future of their
episcopate.
It would be interesting to know how far the affair of Bielo-
Krinits helped to bring about the Crimean War, just as ortho
dox propaganda of the Russian Government among the Latin
Uniats of Eastern Galicia and the counter propaganda of
Vienna amongst the inhabitants of the Ukraine were among
the causes of the recent war.
On this occasion the Tsar Nicholas felt that he had been
outwitted and outraged by his Latin opponents, and he
promptly arrested Gerontius when, in the guise of a merchant
under the name of Leonov, he entered his dominions with the
help of a false passport; he next sternly demanded of Vienna
the removal of Ambrose from the Austrian dominions, and at
the same time called on the Greek Patriarch of Constanti
nople to take the necessary steps for his reconversion or, in
default, his condemnation. The Greek Patriarch, subservient
then as always to the Moscovite, sent through Austrian chan
nels an intimation to Ambrose that he must repent and return.
The Austrian Government in its turn had no desire to compli
cate the internal difficulties of the moment by quarreling over
such a matter with Nicholas I; so Ambrose was summoned to
Vienna and given to understand that he must either go back
whence he came or retire into some more convenient exile;
and his monastery was closed and officially sealed on March
3rd, 1848. But before he had set out for his place of exile,
Tsill in Styria, revolution broke out in Vienna and a popular
Government was established at the head of which was Count
Kolovrat, the protector of the Old believers in Austria. Alim-
pius was returned to the new house of representatives as deputy
for the Bielo-Krinits monastery, and at once took steps to get
it reopened, and Ambrose went back to it. The Government,
however, refused and Alimpius, more immediately concerned
in aiding the revolution in Prague, was too busy to prosecute
the enterprise. Later on, however, he got back to Vienna and
succeeded in obtaining the release of Ambrose who was allowed
to go and live at Tsill (Trill). Lest the Popovtsy hierarchy
should fall below the canonical figure of three bishops, Cyril
Bishop of Maenos now consecrated Onuphrius, Bishop of
Braila, and Sophronius, Bishop of the Popovtsy in Russia, on
January 3rd, 1S49. These two bishops in turn consecrated
Cyril to be metropolitan of Bielo-Krinits, with the full grade of
THE DISPERSION 141
archihieratic dignity. The monks at Bielo-Krinits now
opened their monastery afresh without consulting the Govern
ment, but with the assent of the local authorities. They con
tinued on sufferance until 1859 when the Government once
more openly extended its patronage to the institution. In the
interim the Crimean War had been fought and Nicholas I
had departed to a better or a worse world.
The rest of Ambrose's career possesses a morbid attraction
for Ivanovski. He continued for a time to draw his salary
from the Old believers, but he shewed his contempt for
them by refusing to confess to the bishops and hieromonachi
of their denomination who continued to visit him in exile.
He was deeply incensed to find his stipend abolished in
1859, and made it an occasion for anathematizing Cyril who
had taken his place, along with all the priests whom he had
ordained and all who had accepted their ministrations.
"Henceforth," he is reported to have written, "I will make
Bezpopovtsy of the whole lot of you." He died in 1863 not
we take it for granted without receiving the viaticum from
an orthodox Greek priest, and he was buried in Trieste. His
son George is said to have written later on, that his venerable
sire had often blamed him for pushing him into the Lipovan
heresy, of those who baptised with aspersion only, a state
ment which need not be taken seriously.
Ivanovski gives many details of the success of the Bielo-
Krinits hierarchy in Turkey and Rumania. In the XVIIIth
Century settlements of Popovtsy, fleeing from the Russian
Government, had been formed in the Dobrudja along the lower
Danube, and here they were known as Nekrasovtsy, after the
Cossack ataman Nekrasov who escaped thither from Russia
together with his troop. Another settlement had, as we saw
above, been established about 1750, between the Sea of Mar
mora and the Archipelago; a third, that of Maenos in Asia
Minor on the Sea itself. In all three there lived some 10,000
of the sect. They had all taken an interest in the search for a
prelate, and it was the ataman Goncharov himself who had
introduced Peter to Saduk Pasha the Pole. They had con
tributed money to the scheme and formed a separate see,
although, it is said, a minority repudiated Ambrose because
they felt a doubt whether he had not received in baptism
aspersion instead of trine immersion a doubt which, if it
really existed, might one would suppose, have been got rid of
by conditional rebaptism.
These congregations had selected for ordination as their
bishop Arcadius Shaposhnikov, hegumen of the monastery of
St. Laurence; but Ambrose displayed his zeal for canonicity
by rejecting him on the score of his having married a widow in
his pre-monkish days. Instead of him he ordained in August
1847, another Arcadius, also called Dorotheus or Lysias, who
was subjected to some annoyance by enemies of Ambrose,
for they declared him to be no better than a Greek or a Bul
garian agitator, and essayed on that ground to arouse against
him the suspicions of the Porte. In consequence Arcadius
was arrested and imprisoned for half a year and only liberated
by the efforts of Goncharov and the Poles. The latter were
now rewarded by a firman granting to the Nekrasovtsy as loyal
subjects of the Sultan full liberty, the use of their own clergy,
and immunity from annoyance by any other religious body.
Taking advantage of the favours thus accorded them the
Popovtsy of Turkey treated themselves to bells on their
churches, a luxury forbidden to other religious sects, but no
doubt accorded to them because of the irritation it would be
sure to arouse in the breast of Tsar Nicholas I and his suc
cessors. Arcadius was known as the Slavonic or Slavianski
bishop; and, as the Popovtsy of Turkey at Tulcha in the
Dobrudja also asked for a bishop of their own, Arcadius and
Onuphrius, Cyril's suffragan, consecrated Alipius for their
special edification with the title of Bishop of Tulcha.
This was on September 27th, 1850, but neither of these
bishops occupied their sees for long. In 1853 the Russian
armies invaded the principalities of the Lower Danube and
by the advice of the Porte most of the Nekrasovtsy families
fled from their settlements into Turkey proper. The two
bishops, however, stuck to their posts; and the fugitives
claimed and obtained this time as their archbishop the very
Arcadius whom Ambrose, because of a technical flaw in his
THE DISPERSION 143
sanctity, had refused to consecrate. He was known as the
bearded bishop, and was a man of rough tongue and great
energy. He duly shepherded his flock of refugees to the shore
of the Bosphorus where he remained during the war.
It would clearly then have been a miracle if in 1853' the
Tsar had spared the two Popovtsy prelates who bravely stood
their ground on the Lower Danube, and he did not. Both of
them were arrested by the advancing Russian army, deported
and, on the strange ground that they were absconding Russian
subjects, imprisoned in the Spaso-Euthimiev monastery at
Suzdal. At the end of the war the Popovtsy through the
Turkish Government, and with the sympathy of Napoleon III,
though not, apparently, of the British Government, interested
himself in their fate, but in vain; and the settlers persuaded
Arcadius Shaposhnikov to leave the Bosphorus and come to
them as Slav-bishop, while Alipius the Bishop of Tulcha was
replaced by the lay-brother of Arcadius, Justin, a native of the
Volokolamski district of the Moscow Government, a wise,
temperate and learned man.
This assured the future of the Popovtsy hierarchy in Turkey.
For the service of the 20,000 of them settled in Moldavia and
Wallachia Ambrose ordained as bishop a pope named Nice-
phorus who had his seat at Jassy. Subsequently one Onuph-
rius was made suffragan of Braila to attend to the congregation
in that neighbourhood. In 1853 they obtained a bishop of
their own, Arcadius, with his see at Vasluya in Moldavia.
He was a native of Saratov and a learned fanatic who ordained
a great many priests. To begin with the Turkish Govern
ment was somewhat severe on the Raskolniks of Moldavia and
Wallachia, and Arcadius had to go about his diocese in secret.
Probably the Porte suspected these fugitives from Russia of
being Russian agents. After the Crimean War, when Rumania
received independence under Prince Kuza, the prot6g6 of
Napoleon, they were more liberally dealt with and enjoyed
complete religious freedom. Their prelate Arcadius was
treated by the civil authorities with all the respect due to his
position; and when the metropolitan of Jassy complained of
the presence of a schismatic prelate in his diocese, the Govern
ment told him curtly that Rumania was a free country; and
in 1860 Arcadius was officially recognized as Archbishop of
Moldavia. It is pleasant to think that the hierarchy of Bielo-
Krinits so completely succeeded in the nearer East. It was
a triumph at once of Austria and of religious liberty. The
Rumanian Government also deserved much credit.
In Russia proper the Bielo-Krinits hierarchy was also a
success in spite of governmental opposition and of the doubts
entertained by a few of the Popovtsy, notably by the runaway
pope Paul of Tula, as to Ambrose's baptism. Gerontius had
first carried the news into Russia of the episcopal ordination
of Ambrose and Cyril, and the congregations of Rogozh and
Kerzhen under the influence of the Rakhmanovs received it
with enthusiasm, and sent two priests in disguise, Borisov and
Zhigarev, to Bielo-Krinits to obtain holy chrism. In January,
1849, Cyril consecrated as bishop of Simbirsk Sophronius, in
the world Stephan Trifonov Zhirov, a peasant of Maloyaroslav
and afterwards a citizen of Moscow, whose business had been
to smuggle fugitive priests to their destinations. He was now
appointed head of the Russian Popovtsy. Ivanovski accuses
him of having been a rapacious brigand, selling ordinations,
exacting from his popes in Moscow half their pay and more
still from the country ones. Perhaps this was the reason
why in 1853 his congregation removed him to the see of Sim
birsk and obtained in his stead a new prelate Antony, who had
been a Bezpopovets of the Thedosyevski communion, and whose
name in the world was Andrei Larionov Shutov.
In 1855 a see of Saratov was founded under a bishop Athana-
sius, who had been a merchant. In 1856 were created sees in
Perm and Kazan and Kolomna, in 1857 a see for the Caucasus.
In fact within twelve years the Austrian hierarchy spread all
over Russia, ten sees in all being founded and priests ordained
everywhere. In Moscow a supreme board of control was
established for the transaction of all the ecclesiastical affairs
of the sect. It consisted, however, too exclusively of bishops
and priests, and for that reason aroused the jealousy of some of
the laity, who petitioned the Tsar to allow runaway popes to
miniatPT to them by way of healthy competition with those of
THE DISPERSION 145
Austrian origin. The layman party was known as the Vino-
kurovski. In opposition Paphnutius, Bishop of Kolomna,
petitioned the Tsar to recognize the existing Popovtsy clergy
as Alexander I had done in 1822; this he was not likely to do,
inasmuch as the Austrian clergy, at any rate outside Russia,
were accused of refusing in their liturgy to offer up prayers
for the Tsar.
About the year 1860 the Raskol took root in London among
emigrants headed by Herzen and Kelsiev, who took in hand
there the publication of the reports concerning the Old believers
collected in the course of various inquisitions by the Russian
Government. The firm of Paul Trubner published five vol
umes of these between 1860 and 1870; it is to be regretted that
the English Universities took no pains under the Copyright
Act to acquire copies of documents so precious for the historian.
Copies, however, are in the Widener Library at Harvard Uni
versity, and in the British Museum. Paphnutius of Kolomna
also tried to found in London a school and church for his co
religionists, a seminary for the training of missionaries and a
Russian press. But the emigrants there offered very poor soil
in which to try and plant his faith. They were, and still are
for the most part, people who, as far as religion is concerned,
have been completely sterilized by contact with the orthodox
Church of their native land.
In 1863 the Russian Government began to tolerate the Bielo-
Krinits clergy, only continuing to punish converts and repress
all public manifestations of the sect. In 1908, according to
Palmieri (p. 421), the Bielo-Krinits hierarchy numbered
fifteen bishops, twelve governing dioceses, and three emeriti.
Their archbishop resided in Moscow, and bishops resided at
Izmail, Kazan, Perm, Uralsk, the Caucasus, Smolensk, Samara,
Tomsk, Nizhni-Novgorod, Petersburg. Their Synod meets
once or twice a year, when all bishops must attend or, if sick,
send substitutes. The Synod nominates bishops to vacant sees;
the archbishop can judge of complaints against them, found new
sees, and settle controversies of an ecclesiastical character. In
each see there exists a consultative house of convocation open
to priests and laity. In 1861 this Russian Popovtsy church
declared itself autokephalous and independent of Bielo-Krinits.
With this the Russian Government hampered communica
tions; moreover it was a monkish settlement and ill-qualified
on that account alone to exercise jurisdiction in Russia.
Since Russian orthodox publicists continued to deny that the
Bielo-Krinits ordinations were valid, the Popovtsy appealed in
1875, 1892 and 1896 to the Patriarch of Constantinople to
recognize their orders. In 1899 a commission was appointed
there to study the matter, which reported that the Metropoli
tan of Serajevo was not by the mere fact of his quitting Con
stantinople disqualified to administer as a bishop ecclesiastical
censures and canonical punishments. This was a tacit recog
nition of the Austrian hierarchy by the supreme Greek ortho
dox Patriarch, and Pobedonostsev when he heard of the
decision was greatly disturbed. Since the proclamation of
liberty of conscience on April 17th, 1905, the Popovtsy have
redoubled their energy, and in a Synod held on August 25th
of that year decreed that that day should be for ever feasted
as a holy day in their Church.
The General Character of the Popovtsy
In their religious convictions, remarks Uzov, the Popovtsy
are closer than the rest to the orthodox Church, their relation
to which is well set forth in a 'petition' written in the name of
the Uniats and circulating from hand to hand in manuscript
among the Popovtsy. In the words of this document Ortho
doxy is not Catholic Orthodoxy but only "a Russian Nikonian,
Muscovite, Synodalist, fiscal system, based on the use of three
fingers and on the withershins form of procession." "Such
orthodoxy outrages Apostolic orthodoxy, because it is naught
else than a botched and retouched ceremonial, in other words
a sort of ritualistic faith, an ignorant condemnation of the old
national ritual customs of the Church, is, in a word, Greek
ritualism." "Orthodoxy, so far as we mean thereby antago
nism to the old ritualism, is no more than slavish belief in
ritual, belief in the dogmatic importance of certain ceremonial
details; it involves the principle of ritualist exclusiveness or
the restriction of orthodox opinion exclusively to certain
X
THE DISPERSION 147
ceremonial details. Hence the clownish condemnation by a
supreme pastor (Nikon) of ceremonial usages consecrated by
age-long usage. And, lastly it raises to the rank of dogmas
mere peculiarities of Greek ritual. Orthodoxy is just one of
the sects into which the Russian Church has fallen asunder,
a sect which lays stress on the necessity for the Russian Church
of Greek ritual." "The Raskol (by this word, which signifies
religious dissidence, the Raskolniks mean the Orthodox Church)
is an apostasy on the part of the Supreme Shepherd (i.e.,
Nikon) from the usages and ceremonies or rites elaborated by
the Church of our fathers; it is antagonistic to the spirit and
traditions of the Holy Apostolic Church, and has tyrannically
usurped the prerogative of ordaining such rites and usages
in our Church; it stands for ritualist intolerance, iniquitous
expulsion from the Church and persecution of those who cling
to older rituals and older custom. It is not the Holy Catholic
and Apostolic Church moulded by councils and commemorated
in the symbol of faith; it is not even a Russian Church; it is
merely an archpastorate illegal in its procedure, and circum
scribed by a Synod whose members are appointed by the Gov
ernment itself." "What can we say," write the Popovtsy,
"of a Church which, it is pretended, is invincible, because it
rests upon the support and sword of the powers of the earth?
What has it to do with the Truth when it resorts, not to
persuasion in a spirit of evangelical gentleness, but to civil
statutes, to influences of which the flesh alone is sensible, to
fetters and prison cell? Eternal Truth abhors such arguments,
disdains to subserve and stoop to methods as vulgar as they
are sanguinary. Truth has power in herself to conquer all
who think; the he, on the contrary, because its authority only
rests on the violence of a despotism which fawns on it, is
beholden to external might and must approve all its measures.
The methods upon which the domination of the new ritualism
is built and reposes are good evidence of its inward insuffi
ciency."
These are noble words, all the more striking when we bear
in mind that they were penned in a Russia still sunk in Cim
merian darkness, and anticipate the dawn by at least two hun
dred years. They might very well have been addressed by
Sir Thomas More to his sovereign. But we must not forget
that it was the Pope of Rome who sent to Henry VIII, along
with the title of Defender of the Faith, not a copy of the
Gospel, but a sword.
"Is it the Raskol," ask the petitioners, "that stands fast or
if it does move, then only along the path of hand-in-hand exam
ination and consent, or is it the man who after overthrowing
the age-long decisions of our Church hurls recriminations at us,
blocks our path with lies and calumnies, vomits against us
curses and anathemas, destroys all liberty of conviction, insults
the people in their most sacred feelings of attachment and ven
eration for all that concerns the Church of our ancestors,
thereby bringing ruin on all?" "Old ritualism in itself, in its
own conception, is neither heresy nor Raskol (dissent), but
above all things faith in a piety that reflects our ancestral and
national holiness ; and so far forth it is the legitimate and justi
fied protest of the people, of the veritable flesh and blood of the
Church, the guardian of the religion of our sires against the
wilful bias entertained by the Russian Supreme Shepherd
(Nikon) in favour of alien rite and usage, to the outraging of all
who love their country, it is a protest against his autocracy,
against his pretensions to dictate to us our conscientious con
victions, a protest against his efforts to import into the practice
of the Russian Church the discipline of Papistry." Old ritual
ism then is 'popular orthodoxy.' "Our supreme pastorate by
foisting on us a monkish discipline and subservience to a con
ventual 'rule' in what appertains to the rites and usages of
our Church, and by lording it in practice over ceremonials and
ecclesiastical affairs, has by brute force introduced in our
national Church Greek ritualism instead of the old ancestral
ritualism, so despoiling the people and its clergy of their right
to a voice in the affairs of the Church and in the control of
matters of faith and ritual, arrogating to itself alone the role of
Church, nay more of the Apostolic Church and of its infalli
bility. In all these respects our Supreme pastorate has
declined from the spirit and traditions of the Holy Apostolic
Church, has fallen into Latinism."
THE DISPERSION 149
Regarding the anathema pronounced against the Raskol in
the Council of 1666, the petitioners speak thus: "This condem
nation was pronounced by the supreme pastor (Nikon) alone
in despite of the Russian Church itself, in other words, in
despite of the people who are the very flesh and blood of the
Church and guardians of its piety. And as the supreme pas
torate does not of itself and alone constitute the Church in its
true sense, so this condemnation was not only not pronounced
by the Apostolic Church, but not even by the Russian. By
consequence it is not valid, because it is no expression of the
Church's own convictions."
We are reminded, as we read the above, of Tertullian's
noble plea for the rights of conscience, when he wrote that the
Christian Church is not a numerus episcoporum, a mere tale
of bishops.
"The Apostolic Church," continued the petitioners, "has
never invested, nor now invests, ritual with the unchange-
ability of dogma, nor conceded to it an ecumenically binding
uniformity; but each particular Church according to the
measure of its independence, has been allowed to construct
its own ordinances and ceremonies, customs and rites, as suits
the age, the position and the spirit of the people." "A decision
in questions of faith," they add, "indisputably belongs to the
supreme pastor yet is not given to him apart from the con
sent of those he shepherds; for in antiquity the consent of the
people was declared by the presence at the councils of its repre
sentatives in the persons of rulers and senate. In questions
then of mere ritual, no decisions are valid and effective without
the mutual consent of the Supreme Shepherd and of his
flock." 1
" In respect of Church Government it is clear to all that the
single head of Holy Church is our Lord Jesus Christ; but in
the code of rules of the Russian Church it is affirmed that the
head of the all-Russian Church is the Emperor of Russia. . . "
"And a meeting of bishops is convened not in the form of a
Council, but at the arbitrary will of a member of the world,
which implies nothing less than debasement." "Similarly
1 Slrannik, 1866, No. 3, art. of Tverdynski, pp. 90-110.
there are selected for the priesthood not men known for the
purity of their lives, but youthful domestics who have not
attained the canonical age, who are not graced with good works,
and have as yet no knowledge of the seductions of life, men
unknown for goodness of character to the parishioners. How
can such persons feed Christ's flock?"
"And who is there in the all-Russian Church to deal with
dogmas and faith? According to the example set by the
Apostles, we ought to deal with them in a council, but in this
Church what councils are there? A Synod held under an
officer's commands can only manage affairs of the outer
world."
"We," say the Raskolniks, "recognize a single head, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and as directors of the Church we recognize
such bishops as will govern it not as autocrats, but in accord
ance with the rules of the holy councils; not applying the
holy canons merely at their good pleasure, but in accordance
with conciliary deliberations concerning them; and among us
bishops are chosen not at the good pleasure of any and every
one, but by a council from among respectable men, known for
their zeal for the faith and for the purity of their lives, and in
the same way the presbyters." 1
; 1 Hegumen Parthenius, The Spiritual Sword, pp. 27-44.
/
CHAPTER IV
THE BEZPOPOVTSY OR PRIESTLESS SECT
The Various Settlements of the Bezpopovtsy

1. In Kostroma and the Viaznikov region of the Vladimir
Government. Kapiton led this colony of which the members
were at first known as Kapitonians. He was a native of the
village of Danilovskoye in the uyezd or district of Kostroma and
became a monk in the Kolesnik hermitage. Illiterate, he
gathered about him followers as early as the reign of Michael
Theodorovitch, attracted by his asceticism which discarded all
sustenance except bread, berries and fruit. He eschewed, even
on the great feasts, butter, cheese and fish; and he encouraged
his admirers to paint onions and eat them instead of Easter
eggs. To escape the Government when the persecution of the
Raskol began he quitted Kolesnik and sought refuge in the
Viaznikov forests, already full of religious fugitives. These
he organized and ministered to, and in spite of ukases and
soldiers died there in peace. One of his followers, a peasant,
named Podreshetnikov founded near Kostroma in the Kine-
shemski and Reshemski regions a community whose lay mem
bers boldly performed their own rites of baptism, penitence
and eucharist, each for his own family.
2. In Siberia. Thither five disciples of Awakum fled.
The most prominent of them was Oska (Joseph) Astomen
from Kazan, an Armenian convert to orthodoxy. Banished
in 1660 to the Yenisei he spread Raskol tenets there for 24
years; but when summoned in 1684 to Tobolsk by Metro
politan Paul of Siberia he pretended to repent and died there
in the Znamenski Monastery in 1693. Some 1700 of his fol
lowers, led by one of his successors, Vaska or Basil Shaposhnik
burned themselves to escape the cruelty of the Government.
3. In the Novgorod and Pskov Country. Here, as also in
parts of Sweden and Poland, the Bezpopovtsy came to be known
151
as the sect of Theodosius. In 1682, there was a great exodus
from Novgorod into Swedish territory, whither one Timoshka
had already fled with fifty families to Narva. There in 1692
Ivan of Kolomna, himself a dissident, proposed to the settlers
to return to orthodoxy and Theodosius Vasilev was sent
from Novgorod to check the backsliders, who at a Raskol
council in 1694 were excommunicated. In the same council
were condemned the improprieties inseparable from the
attempt of men and women to live together as monks and nuns.
Presently Theodosius left the Swedish settlement and founded
one of his own in Poland. He was related to the Boyar Urusov
and his fame attracted many to his camp. He agreed with
the rest of the Bezpopovtsy in most things, e. g. in teaching
that Anti-Christ was reigning, in rejecting all priesthood, in
rebaptizing the orthodox; but he differed in respect of how
the title of Christ should be written on crosses and he recog
nized as valid ties of wedlock contracted by people in orthodox
churches before they joined the Raskol. On the other hand he
was stricter with his food taboos than the sect of the Pomorians,
for he would not permit food bought in the market to be eaten
without being previously cleansed by prayers and prostrations.
Harried by the Poles he at one time returned to Russia and
settled in the district of Velikoluts in the Vyazovski volost.
After arrest and imprisonment he died at Novgorod in 1711.
His followers settled at Ryapin in the district of Yurya Livon-
ski. There his two communities flourished greatly, and over
flowed into Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Staraya Russa, Pskov, Riga,
Austria, Prussia and Poland. One of their counts against the
Pomorian sectaries was that the latter from fear of the Russian
general Samarin, who raided them in 1735, consented to pray
for the royal family.
4. Moscow. The chief centre of the Theodosiev sect was
founded in Moscow in 1771 by a merchant there, Bia Alex-
sieievitch Kovylin, a clever and practical, if illiterate, man.
It was the year of a great plague, and Kovylin got leave to start
a hospital and cemetery for the poor, the sick and the dying,
at Cherkizov on the River Khapilovok outside the city. His
fellow sectaries, numerous in the city, loyally assisted, and
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 153
thousands resorted to his hospice to be fed and solaced. There
in his chapel he prayed with them before the old ikons, held
the legitimate services of every kind, and preached to willing
ears that the plague was God's judgment on Moscow for
forsaking the ancient faith. " The credulous," writes Macarius,
archbishop of Kharkov, "weakened by hunger and disease,
blindly submitted to the voice of the lying teacher, and were
rebaptized in the nearest tub." Many left him their fortunes
and the hundred horses that the philanthropic merchant used
ordinarily for carting about his bricks (he was a brick merchant)
were busy transporting the goods bequeathed to him and his
associate, Zenkov. One asks what was the Orthodox Church,
of which Macarius till lately was a chief ornament, doing in
order to keep pace with Kovylin.
The new refuge at Moscow was dedicated to the Transfigu
ration, and before 1800 it contained 500 inmates, and 3000
adherents in Moscow frequented the services held there. In
the school were 200 pupils. Gradually other Theodosiev settle
ments affiliated themselves to it, e.g. in Novgorod, Petersburg,
Yaroslavl, the upperVolga, Riga, Tula, Saratov, Nizhninovgorod,
Kazan, Simbirsk on the Don, Kuban, Starodub. All these pro
cured from it their overseers, choristers, service books, ikons,
and sent in return ample offerings year by year. A triennial
meeting was held there for deciding all contested points of
faith or discipline.
5. The Pomor.1 The first Colony in the Olonets region
was founded by Paul, bishop of Kolomna, and its history
survives in a book written by one of its leaders, Ivan Philippov,
in 1774. Paul was succeeded by Dositheos, hegumen of the
Nikolski Besedovski Monastery three versts from Tikhvin on
the Yaroslav road founded by Vasili Ioannovich in 1510 on the
spot where the Virgin and St. Nicholas appeared to the monk
George.
One Cornelius succeeded him. Early in the siege of Solo-
vets, and still more after its disastrous termination, colonies
of refugees from it settled in various parts of Pomor. Thus
1 Pomor means 'sea board'; hence in Germany Pomerania means the shore of
the Baltic, in Russia it means the shore of the Arctic.
the deacon Ignatius, after a halt near Kargopol, fled to the isle
of Pal in Lake Onega, and was there joined by Emelian Ivanov
from Povyenets. In Sept. 1787 they won over to the cause the
Paleostrov monastery, an ancient foundation of the twelfth
century, situated on the Pal island in lake Onega, 15 versts
from the village of Shung, and defied the Novgorod authori
ties for a while, but in March 1687 were reduced to burning
themselves, monastery and all. Ignatius and 2700 of his fol
lowers perished in the flames, but Ivanov escaped. Before
long the latter, reinforced by another monk of Solovets,
Germanus, again obtained possession of Paleostrov, and
defied the Government for nine weeks, when they were over
powered and 500 of them burned alive. A third Solovets
monk in July 1693 seized the church of Pudozh, reconsecrated
it after its contamination by Nikon, and converted the villagers
to his cause. The Government sent a force, and 800 Raskol-
niki burned themselves alive rather than yield.
On the river Vyg, the chief settlement was formed by the
four Raskolniki saints, Daniel, Peter, Andrew and Simeon,
with the cooperation of the Cornelius and Ignatius already men
tioned. Of these Daniel Vikulich was a church scribe of the
Shumski parish and teacher of the Raskol hegumen Dositheus.
After escaping from Paleostrov he joined an already existing
community of fugitives on the Vyg. These with the aid of
the Elder Cornelius he organized about 1695 into a regular
skete or monastic community, of which he remained abbot
till 1734. In 1692 he had already been joined by Peter Proko-
piev, a convert of Ignatius, who being a learned canonist and
singer was made ecclesiarch and conducted the cult until he
died in 1727. But of the Vyg leaders, Andrew and Simeon
Dionysievich (Denisov) were the two most famous. They
belonged to the princely family of the Mushetski of Novgorod,
and took over with them their sister Salomona, who later on
headed a female convent. Andrew presided over the monas
tery 35 years, until 1730, in association with Daniel Vikulich.
Disguised as a merchant he conducted long missionary expedi
tions to Kiev and all over Russia. His brother Simeon was
less of a practical genius, but accompanied his brother in his
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 155
peregrinations, and in the course of them he made himself
an expert in rhetoric, grammar, singing and philosophy, writ
ing many books in the library he formed inside the monastery.
He succeeded his brother as abbot in 1730 and survived him
ten years. The Monastery was given the name of the
Theophany.
At its foundation in 1695 the Vyg settlement comprised only
40 men and women, who built wooden huts, a granary and a
refectory. The sexes, as is usual in Russia, sat apart in church
services. Soon entire families joined them, the convent had
to be enlarged, and a dividing wall across it separated the sexes.
Presently a special convent was built for women, on the River
Leksi, called of the Cross, and presided over by Salomona, who
died 1735. About 1703 fresh settlements began to group them
selves around the original one with chapels of their own. At
first Cornelius, as we saw, conducted religious worship, bap
tized, or rebaptized his new monks and nuns. Later on he was
assisted in this by the Elders Paphnutius, Paul, Barlaam and
others. There was a corps of singers, psalmodists, cellarers,
kanonarchs; and matins, vespers, vigils of feasts and other
services were duly held in the settlements. In the refectories
religious books were read out loud at meals. All were kept
busy, hewing wood, planting fields, tending the flocks and
herds, working the corn mills and fishing.
The Archangel climate is harsh, and occasionally the harvests
failed. Then many would flee back to the province of Nov
gorod, and Andrew and Simeon would set off to collect food and
alms in Pskov and elsewhere. In 1710 they bought a large
pasture 16 versts square near Kargopol on the River Chazhenga
and built huts there for shepherds and tillers of the soil. In
time they also began to eke out their scanty living with trade
in Petersburg and elsewhere, and their dealers returning from
Russia brought with them old books and gospels from sacristies
and libraries containing the handwriting of princes and upper
clergy of an earlier day, together with crosses, ikons and church
vessels of the older fashions which the Raskol venerated. Nor
were they behind hand in controversy, as the Responses of
Andrew and Simeon prove. They compiled a new martyrology
for church use containing the lives of martyrs newly slain by
the Russian Government. They had schools for the education
of missionaries and others who spread their tenets in the city
and country side. Before 1800 there were 2000 males and 1000
females in the Vyg monasteries.
An offshoot of the Pomorians was founded by a monk Phitip
in 1 737 some versts away from the Vygovski settlement. Philip
was a deserter from the Strelets force in Moscow, in civil life
named Photius. It is said that after the deathof Daniel Vykulin
he desired to succeed him. Disappointed in his hopes he began
a skete of his own with fifty families, assailing the Vygovskis
because they had been terrorized by Samarin into praying
for the Tsar. Attacked by Samarin thirty-eight of the Philip
community burned themselves alive, and in 1742 and 1765,
when Philip's sect had spread far and wide in the Archangel
Government, in Novgorod and in Finland, there were fresh
burnings on a much larger scale. The sect for its rigour was
singled out by the Government for persecution and that
explains why they came to be known par excellence as the self-
burners. In strength of numbers this sect ranked third among
the Priestless ones.
It was not the only offshoot from Vyg. Under the regime
of Andrew Denisov another colony was led forth by a shepherd
of Vyg who condemned the use of money and passports,
pavements and payment of the double poll tax imposed on
the Old believers by Peter I. This sect was known as the
Pastukhovo or Adamantovo; it respected marriages contracted
in the orthodox church and, according to Macarius, deprecated
self-burning.
The Stranniki
An incipient reconciliation in the last quarter of the
XVIIIth Century of the Raskol with civil society explains the
fact that there arose about that time among the Rigorists or
followers of Philip, a teacher named Euthymius or Eufimius, a
native of Pereyaslav in Poltava, who regarded any accommoda
tion with normal society, with State or Church, as backsliding
and impiety. Pressed into the army, he deserted and hid him
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 157
self first in Moscow, then in the Philipovski sketes of Pomor,
last of all in the forests of the Yaroslav Government. The
time came when, repelled by the overfacile compliance of
Philip's sect with Church and State, he set himself seriously
both to write a book and to found a sect of his own. He got to
gether in the village of Korovin in that Government a number
of sympathizers; and, assuming for the gathering the dignity
of a council, he solemnly condemned other Raskol groups, and
embodied his complaint in a work called The Peroration.
In it he condemned the act of inscribing their names in the
registers as Raskolniks as tantamount to abjuring the name
of Christian and as subservience to Antichrist. One who so
registered himself and his family deified the Antichrist. His
philippic against those who simulated orthodoxy was of the
sternest, and brings before us in a lively manner the disabilities
to which dissenters were subjected. They as good as admitted
themselves, he says, to be adherents of a heretical body, and
condemned themselves to go cadging for favours to the state
priest, e.g. for the billets de confession, without which they
could not obtain passports, they had to seek his permission to
dig graves for their dead, to receive him into their houses on
feastdays and give him alms. Such people, he writes, have
prostituted their children to the Great Russian Church, have
made their confession to the Devil, have disavowed Christ,
presented themselves at an unholy altar (trapeza), bowing and
scraping before it; they even invite the priest to enter their
houses, when on festivals he comes rapping at their doors and
windows and calling for the master of the house to give him
something for church purposes, thanksgiving offerings, and
the rest; they debase themselves by stuffing his bag with
bread, pastries, cakes. What, he indignantly asks, is all this
but to crucify Christ afresh, to pretend to love heretics and
be at peace with them? Piety is extinguished, he laments,
and impiety reigns everywhere. All the Old believers had
bowed the knee to Baal and no longer had the baptism of
Christ.
He accordingly baptized himself a third time, for he had been
first baptized in the Orthodox Church, next when he joined the
Philipovtsy, and now in despair of finding any real baptism on
the face of this earth he performed the rite first on himself and
then on his followers; and he made it his principle to wander
abroad on the earth, because we have here no abiding city.
The true Christian, he taught, must either conceal himself and
flee away, or wage open war with Antichrist. He must be
literally an outcast and in an alien world break every tie with
society. He has nowhere to lay his head, but is a wanderer
(strannik), a fugitive (begun), a stowaway.
This sect has above all others distinguished itself by its fierce
denunciations of the Tsars and Tsardom, and of the orthodox
priests as lying prophets of Antichrist. They have obsti
nately refused to register themselves, to pay taxes, to bear
passports. Their doctrine is the last word of the Bezpopovtsy
against the regime of Antichrist. Certain of the sectaries of the
Pomorians who pray for the Tsar were careful to justify their
action by citing the precepts of St. Paul in favour of praying for
Gentile or infidel sovereigns. So also the Thedosyevtsi or sect
of Theodosius were careful to indicate that they only paid the
Tsar's taxes, because the New Testament inculcates submission
to the Powers which be. The 'Wanderers', however, were
guilty of a very disrespectful comparison of the Tsar with the
heathen rulers, obedience to whom was counselled by the
Apostles. They were no better than servants of the Devil,
but the Tsar is Satan himself. You can do nothing but make
war on him.
No permanent community or society higher than gypsies
can be founded on the mere precept to wander and hide. The
early followers of Jesus soon found that it was not enough
to wait for the Second Coming, and that even to keep the faith
alive they must organise. Euthymius' tenets excluded all idea
of settlement: but presently, after his death, when the bond of
his strong personality and preaching was removed, it became an
urgent question how to assure to his Church any sort of stabil
ity or future. Continual vagabondage through 'desirable
deserts' afforded no bond of union, nay rendered permanent
ties between it* members precarious. A number of poverty-
stricken, homeless itinerant friars might attract to themselves
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 159
fugitive criminals, but not people with settled notions of life
and anything to lose. The members of the sect therefore met
to consider whether in future they should continue to wander or
settle down in fixed homes. An elder named Yakov Yakovlev
urged that no one could be regarded as a member who did not
imitate the master, but a lady named Irene, who had been
Euthymius' companion in travel, as also the Elder or 'director'
Krainev, proposed a compromise, by which they should only
receive as members of the society those who took a vow to
become Stranniki some day, even if for the present they kept
their homes and went on living in them. After warm discus
sion the compromise was accepted, and a distinction was hence
forth drawn between imperfect members who might live in
town and village and only vow themselves to become adepts in
the Christian faith later on, and those who pursued the original
ideal of Euthymius in its entirety. It was stipulated however
that those who lived in fixed abodes should maintain shelters
or asylums of refuge for the true wanderers and extend their
hospitality to them whenever they appeared.
The student of early Christianity will at once recognize the
parallelism of the Strannik society with the earliest Church.
Ivanovski describes in detail the life of concealment led by the
Strannik missionaries with evident gusto, as if they reflected
no discredit on the persecuting Church of which he is so dis
tinguished an ornament. The refuges, he tells us, of these
sectaries are furnished with secret ways in and out; they mostly
consist of underground cellars or garrets constructed in court
yards, kitchen-gardens and so forth. There are also hiding
places for the missionaries under staircases, in closets, in cup
boards; sometimes they are concealed behind walls or under
the roof, sometimes under the stove. Whole secret villages of
Beguni have been discovered, in which each house communi
cated with the rest by secret passages, and the secret entrance
of the last in the street opened into the garden or into a thicket
or somewhere out on a highroad.
This twofold organization of the Stranniki into those who live
as wandering monks and those who, remaining in the world,
are under a vow to become true wanderers ere they die, closely
resembles that of the Cathars. The Elect Cathar cut himself

or herself off from the world; while the laity, if we may so call
them, continued to live in the world, fed and sheltered the Elect,
but ever cherished the hope and intention of being themselves
elected before they died. For Election implied the reception
of the Holy Spirit, whereby they became incarnations of Christ,
Christs themselves, adopted sons of the Heavenly Father. In
Catharism no doubt there survived the deferred baptism of the
early centuries, and the same rite has lived on in the Catholic
Church in the form of extreme unction. The Cathars knew the
rite under the name of Consolamentum, or reception of the
Comforter or Paraclete.
The Stranniki then who remain in the world and maintain
these refuges for the spiritually perfect, the initiates, are under
a vow themselves to adopt the wandering life before they die.
In old age or in case of sickness felt to be mortal they retire
into a wood, and there live till death overtakes them. The
excuse for their disappearance from the ranks of society is
usually that they have set off on a pilgrimage. Sick children
are rebaptized, and baptism is usually performed in all cases
in a lake or a pond, either because they have no fonts or, more
probably, in deference to the preference for living water so
strong in the early Church and in other ancient forms of lus
tration. Ivanovski also states, though this like some others
of his statements must be accepted with caution, that the
rite of initiation is often arranged in a merely formal and
hypocritical fashion. The relations of a dying Strannik, he
says, inform the police (in the last degree improbable!) that so
and so is in hiding, this in token of the fact that he has broken
off all ties and relations with society. The sick person is withal
removed to a neighbouring house or into a hiding place where
he spends his time 'in concealment and salutary fear,' till
presently he is received, baptized and installed a 'perfect'
Strannik. His vocation is then complete.
The dead are buried in obscure places, in a forest, a field;
children often under ploughland or in kitchen-gardens. A
&nmm&' grave is unrecognisable, for no mound ever marks it.
We are reminded of the account of the recent persecution of the
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 161
Uniat Catholics in the Polish province of Kholm given in that

dreadful book L'apostolat du Knout published at Paris in 1913
by the Diocesan Society of Tours. In Kholm the Catholics
would hide the fact that anyone was dying, and bury him
secretly in their gardens, and wait till they could get a Latin
priest to read their rites over the extemporized grave. If it was
known that a man lay sick to death in a house, the agents of the
Russian Government would wait round the house ready to
burst in and carry the corpse off in triumph to the 'orthodox'
Church, there to be submitted to 'orthodox' burial rites.
New-born children similarly were torn from their mothers'
breasts and carried off to the Russian Church to receive 'ortho
dox' baptism; and any but 'orthodox' marriages being for
bidden and repudiated as illegitimate along with their fruit by
Pobedonostzev's law, young couples, desiring to marry, would
escape across the frontier to Crakov in Austrian Poland, and
get married by a Latin Priest. By such means, in the years
preceding this war, the Holy and Orthodox Church of Russia
had converted as many as 400,000 Uniat or Latin Ruthenes.
We have seen that numbers of the Priestless Sect, just
because they regarded marriage as a sacrament, needing a
priest to administer it, tried for a while, and here and there,
to live as monks and nuns, and presently, following Uzov, we
shall discuss this aspect of their life in more detail. How far
Euthymius revived this strict ideal in his sect, is not clear, but
we need not doubt Ivanovski's statement that his adherents
followed monastic usage so far as to assume in their 'religion'
monastic names, such as Niphon, Eustathius etc., and that they
lived as monks and nuns under strict rule, for violation of which
rigorous penalties were exacted, especially for infringement of
the seventh commandment. Ivanovski states, however, that,
in spite of their lofty pretensions, revolting scenes of debauchery
were common among them, accompanied with great cruelty.
Beginning with Euthymius, every one of their leaders or elders
kept a mistress; and theft, brigandage, even assassination were
not unknown in the bosom of the sect. He attributes this
partly to the fact that many exiled criminals joined them, no
doubt to secure shelter under the cover of piety. Kelsiev in
his Sbornik, vol. IV, 288 foil., prints evidence of such irregulari
ties from the lips of members of the sect, most of them rene
gades. But it is possible that the 'mistress' of Euthymius
was a 'spiritual' wife, a relationship common though often
reprobated in the Early Church from the time of St. Paul
onwards for about four centuries. The Stranniki certainly
regarded marriages contracted before a Nikonian or orthodox
priest as mere fornication, just as the mediaeval Cathari
regarded marriage inside the Catholic Church.
Such relationship led to grave scandals in the Early Church:
they could not do otherwise in Russia a hundred years ago, and
one of the first questions that rent asunder the Strannik Society
after the founder's death was that of marriage. The insti
tution was plainly incompatible with the idea of religious
vagabondage, of inhabiting neither city nor village; and yet
the conditions of human life had to be met, and in the sixties
of the last century the followers of Euthymius found them
selves suddenly compelled to make their decision, whether or no
a Strannik after initiation could or could not continue to lead
a family life.
A convert, Nicholas Ignatiev Kosatkin in the Government of
Novgorod, had fallen sick and sought 'perfection' ere death
should overtake him. But in making his confession prior to
being baptized he avowed no intention of parting from his wife,
and even declared he would abandon the sect if its statutes and
if scripture were so interpreted. Nevertheless the prior or
spiritual authority, deputed to 'receive' him, admitted him to
baptism, because he was so grievously ill, and so he became a
full member of the sect. Then he recovered after all, but
refused to abandon his wife and children, nay, begat a new child.
Thenceforth be began a propaganda in favour of marriage in
the sect.
He found an ally in one Miron Vasilev. and it was resolved
by most of the society under their guidance that marriage was
allowable, along with the two other sacraments of baptism and
penance, until the second advent a sensible conclusion.
Forthwith members who were married before they joined the
sect began to five together again, where they had not done so
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 163
all along. There was a minority however that held out against
marriage, and met the argument that the early Christians
allowed it with the counter argument that these only fled into
the desert to escape persecution and hoped to return when the
persecution was ended, whereas they, the Stranniki, had fled
into the desert for good and ever, never meaning to return and
live m an unregenerate world. In view of Uzov's account of
the sect one suspects that Ivanovski somewhat over-general
izes and accepts as valid and significant for the entire sect of
Stranniki events and quarrels and decisions that only really
concerned a section of it.
There were other questions also which led to dissensions in
the society, for example the trivial one whether a Strannik
should carry in his pocket coins that bore the stamp of Anti- i .
christ. Euthymius had avoided this 'Archimedian problem,' / ' *H'
but one of his stricter followers Vasili Petrov raised it, and an
insignificant minority followed him in his objection to money,
and were known as the 'moneyless' ones. They got over the
practical inconvenience by getting novices to carry money for
them and make their disbursements, just as the Manichean
Elect ones carried their scruple against taking life so far as to
make their novices cut their salads for them, shriving them
afterwards for the sin they had committed. Nicetas Semenov,
one of their best known teachers, raised his voice against such
nonsense, and also against the scruple felt against the use of
prayer books printed for the Uniats. These bore on the title
page the imprimatur of the Tsar-Antichrist and of the Holy
synod, and it was impossible to procure the old printed service
books anterior to Nikon, because they had become so rare.
In a Begun Council it was agreed to get over the difficulty by
tearing out the title pages!
Another cause of dissension was a sensible attempt made by
this same Nicetas Semenov to organize the society better and
keep it more together by appointing superior and inferior
clergy in some localities. Semenov published a tract on the
subject, but was accused by some of his brethren of being a
second Nikon and of wishing to establish a hierarchy. His
supporters however chose him to be supreme head or director
of the society. In the early church the episcopate did not get
the better of the itinerant prophet without a struggle, and, we
may be sure, some heartburnings. It was so with the Stranniki ;
thus does religious history repeat itself.
Latterly, according to Ivanovski, the Strannik elders or
initiates have compromised with Antichrist in yet another
matter. In order to roam about and propagate their tenets
with greater security they apply for passports, not in the
names they bear in 'religion,' but in the lay names which they
bore in the world, before they were converted.
The Netovtsi and the Self-Baptizers

Macarius and Ivanovski distinguish among the priestless
sectaries who assert that the advent of Antichrist has brought
about the demise of the Church with its priesthood and sacra
ments, the Netovtsi or Nothingites, as a separate and self-
contained sect whose members repudiate baptism altogether,
because they cannot reconcile it with their consciences that
laymen should administer it, for that is a violation of the
second of the Apostolical Canons contained in the Kormchei
(conciliary) Book, which rules that "those who snatch at gifts
not vouchsafed to them offend against God, as did the sons of
Korah and King Uzziah. Not even a deacon is worthy to offer
the Sacrifice or to baptize anyone or to celebrate the little or
great benediction."
An offshoot of the 'Nothingites' are, however, the self-bap-
tizers, who get over the difficulty by baptizing themselves.
Their converts immerse themselves in a lake or river, and
instead of a priest, as in the orthodox Church, using over them
the formula: "This child of God is baptized," they repeat
over themselves the words: "I, a child of God, baptize
myself." Similarly they repeat over themselves, when they
marry the formulas: "I betrothe myself," and "I crown
myself," for in Eastern marriages a crown is placed on the
head of each of the parties. This sect sprang up in the last
years of the XYIIIth Century, and flourished exceedingly in
the Saratov Government, according to Veskinski's notice of
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 165
them in the Orthodox Review, of 1864, No. 8. A member of it,
Timothy Bondarev, composed a work called: 'A true and
faithful Way of Salvation,' from which K. Kustodiev in the
Russki Vestnik (for 1862, No. 9, p. 420) adduces the views of
the Sect with regard to the history of religion, which views,
as he says, approximate in a remarkable degree to western
rationalism.
Bondarev started from the position that everything in the
world grows old and decays, and out of what has lived its day
springs up a new growth, which in its turn will grow old and
give way to new. This thesis he applied to the many laws
which have successively been vouchsafed by God to the human
race, namely to those of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Aaron,
Solomon, and lastly to ourselves in the law of the Gospel. All
these revelations, he says, were given for everlasting fulfilment
unto all eternity, and the first six of them were part of the old
covenant. Yet by divine destiny all has been changed, and
no one any more observes the first six, nor has their abrogation
displeased the Lord God. The seventh and last, that of the
Gospel, can only hold good until the glorious second advent on
earth of Christ. Yet he will come, not as the profane imagine,
to the eye or senses, but spiritually and intellectually; not in
brutal fact and sight to all or any, but in the form of righteous
mind, and true preaching and in no other. It is clear, adds
Kustodiev, that in strict accordance with his fundamental idea,
Bondarev's rebukes smite the external side of religion, not only
in the Church, but in the Raskol Sects themselves, in so far
as they tolerate presbytery and preceptorate. He is an enemy
of every kind of hierarchy, and his opinions connect the teach
ing of the Stranniki with that of two unreservedly rationalist
groups of Old believers, the Prayerless and the Sighers (or
Aspirants), who very likely owe much to his work.
The Prayerless and the Sighers

These two bodies virtually agree in their tenets and are the
extreme champions of the religion of the inner man, and V. S.
Tolstoi in a communication to the Imperial Society of History
and Antiquities in the year 1864 (bk. 4, p. 123) gave an account

of the Founder of the Prayerless Sect. He was a Don Cossack,
named Gabriel Zimin, an inhabitant of the Thedosievskaya
Stanitsa. In his childhood a Popovets, he subsequently joined
the opposite Sect the Bezpopovtsy, as a member of which he
gave himself up to the reading of old printed books, in order
to ascertain their interpretation of various points. Presently
he elaborated a doctrine of his own, of which, though based
on Scripture, no sect had ever dreamt. This new teaching
exposed him to the reprisals of the Government, which ban
ished him in 1837 to Transcaucasia, where what became of him
is not known. The thoroughness with which he carried his
creed into life, is shewn by an incident narrated of him. The
moment proceedings were taken against him for joining the Sect,
he took off a cross of St. George which had been conferred upon
him for valor and restored it to the Government.
It was to be expected that this sect as being the ne plus ultra
of ' Old belief ' would attract to itself more Old believers tha n
Orthodox, and it is so. The former are perpetually routing
about among their old books. This sharpens their wits, and
not seldom they find among the rubbish treasures of value,
as they think, even for the modern world.
How closely Zimin's sect connects with the Old believers is
seen in their general attitude. They regard all the corrections
made by Nikon as so many 'perversions of the truth,' and
esteem Nikon himself 'as a pioneer in that path of corruption'
which led up to the age of the spirit, and along which the mass
of Russians are moving to-day.
They base their religions philosophy on a division of the
past into four ages; of these four, the first lasted from creation
until Moses; this was Springtide, the age of the fore-fathers of
our race, i.e. the Patriarchs: the second extended from Moses
to the birth of Christ, and is called Summer, the age of our
Fathers. The third from Julius Caesar to 1666 was Autumn,
the age of sons; from 1666 to the present day is Winter, the age
of the Holy Spirit.
The Signers put it somewhat differently, holding in a manner
in some ways reminiscent of Marcion, in others of Montanus,
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 167
that in the Old Testament we have the kingdom of God the

Father, in whom men then believed; in the New Testament
that of God the Son, which began with the birth of Christ and
continued to the 8,000th year from Creation, and is now ended.
With the 8,000th year begins the reign of God the Spirit, or the
Age to Come; and in the present it behooves us to believe in
the truth of the Spirit, by means of sighing or aspiration or
out-breathing, according to the saying: Glory to the Father,
and Son, and Holy Spirit.1
The Prayerless teaching then in general inculcates that Truth
is utterly extinct, faith suppressed and hidden; but as the age
of the Holy Spirit is nigh, there remains but a single chance of
salvation, the attainment namely of such ideals and ends as it
is ordained for us to fulfill in the spirit, but not at all through
the flesh or any material modes. Not even oral services to God
are permissible, for they involve use of the tongue of the body.
Impressed with the belief that they are living in the age of the
Spirit, they are minded to take everything, holy Scripture not
excepted, in a spiritual sense. They do not shrink even from
evaporating off in the same way the birth of Jesus Christ in
the flesh, his passion, death, resurrection and ascension. For
example, the Virgin Mary was good counsel, out of which was
born the Word of God, and he is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
His coming in the flesh they do not preach; but by way of
explaining it they fall back on the idea that in Jesus' age, divine
rites and services were performed in the flesh, and that this
flesh, after the advent of the age of the Spirit, is completely
set aside and abrogated. Ecclesiastical authorities, after the
7000 years had elapsed, no less than Church Services and all
external rites, came abruptly to an end; and since then all
grades of clergy, from deacon to patriarch are on a level with
the ordinary layman; nor are pastors and preceptors or rectors
any better, for they usurp their authority instead of receiving it
by direct succession. A church or orthodox temple is nothing
1 This information is given in an article in the Supplement to the Journal of
the See of Kaluga, for the year 1873, No. 3, entitled "A few words about the
Sighert of Kaluga," pp. 53-4. Cp. Albrecht Dieterich, Eine Mithraslilurgie, p. 14,
L 20 for a curious parallel.
more than a simple house, and sacraments performed therein
were only pleasing to God before the term of 7000 years expired.
All rubrics are antiquated; external modes of veneration of
God no longer have any significance. All this is a thing of the
past. The age to come is upon us, and no Church is left on
earth. It is not wanted any more; no more are priestly func
tions or offerings or outward ceremonies. The true temple is
within us each, in the heart; for it was said: "Ye are the
churches of the living God," and "Are ye not a temple of
God." l
If the old Manichean faith had not lain buried for a thousand
years at least under the sands of Central Asia, awaiting dis
interment by scholars and explorers like Sir Aurel Stein,
Grunwedel, W. D. Mliller and others, one could almost sup
pose that Zimin had drunk of its inspiration. He shares with
Mani, and Mani's spiritual father Marcion, the docetism which
gets rid of the flesh and historicity of the Messiah; he also
betrays the same abhorrence of material cults, which was
carried so far among the Cathars and Manicheans that they
would not even use water in baptism or the human hand in
ordination. In their abrogation of ecclesiastical orders the
Prayerless have also reached the same goal from which Marcion
and his Cathar and Manichean progeny perhaps started, the
conception namely of a single spiritual grade of election by the
spirit, first exampled in Jesus and accessible to all alike who
follow in his footsteps. From such a standpoint the difference
between a pneumatic or inspired laity and a charismatic priest
hood fades into nothingness; we are back in a stage of the
development of Christian speculation and practice earlier
than any separate priesthood at all, in which priesthood had
not emerged; such a stage has barely left any trace in the
Great Churches of East and West, although it survived into
the middle ages among the Cathars and even into the XlXth
Century among the Thonraki heretics of Armenia described
in my 'Key of Truth.' The orthodox clergy, according to
Zimin's followers, are ministers of Antichrist, and the priestly
functions exercised by them are a tissue of fraud and avarice.
1 Kaluga Journal 1873, No. 2, p. 32, and No. 3, pp. 53-55.
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 169
God asks nothing of us in return for his grace and loving kind
ness; and if the priests were truly his ministers they would
take nothing for their rites. Seeing that they take money for
every prayer, we have, they say, no use for them.1
The scriptures, they maintain, must without exception be
understood in a spiritual sense, especially today. Everything
revealed in them refers to this age; of the Heaven to be, of the
bliss of the just ones, of the departure of the spirit from the
flesh, no one, in their opinion can know aught, for it is all an
incomprehensible mystery. The Father, to quote their lan
guage, denotes the Paternal principle or rule which lasted until
Jesus Christ; the Son, the filial principle that held sway from
the birth of Christ until 1666; the Holy Spirit the principle
that dominates this age, the last.2
They will not hear of prayers offered with lips of flesh, whence
the name by which they are known of the Prayerless. In their
opinion we must not offer up to God, prayers written in books,
but prayers that come from the worshipper's own heart and
soul, and emanate from the spirit of wisdom. And in proof
they appeal to the saying of the Gospel: "Enter thy chamber,
shut thy door and pray in secret." "Enter thy chamber,"
they argue, is a precept of silence; "shut the door" means to
close the lips; and of the same purport is the maxim: "True
worshippers worship in spirit and in truth." It is an evil thing
to liken oneself to the heathen, to utter or recite any sort of
prayers at home or in meetings, for there is no salvation in vain
repetition. Nay more, to supplicate in one's mind for any
thing definite is superfluous and useless, for our Heavenly
Father knows, without our asking, what we need.*
The Cross they utterly reject; as a visible or material object
it is of no avail, at any rate in the present, the age of the spirit.
Baptisms they have none, and only give a child a name in
accordance with common custom.
The marriage union is accomplished among them without
any religious rite; they only insist on a mutual agreement of
1 Kaluga Journal 1873, No. 3, p. 56.
1 Tolstoi, op. dt. pp. 127-131.
* Islina, 1875, 41, Missionary Information about Raskd.
bride and bridegroom and parents; but one party must not
abandon the other without there has been open violation of the
marriage tie to excuse it. "What do you want with marriage? "
they say. " Choose your wife, as you please, and live with her
as you please, and you commit no sin." They bury the dead
without any hymns or prayers and in the simplest manner pos
sible, for they hold that a dead body is earth and returns to
dust. They therefore reject all rites performed over the dead
and allow no commemoration of them. If they occasionally
conduct a burial in accordance with the regulations of the
orthodox church, they only do so to escape the vexations of
the police.
Holy relics discovered before the 7000th year, they admit to
be efficacious; but all later ones they repudiate on the ground
that, since the age of the Spirit began, there is no use for them,
while even genuine ones are deprived of any further miraculous
efficacity, inasmuch as the fleshly or carnal age has expired.
The second advent of Christ, they say, is already past, and
they alone had understanding to recognize the event in accord
ance with divine revelation. The day of judgment they do not
believe in and appeal to the saying: "The Father hath given
judgment to his Son," but the Son is the Word, and the Word
has already delivered his judgment in his time, that is before
the expiration of the 7000 years. So they await no further
advent of Christ nor attend his dread judgment. And they
say, "after death there is nothing of the sort; we shall not
answer for our deeds to anyone."
Feasts and fasts they equally reject. "You think," they
say to the orthodox, "that you are gratifying God by eating
mushrooms and radishes. You are not. You only exhaust
yourselves and enfeeble your strength."
They have put aside everything visible, and along with it
priesthood, nor among themselves have they a presbyterate
resting on selection, although they make much of those who
have a turn for explaining in a spiritual manner texts of scrip
ture, perverting, says Ivanovski, their meaning to their own
ends.
Their attitude to the State is narrowly connected with their
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 171
theological views. They shew respect for the Lord, the Tsar
and the Government, as well as for the civil laws, because they
cannot avoid doing so; but in reality they hold that all estab
lished authority, being based on ignorance of the age and
season, must inevitably be neither valid nor just, and for that
reason they decline to obey as they ought. Imbued with such
ideas, opposed to sound common sense, as Ivanovski thinks,
they reject oaths taken no matter with what object, and are
convinced that an oath in particular is not only unavailing but
intrinsically absurd, all the more so because an ecclesiastic
has to administer it. " In any service of the Government, they
say, no matter what, even if you could take part, don't, except
in so far as the Government drives you to do so by force, so
that you cannot help yourself. Should you find yourself face,
to face with enemies with arms in their hands, that is no excuse
for you to rush to arms. Remember the words of the Gospel,
Mat. 26, 52: "All that take to the sword shall die by the
sword." They reserve the appellation of Christian warrior
for the man who is at issue with infidels, understanding by the
latter term those who do not share their beliefs in the succession
of the ages nor realize that the age of the Holy Spirit is already
come. Such is the picture of the tenets of this remarkable sect,
so closely allied to our own Quakers, given in the two sources
named, viz: Tolstoi's articles and the Kaluga diocesan journal.
Uzov admits his ignorance with regard to the strength and
diffusion of the Prayerless Sect, but has evidence of their being
found all over Russia, e.g. in the territory of the Don Cossacks
(Voiska Donskago) ; in Odessa as early as 1845, as testified by
Andreev; in the Vyatka Government in 1867, in the province
of Sarapul. Here entire villages belonged to it, and the Gov
ernment in the hope of extirpating it proceeded about that time
to imprison its leading members. Thereupon the members of
it presented themselves en masse before the local authorities
and besought them to imprison them as well; but the jails were
not large enough, and many of them were turned away dis
appointed.1
Gatsisski asserts in Old and New Russia, 1877, No. 11, p. 274,
1 V. Popov: Secrets of the Raskolniks, Old Ritualists, etc. pp. 15, 16.
that seven years before that date they were diffused in the
trans-Volga districts of the Nizhegorod Government, in other
parts of which they already existed; in many villages the soil
was turned up ready for the seed of the new faith to spring up
on it. In the Kaluga Government, we learn from the Kaluga
diocesan Journal of 1873, Nos. 2 and 3, p. 39, that the "lying
propaganda" of the 'Sighers' had already reached a great
extension. In cabarets, taverns, in the streets on feast days,
you heard them preaching. Near the Tula Gate in Kaluga
in a certain class of 'establishment,' their disputes with other
sectaries often threatened to degenerate into fisticuffs. Accord
ing to reports they had appeared in the Borov and Maloyaro-
slav provinces. In the Kostroma Government they were,
according to Gatsisski, scattered about in the district of
Varnavin; and their presence in that of Korchev was also
recorded. Such was the diffusion of this sect in 1880, when
Uzov wrote; since then it is likely to have multiplied itself
on the same scale as other forms of dissent.
The Intellectual Development of the Bezpopovtsy

In general and especially during the XlXth Century the
Bezpopovtsy have shewn a more liberal tendency than the
Popovtsy. All their sects have evinced the same determination
to supersede, or at least not to accept without careful examina
tion, the authority even of their own writers of an earlier
generation. Thus the Theodosian sect at Riga in 1826 drew
up a code for the regulation of their refuge or house of mercy
in that city in which it is pointed out that "their ancestors'
prescriptions were often wrong." It was therefore felt to be
necessary "to examine attentively the publications and decrees
of former generations, to uphold such parts of them as are
consonant with law and scripture, to supplement what is
defective, to make clear what is obscure, and exhibit before the
community whatever conflicts with principles and holy writ,
so that it may be altered." ' Long ago the members of this
same sect, in their discussion of burning questions with the
> Niiski: F*m.'j l\'t s- :*r wa AtsciM, pt. 2, p. 130.
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 173
Pomorians, refused to be bound even by texts from the Epistles

of the Apostles unless these could be shewn to be applicable to
the circumstances of the age; l and a well-read monk Paul
of the priestless sect in his work: The Royal Road, which en
joyed extraordinary vogue among his people, repudiated the
assumption that authority attaches to all the works of the
Fathers.2
And the same independence of mind is revealed by the leaders
of the priestless sects in their discussions with the orthodox
clergy sent to convert them. Confronted with citations from
ancient books they answer: "Well and good; but these books,
my father, were written in an age when the ancient piety
existed, and were true to fact when they were penned. But
that old piety is past and done with and now there is nothing
to which you can apply what the book contains." 3 "These
were books of great men," others will answer, "but they have
passed through the hands of heretics who have doctored them."4
It was in vain, remarks Uzov, that orthodox doctors adduced
passages from the New Testament to the Fathers to prove
that the Church of Christ must endure to the end of the world,
that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it, that the
hierarchical order is similarly perpetual, because, as Cyril of
Jerusalem wrote: "Christ's priesthood after the order of
Melchizedek shall never cease," and so forth. The Bez-
popovtsy replied that such promises could be annulled by the
sins of mankind and that the Scripture offered many examples
of promises for ever which were never realized. "God," they
argued, "promised David that his throne should stand for
ever, and yet long ago the Hebrew priesthood and kingdom
ceased to exist." 6 Dire necessity turned these Raskolniks
into higher critics and their agility in controversy led an
orthodox publicist, K. Nadezhdin, to write of them as follows :
"It is true they often borrow proofs of their lying teaching
1 K. Nadezhdin: Disputes of the Bezpopovtsy of the Preobrazhenski Cemetery and
of the Pokrovski Chapel about marriage.
* M. Stebnitski: Among the People of the Old Religion, 2nd. Edition p. 12.
1 T. Tverdynaki: Conversations of an Orthodox Priest, p. 28.
* Istina (Truth) 1877, Bk. 51, Preaching of the Truth, p. 181.
* Istina, 1877, Bk. 53 : Preaching of the Truth in the See of Pskov, p. 67.
from holy writ, but at the same time no sooner do they see
that, in spite of their garbling, it does not bear out their asser
tions, than they are ready to deny the sanctity even of holy
writ itself, frequently adding that it was given us as much for
our ruin as not." Scripture, according to the Bezpopovtsi,
is no other than a two-edged sword; out of it springs every
sort of heresy.1
In the conferences which were held at Kazan in 1871 the
Bezpopovtsy commenting on the proofs from Scripture laid
before them by N. Ivanovski, professor in the seminary there,
answered: "Scripture is a trackless abyss; that only to one
that has understanding is the advent of Antichrist palpable,
and men have advanced interpretations out of their own
imaginations, based on nothing at all." Ivanovski replied
that though on the one hand the Old believers pretend to be
champions of the letter, yet wherever it suits their doctrine
they have no scruple in violating its obvious meaning, and
concocting interpretations of various kinds, half rationalist,
half mystical, which they dignify by the name of the 'inward
meaning.' To the plainest and simplest passages of Scripture
and the Fathers they attribute one allegorical sense or another,
all equally strange. A monk named Barnabas, formerly one
of the Bezpopovtsy, who in 1880 had joined the Orthodox
Church, wrote of them that "by preference they interpret
everything spiritually." 2 In this connection the question of
Antichrist occupies the first place. In their reasonings about
his person and time of appearance we always hear one and the
same thing said: "We must understand the Scriptures alle-
gorically, and conceive in a spiritual manner of spiritual
matters"; "no, no, it does not help us to understand things
carnally; we must understand Scripture, not according to the
ink, but allegorically." But their commonest watchword is:
"To him that hath shall understanding be given." * And
they appeal to a passage of Ephrem Syrus to this effect, to
be read in his tract on the Dread Judgment and on Antichrist:
1 Jslina, Bk. 6: Controversy among Bezpopovtsy.
* Chronicle (Letopis) of Events among the Raskol, by N. Subbotin, p. 32.
' Orthodox Companion, No. 12, art. by N. Ivanovski, pp. 475-8.
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 175
"To anyone gifted with divine wisdom and understanding,
the advent of the tormenter will be intelligible, but for him
that is immersed in the things of this world and loves the
earthly, it shall not be so; for if we be wedded to interests of
this life, we may hear the Word, but will have no faith; nay,
they who preach it will excite our hatred."
The Bezpopovtsy in view of the endeavours of Orthodoxy to
convert them, if only to the Uniat position (which they term a
snare) by a system of missionary preaching, and finding them
selves compelled under pain of a fine to send their learned men
to hold discussions with the missionaries, say to the latter:
"Formerly we were tortured, and without any success; and
now you think you are going to convert us to the Church with
the help of a few old books." 1 "You can find no arguments
now to lay before us by way of exonerating yourselves but what
you find in our own old printed books; but you yourselves
have cursed these books and abused them and confiscated them
and relegated them to your lumber-rooms : and we are on our
guard. Just as you used to torture us for an old book, so now
you will make us pay dear; and if we give you nothing, you
will carry off our book straight away; nay, will lock us up in
the casemate as well. Of course you eulogise the old books
now, you even appeal to them for everything, as if, my brother,
we had not read them a thousand times and long ago." 2
Uzov pertinently observes that, so long as the old books were
the sole property of the Old believers, they naturally took good
care in citing them to pass by passages that contradicted their
position; but as soon as orthodox missionaries that had
belonged to their sect began to use them, as weapons of attack,
and so revealed what double-edged tools they were, then the
Old believers' enthusiasm for them, as we saw above, began to
evaporate, and they proclaimed that "to him that hath under
standing, more shall be given."
We have already glanced at the doctrine of the Antichrist
so widely current in the Raskol, and Uzov gives some account
of a book entitled About the Antichrist, Testimony from Holy
1 Istitia, 1876, bk. 45, Records of Conversation*, p. 654.
' Conversations of the psalm reader Paul, p. 6.
Writ. He was to appear according to it at the very end of the
XVIIIth or rather at the beginning of the XIXth Century,
and it is explained that: "he is not a man but the spirit of
our world, an heretical condition of the Church, an apostasy
of Christians from the Truth vouchsafed by Christ, a spirit of
sacrilegious impiety and eternal perdition. By the woman of
whom he is to be born we are to understand a society of unclean
people; by his birth, their apostasy from Gospel truth; lastly
by the three and a half years which is to be the period of his
reign is signified an indefinite lapse of time"; "the idea of the
Antichrist as of something imperceptible, ideal, spiritual, arose
among them long ago, at the very beginning of the Raskol
movement, but by reason of its abstract character it had at
first little vogue among them and was never formulated clearly
and definitely; 1 nowadays it has become a favourite topic of
Bezpopovtsy conversations." "As a spirit of sacrilegious
apostasy a spirit of eternal perdition, it lives, so they teach,
and operates principally in the governing classes who hold power
in their hands."2 For the rest: "There exist among them at
present two opinions about the person of the Antichrist : some
of them understanding by the name an antichristian spirit in
society, an apostasy of men from Christ and from the teaching
he bestowed on us, an heretical condition of the Christian
Church; others conceiving of Antichrist as the last of a series of
persons pursuing one and the same teaching opposed to the
truth of the Gospel." The latter "understand by the woman
from whom is to be born the Man of Sin to mean an earthly
kingdom of some sort, concentrated as it were in a single body;
the birth of Antichrist is the issuing or provenance of such
persons out of this kingdom or their manifestation therein."
They point to the passage of the apocalypse about a whore,
whose name Babylon, they declare (following Andrew of
Caesarea), is derived from the woman, who is nothing but a
kingdom of earth, and in especial the Roman Kingdom, called
in Peter's epistle Babylon, and the Russian Kingdom called by
the patriarchyJeremiah the third Rome. Antichrist is to be
1 I.jNilski: About Antichrist, p. xxxiv.
* I. Popov: Sbornik for history of Old believers, 1. 1, p. xi.
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 177
born, that is, manifest himself in this kingdom or issue there

from; consequently he must appear in Russia, which is the
third Rome." He "has been reigning in the world for long
ages," in Russia ever since 1666.1 Allegorization of the old
legend of Antichrist, as Miliukov points out, rendered it easier
for the Raskolniki to compromise with a world which after all
had not come to an end, as at first they had expected it to do.
The logic of events had falsified their early anticipations of his
advent, and allegory furnished them with a means of readjust
ing them.
"In the old legends of the Antichrist, Enoch and Elias the
prophets were also to appear, and the Bezpopovtsy found as
little difficulty in dissipating their personalities by means of
allegory. Enoch was the natural law, Elias the written law,
John the law of grace."2 "Others declared that Elias and
Enoch are symbols of zealous men in general, and that anyone
who argues from the written letter is no better than a Jew." l
Such glosses as the above reveal that the Dissenters had
grown out of their early belief in Antichrist, with its implica
tion of the imminence of the end of the world. The world had
stood the test, and they had after all to live in it. Hence the
new orientation of old beliefs.
At this time one can hardly refrain from asking oneself if
these opinions have not had much to do with the present
upheaval in Russia. In their crude way these simple people
had apprehended the truth. That the present catastrophe is a
result of the neglect by all the Governments of Europe of the
elementary moral truths enunciated in the Gospel, who can
doubt? These truths avenge themselves, if they are flouted
and ignored, as surely as would the axioms of mathematics,
if they were set at naught ; moral principles are no less infallible
and certain, remarked Leibnitz long ago, than the postulates
and axioms of geometry; and if the latter got in the way of
our passions and cupidity as much as does morality, Euclid
and Archimedes would be denounced as dreamers and hope
lessly impracticable people.
1 I. Nilaki: About Antichrist against the Raskolniki, pp. 1, 100-1, 107, 108.
Edifying Reading (Dushepoleznoe Chtenie) 1869, On the Advent of Elias and
Enoch, by the Priest Paul, pt. 2, 137, 138, 140, 147 and pt. 3, 10, 12.
"
The identification of Tsardom and of the late Russian polity
with the reign of Antichrist was naturally little conducive to
the loyalty which finds expression in prayers for the Sovereign.
A minority of the dissenters, especially in the cities, tried by
unsparing use of the allegorical method to reconcile such
loyalty with their conscience, especially in times when the
Tsar's Government betrayed the least tendency to tolerate
their existence; but these fits of toleration were always of
brief duration and due to the personal enlightenment of a Tsar
or Tsaritsa. Behind the sovereign there ever stood the Holy
Synod with its 'short method for dealing with dissenters.'
It was mainly the Thedosievtsy and Pomortsy who lived in
cities that shewed a tendency to compromise and admit a
detente in the sway over Russia of the Antichrist, but the more
extreme sect, the wanderers or Beguny, remained intransigent,
and indeed the vast majority of the Raskolniks held by their
convictions, as is shewn by the fact that in the XlXth Century
the sects which spread and multiplied were mostly those which
regarded prayers for the Tsar and the royal family as the worst
form of blasphemy, an actual verification of the legend which
represented the Antichrist as forcing his way into the temple
and deifying himself. Nor was this tendency confined to the
priestless dissenters. The less extreme Popovtsy shared it,1
and in 1868, in a council held in their Austrian centre of Bielo-
Krinits, they solemnly decreed that any who pray for the
Powers that be shall be excommunicate. 'How will you ever
find grace at the hands of the Beast?' asked such partisans.2
In every country trade and wealth engenders the instinct
to uphold Church and State. One is therefore prepared to
learn that it was chiefly among dissenting shop-keepers in
Russia that an inclination to pray for the Tsar shewed itself.
The Russian peasant, on the other hand, remained obdurate.
Thus on January 23rd, 1864, when division of opinion about
the matter revealed itself in a general meeting of the Popovtsy,
held in their Moscow headquarters, the so-called Rogozhski
cemetery, only ten persons were in favour of offering up in the
1 RussH Veslnik, 1869, No. 2, art. by Subbotin.
Edifying Readings, 1869, Pt. 3, art. by Paul the Priest, pp. 365-6.
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 179
liturgy a prayer for the Tsar, the peasants and poorer citizens
going against it en masse, according to Subbotin's articles in
the "Russki Vestnik" for that year (No. 2, p. 775; No. 3,
pp. 407, 413) and for 1869 (No. 10, p. 605). The vast majority
of the Popovtsy were during the sixties of the last century at
one in such matters with the Priestless Sect, into whose ranks
of every shade of opinion there was a constant tendency for
them to drift, as we read in the "Russki Vestnik" for June
1865 in I. Belliyustin's art: More About Movements in the
Raskol, also in I. Liprandi's contribution to the Proceedings of
the Imperial Society of Antiquaries of Russia, for 1870, Vol. 2.
Another author notes how the majority of dissidents used in
their hymns such words as ' Vouchsafe to true believers victory
over all opposition.' 1 But the so-called Stranniki or Wanderers
were the leading propagandists of an intransigent attitude
towards the Imperial Government, and accused those of their
co-religionists who prayed for the Tsar of gross inconsistency
with their principles, inasmuch as victory for the Government
meant victory of devil and Antichrist.2 And another writer,
I. Dobrotvorski, has justly remarked : 3 "Among the Priestless
dissenters the belief in Antichrist colours their view of all that
appertains to the State, of its laws, of its judicial procedure,
of everything that reminds them of Authority, in a word of
all governmental usages. The stamp of Antichrist is on it all;
and it is all equally hateful to the Raskolniks, all equally
impregnated with anti-Christian spirit. Some of them, no
doubt, are less extreme than others and only go half-way, but
the leaven has been there always and is ever at work."
The elementary intellectual independence of the Bezpopovtsy
was shewn in their repudiation 'in case of need' of everything
in Holy Scripture that conflicted with their religious aspira
tions. Antichrist has annihilated the genuine priesthood,
therefore they have none. "This," they cried, "is the last
age, in which everyone must judge for himself what is best." 4
1 Istina for 1875, Vol. 38: -Interned Disputes among the Dissidents'
' Vestnik Europy, 1871, No. 1, art. by Rozov, p. 287.
' Orthodox Review, 1862, Pt. 1, p. 386.
4 T. Tverdynski, Discussions of orthodox principles with old ritualists, p. 437.
The Church, they hold, is an union of the faithful, and can

dispense, if need be, with a hierarchy for the best of reasons,
to wit, because it has Christ himself for its head. A priestless
believer will point his finger to his own breast and say: " Here
is the true Church, here, in my heart ! Not in the timbers of a
church, but in my ribs." The Apostle Paul wrote: "Ye are
the temple of the living God," according to the divine utter
ance: "I will dwell in them etc." l In them therefore is ful
filled the teaching that every man is a temple of God not built
with hands, that in each of us God lives and gives ear to the
heart's prayers.2 You can hear the Bezpopovtsy to-day using
such words as: ' I am the Church.' 3
Opinion on Priesthood and Sacraments

There are even Bezpopovtsy, according to the Hegumen Paul,
who maintain that "the priesthood itself and the Sacraments
of the Eucharist and of anointing with Chrism are innovations.
They declare that in the earliest age they never existed and
were all introduced by Nikon. Before his date there was
nothing but what the Bezpopovtsy now possess, namely an
order of teachers, whom they also call popes." 4 This opinion,
remarks Uzov, which seems merely absurd to the hegumen Paul,
rests nevertheless on firm historical facts. Before Nikon's
age the relations of clergy to people were not what they are
to-day. "The parish churches in Russia had long been
accustomed to see in their priests elected representatives of the
people's will. At the close of the XlVth Century they were
judged by laymen even in ecclesiastical matters, each parish
instituted any particular priest it preferred, and his election
depended on his receiving from the Commune a diploma of
approval to which the parishioners must subscribe their names."
Moreover, it is notorious, writes Andreev in his work on the
Raskol and its significance in popular Russian history (pp. 93,
1 T. Tverdynski, Discussions of orthodox principles with Old ritualists, p. 115.
* Istina, 1874, bk. 35: Propaganda of Truth in See of Pskov, p. 3.
* Hegumen Paul : Description of a Tow among Litovski (Lithuanian) Old-believ
ers in 1869-70, p. 20.
* Op. at. p. 18.
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 181
94, 95, 135, 136), that "in the pre-Muscovite period Novgorod
often transacted its ecclesiastical affairs without the benedic
tions of hierarchical authorities. Their spiritual lords Arsen-
ius and Theodosius were never consecrated by any higher
church authority; popular choice, it is clear, was of more
importance in their eyes than consecration by a metropolitan
or patriarch. Even as late as the beginning of the XVIIth
Century in central Russia the priesthood was an elective dig
nity; in Pskov and its neighbourhood in 1685 as many as 160
churches were in the hands of peasants, who, without recog
nizing archpriest or bishop, paid the priests whatever presti-
mony or annual stipend they liked. Of old the parishioners
regarded the church as an appanage of their own."
In that age and even later on the inhabitants of Pomor often
dispensed altogether with a priest. Accordingly Barsov relates
"that the people of that region finding it not infrequently
impossible to visit their parish churches by reason of want of
good roads and the great distances, confined themselves to
building oratories in which all the services, except the liturgy,
were performed by any common person. This explains why the
laity of Northern Pomor so easily asserted themselves in
ecclesiastical affairs, regarding them as no less the concern of
villagers and local authorities than of the clergy. Individual
village communities, for example, in the revolutionary epoch,
with the consent of their zemstvos or county councils, under
took certain arrangements on their own initiative, drew up
religious rules and regulations. When, later on, the insti
tution of the popes by the people on the spot, by peasants and
even by serfs, was declared irregular by the canons of the
church authorities, and strict ukases were issued dealing with
candidates for ordination and registers to the newly appointed
popes and deacons, then the clergy began at once to lose their
moral influence and power over the zemstvos in the Pomor
region; conversely the latter began to sit loose to clergy and
church, began to trust more in the intellectual and religious
influence of the learned than in that of the popes. In this
condition of things we have, in fine, one of the main reasons,
if not the main reason why in the Pomor region the priest less
r
Raskol spread with such rapidity." l Ivanovski, we saw, takes
a similar view.
When the Raskol began in the XVIIth Century its teachers
had none of them any idea of abandoning priesthood and sacra
ments. It was only gradually that circumstances reconciled
them, at first to dispensing with them at need, and later on
to abandoning them altogether, and adopting the idea that
every man is a priest. This truth was fully enunciated early
in the XIXth Century by Nicephor Petrov: "all are on a
level; for pastors we have no use; all have received one and
the same cheirotonia (laying on of hands); Confession also
should consist in the taking of counsel with the inner self and
not in the power to remit sins." 2 In 1841 Sidor Kutkin
"preached in the Kurlyandski (Courland) Government, that
any and every Raskolnik may himself fulfil the needs of the
Church without having to resort to elder or teacher." 3 Such
teaching was widespread within thirty years, and in 1875 the
teachers of the sect, if asked on what ground they regarded
themselves as pastors, would reply with a text from the Apoc
alypse: "He created us to be kings and priests." * At other
times they would answer: "The Mir (village commune) has
chosen us as pastors." When Paul the hegumen objected that
this was not enough, and that Divine Ordination by means of
prayers appointed to that end was necessary, he was met with
the answer: "The voice of the People is the voice of God." 6
In the discussions held in the Government of Pskov the Bea-
popovtsy also declared as follows: "Among us today exists the
priesthood of Melchizedek; every man is his own priest." 6
The author of a work entitled Ritualists of the Church Hier
archy (the Orthodox are meant) writes: "The spiritual sacra
mental Priesthood of Christ belongs to every Christian, who
has hallowed himself with the gifts of the Holy Spirit." 7 In
1 Nikolai Bareov, The brothers Andrew and Semen Denisov, p. 41-2.
' Vestnik Evropy, 1871, No. 4, art. by Kostomarov, p. 531.
1 Orih. Review, 1865, No. 3, Art. by A. Veskinski.
4 This text is ever on the tip of a Raskolnik's tongue.
flra/Jfcoe Stow (Brotherly Word), 1875, bk.2. Journal of Hegumen Paul,p. 123.
Istina, 1873, Bk. 35, Preaching of the Truth in Pskov, p. 7.
7 Edifying Readings, 1870, pt. 1, Art. by the Priest Paul.
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 183
another work entitled: Doctrine of the Christian Church about

the Keys, it is shewn that the Keys of Priesthood belong not
only to ordained persons, but to the whole Church, which can
therefore very well exist without any priesthood at all. This
is quoted in a "description of sundry works written by the
Russian Raskolniks for use of the Raskol," among the memoirs
(zapiski) of Alexander B. pt. 2, p. 332.
Renunciation of priesthood carried with it that of most
of the sacraments; and the Bezpopovtsy, as we saw, were
left with baptism and penance only, because these could
be administered by laymen. "Jesus Christ," they argued,
"commanded many of his apostles to baptize without their
possessing priesthood, and apostolic perfection is attained,
not by a graduated hierarchical promotion, but by moral
improvement, purity of heart and freedom from passion." 1
We see how the lack of a priesthood gradually awakened the
mind of the majority of the Raskol to the truth that every man
is a priest, and this step in religious reasoning has inevitably
led to a new idea of the sacrament of communion. Accord
ingly it is commonly urged among them to-day that "a man
who lives by the sweat of his brow, communicates every day
of his life." 2 "If I live a good life, then I am saved even with
out communicating in the holy mysteries.3 Live you a life of
good works, they say to the orthodox, and God will not for
sake you; only set your hope on communion with him.4 Com
munion is reached in a life that imitates Christ's, according to
his saying: If a man loveth me and keepeth my word, my
Father will love him and come unto him and make his dwelling
in him." 6 It is the merit of the Bezpopovtsy to have seen
this truth, when they appeal to Augustine's saying that he
who eats his meal with faith already communicates in the
divine mystery. Let a man, they say, but sit down to meat
after a prayer, and cross himself before he begins to eat, and
1 Ibid. pp. 115, 117.
1 Ibid. 1871, No. 7, art. of Hegumen Paul 143-5.
Ibid.
' Istina, 1870, bk. 15: Conversations with Bezpopovtsy of the monk Prokopiw,
p. 58.
4 Edifying Readings, 1870, pt. 1: Art. of the Priest Paul, p. 170.
then his common bread shall be for him the equivalent of holy
communion.1
In exemplification of this conviction Uzov reproduces a
fragment of a conversation between an orthodox priest and
a Bezpopovets elder as follows:
Elder: Here you see my church (leading the way to his cottage).
Priest: And how do you communicate in this pretended church
of yours?
Elder: (pointing to his homely table): There we have our
altar, at which we communicate day by day.
Priest: And how can you communicate at this table?
Elder: How? In what? Surely in the bread of Christ.
Behold the bread that Christ has given us.2
The scene reminds us of much in early Christian literature of
the K\dai<t aprov' Breaking of Bread,' of the Acts and Epistles;
of that ancient Teaching of the AposUes in which the Lord's
Prayer was used as the prayer for the consecration of the
Eucharistic meal; reminds us also of the fact, attested by
Socrates the historian, that still in the IVth Century in parts
of Egypt the eucharistic rite was celebrated by a layman, the
head of a household, sitting with his family round his own
table; of the fact, attested in the 'invectives' of a Byzantine
Churchman against the Armenians, that the same pristine sim
plicity still prevailed in primitive Christian circles among them.
Late into the Middle Ages, as the Inquisitors' records prove,
the Cathars consecrated their Eucharist by repeating, before
they partook of the sacred food, the Lord's Prayer and no more.
Under stress of Orthodox persecution the Bezpopovtsy have
wandered back unwittingly into a paleontological phase of the
Christian Church.
The Bezpopovtsy take up an equally free and unconven
tional attitude towards other Sacraments, and betray no little
agility in finding scriptural texts to bear them out, and where
they cannot find any, leap lightly over the letter, to shield them
selves behind the necessities of an age in which Antichrist
dominates the world.
1 From the Priest Paul, Edifying Readings, 1870, pt. 1, p. 170.
J Istina, 1868, bk. 6, Vsyaehina (Miscellany).
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 185
Uzov admirably summarizes the religious development of
the Raskol during the XlXth Century in these words : "March
ing under the banner of Holy Scripture, at the same time admit
ting a 'higher' or spiritual interpretation, they are little by
little reforming and recasting their outlook on the world, are
drawing ever nearer and nearer to religious rationalism. They
are as a rule condemned for their slavish adherence to the letter,
to ritual, to forms, as compared with the rest of the populace
that remains orthodox. This is a huge mistake, based on the
tactics formerly and still occasionally followed by them
in their assaults on orthodoxy. They began by finding fault
with the orthodox because the latter used three fingers in
crossing themselves instead of two, because they used the
spelling Iesus instead of Isus, used a four-cornered cross instead
of an eight-cornered one, repeated the Alleluiah thrice instead
of twice; reduced the seven prosphorae or wafers of the liturgy
to five, and so forth. We must not overlook this, that such
argumentation was fashioned in an age when the supreme
shepherds of the Orthodox Church had anathematized the
Raskolniks for adhering to these trifling points of ritual, stig
matized the two-fingered signature as an Armenian jest, denied
that Isus could be a title of God, because in Greek it means
equal (?a-o<r), and so on. The Raskolniks successfully as
sailed the Orthodox on such points, and they attained their
object, which was separation from the Orthodox Church and
independence of the orthodox clergy. The latter left nothing
undone to keep up a purely ritualist antagonism; for example
in an Ukase of the Holy Synod of May 15, 1722, we read among
other things the following: 'If there beany who while obeying
Holy Church and accepting all her sacraments, nevertheless in
signing themselves with the Cross employ two fingers instead
of three, no matter whether they do this with the subtilty of
opponents or out of ignorance or out of obstinacy, all such shall
be inscribed in the Raskol and regarded as nothing else.' " l
In the past the orthodox clergy, no less than the Raskolniks,
were characterized by an excessive adherence to the letter,
by extreme formalism; but in any case this characteristic was
1 Collection of ordinances as touching Raskol, bk. 1, p. 33.
'
V
less developed in the Raskolnik than in the orthodox clergy, as

is shewn by later history. To-day it is the turn of the ortho
dox to find fault with the Raskolniks, not for their insistence on
the letter, but for the wrongheaded liberties they assume in
interpreting Scripture. The vast majority of them, consisting
of Bezpopovtsy, are beginning, as we have seen, to champion
the rights of private judgment and freedom of interpreta
tion. Among them a book circulates, in which the Orthodox
are termed ' the ritualists of the Church hierarchy,' a sign that
they regard hierarchy as a vice in the Orthodox. "Almost
all the Bezpopovtsy sects allow, like the Protestants, complete
liberty of research, and base their teaching not upon tradition,
but upon logic and reasoning." 1 "So called orthodox faith,"
has remarked one of the Bezpopovtsy, "is an appurtenance of
the Crown and Treasury, an official badge. It rests on no
basis of real life or sincere conviction, but just does duty as a
-Government weapon for the defence of order." 2
The Hegumen Paul also reports a conversation he held with
Markian Gerasimov, a hermit who wielded a great influence in
his circle of Dissenters and who told him in a discussion that,
in his opinion, we have no need to believe in an ink-written
volume of the Gospel, such as belonged to Father Paul, even if
it did belong to the time (c. 1609) of the Patriarch Hermogenes.
It was better to believe in the volume of the Gospel which is
stored up in the heart, and he called Father Paul a necroman-
eer,s by reason of his adherence to the dead letter.
The germs of such opinions had made their appearance long
before. Thus early in the 18th century Hierotheus, a member
of the Anufrievski (Qnufrius) sect of Old believers, put together
on the basis of Awakum's writings twenty-five points of which
the tenth runs thus: "To venerate the Gospel story, because
it is written down in ink, smacks of the manners of the Tartar."
And when the rest of the Old believers of Kerzhen (his own sect
excepted) asked for proofs from holy writ, he, along with those
who shared his views, instead of furnishing them, answered:
1 Kelsiev, Sbornik, tvl. 1, p. viii.
* Russian Archive. 1S66, No. 4, art. by I. Aksakov, p. 633.
Bralskoe Slow, 1876, bk. 2, M. Makarov, p. 156.
THE BEZPOPOVTSY 187
"You are gross minds and do not understand how to handle

the Scriptures." This is related by Esipov in his work on the
Raskolniks of the 18th century, vol. 2, p. 236.
A talented teacher of the Stranniki (Pilgrim or Wan
derer) Sect, Nicetas Semenov Kiselev, remarked to a certain
Kosharin, "that the reasons given for separating from the
Church indicated in the Pomorski Responses were, in his judg
ment at least, insufficient; for there existed others incompar
ably weightier, but unknown to the ancestors of the Old
bebevers." l He taught that "the cross of endurance, borne
by the pilgrims, which cross is the strannitchestvo or wandering
life itself, is weightier than the Cross of Christ, and that by it
alone the sins of humanity are redeemed and atoned for."
K. Nadezhdin in 1866 deplored the infidelity and atheism of
the Bezpopovtsy in general, and stated that "it had gone so far
of late years as to reject the pure and life-giving cross on which
Christ suffered for our redemption. They refused to bow down
before it and abused it, calling it a log of wood like any other
log."2 Another observer summarizes their teaching thus:" It
is indubitable that Antichrist came long ago, so that by now
all divine promises about the Church are made vain and at an
end. We are living in the age to come, that is, in the new heavens
and new earth. The resurrection of the dead is past, or rather it
is incessantly being accomplished in each of us according to the
degree of his merit and piety." 3 Such an outlook is no unique
case. Thus in a " conversation which was held in the stanitsa
or Cossack Colony of Ust-Medveditskaya, the Bezpopovtsy
defended their way of living without any divinely established
sacraments by the following argument among others. They
said that in accordance with St. Peter's prediction (II Peter
III. 7.) the heaven, by which they understand the Church, is
already consumed by fire, and the elements, meaning the sacra
ments, are abolished, so that they are now living in the new
heavens." 4
These opinions, says Uzov, that we are living "in a new
1 Contemporary Chronicles (Sovrem. Letopis), 1868, No. 16.
' Orthodox Review, 1866, No. 7, p. 317.
Orthodox Convers. 1869, No. 10, art. by N. I., p. 130.
* Bratskoe Slovo, 1876, bk. 2, Chronicle of Raskol Events, p. 226.
heaven," and that all "the promises of God" are already ful
filled and so forth, reveal the range of the individual believer's
speculation and feelings. All that was written by Evangelists
and other holy men refers to the past; in the present the
individual believer's conscience constitutes the sole norm of
what is right. Orthodox missionaries of to-day find themselves
confronted with a mental attitude which they can only describe
by saying that the peasants of a particular village openly
avow their disbelief in a future life.1
1 Moscow See's News-letter, 1874, p. 161.
CHAPTER V
THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE
The question of marriage has rent asunder the Priestless or

Bezpopovtsy society from the very first, with the result that
there are two groups among them, each numbering millions of
souls, one known as the married, the other as the marriageless
(bezbrachniki). It is evident as Uzov remarks that
an agricultural population cannot renounce the institution and
essay to live, men and women together, as brother and sister.
Notwithstanding so obvious a truth, a polemic has raged for two
centuries among these good people about the matter and gen
erated an infinity of tracts for or against marriage, and the
issue seems as far as ever from being settled by any common
agreement. Both parties of course appeal to Scripture, but,
after all, as the Bezpopovtsy are not brutish, ignorant people,
besotted with antiquated superstitions, we shall err if we dis
miss their various solutions as unworthy of serious study, the
more so as their conception of the place of woman in the social
scheme is involved.
Marriage Among the Stranniki

"The Society of the Beguny," says Shchapov," l has eman
cipated as have certain other Bezpopovtsy communities
the poor woman from the position she occupied of a chattel,
imprisoned as it were and restricted to a life of unending toil";
they have raised her to one "in which she is as fundamentally
important in the Society as the man." 2 In places where the
influence of the Beguny has made itself deeply felt it is become
impossible to speak to wife or daughters rudely, or even to
reprove them in a boorish fashion. The man who did so would
1 Vremya, 1862, No. 11, p. 280.
' The Raskol and its Significance in popular Russian History, p. 251.
189
be left without housekeeper or companion to help him in his

daily toil.1
A member of the priestless sect has described the true posi
tion which belongs to women. "Family life," he writes2 "is
based on the consciousness of mutual love in husband and wife,
of their equality of rights in every enterprise. All this involves,
as all know, mutual aid in counsel, and is the reward of the
natural capacities of both. The wife must not claim to give
up the task of bearing children and bringing them up in order
to become a knight errant. She must not abandon the cares
that centre in her children, and set out to interest herself in the
remote ties and interests of nations or of trade. So on his side
the husband cannot claim to bear children or bring them up
or look after the household, to the abandonment of public and
industrial matters. In all this they must both keep to the
balance prescribed by nature; and the true path leading to
mutual life is loving counsel in all enterprises." The same
author contrasts the positions which woman occupies among
the infidels (he means the upper classes), among religious
people (the poorer but Orthodox population), and in his own
Society respectively. In the first she is a target of vain infidel
fancies: in the second she is an unfortunate servile creature,
condemned to perpetual subjection by man: in the third cate
gory, that of the Raskol, which he terms orthodoxy, she is the
precious helpmate of the man and the half of his soul. Among
them she is no victim consecrated to pleasure, as she is among
infidels, but is reverenced as the half of the human race, and is
treated with the deference which the honest love of a true
believer and a pure well-regulated relationship inspire. The
infidel does not regard woman from the point of view of her
moral beauty, for he does not look forward to a lifelong union
with her and to the requirements of a well-ordered family life;
he only thinks of her outward beauty as an object for the grati
fication of his lusts, and only courts her until it is extinguished,
and no longer.
1 Kelsiev, Sbornik, iv, 161.
1 Istina, 1867. Art. Fruit of Life, pub. in Johanisburg. Those who know
Russia must accuse the writer of considerable exaggeration.
THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 191
Varieties of Opinion among the Bezpopovtsy.

Various solutions are met with among the Bezpopovtsy
of the marriage problem, but all agree in regarding the sexes
as having equal rights one with the other.
Those among them who retain marriage argue that where no
priest is to be found marriages may be celebrated without any
clerical rite; at the same time marriage is a sacrament, holy,
ordained by God, and upheld by Christ.1 The sacrament of
wedlock was created by God, but the ceremony of crowning is
an invention of the civil powers.2 True marriage consists not
in crown and prayer, but in the dispositions and inclinations
of bride and bridegroom. Priestly rites do not make a mar
riage, but mutual and eternal concord of man and wife.3
In our opinion, they say, it is enough if father and mother
bless their child's union with anyone and if the couple live
a godly life, that renders the marriage legitimate. The
paternal blessing is precious above everything; and in this
connection they point out that the Patriarchs, for example
Abraham and others, were not married after the manner of the
Church with aid of popes; and yet no one can say that they
lived with their wives illegally.4 Already in 1838 the marrying
sect of the Government of Kostroma took young women to
wife merely with the assent of the parents, for which reason
they were known as 'self-binders,' and in doing so they fol
lowed the example of their co-religionists of the Vyatka
Government.6
We can conclude from such passages that the married sect of
Bezpopovtsy, while denying the necessity that the sacrament
of marriage should be performed by a priest, equally assert
the essence of the sacrament to consist in an agreement of the
parties to the marriage, in their consent to a perpetual union,
1 Istina, 1873, March, April.
1 Among the People of Ancient Piety, Y. Stebnitsi, 2nd. ed. p. 17.
1 Notes (zapiski) of Alexander B. Pt. 2, p. 305. The Crown is the nuptial
wreath kept in an Orthodox Church and laid on the head of the bride and bride
groom by the Pope before the altar.
* Conversations of orthodox priest, with Old believers, by Tverdynski, pp. 322-4.
4 Christian Readings, 1869, No. 6, Art. by Nilski, p. 895.
and that they regard the will or intention to contract the mar
riage as sufficient consecration of their union. While reject
ing the rites of the Church, held by the Church essential to
any marriage, this sect preserves the substance of Church
teaching, that is to say the perpetuity of the marriage union.
There is great difficulty in getting at the truth about the
family life of these people owing to the calumnies spread abroad
about them either wilfully or from pure ignorance by Russian
publicists. When I first visited Russia in 1881 in company
with the late Mr. William John Birkbeck, and made inquiry,
I was told that the Government was tolerant of the Old
believers as a whole, but drew the line at those sects which
rejected marriage and lived promiscuously. It never occurred
to me at the time that what they really rejected was the Church
ceremony and sacrament of marriage, with which, having no
priests nor being allowed to have any by the Government,
they had no choice but to dispense. Most students of the
Raskol, says Uzov, have maintained that the marriageless
group of the Priestless ones reject the institution of the family
and affect asceticism. The sectaries, he points out, are them
selves largely to blame for this, because they use words, not
in their natural and ordinary sense, but in an artificial one of
their own. This has led investigators to argue as if the funda
mental principle of their doctrine was the preservation of
'virginity.' If it were really so, they would eschew family
life and live as monks and nuns, which they certainly do not.
The problem is no doubt obscured by the way in which they
preach 'virginity' as a religious ideal, and yet accompany
the teaching with permission to men and women to "love one
another" as they like, so long as they do not marry.1 The
obvious inference is that, under the cloak of asceticism they
practice debauchery and go about to destroy all family unions;
yet the inference is wholly wrong.
The requirement of 'virginity' is usually based by these
sectaries on the circumstance that "the hands of priests have
crumbled into dust," in other words, no priests survive to
1 i.e. in a Nikoni&n Church. See Family Life in the Raskol, by NUski, Pt. 2,
p. 83.
perform the rite of marriage. No man or woman therefore
can any more be 'married' in the old sense, and all must remain
to that extent unmarried or technically 'virgins'; but this
does not preclude the existence broadcast among them of
permanent family unions. Uzov raises the question why,
as they allow laymen to celebrate sacraments of baptism and
penance, they do not allow them equally to celebrate marriage,
and continue to regard it as a sacrament. That they do not
is apparently due to the exigencies of debate and discussion of
the matter with other rival sects. In such debates it has been
customary with both sides to make the Bible the referee
though not always; for one of the sect, Ilia Alexieiev Kovylin,1
defending his position against the marrying sect, who recog
nize the legitimacy and sacramental character of marriages con
tracted later than 1666, is said to have exclaimed: "I will not
accept from you any bookish evidence, so do not quote to me
the seven ecumenical councils or the nine local ones, or the
apostolic canons. If you do I shall answer you that even if
Christ descended with the angels from heaven and bade me
accept in my communion such 'new' marriages, I would reply
to him: I won't listen to you, Christ." This elegant extract
is from a debate on the subject of marriage held between the
Bezpopovtsy of the Transfiguration Cemetery and the members
of the Pokrovski oratory in Moscow, cited by K. Nadezhdin,
op. cit. p. 38.
There have been, says Uzov, among the section of the Raskol
that rejects marriage, plenty of teachers who preached and
practised the monastic ideal; but it is certain that they never
led opinion nor lead it now. The mass of adherents formed
family unions from the first without attending to them.
They listened rather to such of their teachers as, under the
emblem or cloak of 'virginity,' inculcated among the people
the form of family life to which they aspire in obedience to their
instinctive feelings for freedom and independence. The
'marriageless' sectary may not approve of unions concluded
for the whole of life, but find it a burden. He aspires to
another type of conjugal relationship, a type which more
1 President of the Preobrazhenaki cemetery in Moscow. He died in 1808.
nearly approximates to the ancient Slavonic free union, dis
soluble by the will of either party. He has scanty regard for
the Byzantine type of family which has only gained currency
in Russia during the last few centuries. He does not derive
his notions of family obligations and felicity from the canon
law, but from living principles engrained in the character of
the people. But at the same time that he insists on family
freedom, he is far from discarding the family as students of
the Raskol imagine, misled by their terminology. It all comes
of the mistaken endeavour of the exponents of the ' marriage-
less' doctrine to justify the life and practice of their brethren
from Scripture, instead of basing it on sociological principles
common to all peoples. Their teachers committed and com
mit this solecism of trying to find in Hebrew literature a scheme
of social organization for their sect, because in Russia (as among
ourselves) the reUgious point of view was the point of view of
the people, who were on a plane of culture that was not ripe
for any other mode of apprehending social phenomena. The
Raskol teachers had no books save those of traditional Chris
tianity, and naturally sought in these an explanation and justi
fication of everything. In spite, however, of their lucubrations
the life and institutions of the Raskol masses have developed
along the lines of human nature, in accordance with the feelings
and affections of the common man and woman. No theo
logical cobwebs could hamper these. In Russian upper classes
writers scientifically trained have approached these subjects
from a secular point of view and written books about them;
but neither these nor the culture they represent, have yet pene
trated to the people, and the circumstance that they are written
by and for a class theoretically hostile to the masses, is enough
to hamper their circulation among the latter.
Such is Uzov's view. Students of Greek history will recall
the feeling in ancient Athens against the reforms of Kleisthenes
immediately after the Persian wars; yet all he aimed at was to
base popular representation on arithmetic instead of upon
tribal units descended in popular imagination from eponymous
and legendary heroes, if not from totems. The feeling was so
strong against touching the religious unit that it was left alone,
THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 19o
and the deme or canton reserved for purposes of political

organization.
In proof that the 'marriageless' Raskol did not repudiate
family life and unions, even long ago, when ascetic teaching
was much more highly esteemed than it is to-day among them,
Uzov appeals to a ' canon ' or rule of life which was in vogue in
the Theodosian sect, by which the faithful were instructed
"not to hold shameful the living in one house or home with
wife, stranger and children. Even if generation be accounted
abominable, it is yet not to be regarded as forbidden. Virgins
who have borne children are to pass muster as virgins even if
their offspring number fifteen. "Let this be the rule you
observe," runs the canon "but do not marry on any account.
You can always repent and do penance and become afresh
the virgin (male or female) you were before."
The idea of penance here involved is that which became
normal in the Great Church towards the end of the second
Century. According to it the sin of fornication can be atoned
for and obliterated by confession and absolution. The sin
being thus wiped out, the man or woman who was guilty of it
becomes once more sinless, in other words, becomes a 'virgin'
and chaste as before. By this device a sufficiently indulgent
confessor can dovetail family life into the somewhat rigorous
ideal of enthusiasts prone to believe that with the carnal hand
of the ordained priest the charisma, or sacramental gift of
marriage from God has been for ever lost among men. If we
desire proof that this controversial maintenance of virginity
interfered little with family life and propagation of children
among the 'marriageless' Bezpopovtsy, we have it in the fact
that in the third, eighth, and tenth registers compiled and
revised in the XVIIIth Century by Imperial authority we find
inscribed the names not only of the wives of the 'marriageless'
Bezpopovtsy, but of their children as well, together with the
names of the husbands and fathers. The information on which
these registers were based was supplied by the sectaries them
selves and shows that family life was universal among them as
far back as the time of Peter the Great.
These considerations are necessary to correct and supple
ment the pages of Ivanovski, who labours under the common
delusion that the attribution to marriage of a sacramental
character can alone guarantee its existence and permanence.
Yet unless people were independently and by old racial tradi
tion (as are most of the Indo-Germanic peoples) imbued with
respect for the marriage union, it could not be kept sacred;
if people had not the instinct to marry one wife and live exclu
sively with her, no sacramental system or theory would make
them do so.
Theodosiu8 Vasilev
Ivanovski relates that the earliest Priestless settlement at
Vyg was founded along monastic lines, and that it was not
before 1696, when Theodosius Vasilev, formerly a deacon of
Novgorod, seceded from it and formed a colony of his own
on the northwest limits of Polsk or Poland, that wedlock was
allowed, and Theodosius even then only admitted of conjugal
relations between men and women in his colony who had been
married before 1666. These unions, we gather, were termed
old marriages in contrast with new marriages of a later date.
Awakum had laid it down that, if you can get no priest to
marry you, then you had better live single; and rather than
break with the Pomorian communities Theodosius had refused
to recognize other than old marriages, and would not recognize
new ones as sacramental unions at all. After his death, says
Ivanovski, the Theodosian congregation refused to recognize
even old marriages. These communities were thus definitely
committed to abrogation of marriage and chastity made
obligatory for all.
But naturam expeUas furca licet, usque redibiL It was not
long before human nature asserted her rights, and there were
Raskol writers who complained loudly of the declension from
moral standards visible both in the Yygovski desert (or hermit
age') and among the followers of the deceased Theodosius.
The entire community was filled, according to the testimony of
upholders of the monkish ideal, with fornication and obscenity.
In order, however, to estimate aright such assertions we must
bear in mind that the abrogation of the sacrament ot marriage
for want of priests in itself placed all relations between the

sexes in the category of fornication in the eyes of members of
the straiter sect. To remedy the evil, Vyschatin, a member
of the Pomorski colony, set off to the east in hope of finding a
genuine priest to return with him and regularize unions, but
he failed and died abroad.
Ivan Alexiev
Nature and religion had in some way to be reconciled, and
the most brilliant attempt was that of a young and energetic
member of the Theodosian Settlement, Ivan Alexiev, who raised
his voice against the fiction of virginity, boldly advocated
the restitution of marriage and urged his brethren to resort to
the Orthodox Churches for the purpose of getting married, argu
ing that, as heretics and even non-Christians went to be mar
ried in them, the faithful might do the same.
Ivanovski remarks that this solution found favour not only
with the 'old married' members of the Theodosian Pomorski
colonies, but also with the 'newly married,' and gave great
relief to both sets.1 He also records that the elders or leaders
of the communities which Alexiev thus tried to reform, de
nounced him as a dangerous libertine and drunkard. In 1752 2
a council of the Theodosians decided not to admit his 'newly
married' followers to their public prayers, not to live or eat with
them, not to wash in the same bath, nor even admit them
to repentance, even if they were in peril of death, not to baptize
their children or even kiss them. Even their wives were not
to be assisted in the throes of childbirth. This sentence was
practically one of excommunication, but in practise it was
abated by permission, after repentance and rebaptism, to live
apart in the community. The result was the elimination of
the reformed. Many, says Ivanovski, passed into other sects,
others left their wives and chose for themselves cooks and
so-forth as companions. This last statement that they forsook
1 By the 'old-married' he must mean those who had sought the Sacrament
at the hands of Orthodox priests, fugitives or others.
* Ace. to Macarius in 1751.
their wives barely agrees with the canon of the Theodosian sect
adduced by Uzov and cited by us above.
Reading between the lines one can see that the orthodox
historian is too anxious to magnify the role played by his
Church in the developments of the Bezpopovtsy sect and that
he has no such clear apprehension of the true state of affairs as
has Uzov. It is probable that the canon adduced by the latter
is one of those fixed by the Theodosian assembly of 1752 and
that it was the rough handling of the semi-orthodox 'reformer'
at this council that led him to secede and form a sect of his own
in 1757. Of this sect Ivanovski records no further details.
What he next relates, however, of the Pomorian elders is thor
oughly credible and confirms Uzov's conclusions. For he
states that they also rejected Alexiev's reform of sending the
faithful to get married in orthodox Churches; but that they
were more indulgent to the 'newly married,' admitting them to
penance for their offence and to prayers and baptizing their
children. Obviously 'newly married' here means men and
women who, in spite of the ideal of enforced virginity, main
tained regular, but non-sacramental, conjugal unions; for he
has declared, immediately before, that marriages by orthodox
priests were abhorred in Pomor.
We can also well believe his next statement, that what was
at first only allowed by way of exception under protest, and as a
pis aller in the Pomorski congregations, gradually became the
rule, and that married life was in that society so much more
thoroughly legitimized than among the Theodosians as to
become in the second half of the XVIIIth Century the dividing
line between the two.
Paul Miliukov's account of Alexiev's contribution to the mar
riage controversy in bis Outlines of Russian Civilization (ed. 4,
pt. 4, Petersb. 1905) is valuable. It took precedence, he says,
over all other matters in dispute, not merely personal, such as
rebaptism, prayers for the Tsar, submission to the extra taxes
and to registration; for the austerest of the sectaries had to
admit the impossibility of avoiding all contact between the ' fire '
and the ' hay.' As a matter of form they continued to insist on
male and female chastity, sexual unions being no better than
fornication in the absence of priests and after abrogation of the
marriage sacrament; but in practise they were reduced to
winking at such unions. Theodosius, the scribe of the Kres-
t et ski village, though on other points he was more intransigent
than Andrew Denisov (d. 1730) and had therefore forsaken the
settlement of Vyg, forming new ones in the S. W. of the province
of Novgorod and in Poland, was nevertheless more compliant
in regard to marriage, and recognized as legitimate 'new'
marriages celebrated in Nikonian churches, which to his mind,
of course, were heretical. Andrew Denisov, though addicted
to compromise in such a matter as praying for the Tsar in his
community on the Vyg, insisted to the end of his life on con
tinence. Even he, however, as we saw, was obliged to confine
his principles to the monastery and permit unions in the sketes
around it.
Ivan Alexiev's remarkable work on the Sacrament of mar
riage only appeared in 1762, thirty-four years after he had
first broached his solution to Andrew Denisov. In the
interval he had busied himself collecting material and spread
ing his views. What in this work he chiefly insists upon is
this, that the primitive Church never repeated the marriage
sacrament in the case of couples who joined it after having
been married according to the usages and formulae of other
religions. It recognized therefore the validity of unions con
tracted in other circles of faith than its own, so evincing the
truth that the charisma of marriage is not bound up with
the use of any particular rite. In this respect, he argued,
holy wedlock differs from other sacraments, and he appealed
to the Russian Greater Catechism, which defines it as a sacra
ment "by and in which man and wife out of pure love in their
hearts frame an agreement and mutual vow. The agent and
author thereof is God himself who implanted in living creatures
the instinct to increase and multiply; and this instinct coupled
with loving agreement between the wedded" constitutes the
essence of the sacrament. All else, he argued, is mere formal
ity. The priest is only a witness to the union in behalf of the
public, and the church ceremony is at best a popular custom,
giving popular assent thereto, ratifying it, and investing it
with civil validity. True, in order to safeguard its durability
marriage needs a rite, but the rite is a mere form, of later
manifestation, in written law. The thing itself is a part
of natural law, independent of and earlier than any cere
mony or rite. Here, he argues, we have a reason why the
Bezpopovtsy Church should, in imitation of the primitive,
recognize a marriage celebrated in a Nikonian Church, for it is
merely a public testimony to the union, whereas the sacrament
itself is administered by God and consummated in the mutual
affection of man and wife.
Such a novel argument naturally shocked extremists, but
Alexiev defended it on the ground that the Raskol were no
longer living, like their progenitors, in the wilds of the desert.
They were now living in the world, and had to protect the
young against its temptations. His work therefore marked a
fresh stage in the reconciliation of the Dissenters with the
actualities of life, which could only be escaped by fresh flights
into the wilderness and even by self-immolation as of old. But
the question was not settled by bis book; it even became a
more burning one than that of ritual reception among the
Popovtsy of runaway members of the orthodox clergy. Over
both questions the moderates were at issue with the extremists.
The more accommodating of the Popovtsy were approximating
to the teaching of the dominant Church; the Priestless ones
were in principle challenging the very bases of established
religion and embarking on the uncharted main of free religious
creation. The victory of moderation among the former on
the point of reanointing was only a partial return to the admis
sion of a clergy whose orders they began by rejecting; the
victory in the matter of marriage was a recognition of a law
of nature behind and paramount over Church traditions and
supposed Christian revelation. In neither case however,
was the victory complete, but followed by fresh struggles and
even wider breaches of unity.
It is doubtful whether Ivanovski does not all through confuse
cohabitation with debauchery and wilful concubinage, owing
to his prejudice that marriage is nothing else, unless it be con
tracted on sacramental lines; and the Bezpopovtsy, in so far as
they formally rejected marriage on this very ground, while

materially they accepted the institution, were themselves
responsible for the confusion. Sacramental rigorism inevitably
leads to such paradoxes in other countries than Russia. Thus
the Protestant Churches in the eye of Latin doctors have no
orders, no priests, and therefore no sacraments, with the pos
sible exception of baptism. They cannot therefore marry men
and women; Protestant married couples to one who literally
accepts the Latin view, are living in mere concubinage. This
however does not prevent Catholics from living on terms of the
closest friendship and purest charity with their Protestant
neighbours; though they would ostracize people, whether of
their own faith or not, who were simply living together without
having been married in Church or before a registrar. This
means that in spite of the rigour of their doctrines they accept
marriages duly contracted according to the law of the State in
which they live, and so far assent to the doctrine cuius regio,
eius religio. But the Bezpopovtsy had never heard of any form
of marriage but the sacramental and religious one. Under
stress of circumstances they invented civil marriage, and
Ivanovski and others have as little right to say that they
reject marriage and live in debauchery or concubinage as
Catholics would have to say the same thing of their Protes
tant neighbours.
J. A. Kovylin
Such sacramentalist prejudice probably colours Macarius'
and Ivanovski's account of the Thedosievski teacher, I. A.
Kovylin. Owing to the tolerant policy of Catharine II this
sect, we saw, as also the Pomorians, were allowed to establish
centres in Moscow in the year 1771; and the Thedosievski
colony over which Kovylin presided was, as we saw above,
known under the unassuming name of the Preobrazhenski or
Transfiguration Cemetery. In spite of want of education
Kovylin was a remarkable man whose reputation extended
from Riga to Astrakhan, and his own adherents went on their
knees to him and kissed his hand out of reverence. In Peters
burg as in Moscow his interest and influence extended far
beyond his own religious circle. He was true to the tenets of
the founder of his sect Theodosius Vasilev, in that he con
demned marriage, carrying his prejudice against it so far,
according to Ivanovski, as to condemn as lecherous unions ' old
marriages,' i.e. marriages contracted in the Nikonian Church,
of which, as savouring of Antichrist, Kovylin would naturally
not approve. At the same time, says Ivanovski, Kovylin was
most severe "upon the violations of moral purity inseparable
from the obligation not to marry." Until his time (1776) these
declensions had been regarded in the sect as deplorable inci
dents requiring healing treatment. But the fact that in
numerable persons had taken shelter in his asylum or hospital
settlement who had been married in that church seems to have
driven Kovylin to adopt a new point of view. He was merci
less to those caught flagrante delicto, in open sin, but lenient
and consoling to those who knew how to conceal their sins, and
so he connived at their secret immorality. "Sin committed
in secret, is in secret to be judged. Without sin there is no
penitence, and without penitence, no salvation. In paradise
are many sinners, but no heretics." Such is the express teach
ing which Ivanovski attributes to Kovylin, accusing him of
replacing the moral obligation of chastity by the doctrine that
people in view of the denial of married life had a moral license
to sin, only encouraging his chartered libertines to become
hypocrites as well. He adds what is incredible that
Kovylin's followers were shocked at their leader's cynicism,
and yet adopted his conviction that casual and secret unions
were better morally and religiously than open and avowed
married life, because the hero of gallant adventures sins and
repents, while the avowed husband and wife complacently
acquiesce in their open and avowed sin. This recalls the doc
trine that wedlock is the maius aduUtrium, put forward by the
Cathars, who, like the early Christian Encratites, condemned all
sexual unions licit or illicit.
It is. however, easy to discern that all Kovylin was really
guilty of was a desperate attempt to reconcile the innocent
needs of human society with the sacramentahst conception of
marriage which the Raskol had carried in its bosom into exile.
He "was not advising his followers to live promiscuously and sin
the more in order that grace might the more abound. There
-were, no doubt, fanatics inside the sect who condemned all
sexual unions as being impossible and wrong in the absence of
genuine priests who should sacramentally consecrate them;
and in Moscow, Petersburg and other cities in which Catharine
II had allowed the sect to settle, there were plenty of orthodox
critics ready to accuse the Raskolniks of debauchery, because
they contracted unions which could not, even from the Raskol
point of view, much less from their own, be termed marriages.
Kovylin may perhaps have advised his followers not to expose
themselves to orthodox attacks, more than they need, by flaunt
ing their non-sacramental unions before the eyes of their ortho
dox neighbours. That he applied the sacrament of penance to
help his followers out of the religious dilemma in which they
found themselves and to soothe the perplexed consciences of the
weaker brethren among them, that much we can safely
gather from Ivanovski's uncertain paragraphs, but no more.
New marriages in the sect were not, as might be supposed,
those for celebration of which the sectaries repaired, according
to the counsels of Ivan Alexiev (1750), to orthodox churches;
the so-called 'newly married,' were rather those who regarded
themselves as married in spite of the circumstance that real
priesthood had come to an abrupt end in 1666, those, namely,
of the sectaries who held with the Apostle that "marriage is
holy and the wedding couch undefiled." Two bourgeois
members of the Pokrovski Oratory (as the Pomorski called an
establishment which Catharine allowed them to found in
Moscow about 1770), bearing the names Vasili Emelyanov
and Gabriel Skachkov, drew from the Apostle's very sensible
doctrine of wedlock the corollary that it might be celebrated
not by priests alone but by laymen as well, in the same way
that laymen could confer baptism and admit their brethren to
repentance after confession of their sins.
This was a beneficent reform, for it removed from Pomorski
unions the stigma of being irreligious. It was, as Ivanovski
says, "a great step in the development of Bezpopovtsy doc
trine," but such an innovation startled the Vygovski commun
ity of the Pomorskis and they challenged Emelyanov to justify

it. Their elders adhered to the old sacramental prejudice and
Emelyanov submitted to their decision for a time; but when
Catharine II granted civil rights to the Old believers and they
took to living in cities, the need to regularize the situation was
felt so acutely by the whole Pomorski sect that the Vygovski
authorities gave in to him.
The new compromise was, according to Ivanovski, this:
Marriage unions were legitimately contracted, if the bride and
bridegroom agreed to join their lives indissolubly. The
approval and blessing of their parents was essential, and the
wedding was accompanied with prayers and hymns expressly
composed. This rule was adopted by the Pomorski of Moscow
and presently by those of Pomor, Archangel and elsewhere,
and all schism was thus avoided on the question a splendid
victory of common-sense. Ivanovski is right in saying that
hereby the Pomorski had really elaborated a new sacrament.
He gives an interesting picture of the circumstances of such
weddings, under the impression apparently that they were
peculiar to this sect. Matchmakers were sent in advance to the
bride's house, the bridegroom's visits and handshakings were
arranged, and the betrothed interchanged their rings. Then
each party promised to accept the other for life, and finally the
union was celebrated by the Elder in the chapel or oratory.
The Theodosian sect, however, in Kovylin's settlement,
seems to have adhered to their old view of 'no popes, no mar
riages,' a dictum of Awakum, reminding us in form at least of
Disraeli's answer to a latitudinarian Anglican divine who,
aspiring no less to livings than to immortal life, solicited a fat
deanery at his hands. His answer was: No dogma, no deans.
In Moscow the representatives of the two sects seems to have
sustained a lively polemic on the subject, each being anxious
to secure its predominance in the Bexpopovtsy world, and the
Theodosian sect who owned the Berpopovtsy cemetery made
themselves disagreeable to their rivals who shared it with them
and lacked one of their own. Kovylin relegated them to a
damp corner of it where their graves were flooded. At times
the Pomorski were not allowed into it, and found that the
rigorous adherents of sacramental marriage took the plaques

on which were inscribed their epitaphs as well as their crosses,
and used them as fuel. In the end they had to summon to
their aid the police of Antichrist.
It is possible that Ivanovski exaggerates the petty bickerings
between the two groups; but he allows that Kovylin was so
struck towards the end of his life by the triumph of priestless
marriage among the Pomorksi as to relax his ascetic ideal and
consent to couples married before they were rebaptized and
joined his sect living together in 'chastity,' i.e. as "virgins,"
only punishing their breaches of chastity and childbirth by a
short term of penance.
In Petersburg, then the Theodosian teachers already during
Kovylin's lifetime winked at quasi-matrimonial unions and
raised no difficulty about baptizing the offspring of them; after
his death his followers did the same. They continued to regard
non-sacramental marriage as an evil to be tolerated, a com
promise between the inculcation of celibacy for all and the
exigencies of human life. The Thedosievski wife is a wife
before the world, but before God a fornicatress. She was
formerly known among the sectaries, not as a wife, but as
housekeeper, manageress, cook, companion, hostess occupy
ing therefore very much the same position as was held in the
middle ages by the priests' concubines, when the priests
enjoyed every imaginable license so long only as they did not
marry. The Thedosievski couples also, according to Maca-
rius and Ivanovski, are not full members of the congregation;
they are admitted nowadays to divine service, but only given
a place behind the congregation, and instead of joining in the
prayers, only allowed to listen to them. When the Elder
censes the congregation, they do not hold out their hands to
catch the perfume, like the faithful; in a word they are treated
as half believers, half excommunicates, as auditores or peni
tents in the early church. For the sin of child-birth the wife
is subjected to penance or brmpia) except in grave sickness
they are not admitted to confession, and then have to promise
not to cohabit any more.
Ivanovski describes the peculiar and original type of mar
riage formerly in vogue in this sect, and seems to regard it as

due to the fact that marriage is only tolerated among them,
is on suffrance only as a concession to human weakness. By
common convention the men, he says, carried off the girl from
her parents to their own dwelling; sometimes the girls ran away
themselves carrying with them goods belonging to their parents.
The latter as a rule were quite prepared for this, but pretended
to know nothing about it, and went through the form of
making out that it was done against their will. The end of it
all was that the parents of bride and bridegroom met and
agreed about the dowry, and then went to their respective
homes. Nowadays the matter is conducted more simply;
the marriage festivities are openly held, to the exclusion of
course of religious rites, though in cases there is a blessing of the
young couple by the ikons.
Tolstoy has given us a charming picture of a peasant wedding
which no doubt is identical in outline with these; and it is
recognized that the old institution of marriage by capture has
left numerous survivals on Russian soil. The ceremonies,
therefore, ascribed by Ivanovski to the Thedosievski sect are
not peculiar to it, but are racy of the soil.
The Present Situation
The Bezpopovtsy have thus arrived at a double solution of
the marriage problem. One sect frankly recognizes it and have
tried to establish a new religious basis for it. The other only
tolerates it as a sin to be expiated by penance; and has split up
into fresh sects as marriage is tolerated more or less. A
Thedosievski council was held in 1883 in Moscow in order to
re-establish the stricter ideal of non-marriage, but it only
roused fresh internal dissensions and divisions of which the
Bratskii Slow for the years 1883-5 gives details. The straiter
sect does not baptize the children or only does so when they are
found exposed, in which case they are called God's gifts, it
being unknown who exposed them. This sect is probably not
very numerous, and the majority of its adherents, as has been
noticed in the sees of Vyatka and Kazan, recognize marriage
outright as thoroughly legitimate.
Uzov relates that in his day, that is about the year 1880, a
former monk of the Pomor 'married' group, named Barnabas,
summed up the 'subtilties' of the 'marriageless' sect as follows:
"There is no longer any sacrament of marriage, but all agree
upon free life in union with each other, and by this expedient
the world is being filled up with people." 1
Among the dissidents of the Philippovski and Thedosievski
groups, although marriage does not exist, married life goes on
all the same.2 The tendency of the 'marriageless' is brought
out in relief in the teaching that there must be no monkery,
but that everyone must live a family life. Naturally this doc
trine, like the rival one, tries to find its justification in holy
writ; and accordingly the monk Barnabas taught that, as in
their philosophy 'no priest' involved 'no marriage,' so also it
involved 'no monkery';3 for without a clergy you cannot
receive the monkish habit. On this principle two monks,
Joasaph and Ioanikii gave up the monkish habit, and the
former took to himself a cook, the latter returned to his former
wife, or, to use the 'marriageless' terminology, his cook.4
An account of the actual practice of the sect furnished by the
Orthodox Review for 1865 (No. 3, art. by Veskinski) bears out
Uzov's conclusions: "The Thedosievski of the districts of
Liontsin, Rezhits, Drys and Dinamin in their doctrine of mar
riage approach most nearly to the regulations of their founder;
and though they practise cohabitation, yet only admit it as
a necessity, and perform no ceremonies in connection with it;
but among the Thedosievski of the Polotsk, Vitebsk and
Lepelsk districts, before a man and woman can begin their
cohabitation, certain rites are observed, such as benediction by
the Elders or religious leaders at a gathering of the parents of
the girl and bridegroom, special prayers being recited and so
forth, all which imparts to it outwardly the aspect of a sacra
ment." B
The above account apparently refers also to the 'married'
1 Chronicle of Raskol Events by I. Subbotin, p. 49.
Ietina, 1874, Bk. XXXII Sketches of Old nt. Life, p. 37.
Istina, 1872, Bk. XXI, Voyage of Monk Barnabas p. 60.
* Ibid., p. 106.
Orthodox Review, 1865, No. 3, art. by Veskinski, p. 280.
sect of the Vitebski Government. How then in the matter of

family organization do the two halves of the Bezpopovtsy differ
from each other? Uzov replies that the 'married' sect impart
to their marriages the significance of a sacrament in order to
procure divine sanction and intervention for the union; the
rival sect under stress of a counter tendency accomplish the
union in a purely secular fashion: a man first betrothes himself
to some woman or girl and receives her consent, he then goes for
her to a place agreed upon and, after making a pretence of
ravishing her away, takes her to his own home, and their
cohabitation lasts until or unless family jars put an end to it.
To give the transaction due publicity the parties who have thus
taken to cohabitation visit the bazaars and other places of
popular resort again and again, hand in hand or with a single
cloak cast over both of them, by way of manifesting to all the
fact that they now live together.1 Such idyllic simplicity
reminds one of a Scotch marriage in the presence of four wit
nesses, to which it would impart a picturesque touch of High
land romance if a semblance of marriage by capture were
added as in Russia.
The 'marriageless' sectary of the Varnavinski province of the
Kostroma Government, when the time comes for him to form a
household, merely takes home a girl of another family with the
consent of her parents and lives with her as his wife.2 The
conditions of town life, especially for the labouring classes,
impose a somewhat different type of family life than is possible
in country villages and lead to greater frequency of divorce.*
The poorer parents in the cities are working in manufactories
and mills, and have not the same economic facilities for them
selves bringing up their families as they would have if they
lived in villages. In the country the child can help a little
1 Orthodox Review, 1865, No. 3, art. by Veskinski, pp. 288-9.
* Kelsiev Sbornik, IV, 300.
' Nicolas Popov thus describes the mode of divorce of a couple who had lived
together only a few months : " Pelagia Michailovna collected all her dowry chattels
together and then bowed low thrice, according to their custom, at her husband's
feet, laid her hansel before the ikons and after that bade farewell to her mother-
in-law and to the witnesses present." (From Materials for a history of the Bezpo
povtsy congregation in Moscow, p. 152.)
with the animals and in the fields, whereas in the city it is
merely in the way and the parents are not at home to look after
it. In towns this problem was met even before 1880 by the
parents handing their children over to asylums or creches built
by the Thedosievski sect in Moscow and Riga.
In doing so they had not, as too often supposed, any idea or
intention of cutting themselves off from their offspring. It can
be proved that this was so from an incident which occurred in
1830. The Government had decreed that the children in these
creches should be registered as Cantonists, i.e. the mostly
Jewish children stolen by the Russian Government to be turned
into soldiers like the janissaries. Thereupon a crowd of work
people and labourers, having discovered that the children
whom women of the 'Cemetery' (or Raskol Settlement in
Moscow) and others had born to them, were to be carried off
' for torture,' gathered in a crowd at the gate of the Cemetery
and raised an uproar crying out: "Here is an inhuman Tsar
who would rob our children from the very arms of their
mothers." All the children were promptly picked out and
taken away by their parents, and even such as had lost both
parents were taken charge of by the well-to-do members of the
sect to be brought up in their homes, rather than allow them
to be taken and reared in a battalion of military cantonists.1
We see from the above that the 'marriageless' sectaries in the
cities, finding themselves constrained to adjust their lives to
conditions of mill and factory, were very nearly organizing them
on a better basis than the rest of the population that worked in
the same institutions. Whereas the 'orthodox' mother, when
she went off for the entire day to the factory, had to leave her
children without anyone to look after them, the sectaries
handed them over to a creche in which they could rely on their
welfare and education being attended to by responsible persons
of their own way of thinking. Except for the interference of
the Government, we should probably, says Uzov, find among
them a regularly organized public system of bringing up and
educating the younger generation. Not long ago there was a
notice in the Russian Gazette (Vedomosti) of secret institutions
1 Nilski Family Life in Russian Raskol, pp. 103, 133.
or refuges in Moscow for the education of the children of the

'marriageless' Pomorski sect. Any government worth the
name would have welcomed such efforts on the part of the poor
to do the best for their offspring, but that was not the way of
Tsardom.
Marriage Among the Stranniki

We have related in some detail from Ivanovski the rise and
development of the wandering sect called Beguny or Stranniki,
more uncompromising in the hostility to the present order of
things than any other sect, and in consequence the object of
malignant persecution by the Government. The vast majority
of them, says Uzov, live a family life and 'for fear of the Jews'
as they call the Government, are even 'crowned,' that is, mar
ried in orthodox churches, though they attach no significance
to the rite. He agrees with Ivanovski in saying that the
majority of this sect, who marry and have families, are denomi
nated by themselves "people of the world, entertainers of
wanderers, domiciled Christians." The minority make it
their business to spread their ideas, and undertake the 'apos
tolic labour' of roving from village to village.
They may be said to have no families, but all the same they
do not preach asceticism and non-marriage in our sense, and
even essay to harmonize their vagabondage with the satisfac
tion of family instincts and leanings. In theory, as sacramen
tal marriage has disappeared along with the priests of the
ancient order, all men and women are now 'virgins,' monks and
nuns. Thus a married member of the sect has explained that,
whereas a wife is the gift of the devil, i.e. of the priest of the
church, the virgin with whom he lives is the gift of God. He
who lives with a wife lives in sin; he who lives with one that is
not his wife, out of love, commits no sin.1 The Stranniki thus
allow irregular cohabitation instead of marriage, on the prin
ciple that they are to be regarded in this age of Antichrist as
1 Kclsiev, Sb. iv, 124, from evidence given by women brought before the
Government commission of 1852. The Strannik repaired with his "virgin"
before an ikon in his forest cell and there recited to her this formula of the matri
monial code.
the only people that are just and righteous, and the Apostle
Paxil has declared that the law is not laid upon the justified.1
On this ground the Beguns of the Desert (which means not
necessarily a forest or wilderness, but in general a place of
hiding, be it only their own homes), live, each brother with a
sister of one spirit with him in a common cell.1 The Begun
sire allows his daughter to fall in love with whomever she likes
and as long as she pleases, delighted if an obedient daughter
remains a bride of Christ and adds to the home a new future
worker, male or female.2 "Bear children once a week if you
like, only do not go and get 'crowned' in church," is his advice
to her.
It is rare, says Shchapov in the Vremya, No. 11, p. 293, for
the teacher to go unaccompanied in his travels by his mistress.
So Euthymius wandered about with Irene Thedorovna, who
after his death played a great part in the dissemination of his
doctrine, and he never changed her for another all his life, says
S. Maximov in an article in the National Records (Otetchest.
Zap.) for 1876, No. 7. Nicetas Semenov Kilesev in accordance
with Euthymius' rule, out of two converted sisters that were
become his friends, chose the one that was a virgin, the elder
sister, Barbara Dmitrievna, according to the same source of
information. Vasili Gorbunchik wandered in company with
Maria Vasilev, his mistress, who had twice saved him from the
hands of the ministers of Antichrist, in other words from
Government officials.
These missionaries understand well enough that children born
of their unions would hamper their activities, since they have
to be brought up; and in order to bring them up they would
have to abandon their 'apostolic' labours, a thing which the
propagandist zeal of the sect cannot allow. In this, and no
other sense, is their doctrine a denial of the family; and the
denial, such as it is, was never due to ascetic impulses, but to
their passionate ardour for propaganda which forbids them to
five in any one place for long. Accordingly they either leave
the children they have begotten in the family of their mistresses
1 Edifying Readings, 1863, pt. 3: Athanasius Petrov, a Stranniki teacher, p. 117.
2 Kelsiev, sb. iv, 160, from the same class of evidence.
or hand them over to a creche or asylum. "According to a
rumour gathered on the spot by a member of an expedition sent
out with a view to a persecution of the Raskol, there existed
in the Yaroslav Government in the Poshekhonski Sykhotski
forest an inaccessible underground skete where the virgins of
the sect repair for their confinements." The existence of this
skete was affirmed in 1834 by a person brought up in it, and
according to Kelsiev (Sbornik iv, 75) children remained in it up
to their 20th year.
Thus it is not uncommon, remarks Uzov, for family instincts
to get the better of propagandist zeal with members who have
undertaken 'Apostolic' work. On the whole however, the
tendency is for those who eschew marriage to deride those who
do not. They ask: Why bring your children into the desert?
How are you going to hide yourselves with a pack of children?
They anyhow do not repudiate family ties in the name of
asceticism, but because they are incompatible with their voca
tion. One might say the same of the Latin discipline of celi
bacy for parish priests. Yet, he continues, all the facts
adduced tend to prove that the overwhelming majority of the
'marriageless' sects live a family life, only the family is pre
carious and easily dissoluble at will by either party. There
are no generally recognized rules limiting the facilities of dis
ruption; it is enough for the parties to desire to terminate 8
conjugal relation which is felt to be onerous to both. The
minority that really have no families have avoided having
them, not on religious grounds, but because for other reasons
they cannot tolerate them.
Many observers hold that so loose an organization of family
life must be specially hard on the woman, and Nilski l expresses
his wonder that it has been preferred not only by the Thedo-
sievki, including those of Riga (Rizhski), but also by the women
of the uniat and orthodox persuasions. Uzov on the contrary
urges that family happiness does not depend on the external
forces upholding the family union, but on affection and mutual
respect, and very often on economic necessity. He argues that
the best and most moral section of the population is averse from
1 Family Life in the Raskol, by Nilski, p. 152.
applying constraint in the case of family disagreement, and that
such constraint only benefits crude, egoistic and purely animal
natures. He points out that such hard and fast union does not
de facta exist for the husband, so that the whole burden of it
falls on the woman, whom we cannot expect to forego a right
freely conceded to the man. Where unions are as free, as they
are among these sects, a man dares not beat his partner, dares
hardly to raise his hand, for fear she may say "I know my way
home," and if he exclaims: "I defy you to," she answers:
"I never married you!" 1
1 Conversations of an orthodox priest with old ritualists, T. Tverdynski, p. 334.
~
CHAPTER VI
THE ORGANIZATION, LEGAL POSITION, AND NUMBERS OF THE
RASKOL
The merit of Uzov's work is that he exhibits so clearly the

close connection between the Raskol and the original consti
tution and development of Russian peasant society, whereas
Ivanovski and most foreign publicists have superficially tried to
explain its rise and duration from purely religious and theo
logical considerations. Uzov devotes an entire chapter to
this aspect of his subject, which he begins by remarking that,
as the corner-stone of the edifice of Russian society has always
been communism, it was but natural that the so-called Old
believers, as representatives and champions of the independent
and home intelligence and feeling of the Russian people, should
withal exemplify in their settlements the prevailing commun
istic instinct. He illustrates this contention by the constitu
tion of a Raskol Priestless settlement in Prussia described in the
Istina for 1871, No. 18; for this exhibited the sharp contrast
between genuine Russian life and the institutions of Western
Europe. The description is from the pen of one of the Raskol-
niks, who using the familiar jargon of the sect, calls it a monas
tery, although it was neither more nor less than a mundane
collection of Russian peasants immersed in family life.
The Prussians inhabiting the locality, he says, were filled
with wonder at the example of solidarity and cohesion shewn
by the immigrants from Russia. They held all the pastureland
in common. Notwithstanding the seeming rudeness of their
Russian agricultural implements the tilth was manured and
got ready with extreme rapidity. All operations went easily
among them because of the spirit of mutual union and friend
ship which bound them up together. The Prussian individual
ists of the neighbourhood were strangely interested in this
exhibition of the Russian instinct of mutual goodwill and char
ity. The author says that this moral coherence was imputed by
215
the Prussians to the ignorance of the settlers. This reminds

one, he adds, of the language of our own intelligentsia, who, like
the Prussians, have broken society up into loose pawns upon
the board, and like them impute to crass ignorance and lack of
understanding the charity which is engrained in the Russian
nature, in the anima naturaliter Christiana of the Slav peasant.
The Raskol was recruited from the most energetic and intelli
gent section of the people, and it is a matter of regret that so
many who thirsted for a spiritual life had no other alternative
but to adopt it. All other avenues to a better life were closed
juridically or de facto. The result was that the Raskol throve
by absorbing into itself all the best living juices of the Russian
people, and the results are visible in the singular capacity it
has shewn for communism.
The Communes of the Vyg

Already at the close of the XVIIth Century the bond of
communism held together their earliest societies, and its force
was exampled in the society formed on the River Vyg in the
Olonets Government. This consisted of an entire group of
communes, cohering among themselves as well as with the rest
of the other Raskol communes scattered all over Russia. One
of the teachers who helped to found it predicted that it would
disseminate itself and be celebrated all over the land, and be
the salvation of many who were doing the will of God and walk
ing in his ways; and the work of multiplication lay in the future
with those who settled down along with their matrons and
maidens, their cows and cradles.1
His testimony, says Urov, proves that it was a purely
secular foundation, like the other Vygovtsy settlements which
also styled themselves sketes. It is true they were gathered
round an Epiphany convent, of which the inmates followed the
ascetic ideal; but both before and after this convent was
founded in their midst, the inhabitants of the sketes around it
eschewed the monastic ideal, married and had families; they
only depended on the monks for conducting their religious
> Christian Rtodinf. Noa. 7, 8, mrt. by Buaov, p. 52.
THE RASKOL 217
ceremonies. Such is the testimony of the same Raskol teacher
Barsov in an article upon vexed questions of the earliest history
of the Bezpopovtsy in the same journal for 1876 (Nos. 11, 12,
p. 708).
The founders of this convent, the brothers Andrew and Semen
Denisov, made an honest attempt to enforce in it monastic
discipline, but failed, so that the former of them was constrained
in 1719 to admit that, although the rules and regulations were
still those of a monastery, yet the brethren were vigorously
pursuing a practical and purely secular ideal, and modelled
themselves on the economy of an old Novgorod parish. The
principles of their confraternity, to wit, life in common and
regulation of their affairs by monastic chapter, remained in
force as their charter. All the same there was not visible
among the brethren, so he complains, any distinction between
the ecclesiastical and civil life.1 And Barsov in his volume on
these two brothers (pp. 84, 108) writes that the inmates of this
Monastery never really entered it by way of freely avowing
their need to isolate themselves for the practice of religion, nor
because they had leanings towards the monastic life; their
motive was either to conceal themselves and escape persecution,
or because they were fired with enthusiasm (for the Raskol
cause). Furthermore, he says, they were all of them people
accustomed to family life, to rustic pursuits and agriculture,
and of a grade of spiritual development that did not much
incline them to contemplation or monastic life. Of it they
had no idea, nor could it be expected of them that they would
keep vows of celibacy. Accordingly, when, one day, the
father or prior was holding a conclave of the brethren who had
returned from their labours here there and everywhere, and
asked them if they had in their absence and during their travels
kept to the rule of Church and cell, they had to acknowledge
that whether from stress of labour or weakness of the flesh or
pure negligence they had neglected what was so salutary and
inestimable.
The end of it was, as Barsov remarks, that the rigour and
1 N. Aristov, (Structure of Raskolnik Commune, in Library of Reading, 1863,
No. 7, p. 5.
discipline of the Denisov brothers was not appreciated. Sev
eral of the monks fled, others after a brief stay in the monastery
migrated into the Sketes in which they enjoyed much more
liberty; occasionally there was a revolt against Andrew and his
discipline. The monastery itself was organized on a basis of
free communistic tendencies, all the brethren being on an
equality, and each member enjoying the same rights as every
other.1 Thus, although Andrew Denisov was superior prior,
his views in matters affecting the brethren as a whole were
always laid before the rest.2 Even rations of bread could not
reach the monastery without all the members being notified
of it.
In the commune the powers and capacities of each member
were ascertained by overseers who conjointly with the cenobites
assigned to each his occupation. In this manner the entire
Vygovski community was organized in different groups of
labourers and mechanics; to each group or guild was assigned
quarters of its own, and their collective affairs were transacted
by bailies and directors annually elected. Special officials also
supervised the education of the children and looked after the
teachers. The churchwardens and religious fathers were at
once teachers and authorities for such purposes, and were
appointed by reason of their gentleness of character and of their
gifts of insight and discretion in everything to do with children.
The divines thus chosen were for the most part of middle age,
distinguished for their disinterestedness and learning and for
their labours in behalf of the community and for their tender
care of infant* and orphans.1
The independence of the individual, his aspirations and con
victions, were scrupulously respected, and each thought and
taught exactly as his understanding led him to do.* Religious
tolerance was such that even foreigners of the Lutheran faith
were admitted into the community. Thus the assistant of the
chief Raskol teacher Kapiton. was an individual named Babila,
by birth, according to Denisov, a German, and of the Lutheran
1 Aretor. p. &
* Bfcno*. n*. WS.
AresoT. jo. 7. 12. 15, H. 11-
THE RASKOL 219
faith. He had taught reading and writing for some years in the
Slav Academy at Paris and was well trained in rhetoric, logic,
philosophy and theology. He also knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew
and Slavonic.1
Property in Vyg was of two kinds, public and private. The
former, says Uzov, included land, buildings and everything
indispensable for the common economy. Private property
consisted of part of the moveables or furniture which were
known as goods of the cell. At death many left by will all
their 'cell' property to their kinsfolk; but the majority be
queathed all their private effects to the public chest; others
divided it between the community and their relatives.2
The other sketes which formed part of the Vyg system and
were diffused over the wild forests of Pomor looked to the
Epiphany Monastery as their centre. As early as 1703, says
Aristov, there were not a few sketes and separate ' cells ' kills
as they were called in ancient Ireland in Pomor; all the
Raskolniks were linked with one another, all paid their visits to
the Vygovski community and took part in its councils. In this
connection, be it remarked, it was not merely affairs adminis
trative and economical that had to be settled by all the mem
bers; religious concerns and problems of church government
were equally under the control of the entire community. In
cases of grave crime the decision equally rested with a council,
which could condemn the offenders to banishment from the
community. It is to be noticed that female offenders were not
subjected to corporal punishment. No drunkenness was
allowed in the sketes; drunkards and beggars were cast out
without any ceremony.
The Communes of Sopelok

Uzov passes from the consideration of the Pomor communi
ties as they were already organized early in the XVIIIth Cen
tury to the group or 'concord' of the Stranniki or Beguny
which, as we saw above, pp. 156 ff., grew up towards the close of
the same century under the impulse of that remarkable reli
1 Shchapov, Runs. Raskol, p. 175-6.
Aristov, p. 18.
gious reader Euthymius or Euphimius, as the Slavs spell it; and
he has much to say about them which supplements Ivanov-
ski's account. He illustrates from Shchapov's article in the
Vremya of 1862, No. 11, p. 279, the gradual growth of the
movement. It began about 1770 in the village of Sopelok,
on the right bank of the Volga near Yaroslav, and from it
radiated in ever larger circles to embrace vast tracts of Russia
and Siberia. Wherever it extended, asylums or hospices,
resembling the rest-houses or fioval of early Christian mis
sions and equally those of the Jewish Essenes, and the Vanq
of Armenia, were established.
These far-flung settlements formed a confederation of which
Sopelok was the metropolis, keeping them all in touch with one
another. Each provincial or local 'hospice' however formed a
separate flock, was an autonomous and self-governing unit
with its own directing council and tribunal, but not so inde
pendent that, when necessary, the common and supreme head
quarters council and tribunal of the Beguni, was not recognized
to lie at Sopelok, whither members repaired even from Siberia.
Uzov states that in his day (1880) the sect found more difficulty
in gathering together a representative board for the settlement
of unavoidable questions. Nevertheless in July 1864 as many
as a hundred nastavniks or 'rectors' met in the village of V&k-
hrushevo, of the Damshinski vohst (circle of villages) in the
province of Vologda. This council was convoked to decide
about the 'articles' of Nicetas Semenov, one of their own
elders who for ten years from 1854 had interested the police.
Uzov raises the question whether the internal structure of
this sect can be described as genuinely communistic, as A. I.
Rozov1 asserts the founder Euthymius to have intended it to be.
He denies that the Beguny themselves so interpret their found
er's projects; they only refer his words to agrarian property,
to fisheries, salt deposits and so forth. He admits indeed that
Stranniki are met with who preach communism, and in favour
of it appeal to certain of the founder's writings, especially
the work entitled Tsvetnik (flower-bed, florilegium) in which
1 See the three articles printed in the Vestnik Europy, Nov. and Dec. 1872
and Jan. 1873.
THE RASKOL 221
the registration of people and their separation into distinct
classes, the partitioning of lands, forests and waters, are stig
matized as triumphs of Antichrist. This sort of confiscation
and unfair division was, in Euthymius's opinion, a heathenish
abuse, possible only because one man was envious of another,
and because mutual hostility ended in the apportioning of much
to one, of little to another, of nothing at all to the residuum
compelled to hew wood and draw water for the wealthy. The
passage is quoted by Kelsiev in his history of the Government's
inquisition into the Raskol (Sbornik pravitelstvennykh svedenii)
vol. 4, p. 260. But it is hardly conclusive as to the founder's
opinions.
Anyhow, soon after his death, which befell in 1792, Vasili
Petrov, one of his peasant disciples, took to teaching that no
Strannik has the right to own property, but must give up every
thing he has to the uses of the community.1 And in the
Poshekhonski province Ivan Petrov, and in the so-called Plyo-
sovski region, which comprised three provinces of the Kostroma
Government, Antip Yakovlev, proclaimed that Euthymius's
dictum that "the phrase 'mine-thine' is accursed and profane,
for God created everything among you common"; refers not
only to landmarks, but to all property alike. On this ground,
says Rozovin the Vestnik Europy (1873, No. 1), they demand
a rigorous communism and complete renunciation of the
rights of property.
It comes to this then, says Uzov, that among the Old believers
the extremists of the different groups do not shrink from the
same impossible abrogation of mine and thine, as the extrem
ists among the "spiritual christians," who carry the principle
of communism to excess. In all probability the intransigent
communism of these Beguny teachers met with no better success
than it did among them; it is to be regretted, he adds, that we
have so little information about them, and how contemporary
Begunism lives is, it may be said, completely unknown.
1 Orthodox Review, 1864, No. 8, Art. by Veskinsky, p. 315.
General Organization
Uzov maintains, however, in regard to the Raskol as a whole
that Formakovski's statement that it is a sort of federation of
politico-religious societies is borne out by facts; not only was
it true long ago, but it can be demonstrated in quite recent
times. And this is so, although the various groups differ widely
in social ideals, and among all of them the tendency and lean
ings to independence are much more pronounced than in the
rest of the population.
It is quite rare, says a writer Vitkovski in the National
Memorials (1862, No. 5, p. 355), for the members of the Raskol
to prefer a complaint in the course of their mutual disputes to
the local authorities or to go to law with one another. Such is
the unity of spirit, such the feeling of fraternity among these
intelligent people, that they find themselves able to do without
invoking any outside protection. And Uzov illustrates the
point from the case of one of the Strannik teachers, Athanasius
Petrov, who in 1850 was detected in the act of hoarding a
quantity of money in an ikon. The next day, says one who had
belonged to the sect, a council was held at which Athanasius,
as a lover of money, was deprived of his title of teacher, his
emblems of apostolic dignity taken from him, a rough garment
assigned him, and a decision come to, to keep him under strict
supervision. However the delinquent made good his escape
and very soon was caught in a second misdemeanour, for he
had taken to wandering about pretending he was a proto-
hiereus with a mission from the Vyg desert or hermitage.
Thereupon sentence was pronounced upon him by 'a general
court of the Old ritualists.' This court was instituted in 1850
in the settlement just named in consequence of altercations and
assassinations among the different groups. It was commis
sioned to examine and deal with all suits which arose between
them. Three representatives were chosen from each group, in
all 27, and three of them presided over it.1 Such an institution
absolutely confirms Formakovski's statement.
But, as the same author observes in the National Memorials
1 Edifying Reading*, 1863, pt. 3, pp. 120-5.
THE RASKOL 223
(1866, Nov. Dec., p. 641), of all the factors which lend to the
Raskolnik federation irrefragable stability and strength, the
capital one is the feeling of brotherhood among its members and
communities. Nothing else can explain such facts as the
existence in Russia of an Old ritualist hierarchy, whose leaders
the police, in spite of all their researches, have never been able
to get hold of. Thus, to give an example, in Moscow, one of
the lower officials was enjoined to occupy himself exclusively
with the task of collecting information about bishop Sophron-
ius, what he was doing and what had become of him. In this
task he displayed a rare zeal. Petersburg was full of 'secret'
or ' very secret ' items of information about him, one bit of news
came flying after another, and more than once the authorities
entertained the consoling hope that the moment was approach
ing when they would catch him. It was destined never to be
realized. The strength of the Old believers' organization may
also be judged of from the following incident: Measures had
been taken to arrest a foreign emigrant, one of the Raskolniks,
who had been residing a long time in Moscow; but before the
plan could be carried out, the Old believers there had received
exact tidings of it, and had got in their ecclesiastical council a
copy even of the confidential circular on which the whole
manoeuvre was based and which was intended only for the
eyes of the very highest personages.1
The Raskol communities hold together by means of a close
and constant intercourse among themselves and have their
own post office. In their communications they employ a
cipher and conventional language. They usually send their
letters by confidential messengers and not by post. On how
considerable a scale this correspondence goes on, one can
judge from the fact that in the inquisition of the year 1852,
the dissenters of Moscow, Grusia (Georgia) and Siberia were
found to be communicating with one another.2 They have
their own post, and by means of it circulate necessary informa
tion all over the provinces in the course of a few days.
The Raskolnik communities, says Bellyustin, are so arranged
1 " Contemporary Chronicles ", 1867, No. 23, art. by N. Subbotin.
1 Kelsiev, Vol. IV, p. 341.
that the lowest beggar has a voice in them. The following, for
example, is a description of the rich boot-making village of
Kimry in the Korchevski province of Tver, inhabited by
Popovtsy.
"The relations of employers and workmen are altogether
peculiar and characteristic; the latter form unions usually of
30 to 60 persons, and these possess so much moral influence,
that they not only hold their own in all that concerns their
religious convictions against the patron, in case he is inclined
to oppose them, but they can oblige him to adopt their point of
view. It was our good fortune to be present not only at their
deliberations, but at a discussion of the 'faith' between an
employer and his guild; and it contrasted strongly with the
usual relations between an employer and his workmen. Una
bashed by anything or anyone the humblest worker, if he be
their most instructed man, corrects the patron's arguments;
let a question be put, and they insist on an answer to it. They
often leave the employer in a dilemma; he is obliged either to
capitulate unconditionally to the body of workmen and let
us not forget the unbroken solidarity that prevails among
them in all that borders on religion or to antagonize them,
and that means to antagonize the whole society." l Not that
we must even among the Raskolniks regard the relations of
labour and capital too optimistically, says Uzov. For however
strong the organization of the community, the capitalists
manage to make their power felt; and a latent antagonism
is revealed by the fact that latterly the Old believers have dis
covered that the number of the Beast, i.e. the title of Anti
christ, is contained in the word Khozyain, which means
employer} If the latter in their idea becomes a tool of Anti
christ, that is of evil, then we can no longer entertain any hope
even among the Raskolniks of friendly relations between capi
tal and labour. The ideal of a Russian revolutionary is to
manage a workshop or a manufactory along the communists
lines of the mir or village commune.
The ideal of life common to them all is expressed, concludes
1 Rvtski Vettnik, 1885, June, p. 762.
Ittino, 1877, bk. 51, p. 29.
THE RASKOL 225
Uzov, in their so-called Belovody (white waters). Long since
they have had aspirations for this land, that to many seemed
a dream and fable. "In this region," says the monk Mark
Topozerski, "theft, larceny and other offences against the law
are unknown." Its inhabitants who number over half a
million, "pay taxes to no government whatever." l From the
information communicated by Yadrintsev, we gather that the
accounts given among the Raskolniks of Belovody contain much
truth. Among the Altai mountains is a spot which the Rus
sian bureaucrat has only lately discovered; there in very truth
flow the white (mountain) streams, and there is to be found a
Russian settlement, which until yesterday knew not the heavy
hand of any intrusive authorities. At their advent, then, and
not before, the myth of White waters was revealed to have been
more or less of a real fact; but they had not been there long
before, alas, the myth became a real myth.
Legal Position of the Raskol

Ivanovski in a chapter entitled 'External Relations of the
Raskol to the Government and the Measures undertaken by the
Clergy in order to achieve its enfeeblement,' summarizes what
has been in the main 250 years of dreary religious persecution,
broken only occasionally by brief lucid intervals of semi-
toleration. He justly divides these 250 years into four periods,
viz:
1. From the beginning of the Raskol to the reign of Peter I,
that is approximately to the beginning of the XVIIIth Century.
2. The Reigns of Peter I and his successor to the beginning
of the reign of Catharine II.
3. The Reigns of Catharine II and Alexander I.
4. From death of Alexander I until the end of the XIXth
Century.
To these four epochs, let us hope that the present Revolution
may add an altogether new and happier one.
1 P. Melnikov, Hist. Sketch of Popovtsy, pp. 41, 43.
Before Peter I
No ukases were hurled directly against the Old believers
until Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich issued one, which the patriarch
Joseph countersigned, as well as his Metropolitans and arch
bishops, bishops and the entire holy synod; this condemned to
the stake any and all who should insult Jesus Christ, the Virgin
or the Cross. Under this law provision was duly made for
hunting down and burning alive such as confronted the
inquisitor with firmness and courage, while those who promptly
made their peace with the church were only to be subjected to
what was understood in that age as spiritual admonition, no
doubt of the kind that Claverhouse administered about the
same time to Scotch covenanters.
The above ukase, however, was too indefinite and too gentle
for the Empress Regent Sophia, who as soon as she had dis
armed her rebellious praetorian guard, the Streltsy, issued a
new one proscribing the very existence of the Raskol, and mak
ing it illegal; the teachers of the Raskol were condemned to be
burned alive as heretics, as were all whom they had rebaptized.
The repentant, who saw the error of their ways, were to be
sent to convents and enlightened by application of the knout,
as also were any who sheltered them, unless they did so in
ignorance, in which case they were to be heavily fined.
Peter I
The above law continued in force under Peter I, called the
Great, but was not put in force by him very thoroughly,
because he was preoccupied with other concerns. He was
intent on opening his window towards Europe, the new capital
of Petersburg, as he called it, rechristened by the late Tsar
Petrograd, a change of name which, though it pleases the Pan-
slavists, is not likely to be permanent. Peter I was too busy at
first building a fleet of ships and developing the system of
bureaucratic concentration begun a hundred years before, to
turn his attention to the persecution of heretics. What is
more, he may even have sympathized a little with them, for he
THE RASKOL 227
had himself to bear the odium of abolishing the patriarchate
and installing himself in its place, of tearing the veils off the
faces of high-born ladies, of cutting off the curls of the Jews
and the beards of Russians. Such an emperor was not, at any
rate at first, disposed to make martyrs of people who were to
his mind, as they would have been to Frederick the Great's or
Voltaire's, cranks and ignoramuses. As long as they did not
hinder his pet designs, he had little fault to find with them, and
was ready to consider them as good citizens, just as he regarded
the many Lutherans who put their wits at his disposal. The
settlers on the Vyg even earned his good will by assisting him
in his enterprises; so did those of Starodub, and he rewarded
both for a time by allowing them liberty to worship as they
liked.
Later on, however, Peter discovered their fanaticism. Most
probably their orthodox enemies discovered it for him. Any
how in 1714 unfriendly laws were made against them of a kind
to facilitate their exploitation by the Government. As
Sophia's edict stood on the statute book with its menace of
rack and stake, any official could blackmail them, and they were
naturally ready to bear any burdens of taxation or corvee
provided only they were allowed to retain their convictions.
Peter the Great therefore began by obliging them to inscribe
themselves as Raskolniks on a state-kept register and to pay
double taxes. Now they regarded themselves as the Orthodox
Church, and indeed had as much right to the name as Nikon
and his time-serving prelates. It is not surprising therefore
that many refused to register themselves in the ledgers of Anti
christ, as Ivanovski explains, "partly to avoid the extra imposts
but still more from fanaticism." The result was that Peter I
invented ingenious penalties alike for those heretics who con
cealed their identity and for those who revealed it. The
avowed dissenter was not to be actively molested, but to be
made ridiculous in the eyes of all, monstrari digito praetere-
untiwn. To that end they were, like our convicts, to wear
clothes of a special cut marked with the agreeable lettering
H. R. A., i.e. Heretic, Raskolnik, Apostate. They were to be
denied any, even the humblest, of public offices. Their evi
dence could not be accepted in a court of justice except as
against members of their own sect. The only function of a
public kind left to them was that of collecting the double tax
of their fellows in misfortune. This last improvement in their
position was sanctioned July 7, 1725. Already, however, in
May 1722 a fresh edict had been issued against their teachers
and against any who sheltered the latter; and on July 13 of
the same year another forbade runaway priests, as well as
Bezpopovtsy elders, to hold any sort of religious services any
where. The children of dissenters were to be baptized by
orthodox priests, while the settlers on the Vyg, who still enjoyed
certain immunities because of the services they had loyally
rendered to Peter I, were in 1724 forbidden to quit their resi
dences without passports.
The reason for all these restrictions, alien to Peter's original
conceptions of his duties as a ruler, is to be sought in the hos
tility of the holy synod, which waxed ever more intense as the
propaganda of the Raskol spread. They had hoped to extir
pate it by the Draconian law of Sophia. They now demanded
of the Government fresh powers to hunt down and capture the
malignants.
All the above regulations applied primarily to the avowed
dissenters. The task of discovering the unavowed ones was
now entrusted to the clergy; the maxim 'set a thief to catch a
thief,' seeming no doubt to Peter thoroughly applicable. But
here the Government met with difficulty. Very many of the
clergy were secretly in sympathy with the Raskol, as is shewn
by the constant leakage from their ranks into those of the
adversary. Many more, as underpaid men with families to
support, were open to bribes. It was held necessary therefore
by the Synod to frame edicts against its own clergy in case they
sheltered or connived at Dissent . Those who did so were liable
to forfeit their orders, to undergo corporal punishment, forced
labour, etc. Civil and military officials were in turn appointed
to hunt out the orthodox clergy who were lax in their duty
Quis custixiiet ipsos custodesf and to assist them in discharg
ing the same, in case they were loyal to their bishops. Even
the landowners were found to be infected with the Raskol
THE RASKOL
poison, and were made liable to capture, and to 'admonition',
as it was tenderly called, by the spiritual authorities; and if
that failed of effect to punishment and exile. The punish
ment according to the old trick of the Roman inquisition
was nominally levelled, not against religious opinion, but at
those who opposed the civil Government, in this case the Ukases
of the Tsar. Secret police were sent to Starodub, Novgorod,
Nizhigorod, Livonia and elsewhere, to keep watch not only on
the quasi-orthodox clergy, but upon the landed proprietors as
well. Such was the legislation of Peter the Great, and it
furnished a model which succeeding Governments as a rule
followed only too faithfully.
We have seen that for a time the settlers on the Vyg enjoyed
exemption from the double tax along with a few other privi
leges; but not for long, since one of the first acts of the next
ruler, Catharine I, was to impose it on them in June 1726. The
new Government even entertained the plan of extirpating that
community and removing its members to their original homes
by force. It was eventually decided however in 1732 to pass a
law or ukase condemning all members of the Raskol to be
interned in monasteries, there to undergo clerical 'correction.'
They were by the same ukase to be taken regularly to divine
service and in case of resistance to be handed over to the civil
authorities and secular arm. In 1734 they were forbidden to
erect chapels or oratories for themselves, and finally in 1734
under Anna Ivanovna took place the first great hunt. The
Cossacks in the course of a campaign in Poland descended upon
the settlement of Vetka which had till now been out of range
of the Russian Government, and 40,000 of them were driven
back across the frontier into the grip of the Moscovite.
Peter HI to Alexander I
3. We now approach the second half of the XVIIIth Cen
tury, an era of greater freedom lasting from the accession of
Peter III in 1750 to the end of the reign of Alexander I in 1825,
seventy-five years in all. The former monarch tried to assimi
late the status of the dissenters to that of cults recognized in
the empire as legitimate though not orthodox. He did not live
to carry out his plan, and it devolved on Catharine II to execute
so sensible and humane a project. She began by issuing an
edict inviting members of the Raskol who had fled across the
borders in the previous reigns to return to Russia, where such
orderly and industrious people could ill be spared; she promised
them in return an indemnity for any wrongs they might have
committed, and instead of being shorn, as together with the
Jews, they had been by Peter the Great, the right was conceded
to them of wearing their beards, to the disgust of the many
German barbers whom Peter's legislation had furnished with
remunerative jobs. Catharine also engaged to spare them the
indignity of wearing a distinctive dress not unlike that assigned
by Latin Inquisitors to the victims of an auto-da-fe\ Over and
above these indulgences, the returned Raskolniks were allowed
to become proprietors of land, 'royal peasants,' or, if they pre
ferred it, tradesmen and merchants. They were however con
demned to continue to pay to the Government double taxes for
a period of six years. There still remained a considerable num
ber of settlers at Vetka in Poland, and, as she was conducting
one of the perpetual campaigns against the Poles, Catharine
seized the occasion to transport thence to their old homes
another 20,000 of them. This second enforced migration gave
the coup de grace to this once flourishing colony of Old believers.
The date of the granting of these exemptions was 1764. At the
same time Raskolniks who remained confined in monasteries
were liberated. Five years later they were admitted to the
witness box in legal cases : in 1782 the double tax was abolished.
Hitherto this had been levied on avowed Raskolniks, and
pressure had been used to force them to inscribe their names
in the official registers, in consequence of which and from abhor
rence of the name Raskol for they considered themselves
to be the Orthodox Church they had concealed their qual
ity. There was no longer the same reason to do so and some
began even to see an advantage in being put on the register,
for once they were inscribed upon it they were exempt from
the exactions which the authorised clergy were authorized to
levy upon their flocks. No* a few even of the orthodox
THE RASKOL 231
inscribed themselves upon the register in order to escape these.
The Government thus found itself in a dilemma ; certain of the
provincial governors moreover, e.g., those of Perm and Tobolsk,
represented that the retention of the double category of Raskol
and Orthodox confused the census and taxation lists and made
the collecting of accurate statistics more difficult than need be.
The end of it was that the Tsarina expugned the very name
Raskol from all juridical and official documents. The Senate
approved of this step, arid by an ukase of 1783 the name was
discarded in ecclesiastical lists and records as also in verbal
communications. The next year, 1784, the holy Synod was
induced to assent to this reform, and in 1785 the dissenters
had all their disabilities removed by a fresh ukase which
admitted them to public positions in all towns and cities.
The most enlightened of all female sovereigns in Russia and
perhaps the whole world, had won, and all the oppressive regu
lations of Peter I were abrogated. At the same time permis
sion was given to the members of the Raskol to settle in Siberia.
After Catharine's death succeeded the brief reign of Paul
(Nov. 1796 to March 1801), and then Alexander came to the
throne, a man of liberal and humane instincts. His policy
towards the Raskol however was a perpetual seesaw, according
as his native disposition or the sleepless hatred of the orthodox
prelates prevailed. Even under Catharine the law against
orthodox popes who joined the Raskol was maintained in all
its severity, and ukases of November 1765 and January 1776
condemned them to ecclesiastical degradation and deprivation
of their orders, and it was not safe for them to appear in public
in their true colours. At the beginning of Alexander's reign,
although the laws were not changed, the Government shewed
itself more indulgent; and in many places, e.g. Gorodets in
the Nizhegorod Government and at Starodub, they were in
1803 openly discharging their spiritual offices. Nine years
later however the Synod interfered to prevent the Popovtsy of
the village of Uvanov in the Vladimirski Government from
employing them, and their veto was upheld by Alexander in
February 1812. Later on, in March 1822, the Sovereign
crowned his inconsistencies by sanctioning the use of runaway
popes in case they had been guilty of no crime and were not
quitting the church in order to evade the consequences of their
actions. The prelates expostulated against such mildness, but
this time in vain.
The right of having their own chapels and oratories was con
ceded or denied under Alexander to the Raskol with similar
waverings. Before Catharine II had finally lightened their
yoke, the old laws forbidding them to have places of worship of
their own had been reaffirmed in ukases of July 1769 and April
1778. Subsequently, it is true, the Government winked at
their existence and the law was not carried out. In one case
(1817) the cupola of a church would be pulled down, but the
rest of it left intact. In other cases the raising of a church
was allowed, but the right to hold services in it denied. It was
a real triumph, however, for the Raskol in Moscow when in 1809
the legality of their Transfiguration Cemetery was upheld,
and when the Minister of the Interior authorized the rebuild
ing of churches in the Vyatka Government and in the district
of Sarapul. The Holy Synod of course fumed at the least
show of tolerance, and appealed to the ukase of 1803 which,
while chsclaiming any desire to violate men's consciences, for
bade any open exhibitions of apostasy; and in 1816 they man
aged to get the chapels in Fatezh in the Government of Kursk
destroyed, especially any that presumed to have a bell. In
1817 the Tsar issued instructions to local authorities to forbid
the erection of chapels. In 1822 a fresh edict allowed old struc
tures to remain, but forbade the raising of new ones.
Under Alexander's regime the open celebration of their rites
was also winked at, and the Raskol were freely allowed to bap
tize and to bury their dead until 1818, in some cases even to
ring a bell to summon the faithful to worship. But stronger
measures were enforced in 1820, especially against Raskol prop
aganda. Any public manifestation of their religion, even the
conducting of a burial by a priest attired in canonicals, was
forbidden in 1824. They might bury their dead, but without
hymns or candles.
THE RASKOL 233
Nicholas I and his Successors, to 1903

We have already seen how the accession in 1825 of
Nicholas I, a bigot and martinet, was marked by a return to
the system of persecution. Raskol communities were placed
afresh outside the law, their members denied the right of will
and testament, no churches or schools were allowed to be put
up, no hospitals or rest-houses. The title of Raskolnik had
been expugned from official documents: it was now revived,
and all public offices and employments were closed afresh to
them. No dissenter might engage in trade or become a mer
chant of the first or second guilds or categories. New oratories,
of course, or chapels were disallowed, and it was forbidden to
repair those which already existed. Most of their charitable
institutions were closed or pulled down. The dissenters were
also obliged by ukase to take their children to an orthodox priest
for baptism; their marriages were declared invalid. The
object of such legislation was to allow members of the sect to
live on as such till death overtook them, but prevent their ranks
from being recruited either by inheritance or by propaganda.
To facilitate the project Nicholas had a list made of the names
of all living Raskolniks, with an inventory of all their churches,
monasteries and sketes so called, between the years 1840 and
1853. Everywhere the police were set on to see that all these
oppressive regulations were carried out, and garrisons were
located in the chief Raskol centres. In 1847 a special police
was created to exact the extra taxes levied upon dissenters.
Any system which reposes on policemen, especially in Russia,
is insecure, for they are generally no less venal than unobserv
ant. In spite of Nicholas' campaign therefore the Raskolniks
went on building their chapels and increasing their numbers.
When an extraordinary inquisition was to be made in any
centre, the people were always forewarned. Now and again,
as at Semenov, sketes were destroyed, but the inmates were
regarded as martyrs and the hatred of the Orthodox oppressors
waxed more intense. The exiled and transported managed to
correspond with their coreligionists and inflame what Ivan-
ov8ki calls their fanaticism. The mockery to which church
consistories condemned them served, he says, to harden their
hearts, and, if they repented, it was only in semblance.
In 1855 Nicholas I was succeeded by Alexander II Niko-
laevich, a man of more liberal tendencies. The question
of the best way to deal with the Raskol was laid before him in
1858, and he was at first in favour of applying the law as it
stood, but impartially and equally all around ; for a member of
the Raskol never knew beforehand how a court of first instance
would decide his case, and was the victim of all sorts of caprice
on the part of police and judge. Later in the same year.
Alexander decided against persecution, but agreed to forbid
any propaganda amongst the Orthodox and any public mani
festations of Raskol faith, such as processions with cross and
banners, hymn singing outside a place of worship, solemn cele
brations of baptism or marriage, funeral processions in which
the clergy wore vestments and cowls, monastic habits, outward
emblems of religion on churches, bells, etc. On the other hand
Raskolniks were permitted to trade in November, 1863, and to
earn medals and orders from the Government in 1864, unless
indeed they belonged to the most noxious sects which eschewed
marriage and prayers for the Tsar; they were allowed in 1861
with the consent of the Minister of the Interior to be admitted
to public offices. In 1874 their marriages were legitimised,
if duly registered in the records of the police and commune,
and their licit character was made to depend not on the use of
religious rites, but on the act of registration. The law obliging
them to go through the mockery of baptizing their children in
an orthodox church was now abrogated.
As early as 1864 the Tsar Alexander projected a revision of all
the laws affecting the Raskol, and in 1867 charged his coun
cil to undertake new legislation. Committees of investigation
were formed in consequence and men of special knowledge,
like Melnikov. consulted. A new scheme of law was pre
pared and laid before the Holy Synod: but the political events
of 1877. the war with Turkey, and the assassination of the Tsar
in 15^>1 arrested the whole scheme, which was not resumed until
1833. when by Ukase of May 3 the new Tsar Alexander III
gave sanction to the views of his council in favour of recognii
THE RASKOL 235
ing the civil rights of Dissenters and their liberty of worship.

But the proscription of any outward signs or evidence of Raskol
faith was kept up, and every measure taken to prevent propa
ganda and protect the Orthodox Church from being attacked.
The general principle of religious liberty and toleration was
admitted and even paraded in the new law, but in application
sadly curtailed. The Orthodox Church was recognized as
having a monopoly of religious truth and Government protec
tion. No other religious body could make converts from other
faiths, while no Orthodox person could leave the Church and
enroll himself in the ranks of the Raskol. The statute forbid
ding any public manifestation of Raskol faith and opinion was
to be vigorously enforced, and exile awaited any member of it
who converted an Orthodox to his faith. Any who printed
books with a view to Raskol propaganda, or gave lectures or
distributed tracts for the purpose were liable to be imprisoned.
Any who overtly spoke ill of the Orthodox clergy or vilified the
Church were liable to the same penalty. The printing of the
liturgical books of the Raskol was likewise forbidden, and any
one selling them might be fined 300 rubles. No new churches,
nor restoration of old ones, was to be attempted without the
fiat of the provincial governor, and all Government officials
and bureaucrats were pledged to assist the Orthodox bishops
and clergy in the sacred duty of repressing the Raskol. The
inferior clergy had to keep the bishop informed of any con
siderable defection on the part of the parishioners, in accord
ance with the principle that "the dominant Church, Orthodox,
Catholic and Oriental, is invested with the right, as is no other,
within the frontiers of the Empire to induce the heterodox by
way of persuasion to embrace its doctrine." x The Government
rewards those who assist in the work of converting Raskolnik
by conferring the decoration of the third grade of the order of
St. Anna on any missionary who is so fortunate as to make, with
the aid of the police, one hundred converts among the Raskol
or the infidels.
1 Skvortsov, Zakony o raskolnikakh (Laws concerning the Raskolniki), Moscow,
1903, p. 166, cited by Aurel. Palmieri, La Chiesa Russa, Firenze, 1908, to whom I
am much indebted in this section.
Mixed marriages between the Orthodox and members of the
Raskol were only legal if celebrated in an Orthodox Church,
with Orthodox rites, and if the Raskolnik party 'verted' to
the Orthodox Church. Minors perverted to the Raskol or to
any heresy were placed under the charge of the Minister of the
Interior. All prosecutions directed against the Raskol had to
be initiated by the ecclesiastical authorities, and the parish
clergy could do no more than report cases to the bishop of the
diocese. A request for a prosecution must be precise and
clearly formulated.
Such in brief were the regulations in force before the year
1903. They purported to be inspired by goodwill and tolera
tion, and the Imperial Senate in its commentaries on them
mitigated them in a few particulars. For example, public
vilification of an orthodox priest was to be condoned, if the
latter by insolence or altercation had provoked it ; and the mere
performance of a rite by a Raskol priest for orthodox persons,
especially if the latter were not of an age to appreciate dogmatic
distinctions, was not to be classed as an attempt at religious
perversion. Commenting on the clause forbidding Raskolniks
to officiate for the Orthodox at baptisms, marriages or funerals,
the Senate held that, in such cases, the ministrant alone be held
responsible, and not the parents and other parties, even though
they consented. In Russia it rests or rested with the bureau
cracy, lay or spiritual, to enforce the laws of the Empire, very
much as they please; and it can well be imagined, writes
Palmieri (p. 411), that, under the superintendence of an intran
sigent Procurator of the Holy Synod like Pobedonostsev
bureaucrats continued to use against the Raskol the weapons
of an earlier legislation. To the protests of the Raskolniks
no attention was paid; their chapels continued to receive the
visits of the police who closed them when and as they chose;
for it was this fanatical functionary's idea to beat down
Catholicism, to suffocate the Raskol, and by such means bring
about the religious unity of Russia.
THE RASKOL 237
The Reforms of 1903

A better epoch seemed about to dawn when on February 26,
1903, after the fall of Pobedonostsev, the young Tsar, Nicholas
II proclaimed liberty of conscience; and in an Ukase promul
gated by the Senate on December 12, 1904, a revision was
promised of all the laws directed against the Raskol. Official
persecutions, remarks Palmieri, far from having enfeebled the
religious feelings and the spirit of abnegation of the Dissenters
had only made them more tenacious of their beliefs, readier
than ever to sacrifice everything rather than stoop to apos
tasy. Accordingly they formulated the following demands:
1. That in official documents the offensive epithet RaskoU
niki or dissidents should be cancelled, and that of Old believers
or Old Ritualists the latter first used in Catharine IPs
rescript of August 13, 1775 should take its place. These
substitutes the Orthodox objected to as implying that they
themselves were the innovators in 1667.
2. They demanded juridical and religious autonomy for
their parishes, and a corresponding right to possess what places
of worship and charitable institutions they liked. Till now
they had had mainly to meet for worship in private houses.
3. Liberty of cult, and a recognition of the legality of the
so-called metriki or registers drawn up by Raskol ministers.
They asked that there should be inscribed in these the names
of those who, though they figured in the registers of the orthodox
priests, had nevertheless declined their sacraments for a period
of ten years. The law of 1883 only allowed Raskol chapels to
be reopened which had been founded before 1826, when there
vrere 1257 of them. Since 1883 and up to 1904 the number of
their chapels had increased by 283.
4. The right of those, who in spite of their really being
Raskolniks, figured as orthodox in civil documents, to inscribe
their children in the Raskol registers. Members of the Raskol
inscribed against their will in orthodox ledgers and lists gen
erally refused on that account to report their births, marriages
and deaths to the police. For example over fourteen years,
1889-1903, according to a fairly accurate estimate, out of
29,431 Raskolnik marriages only 1840 were reported to the

police; out of 131,730 births, only 552.1
5. Lastly the Raskolniks asked in 1904 for liberty to open
elementary schools for their children in which their own cate
chisms should be taught; liberty for Raskol students, not to
have to listen in secondary schools to a catechist's lectures
against their religion; exemption of their priests from military
service to which no orthodox priest is liable, and free access for
their laity to all civil and military duties and offices.
Their demands, owing to Pobedonostsev's sudden fall from
power and the disasters of the Japanese War, received some
satisfaction, and an imperial Ukase of April 17, 1905, suppressed
the offensive Raskol, and distinguished among Russian dis
senters three categories : 1 . of Old Ritualists who recognize the
sacraments and dogmatic doctrines of the Orthodox Church,
but differ therefrom on points of ritual; 2. of Sectaries, e.g.
the Molokani, Stundists and Dukhobortsi; 3. the 'pernicious'
sects, e.g. the Khlysty or Flagellants and the Skoptsy or Self-
mutilators.
The first-named were henceforth to be allowed to organize
themselves into a corporate Church and enjoy such rights as
the Lutherans or Catholics already enjoyed; they were to
divide themselves into parishes under rectors (nastoyateli,
nastamiki) , their clergy were exempted from military service,
they might found schools of their own and move about without
that machinery of passports which made them the special
victims of police oppression and blackmail. The Council of
Ministers, glossing the L'kase. furthermore gave them the right
to own their churches, hospitals and cemeteries, the right of
admission as students in military and naval academies, of
receiving decorations and of printing their liturgies.
These concessions excited great hopes in the breast of the
Raskolnik. while the orthodox journals also pretended to be
overjoyed at so signal a proof that the Russian people is hostile
to religious persecution. Skvortsov wrote as follows: "We
know by experience that police measures are repugnant to our
1 TVsr tkunt* hvien the Pimmitmmy. PwfcwrfWii or "Orthodox Guide, an orpo
ol tbr Russaa CVur* . 190.V t. >L p. S9l
THE RASKOL 239
aims. Religious errors are maladies of heart and soul, and it
is best to use against them nothing but the gentle words of love
and conviction. Government protection of a church by dint
of law generates supineness in the pastors, somnolence and
apathy; and it is all for the good if the Government, by with
drawing its aid from the Orthodox, constrains them to count
on themselves and their own forces and to combat with their
own weapons." ! Yet Skvortsov had been, as Palmieri
remarks, the hammer of the Raskolniks, the loyal henchman of
the arch-persecutor Pobedonostsev. "When the devil is sick,
the devil a saint will be."
The real feeling of the Orthodox and of the Holy Synod was
revealed in the organ of the latter, the Kolokol or Bell, which
objected particularly to the liberty accorded to the Raskol to
have its own parishes, and declared that before long the best
energies of the official Church would pass into the ranks of the
Raskol, seeing that the Orthodox Church in spite of the sup
port, protection and tutelage of the State was unable to defend
itself. The young Tsar's Government impressed by these
waitings of the Holy Synod took a fresh tack, and a new Ukase
of April 17, 1905, enacted a year's imprisonment for anyone
who tries to seduce an orthodox person into any of the rival
confessions by means of sermons or dissemination of written
works or images.
The Number of the Raskol

What were the numbers, asks Uzov, of the Dissidents thus
driven by the folly and cruelty of the Moscovite Government
to the extremes of Russia and even beyond them? To this
question he devotes considerable research, and his pages
though written as far back as 1881 cannot be ignored even
to-day, for as he remarks their number is an important factor
in the historical r&le they have played, perhaps even in the
revolution of 1917.
For a long time, he points out, Russian society and no less
the Russian Government had no exact idea of their numbers,
1 Mission Review, 1905, Tom. 1, p. 542.
and relied on the figures assigned by local officials to those
who, registering themselves as Raskolniks in the course of the
XVIIIth Century (1715-1782), paid double taxes. "These
figures," writes Melnikov, "in some districts underwent no
change for forty years, no account being taken of the excess
of births over deaths. Here and there the police commis
saries even reduced them artificially year by year in order to
gain credit with the government for their own efficiency as
persecutors. In many cases, however, especially by young
officials new to the task, attempts were made to attain sta
tistics closer to the facts by comparing the lists either with the
records kept by the clergy, in whose computations the
numbers were almost everywhere larger than those given in
the police bureaus, or with independent observations. In
such cases the numbers were apt to shew a sudden rise, and
on reception of them the Government would demand of the
local officials an explanation of the fact, posing such questions
as : why had the Raskol strengthened its position in such and
such an uyezd or district? who was responsible for so marked
an increase in their numbers? what steps were being taken
with a view to the prevention and destruction of Raskol
propaganda? why had the Government not been warned
earlier of their growth? and so forth. A rescript would then be
sent to the local officials couched in no friendly tone and
usually ending with a reprimand for the inconsistency of their
informations or their want of firmness in repression of the
sect. After once experiencing such consequences an official
was naturally careful not to betray too much zeal in future,
and his successors profiting by his example were equally careful
not to bring down on their heads reproofs which unsolicited
teal for fact and accuracy provoked. The result was that the
old figures held the field, annually diminished by a small
amount. Nevertheless any diligent head of police possessed
formerly, and still possesses, more or less credible figures of
the dissidents settled in a district, and sometimes the Gov
ernors take theni into account : but they are kept fairly secret
and are as a ruk- describee as unoSoial figures.
On she other hard there have been eases where the Governor
THE RASKOL 241
has furnished for his entire province numbers more consonant
with reality, but with similar result. Questions at once were
rained upon him as to how and why there had come to be such
an increase of sectaries in his Government, fresh notes were
written, and after that everything relapsed into the old
routine.1
"Not only the police, but the clergy had to keep lists, and
these in some dioceses presented higher figures than those of
the Governors, in others lower. If it be asked why different
estimates could be supplied by the Government of one and
the same region the answer is simple: the Governor and
the Archpriest alike rendered to their superiors fantastic
figures, based on those of bygone years and on nothing else." *
"The parish clergy," continues Melnikov, "in drawing up
their reports paid as little regard to actual facts as the bureau
crats, and, like them, kept to the figures of earlier years; for
if they ever thought of laying before the consistory anything
like the truth, they exposed themselves to still harsher repri
mands than they did. Routine and red-tape was as engrained
in the ecclesiastical as in the civil administration."
"Above all the clergy in parishes where there are many
sectaries have we regret to say special reasons of their
own for hiding the actual figures. The registered Raskolnik
is a lost man as far as the priest is concerned, for he gets no
kopecks out of him. On the other hand the unregistered one
is a regular gold mine for his household, since he pays very
dear to the pope for the privilege of being excused his ministra
tions, much dearer than does the most assiduous of his parish
ioners for submitting to them."
By such methods, writes Uzov, in 1850 the number of
Raskolniks was officially calculated as 829,971. Yet in this
year the Minister of the Interior, Count L. A. Perovski, laid
before the Emperor a report concerning them denying the
1 Statistics of the Raskol by P. Melnikov in Russkii Vestnik of 1868, No. 2 (?),

pp. 416-8. Reprinted in Melnikov's collected works, Peterb. 1898, xiv 368, in
which I nave read it.
* Ibid., pp. 416, 420, 422. In the reprinted edition p. 371, faktitcheskuyu seems
to be a misprint for fantastitchkuyu.
reliability of the official figure and fixing the true figure at

nine million; and the latter was taken as the basis of a study
of the Raskol in the Moscow Government by an official of
that ministry, the Councillor of State Liprandi.1
Perovski's report led to the nomination in 1852 of two statis
tical expeditions for the study of the Raskol on the spot, one
in the Government of Nizhegorod, the other in Yaroslav.
Soon afterwards officials were also dispatched for the same
purpose to the Kostroma Government. "The following are
the results of the census thus instituted in 1852 in these three
Governments :
"In that of Nizhegorod according to the Governor's figures,
the number of sectaries of both sexes, 20,246. According to
the statistical commissioners sent to examine the facts on the
spot, 172,500.
"In that of Kostroma, official figure 19,870. The commis
sioners Bryanchaninov and Arnoldi counted 105,572.
"In that of Yaroslav the numbers were 7,454, and 278,417
respectively.
"In these three Governments then the real figures were five,
eight and a half and thirty-seven times the official ones, and
the official total for the three taken together one-eleventh of the
true. It follows that the real total for the whole of Russia in
1852 should have been not 910,000, but nearly ten millions.
"What is more," remarks Melnikov, "910,000 had already
before this time been accepted in governing circles as the true
figure." 2 There is no reason, argues Uzov, to suppose that
the members of the Statistical Commission exaggerated;
indeed Liprandi asserts that "attempts so conducted to
ascertain the numbers of the Raskolniks were far from satis
factory, as a first essay of the sort was met everywhere not so
much with sympathy and cooperation, as with hostility and
all kinds of opposition and impediments." s The Commission,
continues Uzov, reduced rather than exaggerated the figures:
> Mi. pp. 416, 420, 422.
id. pp. 426-7.
* Imperial Society of History and Antiquities in Moscow Univ. for 1870, bk. 2,
art. by Liprandi, p. 115.
THE RASKOL 243
e.g. in the Yaroslav Government it reckoned 278,417, where

one of its members J. Aksakov estimates "the orthodox as
being but a fourth of the population, with the result that, as
there were in 1852 as many as 943,583 1 persons in this Govern
ment, the true proportion of dissidents must have been 672,687.
Another member of the Commission, Count Stenbok, reckoned
the orthodox to be only a third of the population,2 in which
case the dissidents numbered 629,056, against an official
record of not more than 12,000.
In the Nizhegorod Government the Commission only counted
172,000, where in the sequel the Bishop Jeremiah found
233,323.3
We are justified therefore, says Uzov, in concluding with
Iiprandi, that the real number, if more carefully calculated
than they could be by the members of the Commission of 1852,
must have been "immeasurably greater"4 than was allowed
by them. In 1853 the Government began an inquisition on a
much vaster scale based on a cooperation of the officials of the
Ministry of the Interior with the clergy. The results of the
two sets of investigators were compared, and the "general
conclusion was that the Raskolniks were ten times as numer
ous as had been supposed." B The sectaries themselves,
"though very reserved in their confidence estimated their
number at ten millions."8
In proof of the huge hiatus there was between the real and
official numbers may be cited, adds Uzov, the case of the
Archangel Government, where "officially 4,428 persons were
allowed to be dissenters, though the Hieromonachus Donatus
counted 90,000, or twenty times as many.7 In the Povenets
district of the Olonets Government the official figure was
2,383, out of a total of 24,628 inhabitants.8 Here Mainov avers
1 Russian Archives, 1866, No. 4, p. 634.
Sbornik by Kelsiev, t. iv, pp. 24, 329.
* Sobranie Postanovlenii (collected regulations) for Raskol, bk. 2, p. 673.
4 Liprandi in Imperial Society of Antiquities 1. c.
* Russkiya Vesti, 1868, No. 2, art. II. of Melnikov, p. 435. In edition p. 381.
* Liprandi, op. cit. p. 115, and Statistical Tables, p. 211.
' Records of the Archangel Govt, for 1863, art. of Donatus, p. 80.
* Records of Olonete Gov., 1866.
that in reality no more than five hundred orthodox inhabitants
or rather five hundred lukewarm sectaries could be mustered
in the same district.1 In other words the Raskol have exceeded
the official estimate by ten times.
There is another way of arriving at the figures of the Raskol,
namely the following:
In the census of the Ministry of Cults for 1859 the number
of orthodox believers in all Russia is put at 51,474,209. Of
these
1. Confessing and receiving the Sacrament 35,081,097
2. Confessing but not receiving the Sacrament 2,196,714
3. Infants not confessing 9,232,234
4. Not confessing for other satisfactory reasons 819,951
5. Not confessing by reason of negligence 3,417,231
6. Not confessing through leaning to the Raskol 726,982
These six categories include the entire population under

the care of the orthodox clergy, but not the registered Raskol-
niks. Obviously the sixth category, however, belongs to them
entire, and in secret almost the whole of the fifth, say three
millions, as also the second, say two. Lastly we must sub
tract a proportion of the third and fourth, say ten per cent, or
in all about one million. Then again we must bear in mind
that many Raskolniks, especially those who belong to the sects
furthest removed from orthodoxy, go to confession and com
munion punctually, because this is their only way of deceiving
the police and avoiding incarceration. Among these we must
reckon, says Uzov, "the entire body of the Spasov sect,
very numerous on the Volga and reckoned by Melnikov in his
Numbers of the Raskol at 700,000. We have no means of com
puting the number of the latter, so we will confine ourselves to
the approximate figures exhibited above, and assume the total
of the Raskol openly registered to be seven millions, and will
include the secret Raskolniks, who discharge all the rites of
orthodoxy, say as many as eight millions. Most probably
we may take 10% of the entire population or one-sixth of the
1 Mainov, Tow in Obonezh and Korel.
THE RASKOL 245
orthodox population."1 It follows, remarks Uzov, that in 1859

there were 8,579,034 of them.
For reasons, he adds, which we do not grasp, Bushen in his
computations completely ignores the registered Raskolniks,
who according to Melnikov were in 1859 reckoned at 875,382.
Adding these to the sum of those taken account of in the
Statistical Tables, we reach the figure 9,456,416.
Thus, concludes Uzov, if we combine the figures drawn up
by the officials of the Ministry of the Interior with those of
the Statistical Tables, we may fairly assume that in 1859 there
were nine and a half millions. Assuming the annual increase
of population to be 1.3%, the figure nine and a half millions
for 1859 would in 1878 have altered to twelve millions. But
we cannot rest at this figure, for the number increases pari
passu not only with the birth-rate, but with the propaganda.
According to Bellyustin the peasants are being converted to
the Raskol ' en masse.' 2 "At the present time (1880) it wins
adherents even in parishes where it was unknown." 3 The
priest Tverdynski declares that, "to his sorrow, he must agree
with the apologists of the Raskol, that the number of its con
verts from orthodoxy goes up by thousands."4 "I have
seen," says Mackenzie Wallace, "large villages in which by
the testimony of the inhabitants, there was not fifteen years
ago a single Raskolnik, and now fully half the people are
Molokanye." He also says of the Stundists that "according
to the latest information the number of the sect increases," 5
in spite of official castigation with birch twigs.
Apart from the above testimonies to the increase, Uzov
points to the articles of the priests Blagoveshchenski in
Strannik, 1865, No. 7, p. 23: Gromachevski in Zarya, 1871,
No. 9: C. M. B. in Strannik, 1871, No. 2, p. 93: and to an
article entitled: "How explain the longevity of the Raskol? "
in Christian Readings (Khrist. Chteniya), 1871, pt. 1, and also
1 Statistical Tables of the Rues. Empire. Published by Ministry of the Interior,
1863.
' Russkii Vestnik, 1865, June, p. 761.
* Orthodox Conversations (pravosl. sobesyed.) 1866, pt. 3, art. by E. L. p. 264.
< Strannik 1866, No. 3, p. 129.
> Vestnik Europy 1877, No. 5, p. 340. See edition of New York, 1880, p. 304.
to the evidence tendered by officials that have studied the

Raskol as well as by the other persons already mentioned
He warns us that we must furthermore distinguish between
real and only nominal conversion, understanding by the latter
the passage from secret to open adherence, which with the
relaxation of persecution has become a daily phenomenon in
Russian life. Orthodoxy incurs no loss thereby; it only re
duces the takings of the orthodox clergy. In all allusions to
conversions we have had in view real conversion and no other.
To sum up, writes Uzov, if we take into consideration the
vigour of Raskol propaganda during the last twenty years,1
we may raise the figure of twelve millions to thirteen or four
teen in 1880.
Uzov next attempts to estimate the distribution of the total
according to the different groups or concords as they are called.
According to the figures of the officials of the Ministry of the
Interior in 1852 in the Yaroslav Government, the number of
dissidents (Uniats) was 1%%; Popovtsy 1634%; Spasov group
8J4%; Pomortsy 1%%; Thedosyevtsy 30%; Philippovtsy
12 y2%; Khlystyand Skoptsy %%; total 67%%; for the re
maining 30%% no data.2
In the Kostroma Government there were found of those
who prayed for the Tsar (chiefly Popovtsy, though there were
here Bezpopovtsy also of the Pomorski Communion) 39%;
of those who did not, chiefly Thedosyevtsy and Philippovtsy,
28J^%; of the Spasov group 31^%; Khlysty and Skoptsy
Comparing these figures, Uzov deduces that the Popovtsy

make up about 28%, the Bezpopovtsy about 55, Khlystyand
Skoptsy H%> leaving 16J^% unknown. And dividing up the
13,000,000 Raskolniks in the corresponding proportions,
Uzov reaches the following figures:
Popovtsy, 3,640,000;
Bezpopovtsy, 7,150,000;
Khlysty, etc., 65,000;
Unascertained, 2,145,000.
1 i.e. 1860-1880.
Kelsiev Sbornik, iv, p. 84-135.
THE RASKOL 247
Of the last, one million he claims are 'spiritual Christians.'

That there are as many is attested by the facts: firstly that,
according to the Government inquisition of 1842-1846 into
the Molokan sect, its adherents, secret or overt, numbered
200,000 in the Government of Tambov alone; secondly, he
adduces the testimony of Mackenzie Wallace that there are
some hundreds of thousands of them, and that latterly their
diffusion has increased on a vast scale. Besides that we must
remark, he says, that we are ieckoning among the Spiritual
Christians the Evangelicals (Stundists), who, notwithstanding
that they are a relatively new sect, already can count a formid
able number of adherents.
The figures here assigned by Uzov to the Popovtsy and
Bezpopovtsy, are based on those of 1852; but since that date
up to 1880, when he wrote, they both increased by leaps and
bounds. All who are familiar with the Raskol testify that the
sects without a clergy gain at the expense of the sects who
retain it. Thus already in 1853 Liprandi noted that "the
Bezpopovtsy heresy is spreading among us with incredible
rapidity," and that "for some time past they have won over
to themselves members of the rival sect." l Bellyustin
writing in 1865 says that "among the peasants the diffusion
and acceptance are ever deeper and stronger of such teachings
as amount intellectually to a denial of all that even savours
of priesthood." 2 Taking into account the leakage of the
sects with clergy into those without, we could reckon the
number of the former in the year 1880 at three millions, of
the latter at eight.
M. Anatole Leroy Beaulieu in the third volume of his
U Empire des Tsars, published in 1889, p. 377 estimates the
number of Old believers (to the exclusion of other sects) at
twelve to fifteen millions, but omits to state in detail the bases
of his calculation, which is unduly cautious, but he justly adds
that no figures can impart a fair idea of the importance of the
Raskol. The influence of this Russian Schism cannot, like
1 Imperial Society of History in Moscow University for 1870, bk. 2, art. of
Liprandi, pp. 78 and 119.
5 Rustkii Vestnik, 1865, June.
that of most established religions, be measured by figures.
For it exists not merely as a Church, a confession adopted by
so many millions of souls. It is often a simple tendency, a
bias to which many incline who have not openly quitted the
official orthodoxy. Its strength lies less in the overt adepts
than in the masses who mutely sympathize with it. This
sympathy is intelligible if we bear in mind that it issued spon
taneously out of the heart of the people and is a product no
less than a glorification of popular customs and ideas. Instead
of loathing them as rebels and heretics, the peasants and work
men, who remain within the fold of the Church, often regard
these old-believers as most pious and fervent people, as Chris
tians resembling those of antiquity who were persecuted for
their faith. In many regions, among the petit peupU we meet
with the singular opinion that official orthodoxy is only good
for the lukewarm, that it is a worldly religion through which it
is barely possible to attain salvation, that the holy and true
religion is that of the old-believers. ... A high functionary,
charged, towards the close of Nicholas the First's reign to
conduct a secret enquiry into the Raskol, tells an instructive
anecdote on the point: "When I entered a peasant's izba or
hut I was often received with the words 'We are not Chris
tians.' 'What then are you, infidels?' 'No,' they would
answer, 'we believe in Christ, but we belong to the Church,
for we are worldly frivolous people.' 'Why are you not
Christians, since you believe in Christ?' 'Christians,' they
reply, 'are those who stick to the old faith, and they don't
pray in the same way as we do; but as for us, we have no time
to imitate them.'"
Uzov concludes that the 12 to 13 millions of Raskolniks alive
in 1880 could be apportioned as follows:
Popovtsy 3,000,000
Bezpopovtsy 8,000,000
Spiritual Christians 1,000,000
Khlysty, etc. 65,000
Total 12,065,000
THE RASKOL 249
There remained a million over, but there were no data of a
kind to indicate to which of the above sects they belonged.
TJzov's statistical researches here given are of singular
value; for, as I point out later on, the figures given some
twenty years later by the Russian State and Church authori
ties were, to put it mildly, misleading. Allowing for growth
of population alone, there must have been some twenty mil
lions of Raskol in 1900; if we allow for their active propaganda
many more. In 1917 their numbers must have approached
twenty-five millions at least. Yet at the end of the century
Russian Authorities, after twenty years of Pobedonostsev's
regime, reckoned them at only two million and a quarter, a
figure fantastically small.
Controversial Propaganda against the Raskol

It remains to say a few words about the missions organized
by the Russian Government for the conversion of the Raskol.
They began with Peter the Great, who deputed Pitirim, Bishop
of Nizhni-Novgorod (1665-1738), whose figure has already
crossed our pages, to find arguments against the dissidents.
His arguments were not so potent that he did not very soon
realize the necessity of sustaining them with the secular
arm; and in 1715 an Ukase decreed death against any who
should traverse them. Peter also, as we saw, sent the monk
Neophitus, chosen for the task by Pitirim in 1722, to convert
the Raskolniks of Vyg in Russian Pomerania or Pomor. He
was no match for the dialectic of the two brothers Denisov,
and speedily invoked the stake to second his arguments. It is
to the credit of Tsar Alexander I that in his reign the Raskol
were left alone even by missionaries, but under Nicholas I the
various sees were warned by Government of the necessity of
missionary enterprise, that of Perm in 1827, Penza in 1828,
Saratov in 1833, Chernigov in 1838, Irkutsk in 1839. The
missionaries were well paid and armed with Raskol books lest
they should not know what they had to confute. In 1853
chairs of anti-Raskol history and confutation were directed
by the Synod to be created in seminaries, and printed counter
blasts began to be prepared. In 1882, 4,000 roubles were voted

for the printing expenses of a single year; all episcopal and
parish libraries are furnished with such books free gratis and
for nothing. In 1886 confraternities were organized for com
bating the Raskol, especially among women. Two years before
an older regulation was revived obliging seminarists to study
the Raskol, a most dangerous ordinance. In 1888 also the
corps of missionaries was organized on a more ambitious plan
than ever before, and new arrangements made for public
debates with Raskol teachers. The missionaries themselves
regularly met in conclave to discuss their successes with the
orthodox prelates.
Palmieri gives some interesting details (p. 443, foil.) of recent
missionary literature directed against the Raskol. The
Bratskoe Slovo (Fraternal words) is a journal which began in
January, 1875 under the editorship of N. N. Subbotin, professor
of the Church Academy in Moscow, one whose name has often
figured in our pages, a man of learning and large minded. It
came to an end in 1899 for want of subscribers, but contains a
multitude of articles of great value.
In 1888 the Moscow clergy started a weekly journal under the
direction of Protohierei I. T. Vinogradov, called the Drug
Istiny or "Friend of Truth." It was more militant in tone
than Subbotin's journal and came to an end in 1890. In 1896
appeared at Kiev a new journal, the Missionerskoe Obozrenie
or "Missionary Review" under the patronage of Pobedonost-
sev, with the ardent collaboration of B. M. Skvortsov, professor
of Raskol history in the Kiev Seminary. In 1899 it was trans
ferred to Petersburg, and in it has been published much of
importance; but in tone it was fanatical and reactionary, full
of hatred of Catholicism and ever demanding a crusade against
the Raskol which it wished to see suffocated in blood. Even
the orthodox clergy learned to detest it. In 1903 a new
monthly journal the Pravoslavnyi Putevoditel or "Orthodox
Guide" appeared at Petersburg. In 1906 it became a bi
monthly journal, and its tone was more liberal than Skvortsov's
journal.
Successes, however, have been microscopic, and, if under
THE RASKOL 251
Alexander III they claimed to convert annually eight or ten
thousand persons, this was to be attributed more to the intran
sigent ferocity of Pobedonostsev than to genuine missionary
effort, although over 400 missionaries were at work. The
moment freedom of conscience was proclaimed by Nicholas II
in 1903, there was no more talk of conversions to orthodoxy but
only of defection en masse among soi-disant Orthodox. Palmieri
attributes the futility of missionary effort to the fact that not a
few of the missionaries and most popes are not educated enough
to reply to their adversaries, who have a rich literature of their
own, and do not scruple to silence them, often by simply talk
ing common sense. Zealous partisans of orthodoxy, like
Ivanovski himself, have been the first to recognize that fresh
blood is needed in orthodox seminaries, if the clergy are ever to
exert any influence on the Raskol. The lives of the parish
priests, their drunkenness, avarice and servility to Govern
ment, in themselves constituted a mighty stumbling-block.
Nor have the public debates which Raskol teachers have been
-compelled to hold with orthodox missionaries borne fruit. As
often as not they ended in the ridiculous discomfiture of the
spokesmen of orthodoxy, and only served to inflame religious
passions. In many cases the paid missionary of the Holy
Synod ended by invoking the aid of the police and he was
everywhere regarded as a spy in the service of the State. If the
missionaries had been real students of the Raskol, they could
have spent their time better, says Palmieri, in combating the
Raskol in periodicals. Nor were the orthodox schoolmasters
appointed in Raskol districts ideals of Christian virtue; the
net result was that Raskol youth subjected to their teaching
shewed little inclination to profit by it.
The orthodox press has ever been prone to resort to calumny
and talk of the moral decadence of the Raskol; but the facts
in this field belie the reports of the missionaries. A mother of a
family who noticed the change wrought in her husband from
the first moment he began to frequent Raskol meetings, in
particular that he gave up drink, became herself an apostle of
the doctrines that had regenerated the domestic hearth.1
1 Kalnev in Mission. Obozrenie, 1906, t. ii, p. 62, foil.
Liprandi, though as we saw above, a persecutor, acknowl
edges the virtues of the Raskolniks in his "Short Sketch of the
Raskol" (1853) as follows: "Russian people delight to listen
to stories and in particular to readings of Scripture. The
Raskol are more literary than the Orthodox and make the most
of the case. They are ever ready to tender their services to a
village neighbour, and by reading the Gospel and other religi
ous books and interpreting them to them, insensibly win them
over. The Orthodox envy the affluence of their Raskol neigh
bours. They do not reflect that they never spend a farthing at
the grog shop, that they keep sober and work hard every day.
The Raskolnik wife when she goes to town wastes no money on
ribbons, whereas the Orthodox one purchases all she sees when
she goes there or visits her friends, goes to weddings, baptisms
or church, all of which the Raskolnik finds superfluous. The
Orthodox person without reflecting sets all this down to the
superiority of the Raskol religion and nolens volens is predis
posed in favour of it, all the more so because, in case she does
join it, she finds herself actually able to better her position."
We have seen how impossible it is to calculate its numerical
strength. We can only guess at it. But whatever its real
figures may be they do not represent the limits of its influence,
for several reasons. Millions of peasants, nominally Orthodox,
look up, we saw, to their Raskolnik neighbours as champions
of the true ancient faith of Russia and secretly condemn
themselves as backsliders. This popular reverence for the
dissenters is enhanced by their superior standard of morality
and of education and by the wealth which accompanies these.
To their eminent sobriety I have already cited the testimony
of several writers. I add two more such tributes. The first
is from a well-informed Russian who published anonymously
a work on them entitled Le Raskol in Paris in 1859. He is
hostile to them, yet he writes thus (p. 99) :
"In general you meet to-day with more morality in the
masses of the people than you do in certain exalted circles of
Russian society. Among the Schismatics the Popovtsy, the
most (?) numerous, often practise virtues unknown to those
who are loyal to the State Church. Even among the Bezpo
THE RASKOL 253
povtsy, whose doctrines deliver man wholly to the caprice of
his passions, it is not rare to behold regularity of manners result
from the very cause which ought to ruin and degrade them.
Thus among them marriage is in principle only a temporary
union, and its duration depends on that of the mutual affection
of the parties. And yet these unions seemingly so fragile are
often solid, and offer remarkable examples of conjugal concord
and peace. Husband and wife, being in love, avoid mutual
provocation, fear to alienate each other's goodwill, make
allowance for one another's faults, and live in the most exem
plary manner."
M. Volkov in his Lettres de VEtranger is equally loud in praise
of the purity of life he witnessed among these sectaries when he
lived among them. "In general, he says, they are also less
ignorant than the adherents of the Orthodox Church. Most of
them can read and write, but they read only the Scriptures,
being of opinion that the human intelligence needs no other
reading." Elsewhere he writes (p. 122): "If the Raskol
reject the official religion, it is because the priests are servants
of an administration which oppresses them, which claims to
enslave their consciences, which despising the most sacred rights
of the individual violates his domicile, tears from him the
symbols of his faith, his venerated images, mute witnesses of
his religious transports, snatches them from him on the sole
ground that they do not conform to the orthodox model. If
then the Russian people has affirmed its liberty of conscience
until to-day, it has done so in the way of religious opposition.
With them the activity of the free spirit has never manifested
itself through abstract writings, but in and through an unin
terrupted series of religious sects . . . Every day the people's
protest against the fetters fastened on the conscience becomes
more patent and general . . . Since Peter the Great's brusque
reforms, beneficial as they were in some respects, the leaven of
revolt has been fermenting in the masses of the people. His
reforms have ever figured in popular imagination as an attack
on their traditions, their ways of life, as a vague and undefined
aggravation of their state of servitude . . . They submitted to
these reforms, but never acquiesced in them. They took
refuge in a tacit and passive resistance which endures to-day.
The German and bureaucratic civilization these reforms
imposed on the peasant annoys, wearies, stifles him. It is as
if a cloud of government employe's had alighted on a con
quered land and were exploiting it."
Let us remember that the above was written before the serf
was emancipated. Can we doubt that he found in religion a
freedom of the soul and conscience, a spiritual antidote and
anodyne of the slavery to which the Proprietor and the State
subjected his person?
The Publications of the Raskol in Modern Times

Owing to the censorship Raskol writers were seldom able to
print anything, but their works circulated in manuscript.
Similarly when I was in Tiflis twenty-five years ago I was
surprised to hear how many works of Tolstoy and other religi
ous authors were circulating in copies all written out by hand.
The Raskol were able, however, to print books in Austria and
it was there that Uzov, to whom I am so much indebted, pub
lished his important work: Tserkov Khristova vremenno bez
episkopa " The Church of Christ temporarily without a bishop."
In Prussia and Rumania the Raskolniks also had presses and,
as we saw above, Kelsiev's monumental work was published in
London by Trubner as early as 1870. In 1878 the Staroo-
bryadets or "Old Ritualist" appeared in Austria and ran for
eight years, the regular organ of the Raskol, circulating far
and wide, but in secret, in Russia. A similar journal, the Slow
Pravdy began to be published in 1896 at Braila in Rumania,
but the Russian police got hold of the editor the following year
and he went to prison. In 1905 at Klimutz in Bukovina was
begun the Staroobriadcheski Vestnik or Messenger of the Old
Ritualists, which boldly took the line that, if the Russian-
Orthodox Church desired any reconciliation with the Dissi
dents, it must unsay and undo the last two hundred and fifty
years of its history. In January, 1906 for the first time they
were allowed to print their books in Russia, and a monthly
was begun at Nizhni Novgorod called Staroobriadets, in the
THE RASKOL 255
supplements of which have appeared many old monuments of
the movement, e.g. the Diakonovskie Otviety or "Responses of a
Deacon," written by the Deacon Alexander of that city, who
was burned at the stake in 1720; also the Vinograd rossiiskii of
Simeon Denisov, a collection of lives of leading Raskolniks.
The Moscow Narodnaya Gazeta or " PopularGazette " published
twice a week a supplement called the Golos Staroobryadtsa, a
chronicle of the Old believers, and once a month appears the
Isbornik, a splendidly illustrated supplement dedicated to the
history of the sect, and of much value. The Molokani, since
1905 have issued a monthly at Tiflis called Dukhovnyi Khris-
tianin or "Spiritual Christian."
"The influence among the Raskol," writes an orthodox pub
licist Vishnyakov,1 "of monks and nuns is still very great,
and is seen not so much in their asceticism, as in other points
in which they excel, in their literary aptitudes, their books,
their book-trade, their educational system, etc. All this
requires spare time, which the lying ascetics procure at the
expense of the village commune." In the great annual fair of
Nizhni Novgorod the manuscripts etc. for church use of Raskol
monks and nuns are remarkable.
Palmieri gives a striking summary of the teaching inculcated
in the Old Believing journals, especially in the Staroobryadets.
Politically they stand for respect of all nationalities and all
religions; they support the constitutionalist party, urge eco
nomic reforms, work hard to settle the quarrel between capital
and labour and to improve the conditions of the proletariat.
The Church, say the Dissenters, must undertake all these
problems. It is not an infallible clergy, but consists of the
whole people freely choosing its priests and supervising its own
ecclesiastical affairs. The supreme government of the Church
is not vested in any monarch but in councils. In Russia they
say there is no fear of clericalism among the adherents of the
Raskol ; for that is only possible where the church is not sepa
rate from the state, or is hampered in its life by conventions
and concordats. Freed from the support, political and material,
of the State, the Church becomes once again the free society of
1 Nevtkii Sbornik, 1867, p. 91.
25* RUSSIAN DISSENTERS
the faithful, a Christian brotherhood, a body whose mission is
always spiritual and whose influence is propagated in souls by
means of persuasion and charity. For this principle of liberty
and independence the Old believers have undergone martyr
dom for two centuries and a half. In their political program
also figures the abolition of death and life sentences, as a bar
barous custom contrary to divine laws. On the intellectual
and moral side they would educate the people, and they combat
drunkenness and the use of tobacco, as diabolical inventions
for the destruction of mankind.
In religious matters they do not conceal their hostility
towards the official Church, which they blame for the com
plete divorce there is in Russia between pastors and people.
The orthodox clergy, enslaved by Government, never raise
their voice to defend the rights of the Church. The latter
should stand above political factions and limit its action to the
field of morals. The orthodox clergy are devoured with avar
ice. In peasant families children are left seven or eight months
unbaptized, because the parents have no money to pay the
pope the sum asked for the sacrament. Parents often live in
concubinage, because the popes demand fifteen, twenty or
twenty-five roubles before they will bless their unions. Often
a corpse remains for days unburied because the pope asks five
roubles before he will inter it in the cemetery.
The official Church in Russia is dead, exhausted, under the
thumb of lay bureaucrats, subject to the Powers of the world,
vending the heritage of Christ for a morsel of bread, with no
faculty of self-reform from within, and without the aid of the
Government. In its relations with the police you behold it
sacrifice sincerity and authority and enslave itself to Babylon.
Russian orthodox Christianity is wholly official, a mystic
Byzantinism barely to be distinguished from pagan formalism.
The Russian clergy preach to the people the indissoluble union
of autocracy, orthodoxy and nationality, and deny the form of
government to be a thing both human and mutable. This is
why the clergy has made itself hated of an oppressed people
and has pardoned all and every act of violence. The Church
has really transformed itself into a political institution, and its
THE RASKOL 257
pastors, mere employis of the Government, by their conduct
sow incredulity and atheism and slay faith in the people's
heart. The faithful perceive that the religious life of Ortho
doxy is reduced to a legalistic formalism, a mechanical asceti
cism, that the Russian Church is no longer a society consciously
bound up in itself by a spirit of love and brotherhood; they
know that hierocratic despotism takes for its device the
formula: "I am the Church, the Church is I," and intolerant
of such oppression they abandon the temple.
To remedy such a condition of petrifaction and putrifaction
the organs of the Old believers propose a series of measures
that would restore to the Russian Church its primitive and
pristine splendour; they insist on decentralization, the institu
tion of Councils, the suppression of the system which puffs up
and aggrandizes the orthodox clergy by loading them with
secular honours and medals, etc. But the ills which beset it are
no merely passing ones. Its entire framework is weakened by
the marasma which besets one who for long years languishes
among tombs. Like a parasitic organism it nourishes itself on
the living juices of the civil power alone, and its life will fade
away as soon as it is refused such diet or refuses it of its own
initiative.
In such criticism one catches the glow in the sky which
heralded the dawn of the Russian Revolution. Quod felix
faustum sit.
William Palmer writing in 1871 the preface to his Replies of
the humble Nicon, p. xxiv, penned the following remarkable
words:
" It is possible, too, to imagine such changes in the world
at large, as might make it the policy of the Russian govern
ment to return towards faith and piety.
"Supposing that before long, the Turkish empire should
come to its end, without Syria falling under the exclusive
dominion or protection of Russia, and that the Jewish nation
ality reappearing in Palestine, a part of that nationality should,
from Infidel become Christian, just as now a part of the Italian
nationality have, from Christians and Catholics, become as
infidel Jews. Suppose then that, within a century, St. Peter,
in his successor, should go away from the Italians, become Jews
at Rome, to the Jews become Christians at Jerusalem; a sup
position which, after the experience at Avignon, cannot be
rejected as absolutely impossible.
Suppose too that, in spite of great social changes, such as the
cessation of all coercion in matters of belief or unbelief, and of
the former union of church and state, there should still exist in
Russia a government leaning rather on the orderly and religious,
than on the anarchical and irreligious part of the nation, when
the pole of Christianity is shifted from the West to the East,
'the time of the Gentiles' and of the desolation of the Holy
Land being fulfilled. Under such circumstances it might
perhaps be as much the interest and policy of a Russian emperor
to heal the Greek schism, as it was before the interest and
policy of the Turkish Sultans directly, and of the Russian
sovereigns indirectly, to maintain and perpetuate it."
So much of this curious forecast has lately come true that it
is not, we hope, impossible that someday the Christianity of
the West, duly purged, may link up with an equally purged
Christianity of the East. But is it impossible that it will be,
not, as Palmer imagines, the orthodox of the two hemispheres,
but the heretics and dissenters who will point the way and
by their example shame formalists into true charity?
Part II
THE RATIONALIST SECTS OF SOUTH RUSSIA
INTRODUCTION
The three sects which I have next to describe are as char
acteristically Little Russian in their origin and provenance as
the Raskolniks are Great Russian. They are those which
Russian publicists have agreed to call Rationalists1 or Mystics.
It is somewhat of a misnomer, but it calls attention to the fact
that they are the outcome, not of reverence for the traditions
and ritual of the Great Churches, but of inward illumination;
of the spirit that quickens rather than of the letter which
killeth. They are Montanist rather than Catholic in tone and
tendency, and, if in the Early Church there was, as in old
Israel, an antithesis between prophet and priest, so in these
sects prophecy is first, priesthood second; they are a protest
against the latent tendency in human nature for the seer to
develop into a formularist. I shall begin with the twin sects
of Dukhobortsy and Molokanye, both indefinably ancient and
branches of one and the same stem and pass on to the Stundites,
in whom German influence is more visible.
The origin of these 'heretical' sects of Russia is obscure; it is
probable however, that the Dukhobortsy and Molokanye, as well
as the Khlysty, antedate the Old believers by many generations.
The Intelligentsia of Russia, when they first became aware of
these 'protestant heretics' in their midst, jumped at the con
clusion that they were, like themselves, an importation, from
the West. They had already made the mistake of regarding
the Raskol as a party of religious stagnation, a litter of igno
rance and obscurantism, of blind adherence to the letter, of
petrified superstition, of routine and respect for an outworn
past. Ever since the reign of Peter I, who first encouraged
1 Ivanovski like other Russian publicists means by rationalism rejection of
ecclesiastical authority, a "protestant" claim to think out one's creed and inter
pret Scripture without the aid of a priest. To his mind also the Raskolniki whom
we have so far dealt with are only, like the Latins, schismatics; the sects we now
approach, like the churches of the west that have broken with Rome, are heretics.
On the whole, we shall see, his charge of rationalistic interpretation of the Scrip
ture means no more than that these sects try to take the Gospel in the sense in
which it was meant to be read.
261
them, these ' superior ' people of Russia have imagined that they
alone tread the path of progress. They derived their illumina
tion and infidelity from the West; was it possible that sects
which rebelled against the yoke of Orthodoxy with less cere
mony even than the Old believers should draw their inspiration
from any other quarter? Accordingly this explanation was
taken on trust and unexamined, found to be not only credible,
but a compliment to the Genius of the Russian people. Yet it
ignored the leading characteristic of these sects, which was that
their revolt was rather moral than intellectual, of the heart
rather than of the head. Their cry was ' Back to Christ,' and
away from a Church which, affecting to believe the Gospel to
be a Divine Message, has ever since the nominal conversion
under Constantine of the Roman Empire, ostentatiously set it
aside. True Christian piety, they contended passed under
ground in the fourth century to emerge afresh in the bosom of
their own and similar congregations.
They were not far wrong. And the remarkable thing in
Russia is that this movement back to Christ has ever been an
indigenous impulse, a direct result of putting the New Testa
ment in the hands of Russian peasants, the spontaneous echo
which the book awoke in an anima naturaliter Christiana. With
them there is not even the antecedent provocation to become
Christians which there was in the case of the Raskol. The
latter was in origin a protest on the part of a few who saw their
ancestral customs and convictions assailed, not by Poles or
alien Latin influences, but by their own countrymen, whom
they expected to defend and champion them. Perhaps the
contest with Nikon took shape as a spiritual one and was fought
out with the weapons of controversy, because the numerical
insignificance of the Raskol and the deeply engrained, almost
instinctive, capacity of the Russian poor to endure violence
humbly and patiently at the hands of their own rulers rendered
it out of the question to employ the crude material methods of
resistance with which they had encountered Tartars and
Latins. The Raskol then was a reaction against violence, a
defence of old convictions doubled with local patriotism in
opposition to a civil authority as cruel as it was arrogant.
INTRODUCTION 263
Dukhoborism, Molokanism and Stundism on the other hand
savour more of pure conversion to simple Christianity. There
underlies these sects little except a conscience responsive to
the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. While admitting
all this, we can yet recognize that the first two of these move
ments exhibit certain traits which remind us of the Cathar or
Albigensian sects, and it is probable that the Bogomilism of
Bulgaria and of the Balkans, still vigorous in the crusading
epoch, was the germ out of which they developed. The foreign
elements they hold in suspension are anyhow more likely to have
entered Russia from Bulgaria than from Germany or even from
Armenia and Asia Minor where from the earliest centuries was
diffused a type of faith, the Paulician, closely related to Cathar-
ism, as I have pointed out in my edition of the Key of Truth,
the manual of the Armenian Paulicians.
Such elements must, like Byzantine orthodoxy, have pene
trated Muscovy across the Ukraine by way of Kiev. For
Little Russia was in close contact with Muscovy long before
Peter the Great broke his window into the Baltic Sea and paved
an open road along which the stately German influence could
advance. It has been noticed that the religious folk-songs of
Little Russia agree in presenting variants met with sporadi
cally in Bulgarian, Serbian, Czech, Moravian, Polish, even
German Hussite sources, and it would be an interesting study
to compare the Dukhobortsy hymns with those of the early
Anabaptists. If the above considerations be valid we must
regard this sect to some extent as a continuation on Russian
soil of the primitive semi-gnostic, perhaps Marcionite and
Pneumatic, Christianity of the first centuries. As it radiated
from Asia Minor through the Balkans to South Russia, so from
Rome it spread by way of Milan, Marseilles and Lyons through
out western Europe. Widely diffused in the west under the
crust of dominant Catholicism, it emerged into the light in the
great upheaval of the Reformation; latent equally among
the Slavs it came to the surface when the Raskol movement and
the so-called reforms of Peter the Great stirred Russia to
her depths.
But from whatever sources and by whatever means they
r ."
penetrated Russia, the Dukhobortsy emerged clearly into view
according to the historian Novitski (Kiev, 1832), about the
year 1785. They were then met with as an organized sect in
the village of Nikolski in the Ekaterinoslav Government, under
a teacher named Silvan (Siluyan) Kolesnikov. There they
attracted the attention of the local bishop Ambrose, who is
said first to have stigmatized them as a sect of Pneumato-
machi that "fought against the Holy Spirit." The sectaries
interpreted the title to mean that the Spirit fought in them.
The people at first called them Ikon-wrestlers, because they
rejected ikons.
Dukhoborism demanded of its adherents so lofty an ethical
level that it spread little before it accommodated itself in the
form of Molokanism to the mentality of Russian peasants.
Even so transformed, its propaganda only began on a great
scale about the year 1860. It must to-day count its adherents
by millions.
Stundism is the only one of the trio which can even in part be
identified with a German evangelicalism or methodism, trans
ported on to Russian soil. It probably owes more to Molo
kanism. If its adherents claim a Teutonic origin they do so,
because as such they acquire a title to toleration not accorded
to sects of purely Russian origin. They allied themselves in the
closing years of the last century with the Molokanye of the Don,
and the difference between them and any form of Lutheranism
has constantly increased. That German settlers in Russia for
years rarely talked any but their own language, in itself mili
tates against the facile hypothesis of a purely German origin
for this or other Russian sects. German missionaries no doubt
furnished the Stundist impulse, but it is mainly a product of the
Russian religious genius.
Ivanovski, overprone to shallow explanations of religious
facts, exaggerates German influence among his countrymen,
and is inclined to date the rise of these three sects in the reign
of Peter the Great, because that monarch allowed Russian
translations to be made of the Latin, Lutheran and Calvinist
catechisms; and he makes much of the fact that a Russian of
Moscow named Dmitri Tveritinov, anathematized by the
INTRODUCTION 265
clergy for heresy and imprisoned in a monastery one of his
followers was burned alive had studied medicine among
Germans and imbibed protestant ideas in doing so. He found
fault with the ridiculously severe fasts of the Orthodox Church,
rejected the veneration of relics and ikons, denied tradition and
authority. He even went the length of saying: "I am the
Church myself." He seems also to have expressed himself
boldly in public, advocated freedom of speech and distributed
hand written tracts setting forth his tenets. In his own
chamber he hung up in the corner not an ikon, as Russians do,
but a placard inscribed with the first two commandments, and
his walls were adorned with various other texts. All this
brought down upon him the wrath of the metropolitan Stephan
Yavorski who assailed him in a book entitled "The Rock of
Faith," which however was not printed during Peter's reign
because it insulted the foreigners whose presence that monarch
valued and encouraged. When it was published after his death
in 1728, it provoked a counter-polemic from Theophan Proko-
povich who accused Yavorski of Latinizing and under Anna
Ioanovna the book was prohibited.
The annexation of Kiev and the Ukraine had more to do with
the spread in Great Russia of these sects; the facilities given
in 1701 to the merchants of Little Russia to travel with their
goods to Moscow and the opening of a Russian fair in Azov at
the mouth of the Don (captured by Peter in 1696 from the
Turks) were decisive factors. Peter's conquests along the
northern shores of the Euxine led to the diffusion throughout
Moscovy of ideas already fermenting in the Ukraine.
CHAPTER I
THE DUKHOBORTSY
I have availed myself of the following sources in my
description of the Dukhobortsy:
1. A description of them penned in 1805 by a friendly
observer and Englished by Vladimir Tchertkoff in 1897,
(The Brotherhood Publishing Co., London), from a text
printed just before in Russian Antiquity (Otetch. Drevn.). I
refer to this source as V. T.
2. An article on Russian Rationalists by E. P. in Vestnik
Evropy, 1831, Vol. 1, p. 650, foll. and Vol. 4, p. 272.
3. Uzov's description of them. This is based on several
Russian sources, viz: i. Novitski's work upon them printed at
Kiev in 1832. To this I refer as N. The Dukhobortsy ac
cepted this work as a manual of their tenets. It was intended
as a criticism from an orthodox standpoint, but sinned by its
impartiality. ii. An article in the Orthodox Conversationalist
(Pravoslavnyi Sobesyednik) for 1858, pt. 3: referred to as P. S.
1858. iii. An article in the same journal for 1859, pt. I =
P. S. 1859. iv. An article in the Review (Obzor), 1878, No. 237.
v. An article signed A. F. in the National Records (Otechest
venniya Zapiski) for 1828, pt. 33 (= A. F.), and an article on
the Molokanye by Anna Filbert, 1870, No. 6. vi. Articles in
the Transactions of the Imperial Society of History and Antiquity:
by I. V. Lopukhin, 1864, bk. 4 and by the Archimandrite
Eugenius, for 1874, bk. 4. vii. An article by Shchapov in the
Dyelo, 1867, No. 10 (= Sh.).
4. Liprandi, Raskolniki, Peterb. 1872.
5. Ivanovski's description. He uses Nos. i, ii and vi of the
above list and also D. Varadinov's History of the Ministry of
Internal Affairs, Vol. viii (= D. V.). For the doctrine of the
Dukhobortsy he also used the Orthodox Conversationalist, 1859,
t. 1, the Studies (Trudy) of the Kiev Academy for 1875, pt. 1,
and the monumental volumes of Livanov, Raskolniki i Ostrozh-
niki. C. Hahn's volume Kaukasische Reise, Leipzig, 1896,
contains a chapter on the sect ( = C. H.)
267
RUSSIAN DISSENTERS
Of the works enumerated I begin with \Tadimir Tchertkoff
as the oldest of our sources; it is convenient to summarize it
apart from the rest and supplement it from them later on.
Y The Dukhobortsy suddenly appeared in the second half of
the XVIIIth Century, surprising all by their brusque repudia
tion of the ceremonies and ritual of the Russian Church. An
active persecution of them began in 1792 in Ekaterinoslav
where the Governor, Kohovsky, reported to the authorities
that "those infected with the movement merited no mercy,"
and were all the more dangerous because "of their exemplary
good conduct," because "they avoided drunkenness and idle
ness, gave themselves up to the welfare of their homes and led
a moral life." Their virtues were all the more odious because
they attracted the masses. As regards their relations to
Government he stated that they "paid their taxes regularly
and fulfilled their social duties, often even to excess, as com
pared with other peasants." The net result was that instead of
being left in peace they were victimized by every priest, police
agent or magistrate, hailed into court, knouted and sent to
prison, burnt alive or exiled as state offenders. They were
made to appear as "monsters and breakers of the general
peace." Notwithstanding, they carried their propaganda,
says Novitski, "with feverish seal all over the south of Russia,
and gained crowds of adherents in the Governments of Ekater
inoslav. Kharkov, Tambov and in the country of the Don
Cossacks. They shewed themselves in the Caucasus and over
ran Saratov, Voronezh. Kursk. They also penetrated to the
centre of Russia, to Moscow and Kaluga, and made their way
to the north, into Finland, the island of Esel and the Govern
ment of Archangel. Eastwards they reached Siberia as far as
Irkutsk and even Kamchatka. But wherever they went it
was not the rich but the poor and humble, the peasantry and
the workers that welcomed their teaching. The educated
knew them not and it was rare even for a merchant to join
them."
They won a respite from suffering, continues V. T.. in 1801,
when under the mild and peaceful reign of Alexander I, the
Senators Lcpckin and Xeiedinski were directed to report on
THE DUKHOBORTSY 269
them, and exhibited them to the Tsar in their true character.
Anxious in any case to isolate them, the Tsar allowed them to
emigrate to the so-called " Milky Waters" in the Taurid prov
ince near Melitopol, north of the Sea of Azov. In 1804 those
.who lived in Tambov and Ekaterinoslav were also allowed to
join their brethren in that settlement, where on one occasion
Alexander himself paid them a visit. They called themselves
Christians and nothing more, says V. T., knowing others as
'men of the world.' "Their origin was unknown even to
themselves, for being common people and illiterate, they had
no written history; nor had tradition preserved amongst them
any information upon the subject."
They held all externals, for example, images, the sign of the
cross, fasts, to be useless as a means to Salvation. The external
Church, by reason of true Christianity having lapsed, was
become a den of robbers. They were all that was left of the
one sacred, universal and Apostolic Church, which the Lord
at his advent assembled, consecrated and filled with gifts of the J\
Holy Ghost.
Their manner of meeting for prayer will be described later
in my chapter on the Molokanye; here I only note that the
author of 1805 describes them as singing psalms and explaining ffr- >
the word of God in their meetings "without books and from
memory alone." They had no priests and acknowledged as
such only Christ, uplifted above sinners and higher than the
heavens. j~~
Their cardinal tenet was mutual love. They had no private
property, and the goods of each were those of all. In their
settlement at Milky Waters they practised real communism,
had a common treasury, common flocks and herds, and in each
of their villages common granaries, from which each was sup
plied according to his needs. Their hospitality was great, and
from travellers they would accept no remuneration; but in
order to isolate them from the brethren they kept a special
lodging house in which also they entertained Government
officials and kept the common funds. Their compassion for all
they extended even to their animals, which they refrained from
killing as much as they could.
Respect of children for parents and of young for old was
inculcated, but not in a way to give the idea that those of the
older generation were anything more than the spiritual equals
of the younger. No one was punished except by such admoni
tion as the Gospel allows. Those who wished to quit the
society were allowed to depart in peace, even if they were wives
of members, and permitted to take away with them such means
of life as they could carry. Deserters who had left the society
because of their evil propensities were readmitted if they
repented.
Every member plied his craft; some were traders, but the
great majority agriculturists. They had no rulers or elders
specially entrusted with authority by the community, for all
were equal; and in spite of there being no written rules and
regulations, there was no disorder. Three and even five fami
lies would live together in one large cottage. The father had
authority over his household and was responsible for the educa
tion of his children. If he died his authority passed to his
eldest surviving brother.
As soon as a child reached the age of understanding, he was
taught prayers and psalms and something of Scripture. These
they were encouraged to recite in the meetings. By such
methods the spirit and ways of thinking of the parents were
passed on to their children.
\Tadimir Tchertkoff gives seventeen of their tenets. All
of them are summed up in the precept to worship God in
Spirit and in Truth. They did not deny the Credo of the
Church and, indeed, used it as a psalm. The One and Ineffable
God is in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Through
our Memory we are one with the Father, through our Under
standing one with the Son, through our Will one with the Spirit;
and the three persons are separately symbolized as Light, life
and Peace. Thus every Doukhobor is the Trinity incarnate.
They accepted the Gospel story of Jesus, but insisted that
his spiritual experiences must be re-enacted in each of us. He
must be begotten, born, grow up. suffer, (he. revive and ascend
into heaven in each of us. In a word each of us has to become
Christ. That is what is meant by Salvation, second birth and
THE DUKHOBORTSY 271
renewal. Jesus himself was and is the eternal living Gospel,

the Word to be written in our hearts. They rejected the
Orthodox dogma of the Incarnation, for according to N. they
said: "The divinity of Jesus Christ our Saviour, as shewn in
the Old Testament was nothing but wisdom revealed in nature,
but in the New Testament he was the spirit of Piety, Purity,
etc. incarnate. He is the Son of God; but in the same sense in
which we also are sons of God. Our elders know even more
than Christ did; go and hear them." Of miracles they said:
"We believe that he performed miracles; we ourselves were
dead in sin, blind and deaf, and he has raised us up, pardoned
our sins, and given us his commandments; but of bodily
miracles we know nothing. For our salvation, it is not essen
tial to have an external knowledge of Jesus Christ; for there
is the inward word which reveals him in the depth of our souls."
A reader of Dollinger's Sectengeschichte recognizes here the
mysticism of the medieval Cathars. Leroy Beaulieu is sur
prized that ignorant peasants should interpret Christian
mysteries "in a manner analogous to that of Hegelians." If
it was Hegelian, then St. Paul was Hegelian from the first, and
after him the Cathars and Paulicians.
Mere invocation of God cannot save us, unless we are pure
in heart. Faith in Christ is necessary indeed, but implies
corresponding works. The Dukhobortsy know no monstrous
antithesis between the two.
Like the Molokanye they reject water baptism; a man is
baptized in that he repents with a pure and willing heart, and
calls upon God. "An adult," writes N. "baptizes himself
with the word of truth, and is then baptized, indeed, by the
true priest, Christ, with spirit and with fire." Then his sins
are remitted, and he turns away from the world. New birth
and baptism are one and the same spiritual process. It unites
us and reconciles us with God, lends us spiritual eyes to see him
with. They ask forgiveness of God for their sios, but confess
them before the brethren, asking their forgiveness also. But
they do not encourage men to parade and boast of their sins out
of sham meekness. Their only form of Communion is forgive
ness of sins and inward acceptance of God's Word; bread and
wine, entering the mouth like common food, avail not the souL
Nor is it true fasting to abstain from certain foods, but to
abstain from gluttony and other vices, to practise purity,
meekness and humility. "True confession," writes N. "is
heartfelt contrition before God, though we may also confess our
sins one to another when occasion presents itself. The external
sacraments of the Church are offensive to God, for Christ,
desires not signs but realities; the real communion comes by
the word, by thought and by faith."
The Saints they do not invoke, though they try to imitate
them. Rejecting sacraments, they cannot recognize marriage
as such. It is enough if the young people consent and promise
to live together. The parents allow mutual love and attrac
tion to dictate the union, and no preference is given to wealth
or rank. Some abstain from marriage for the sake of purity,
and such abstinence is regarded as a lofty virtue.
The dead they commemorate by good deeds, not otherwise;
for they hold that they are safe in God's hands and that he will
remember the righteous in his kingdom. Therefore they do
not pray for those who, in their phrase, have not died, but are
only changed. But their idea of heaven is no vulgar one.
The Kingdom is in man's own will; Heaven, like Hell, lies in
his soul; and righteous souls are in the hands of God. There
is no more a material Hell than a material Heaven. The Duk-
hobors of Tambov in the 18th century, when asked at the
Alexander Nevski convent to define the heavens, answered that
they are seven, humility, sobriety, abstemiousness, clemency,
good counsel and charity. The wicked after death merely
walk in the darkness, expecting soon to perish, and Hell con
sists in evil feeling and ill will. After death there is no re
pentance, but each man is judged according to his deeds, an
unusually harsh tenet to be held by such gentle people.
But Salvation is not confined to members of their sect. It
depends on conduct, and all who imitated Jesus in all ages or
countries, knowingly or not, have been saved. " The Church,"
writes N. "is a society selected by God himself. It is invisible
and is scattered over the whole world: it is not marked exter
nally by any common creed. Not Christians only, but Jews,
THE DUKHOBORTSY 273
Mohammedans and others may be members of it, if only they
harken to the inward word. The scriptures must be under
stood symbolically to represent things that are inward and
spiritual. It must all be understood to relate in a mystical
manner to the Christ within."
They are careful to keep their houses clean and tidy, and
adorn them with pictures of remarkable men or saints, but
they do not worship the pictures. The tract concludes with
two characteristic specimens of their prayers, imitated from the
Psalms. Such is our earliest account of this sect.
The tenets of the sect are written in no books, but, accord
ing to P. S. 1859, are contained in a tradition, handed down
from father to son, which they term the Living Book enshrined
in the memory and hearts of the faithful in contrast with the
Bible which is written in dead letters. The tradition includes
psalms, consisting partly of detached sentences selected both
from the Davidic psalms or from the rest of the Bible, and from
the prayers and sequences of the Orthodox Church; but in a
still higher proportion they are original compositions. The
mass of these devotional exercises, the vox viva of the Church,
is so large that no single man can remember them all. A
father usually teaches his children all he knows between the
ages of six and fifteen, and this curriculum they call baptism.
In the last quarter of the XVIIIth Century their chief teacher
was one Hilarion Pobirokhin, a rich wool merchant, of the
village of Goryel in Tambov. He enjoyed the reputation
among the people of being a well-read man, and is accused by
Ivanovski of having carried extravagance to the length of pro
claiming himself to be Son of God and future judge of the
world, and of surrounding himself with twelve disciples whom
he called archangels. A second set of them he called angels of
death. His bold propaganda attracted the attention of the
authorities and he was exiled to Siberia along with his family.
Another famous teacher in the same age was Sabellius
Kapustin, a retired corporal of the guard, supposed by many to
have been a son of Pobirokhin who had enlisted and subse
quently deserted. He was a man of great stature, handsome
and majestic in bearing, an eloquent and attractive speaker.
The story is that he knew the Bible by heart. He was the

object of such reverence that his followers when he went out of
his house kneeled before him and sought his blessing. We are
reminded of the veneration shewn in the Celtic Church to its
saints while they were still detained in the flesh.
Pobirokhin, according to P. S. 1858, taught that God has no
independent existence, but is immanent in the righteous; and
on the strength of this notion of the Divine Being he called
himself, qua righteous, a Son of God. Silvanus Kolesnikov,
according to N. held that "one believer must bow to another,
on the ground that we are the first fruits of God's creation, and
among all creatures in the world the living impress of his hand,
an image of God on earth." Thus, having no proper feast
days, they reckon that day a festival when one of the sect
visits another. Such guests they welcome and escort with
spiritual songs.
Thus, says the writer in the Obzor, they identify God and
man; for the two are indivisible and God is a Trinity of Mem
ory, Understanding and Will. Starting from this idea, says
the same writer, they reject the life beyond the tomb. They
join at death the 'Choir Invisible' which consists merely in
being remembered. The next life consists in the memories
which the deceased leave behind them. For them Paradise
and Hell exist not, and the former is lived here on earth. "The
living," they are fond of saying, "are helpmates of God."
It is not easy to reconcile this view with other sources, which
admit another life.
The sole difference for the righteous, writes P. S. 1859,
between this and a future life is that they will live alone, apart
from sinners; otherwise, birth, labour and death go on as now.
There will be no resurrection of the flesh, nay the very end of
the world can only be defined as an extinction of sinners; yet
the world does not end, but persists forever as we see it now.
The orthodox idea of there being another world than this is
false. There is no heaven apart from the earth; the world is
one, and the word heaven merely signifies the chosen race of
God in contrast with that of the Devil.
But these ideas, according to the same informant, are held
THE DUKHOBORTSY 275
in conjunction with a belief in the transmigration of souls.
Men's souls, they say, after severance from the flesh, migrate,
not into some other world, but into the bodies of other men;
and they are convinced that the migration takes place into the
other body when the latter is between the ages of six and fifteen,
that being the age at which the child is being imbued with the
Living Book.
The tradition of adoration, prayer and praise is thus con
ceived of as a spirit perpetually realizing itself or reborn in
successive generations of the young. This is a more subtle doc
trine of transmigration than that of the Cathars of the middle
ages. One asks oneself, however, whether the Dukhobortsy,
having inherited that teaching did not volatilize it in this man
ner. The Cathars also refused to distinguish between this
and the next life, and taught that Heaven and Hell are within
us here and now, so that we have not to wait for them.
In the Confession, for example, of a Cathar of Aix (Ax),
named Arnald Cicred charged with heresy in October 1321
(given in the Dokumente der Valdesier und Katharer of Ignatius
Dollinger, Miinchen 1890, p. 152), we read that "the heretic on
being asked whether the souls of bad men did not after death
drop into hell, answered that there was no hell apart from this
visible world, in which the said spirits by way of doing penance
migrate from body to body and from tunic to tunic. And, he
added, the world will not end until all the spirits created by
their Father have been incorporated in the bodies of men and
women of their own (i.e. Cathar) faith, in which they will be
saved and return to the Heavenly Father."
In the Confessio Johannis Maurini of Mte. Alio in the same
collection (p. 188) we have a summary of the tenets of a famous
Cathar leader, Guilielmus Belibasta. He taught that "true
rebirth consists not in the baptism of the heretics, but in that
of his own sect. He held that a man's soul on quitting one
body, enters another, and so passes from body to body until it
reaches one in which it is converted to the sect and in that
manner saved. The world will never end until all the erring
souls are gathered up again and converted to Catharism.
That done the world will come to an end, and after that sun
and moon and light will not go on any more." Such was the
teaching of Belibasta.
The parallelism between these passages which could be
multiplied and the tenets of the Dukhobortsy is striking, and
cannot be accidental; especially if we take account of other
features which they shared with the Cathars, e.g., the honour
in which those are held who eschew matrimony; the rejection
of baptism and the eucharist, of the sign of the cross, of relics;
the conviction that the faithful are so many Christs or incarna
tions of Christ, by reason of which they ceremonially bow one to
another when they meet to worship; their zeal not to slay even
an animal; their exaltation of the Holy Spirit above Scripture,
perhaps akin to the Marcionite and Cathar rejection of the 0. T.
Read, for instance, in the same collection of Dollinger's the fol
lowing from the Acts of the inquisition of Carcassone into the
Albigois, (p. 4) :
Item nullo modo occidunt aliquod animal nee volatile, quia
dicunt et credunt quod in animalibus brutis et in avibus sunt
spiritus illi, qui recedunt de corporibus hominum, quando non
sunt recepti ad sectam nee ordinem suum et quod transeunt de
uno corpore in aliud corpus. Item non tangunt aliquam mulie-
rem . . . Item docent credentes quod exhibeant eis reverentiam,
quam vocant melioramentum, nos autem vocamus adorationem,
flectendo genua et inclinando se profunde coram ipsis super
aliquam bancam et usque ad terram, junctis manibus, tribus
vicibus inclinando et surgendo et dicendo qualibet vice: bene-
dicite, et in fine concludendo: boni Christiani benedictionem
Dei et vestram, orate Deum pro nobis, etc.
In addition to these ideas and practices among the Cathars,
we also meet with the same argument against the Eucharist
which the Molokanye use, as we shall see below.
Item quod (hostia) mittitur in latrinam ventris et per turpis-
simum locum, quae non possent fieri, si esset ibi Deus.
To meet this objection, as is well kuown, the Church holds
that the consecrated morsel ceases to be the body of God as
soon as it passes the gullet.
Von Haxthausen in 'The Russian Empire' (English transla
tion, London, 1856, i, 289) has left us an interesting account oi
THE DUKHOBORTSY 277
the doctrine of Kapustin: "The most interesting man of this
sect of whom we have any knowledge is J. Kapustin. I heard
much respecting him from the Mennonites (German) on the
Molotchnaya, his nearest neighbours. Complete obscurity
veils his birth, name and early life: when he began to dissemi
nate his views among the Molokanye, it caused a schism in their
body; and as about that time the majority of the Dukhobortsy
in the Government of Tambov emigrated to the Molotchnaya
Vody (Milky Waters), in the Government of Taurida, he and
his followers accompanied them and settled there."
Of his teaching he writes : "He attached peculiar importance
to the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which was
already known among them: he also taught that Christ is
born again in every believer; that God is in everyone; for when
the Word became flesh, it became this for all time, like every
thing divine, that is, man in the world; but each human soul,
at least as long as the created world exists, remains a distinct
individual. Now when God descended into the individuality
of Jesus as Christ, He sought out the purest and most perfect
man that ever existed, and so the soul of Jesus became the pur
est and most perfect of all human souls. God, since the time
when he first revealed himself in Jesus, has always remained
in the Human Race, and dwells and reveals himself in every
believer. But the individual soul of Jesus, where has it been?
By virtue of the law of the Transmigration of souls, it must
necessarily have animated another human body! Jesus him
self said, ' I am with you always even to the end of the world.'
Thus the soul of Jesus, favoured above all human souls by God,
had from generation to generation continually animated new
bodies; and by virtue of its higher qualities, and the peculiar
and absolute command of God, it had invariably retained a
remembrance of its previous condition. Every man, therefore,
in whom it resided knew that the soul of Jesus was in him. In
the first Centuries after Christ this was so universally acknowl
edged among believers that everyone recognized the new Jesus,
who was the guide and ruler of Christendom and decided all
disputes respecting the faith. The Jesus thus always reborn
again was called a Pope. False popes however soon obtained
possession of the throne of Jesus; but the true Jesus had only
retained a small band of believers about him, as he predicted
in the N. T. 'Many are called but few chosen.' These
believers are the Dukhobortsy, among whom Jesus constantly
dwells, his soul animating one of them. ' Thus Sylvan Kolesni-
kov at Nikolsk,' said Kapustin, ' whom many of the older among
you knew, was Jesus; but now as truly as heaven is above me,
and the earth under my feet, I am the true Jesus Christ your
Lord! Fall down therefore on your knees and worship me!'
And they all fell on their knees and worshipped him." These
later leaders of the sect seem to have appropriated to them
selves a doctrine of the Christhood of the believer which at an
earlier time envisaged all the faithful, or as the Cathars put it,
all the elect ones alike. It is to be regretted that Haxthausen
never published the fuller account of the Dissidents of Russia
which he promised in this work. He states that he had col
lected much material, and where he came into almost personal
contact with sects, as in the case of the Dukhobortsy, he would
have been reliable. Where he had not such an opportunity of
arriving at the truth, his narrative is fantastic, as in regard to
the self-immolators.
Another link between these two sects is the rejection of oaths.
Moreover the Molokanye, like the Cathars, deny that Jesus was
of real flesh and blood, and the Dukhobortsy come near to doing
the same. The conclusion imposes itself upon us that Pobi-
rokhin, Kapustin, Kolesnikov and the other heresiarchs, who
suddenly appeared in the South of Russia between 1750 and
1800 represented a genuine Cathar tradition, probably that
which in the middle ages in Bulgaria and among the Balkan
Slavs was known as Bogomilism.
The Dukhobor doctrine of the soul, of its fall and redemption,
resurrection and future life, as summarized by Ivanovski,
wears an equally Cathar complexion: "The human soul is the
image of God, a heavenly likeness. The Divine image consists
of memory, reason and will, i.e., of the very same elements of
which the Trinity consists. In a word man is the Trinity and
the Trinity is man. The soul already existed before the cre
ation of this visible world; then it was it fell. But it fell in
THE DUKHOBORTSY 279
spiritual wise, and because of its fall it was driven out into the
visible world, as into a prison, by way of punishment." "Our
bodies are cages restraining and confining our souls" writes N.
In Adam's story we only have an allegory of the fall. His sin
does not pass to his descendants, but each man has sinned for
himself. In point of fact the fall is going on now and here,
whenever man seeks not God's glory, but his own. The sin of
Adam, being only a manifestation of a past fall of the soul, is
not handed down to posterity; each of us sins or is saved by
himself.' There is no original sin."
In such teaching Ivanovski detects what he terms the char
acteristic dualism of the Khlysty; but in fact the Dukhobors
are no more dualist than other Christians, and we may fairly
connect them with the so-called Monarchian Bogomilism, which
also was not dualist, and which was known in medieval Italy
as the heresy of the Concorregio and Bagnolo. In any case
the teachings ascribed by Ivanovski to the Dukhobortsy
equally characterized the Cathars. Thus in Dollinger's collec
tion, p. 88, we have ascribed to the latter the belief that " Adam
and Eve were fashioned by God and placed in paradise to keep
his commandments, but because of their transgression they were
clad in bodies of clay and given over to death." And in gen
eral the Cathars, whether they regarded the Evil principle as
coeternal with the Good or Heavenly one or no, whether,
that is, they were dualists or monarchists agreed in this,
that human souls, created by God, enjoyed a pristine glory in
heaven, that they lost it by an act of rebellion or by succumb
ing to the temptations of the Evil One, and were by way of
punishment confined in tunics of flesh within the limits of the
visible world. That glory, they held, can only be recovered
by the gift of the Holy Spirit, a sacrament peculiar to the
Cathar Church and not shared by that diabolical counterfeit of
Antichrist, the so-called Catholic Church, which had centuries
before denied and apostatized from the true Christ.
Like the Molokanye, "the Dukhobortsy, on the strength of
the text : ' He made us kings and priests,' (Rev. 16) regard each
believer as a priest. To become a priest of the invisible Church
a man's own spontaneous act is not enough, nor even the assent
of his fellows. Still less need he be of any special calling or
class; no outward preparation of himself, no intellectual educa
tion, is indispensable. The true priest is he who receives a
call from above, he whom Jesus himself elects; and he may be
drawn from the ranks of the common people, may be one of the
priests of the external Church, or even one of the rulers of the
world. Christ, the unseen agent, prepares him by immediate
direct iUumination of his mind and heart. Accordingly, the
call, the election, nay the very preparation for and to priest
hood must needs be not external, but internal grace, within
us and not without." So writes Novitski, and adds this:
"Jesus Christ alone, the inner agent, is our true High priest
and Sanctifier, and therefore we need no outward clergy; in
whomsoever Christ himself works, he is his successor, and of
himself he becomes a priest."
As, moreover, the children of God are bound to worship him
in spirit and in truth, there is no call for external divine service,
and external sacraments produce no real effect upon men. We
have to understand and accept spirituality. Rites, whatever
their significance are not only superfluous, but often pernicious
so far forth as they are only dead tokens of the inward; too
often they bar our approach to God. "Ikons," says A- F.,
"are idols; Christian saints we may revere for their virtues,
but we must not pray to them. Facts should consist in avoid
ance of appetites and abstinence from excess."
Their conception of God, says P. S. 1859, as a being not self-
subsistent nor enjoying individual and independent existence,
but as continuing to be and residing conjointly and inseparably
in and with the race of the Elect, in such wise that without that
race He cannot reveal himself nor be glorified, this concep
tion is instilled into us out of an infinite condescension, so we
may call it, towards human personality. A. F. reports them
as saying: "There is a God, He is spirit. He is in us, tee are
God." And they explain (says P. S., 1859) their bowings of
one to another in their meetings by saying that "they are bow
ing to the inestimably precious living image of God, to man."
We need not stay to inquire how far the Dukhobortsy con
ception of God avoids the difficulties of nominalism and realism,
THE DUKHOBORTSY 281
and steers clear of the fallacy of an universal divorced from
particulars, the caput mortuum of theological abstraction. We
can only praise them for the morally wholesome concreteness
of their thinking. In religion it is a first step to a better life to
realize that God is or can be immanent in us as in Jesus. These
Russian sectaries take humanity seriously, and really endeavour
"to adjust their social relations to their fundamental concep
tion, to the truth that lies at the bottom of all Christian theol
ogy, even if few theologians know it, the truth that man is a
living image of God. They, more than most, recognize its
implication that all men are equal; they therefore ignore out
ward distinctions of man from man and hold that by nature all
are alike and equal, for all have fallen and all alike are exposed
to temptation. It follows that in the eye of a true bondsman
of the Lord there are no servants in all the world; the Christian
is servant in all and of all, in the sense in which Jesus Christ was.
We enjoy their help, but in such cases he that assists us is not
our servant but our brother and equal" (N.). Among the
Dukhobortsy, says the same writer, "children, instead of calling
their parents father and mother, give them the titles of elders;
and parents do not speak of their children as mine, but as ours.
The women term their husbands brothers, and men call their
wives sisters." "Imagine" (writes a tourist in the Obzor (1878,
No. 237), who had visited the sect not long before) "an old
man of eighty and a boy of ten calling one another by diminu
tives or pet names, like Stepa, Victorushka, Lusha, Dosha, etc.
Father, mother, wife, husband, brother, sister, children, all these
call one another, as we should say by their Christian names.
Only the tiny children call their mother nanny. At first you
have no idea of the degrees of kinship in which the members of
families stand to each other; for, as far as names go, and for a
stranger, it is all the same. When they meet they all salute
one another with exactly the same degree of deference and
respect, whether young or old, males or females. In virtue of
this equality, whatever is allowed to the men is allowed to
their women. On holidays, or better, in their leisure time, they
have just as much right to drink or smoke as their husbands and
brothers. "The freedom which characterizes the relations of
husband and wife as compared with the people who live around
them is occasionally carried to excess," says F., "and husbands
have been known to quit their wives and consort with other
women without the former shewing any jealousy and without
discredit attaching to the circumstance." But this is the
exception, not the rule.
"In their dealings with strangers," says N., "the Dukhc-
bortsy are courteous, though they do not bare their heads, unless
out of exceptional respect for someone or because they cannot
help it. In their society they recognize no superiors govern
ing and disposing thereof; their society is administered by
each and all."
By the same ideal of profound respect for the individual and
by consequence of entire equality for all they would like also
to regulate their attitude towards society at large and towards
the Government; but they realize how dangerous it might be
if they shouted such principles abroad, and therefore they shew
some hesitancy and circumspection in the matter. Whenever,
says Haxthausen, in his Studies of the Russian Empire, (p. 279),
conversation began to touch upon the lofty but dangerous
teachings of their sect, they began to talk ambiguously and
accumulate on my ears such high-flown and fantastic expres
sions as would have done credit to a sworn sophist well equipped
with dialectical arts.
Notwithstanding their reserve however, their sociological
views are more or less certain. Thus "they attribute royal
dignity to God alone," says D. And N. writes thus: " Silvanus
Kolesnikov taught that we ought to submit to authorities and
lords of this world, not only to those who are good and gentle,
but to the perverse, obey all in fact, even in evil courses,
under durance vile. But his adherents at Ekaterinoslav held a
somewhat different language. Human societies, they said, are
full of evil people, moved by faction and malignant passions.
A community of bad men could not stand, for they would
exterminate one another; for this reason the wise ones have set
up among themselves distinct authorities to curb the forces of
disorder. So far authorities are beneficent and ordained by
God himself on earth for the good of the children of the world.
THE DUKHOBORTSY 283
But the Lord said: " I am not of the world and mine are not of
it either" ; and worldly authorities are not needed for them that
are not of the world. The children of God (the Dukhobortsy)
themselves shun evil not from fear, but in order to be regener
ate. They try to live as Jesus Christ preached we should do.
He freed us as touching our wills from all human laws. He has
given us his Holy Spirit and created in us a new heart, leaving
us free to comply with all royal demands according to the
spirit and perform acts pleasing to God in the spirit without
any constraint."
"The Dukhobortsy of Tambov claimed to distinguish
between good and bad authorities and to differentiate their
origins. Kind and good rulers, they maintain, are from God,
the harsh and unkindly ones we know not whence. Those of
Melitopol do not discuss the origins, but roundly assert that
there ought to be no authorities on earth. You may have,
they argue, a sovereign set over reprobates, thieves and
brigands, in order to repress them, but not over good people.
Consequently, although they refrain from rebellion, they
make no wholehearted submission to established authorities.
If they submit to them, they do so in semblance only; while
inwardly and among themselves they regard all subordination,
and in particular the government of a monarch, as contrary to
their ideal. Even judicial courts are needless for sons of God.
What, they ask, does he want with law courts who never in all
his life dreamed of injuring another? If a man strike you on
one cheek, resist him not, but turn the other to him, and if a
man would rob you of cloak, withhold not your coat also.
They would observe the same pacific spirit even towards pub
lic enemies, for they look on war as unlawful, and appeal to the
Gospel precept to love your enemy (Mat. 5, 38-9). Oaths
equally are forbidden among them, and they refuse to take
them under any circumstances. Regarding war as wrong and
forbidden, they make it a rule not to carry weapons. For the
rest, if they do not pray for enemies, because each must pray
for himself, neither do they for their friends; that is one reason
why they pray neither for the Tsar nor for the authorities which
be."
At the present time, remarks Uzov writing in 1880, they
behave meekly and comply with all demands of Government;
though they still refuse to bear arms or make oath. As early
as 1817, so we learn from the collected regulations regarding
the Raskol (p. 75, bk. 3), a committee of ministers made a rule
to take members of the sect as recruits, but without forcing the
oath of allegiance on them; it was resolved to send them into a
special corps stationed in Grusia (Georgia). Later on, Janu
ary 8, 1820, the Government ' decided on the one hand not to
acquit members of the sect from any state obligations, on the
other not to force oaths upon them. This statute also applied
to the Molokanye, and as both these allied sects obstinately
refused to bear arms, it was further decided, according to L. P.
to allocate recruits from among them to sanitary work, hos
pitals and transport. But according to the same informant
the fanaticism of the Dukhobortsy was such that in the first
Turkish War those who were enrolled from Wologda threw
away their arms near Perekop. It is evident therefore that the
Russian Government did not adhere to its own statues.
In N. we meet with several examples of their obstinate but
passive resistance to Governmental tyranny; and as early as
Catharine II are reported several cases of the kind; also under
Paul I in 1799 they came into collision with the Civil Powers.
In Little Russia on that occasion they were accused of pro
claiming that such Powers are not wanted. On August 28
of that year, in consequence, it was resolved that all persons
convicted of the heresy should be banished for good to the
mines of Ekaterinburg. They were to be kept in chains and
put to heavy labour, "to the end that, since they reject the
authorities instituted on earth by divine sanction, they may be
made to feel and realize that there exist on earth Powers insti
tuted by God with a view to the firm defence of welldoers and
withal to the intimidation and punishment of evildoers like
themselves." The 'conscientious objectors' who actually
suffered under this edict were comparatively few, and so harsh
a sentence, continues the Russian writer of nearly a hundred
years ago, did not daunt their fellow heretics, and the next
1 Russian Mir, of Not. 5, 1876, art. on Raskoiniks in ike Army.
THE DUKHOBORTSY 285
year, 1800, the Governor of Novgorod made a fresh discovery
in the village of Chude of men who repudiated the Church and
refused to recognize either Emperor or authorities set up by
him. In the Government of Astrakhan in 1802 whole crowds
of Dukhobortsy invaded the market-places and openly began to
disseminate their heresy; when hailed before the local tribu
nals they refused not only to give up their errors, but even to
submit to or recognize the authorities. Very much the same
scenes occurred in Siberia in 1807. N. remarks that, in all
probability, it was only want of opportunity and means that
prevented the Dukhobortsy from re-enacting the horrible
mutinies and bloody disputes which characterized the rising
of the similar sect of Anabaptists in Westphalia; but, as Uzov
remarks, the subsequent fortunes of the sect are far from justi
fying this surmise. Shchapov in the Dyelo (1867, No. 10)
shews that in his time they were much less intent on quarrelling
with the authorities than on works of social reform and recon
struction and on creating a type of community at once just and
sensible. Their superior morale marked them out among the
surrounding population as ears of corn among tares. They
were equally distinguished by their comfortable circum
stances this being due to the aid they rendered to each other
in misfortune. In their teaching and conduct brotherly love
was inculcated above all other virtues, and charity and socia
bility characterized their mutual relations. They were as N.
attests, sober, hardworking and hospitable; their homes and
dress were ever clean and neat, and they gave themselves up
entirely to the cultivation of their fields and the tending of their
flocks. The only punishment known among them, says
Shchapov, was exclusion from the Society and it was reserved
for open and notorious offenders.
They excel the populations round them, he says, no less in
physical health than in morality; their women are known for
their superior stature and robust constitutions, and according
to F. excel in intelligence and beauty. This fact, remarks
Uzov, can only surprise observers who take account of what
they have suffered for their opinions; for no sooner are they
settled in one district than they are chased out of it into
another, into strange horizons where, broken and ruined by
enforced migration, they have to adapt themselves to new
conditions of the nature around them.
In the Caucasian settlements, whither Nicholas I relegated
rhwm in 1S41. they are environed by Armenians, Georgians,
Persians and other tribes. Here, says N., they cannot fulfil
what they deem to be their duty, the dissemination, namely of
their doctrine. Children of God as they are assured they are,
they have received God's behest to teach one another. Ser
vants of the Lord, they strive ever and punctually to discharge
their ,iebt to the poor and to give away to others, their talents,
H that they themselves received from on high, to each accord
ing to his several ability (Mt. 25, 15). But under the condi
tions, says Uzov, which prevailed in his day, they found it
(iiiScuIt to harmonize their efforts to build up their communi-
taee with the sacred duty of propaganda.
Fû: we must not suppose that the Dukhobortsy, because they
regard themselves as children of God are wanting in the large
charity which admits the salvation of those outside their fold.
There is no narrow sectarianism about them, as Ivanovski him
self attests when he writes as follows: "Their Church is the
gathering together of those whom God himself separates from
the people of the world. These elect ones are not distinguished
by any special symbols, not united in any special community,
with distinct doctrine and divine service. They are scattered
all over the world and belong to all confessions, not only to the
Christian, but also to the Jewish, whose adherents do not
recognize Christ."
In the spirit of a sectary he adds: "In the presence of such
UKufferentism it is difficult to believe they even constitute a
religious sect; while admitting in a large sense the elect of all
sorts of faiths into the number of the members of an invisible
Church everywhere diffused, in a narrower sense they under
stand by the word Church themselves in particular." And yet
he proceeds to set before us their ideal of a Church. "We are
the living temples of God, the altars, the throne of God. In us
the Hob/ Trinity is made flesh; the Dukhobor is at once priest
and sacrificer and sacrifice. The heart is altar, the will is
offering, the priest is the soul."
THE DUKHOBORTSY 287
It is now a hundred years ago, that in 1819, the English
Society of Friends sent a mission to Russia to acquaint them
selves with a society so akin to their own; its members were
shocked at the Dukhobor admission that they looked upon
Jesus in no other light than that of a good man, and therefore
had no confidence in him as a Saviour from sin. These good
Quakers expected to find ordinary evangelical orthodoxy, but
did not. Long afterwards the Friends, in 1895, rendered them
all the help they could in the persecutions which waxed ever
crueller. A good and clear account of this via dolorosa which
ended in the removal of several thousands of them to Canada
by the kind offices of the Quakers, can be read in vladimir
Tchertkoff's tract, Christian Martyrdom in Russia, London,
1897, in Aylmer Maude's A peculiar People, New York, 1904,
and in many other English publications. For the details of
these persecutions at the hands of the late Russian Govern
ment I refer my readers to these sources. Their later history,
especially in Canada, is adequately related by Mr. Maude, to
whom I owe many of my citations of N. I have been con
cerned mainly to recount the early history and tenets of so
remarkable a spiritual movement, perhaps more expressive of
the true soul of the Russian peasant than any other, with the
exception of Molokanism.
CHAPTER II
THE MOLOKANYE
The Evidence of their Confession of Faith

In Geneva in 1865 was printed in Russian a manual of this
Sect called "The Confession of Faith of the spiritual Christians
called Molokanye.' It is an account of the Sect by its own
members, and having been written in 1862 deserves to be sum
marized.
" Before we begin to set forth our confession of faith, we have
wished to refute certain false impressions that exist about us
and to clear ourselves of the baseless calumnies circulated
against us, chiefly by the Greco-Russian clergy."
" They tax us with being innovators, with having invented
some sort of new confession, and they even call us renegades
from Christianity."
" In justification of ourselves we answer that even if our faith
were a novelty, that can be no sufficient cause of reprehension;
for the excellence of a faith is measured not by its antiquity,
but by its truth. Christ's own teaching was not revealed prior
to all other creeds; it is new by comparison, for example, with
Chinese, Indian, Greek and many others, and yet no one hesi
tates to give it a preference over these, and the preference is
assigned not on the score of its antiquity, but because it is true
teaching."
" If anyone is to be accused of arbitrary innovations, it is not
us, but the Greco-Russian Church, since it has introduced many
alterations in Christ's teaching, whereas we strictly observe
holy writ; and when we abandoned that communion, far
from creating any new faith whatever for ourselves, we reverted
to the pure Christian doctrine, far older than that of the said
Church and what is capital truer, for it was from God
and consequently comprised in itself all truth."
" As regards our being renegades from the teaching of that
Church, or what is the same thing, as regards the revival in
289
Russia of true Christian worship, we have preserved among
us the following tradition. During the reign of Tsar Ivan
Vasilevich the Terrible, a certain English physician was called
to the court of Moscow; they regarded him in the capital,
such was the temper of the age and the savagery of the people,
as Antichrist, proclaiming him accursed and barring him out of
their houses and homes. Of his family there remains no trace
in tradition, but by some chance he had formed an acquaint
ance with a well known proprietor of Tambov who was then at
court. Enjoying his hospitality, and also finding him to be a
lover of holy Scripture, he conversed much with him about the
Bible, which was at that time in Russia a book forbidden to
anyone who was not a member of the higher clergy. This
proprietor had a favourite servant, a man of intelligence and
reflection, a certain Matthew Semenov, who grasped Biblical
truth more quickly than his master, and therefore without
delay conceived a contempt for the rites of the Greco-Russian
Church and for prostrations to ikons ; having procured a Slav
Bible, he began to instil into his neighbours the unadultered
truth about the worship of God in spirit and in truth. Now
in those times it was very dangerous, nay almost wholly impos
sible not only to utter, but even to conceive anything in opposi
tion of the Church. Consequently Matthew's abandonment
of it was no sooner noticed, in particular his refusal to prostrate
himself to ikons, than he was denounced to the ecclesiastical
authorities, and the unfortunate, but true worshipper of God
was sentenced to death and broken on the wheel."
" Some of the martyr's disciples, peasants of the aforesaid
proprietor, on their arrival at their birthplace in the Govern
ment of Tambov, began with the help of the Bible they had
brought with them quietly to propagate the worship of God
in spirit and in truth. A considerable number of people fol
lowed their teaching in different villages; but the teachers
themselves, such was the rigour and unbridled power of the
clergy in those days were quickly discovered, handed over
to the tribunals and cruelly knouted by the hangmen, after
which they were sent for ever to prison with hard labour."
" Their followers did not cease in secret to propagate their
THE MOLOKANYE 291
teaching; but the common people, failing to comprehend the
truth and sometimes surprising them when they were bowing
during their religious services to persons in their chambers,
took it into their heads that they were bowing to chinks, and
so nicknamed them the Chinkers. The clergy went to work
more inteUigently, and observing that during Lent, they always
partook of milk which is then forbidden, nicknamed them
Molokanye (from moloko milk)."
" The teaching was spread from the Tambov Government by
Semen Uklein to the Voronezh Government, to the Mikhail-
ovsky Cossack settlement on the Don and to the Saratov Gov
ernment, for which cause the adherents of the doctrine were in
these localities for a long time known as Semenovtsy; by Isaiah
Ivanov Krylov to the line of the Caucasus and across the Volga;
by Peter Dementev to the Governments of Nizhegorod and
Vladimir; by Moses the Dalmatian to that of Ryazan. Many
of their successors in these places were delated by the clergy
and haled before the courts, many of them punished and
exiled either to Siberia or the Caucasus or the Tauric Cherson
ese. By these martyrs for the truth, the true Christian doctrine
was diffused in those regions."
" Meanwhile some of its adherents conceived it to be super
fluous to read the Bible and determine Faith by what is written
in it ; they separated off from the Spiritual Christians or Molo
kanye, and formed a separate sect, who were known as Dukho-
bortsy. Others considered it best to fulfil the Mosaic law alone,
and they do not read the New Testament, and feast, not Sun
day, but the Sabbath, for which reason they were called Sab
batarians."
Here we pause, to ask what is the value of the account here
given by the Molokanye of their origin, and in particular of their
statement that a Matthew Semenov, servant of a proprietor of
Tambov, first sowed the seed from which they are sprung in
the reign of Ivan the Terrible. As we note below (p. 305) the
historian Kostomarov identifies him with a Matthew Semeno-
vitch Bashkin who in 1553-4 was tried and condemned by a
council of bishops in Moscow for heresy. Nicholas Kosto
marov, however, in his Historical Monographs, Petersburg, 1863,
p. 454, casts legitimate doubts on bis heresy. He relates the
trial from contemporary documents and shows that there was
nothing to mcriminate Bashkin save his own confession extorted
by fear and agony of the rack. He was accused of denying the
Church and its sacraments, because he taught that the Church
is the union of the Faithful and not a mere building of brick
and stone. But this is an orthodox opinion, though so often
put forward by Armenian Dissenters (See Key of Truth,
Introduction p. clxiv) and by European Cathars. He was
accused of slighting the Son and the Holy Spirit, because in
prison he wrote a prayer addressed to our Father in Heaven.
The same heresy attaches to the Lord's prayer. Also of deny
ing the Sacrament of penance, and yet what led to his trial was
the circumstance that he went to confess to a priest and dis
closed to him that he took the Sermon on the Mount as his rule
of life, had therefore emancipated his serfs, and held that other
slave owners ought to do the same.
It was no doubt such opinions as these that got him into
trouble, and they may have survived him. The Molokan
statement that the Church withheld the Scriptures from the
people and that Bashkin put them into their hands needs quali
fication. Copies even of the New Testament were in Russia
rare in that epoch and to be had in manuscript only. It
reminds one of the similar accusation, equally vain, brought by
Lutherans and Protestants against the Latin Church.
In the rest of their manifesto the Molokanye point out that in
their preaching they rely solely on the Bible, wherefore their
tenets are not vain imaginings and dreams, nor rightly esteemed
pernicious by the Government, whose action they attribute to
the ill will of the clergy which spares no calumnies in order to
blacken them and make out that they are enemies of public
order and tranquillity. They are specially accused of not
respecting the Tsar and the powers which be, of concealing
fugutives and of manufacturing false passports and money.
As to the last accusation they do not deny that in their ranks
may be found swindlers and wrongdoers, but they point out
that they are also met with in other confessions in as large a
proportion. But their religion, far from encouraging such
THE MOLOKANYE 293
forms of villainy, is based on Christ's teaching which condemns
all sorts of lying and deceit. They admit furthermore that in
the past when their brethren were exposed to persecution for
their steadfastness in the true faith, they concealed their
martyrs and put them out of danger; but they never hid crimi
nals and rogues, nor do so now. On the contrary they follow
the Apostle's precept (Peter ii, 13-14) and obey the Powers
which be. In matters of faith, however, they submit to the
Lord God alone. In particular they revere Alexander II as an
inspired monarch, sent from God to heal old wounds inflicted
formerly on the confessors of their faith and later on them
selves. The accession of this Tsar, they say, inaugurated a
new era for themselves and for all Russia. War was stopped,
and the peasants were emancipated from the yoke of a sinful
serfdom which contradicted the will of God who created all
men in his image and likeness, equals and brethren. Their
own families had been liberated from recruiting and formed
into a guild with provisional laws; their wives and children
were legitimized, where before they were held illegitimate ; by
the laws of 1858 they were freed from all interference on the
part of the Greco-Russian popes with their religion; finally
by the circular addressed to functionaries in 1861 they were no
longer prevented from sending their children to any schools
they liked. The while they hail these reforms with gratitude,
they yet complain that the Law subjects them to certain dis
abilities not inflicted on other subjects of the Tsar, and they
gave the following instances.
In common with all who do not belong to the orthodox
Church, they are subject to a statute of 1857, No. 82, to the
effect that all Judaizing sects, Skoptsy, Molokanye, Dukho-
bortsy and members also of the priestless Raskol, who neither
pray for the Tsar nor accept marriage, and are therefore to be
reckoned peculiarly noxious, are forbidden to receive into their
families under any pretext whatever persons of the orthodox
persuasion.
By Statute 83 they are forbidden on any pretext whatever to
have in their houses, fabrics or institutions orthodox persons
as servants or workmen; nor are Molokanye in their turn to
enter theirs. The police are charged to see to the carrying out
of this law and for violation of it to inflict the penalties laid
down in Statute 307, Ulozhenie. A note or gloss on this
Statute 83 excepts orthodox persons, original inhabitants of the
Trans-Caucasus, from its operation, and it is only Molokanye
who are forbidden to receive the orthodox Russian inhabitants,
to live with them or be their servants. By Statute 84 local
authorities, so far as possible, are to prevent Judaisers from
holding intercourse with the orthodox, and to that end are to
refuse to any infected with the heresy passports allowing them
to remove to other districts. This restriction applies equally
to Skoptsy.
In the circular of the Minister of the Interior of January 25,
1836, officials were warned not to grant passports to Molo
kanye lest they should change their places of residence ; and in
another of January 23, 1839, it was stated that "inasmuch as
certain Molokanye and Dukhobortsy of the Tauric Government
possessed lands, the Governor of Novorossiisk and the General
Governor of Bessarabia sought advice on the point wrhether
members of these sects could own land acquired by purchase
or otherwise. The matter was referred to the Emperor who
gave instructions: (1) that by a regulation issued January 17,
1836, it was laid down that Molokanye were not to have ortho
dox persons in their houses, etc., nor to be given passports;
(2) that, since passports are necessary for removal to any
distance exceeding 30 versts (a verst = a kilometer), in order to
impede the diffusion of noxious heresy, the adherents of these
two sects shall not be left in possession of lands situated more
than 30 versts from their residences, nor of any that lie in more
than one circumscription or Uyezd. Accordingly on February
17, 1839, officials of Governments in which these sectaries live
were secretly instructed to adopt the above rule as their guide
in future, but those already owning lands beyond the pre
scribed radius were to be left in possession."
In addition to the above the Molokanye complain that they
are not allowed to get members of other confessions to under
take military service as substitutes for themselves and so buy
themselves out.
THE MOLOKANYE 295
Such disabilities, they complain, prejudice them in their
professions and trades, and deprive them of opportunity to
earn an honest livelihood ; they serve no useful purpose and do
enormous harm to the Government by depriving it of the sup
port it should find in truth and justice and in equality of all
and each. Deprived of such support all its strength amounts
merely to a show of force, and by this very fact it becomes a
complete moral failure.
In conclusion they express their conviction that the Emperor
Alexander II is unaware of the disabilities here above enumer
ated; for a sovereign so entirely reasonable and devoted to
truth and justice, as his solicitude for the distribution of the
Bible as a 'table' book and for its translation into Russian
evidences him to be, would, they feel assured, remedy them the
moment they were brought to his notice. They particularly
express their approval of the new translation of the Bible into
modern Russian, in which the Pentateuch was already com
pleted.
This introduction is followed by an expost of Molokan doc
trine as it stood in 1862 entitled The True Christian Teaching
or a Confession of Faith of the Spiritual Christians, presented in
the form of a commentary on the Ten Commandments. It
begins with a prayer: "Instruct us, Thou who knowest all,
in our labour, to the end that we may in no wise tarnish before
men the eternal brightness of thy name. Help us, Almighty,
to teach the ignorant thy holy truth, that they may recognize
thy love and worship thee in spirit and in truth."
The commentary on the first commandment sets forth the
Divine attributes of Spirit, Truth, Freedom, Beauty, Goodness,
Love, Power, Life, etc. as revealed in all that is without or
within us, and especially in the human soul and in the Bible.
They then reject the traditional Trinitarian doctrine and
argue that the text Mt. xxviii, 19, is wrongly interpreted by the
Greco-Russian Church: "Father, Son and Holy Spirit are no
more than titles of God which mark the different angles or
aspects from or under which we contemplate him, without los
ing sight of his unity as Creator of ourselves and of the earth,
as Life and Spirit of the universe, as the True Spirit by which
he reveals himself to us." The relationship of God to his

creatures is exhibited in language which might be that of any
educated Anglican or Roman divine, and a section follows
directed against anthropolatry or the cult of saints and arguing
that Christ's own disciples, e.g., St. Paul and Barnabas at
Lystra, refused to be worshipped.
There follows a less commonplace section against baptism
with water. The true baptism consists of instruction in the
word of Gcd. Baptism, whether by immersion or aspersion, is a
fond thing vainly imagined in opposition to Christ's own prom
ise that, whereas John only baptized with water, his own faith
ful should after not many days be baptized with the Holy
Spirit (Acts i, 5), a promise fulfilled at Pentecost. They also
appeal to Lk. hi, 16 : ' He shall baptize you in the Spirit,' and in
Fire, and conclude that water baptism was only valid before
Christ's advent; that it was not an apostolic practice they
argue from Paul's declaration that Christ sent him not to bap
tize, and that in baptism we share his death. The passage
Rom. vi. 3-13 refers, not to baptism of the flesh but of the spirit.
In John iii, 5 the words born of water were not intended literally
and in Mt. xxviii, 19 the instruction to baptize etc., is epexe-
getic of the phrase 'make disciples of all nations.'
In this repudiation of water baptism the Molokanye agree
with the Dukhobortsy, and, like them, exhibit the ancient
tradition of Cathar and Marcionite Christianity.
Under the rubric of the second commandment the worship
of ikons is condemned. The contention of the Orthodox that
the faithful bows not to the ikon but to the saint depicted
therein, is met with the reply that God alone should be wor
shipped and that he cannot be represented in any picture.
They argue that the faithful really worship the particular ikon.
Else, why carry it about from church to church? Why ascribe
miracles to it? Why burn lamps before it? Why, if it be the
saint that is adored and not the wood, pretend that one image
fell from heaven and was not made with hands, whereas another
not? Why as a rule prefer the smoky greasy boards whereon
nothing is decipherable to those on which the saint's image is
new and fresh? Does not the most popular image of the Virgin
THE MOLOKANYE 297
depict her with three hands? Has not each village and city
its special idol? Was anyone ever deterred from sin by such
idol worship? Do not those who prostrate themselves before
them know that an idol cannot punish them for their iniquities?
They know not the true God who can, and worship a wooden
one who does inspire no fear. As for ikon's 'not made with
hands,' is God a man, first to forbid us to worship images and
then set to manufacturing them for our cult? Relics are
equally condemned. Old bones are no substitute as an object
of worship for Spirit. A man's spirit, not his flesh and bones,
is the image and likeness of God. No doubt that is the reason
why the Molokanye in worship bow to those among themselves
who are filled with the Spirit and are literally Christs. In
doing so they again adhere to the custom of the Cathars. To
this practice however there is no reference in this tract save in
the Introduction, wherein it is said that the vulgar, not under
standing the reason, nicknamed them Chinkers.
Interpreting the third commandment they forbid oaths;
and they inculcate observance of the fourth, insisting how
ever that in Christendom the holiness of the Sabbath has been
transferred to the Lord's Day. Following Mt. xii 1-13, they
insist on the necessity of good works on the Sabbath, that is on
Sunday, and regret the license, frivolities and drunkenness with
which the Orthodox violate the day. They admit as worthy
to be observed in addition to the Sunday the Dominical feasts
of Annunciation, Nativity, Purification, Baptism, Transfigura
tion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Descent of the Holy Spirit.
Other festivals they ignore, as being days consecrated to trivial
events of no special holiness. Good Friday they observe as a
Fast, eating nothing that day and only praying on it. They
hold a Fast day to be not one on which you stuff your belly
with fish and fungi, but one of complete abstention from food
of all kinds; the distinction between one diet and another was
only made by the Orthodox. All food was given by God and
one food is as good as another. In any case fasts in themselves
are valueless unless they are observed as an aid to the formation
of good character and to holiness of life.
In connection with the fifth commandment the duty of chil
dren to their parents is illustrated from many passages in the

Bible, and it is also urged that parents in their turn owe it to
their children to win their loving obedience and respect by
their solicitude and self-denial in behalf of them.
The reason of the sixth commandment is declared to be
that man is the image and likeness of God, wherefore murder is
a violation and diminution of the divine glory. Only God has a
right to kill. Men are all brethren in Christ and the brand of
Cain is on the brow of him that slays his brother. The Molo-
kan acceptance of the Old Testament necessitates a somewhat
tortuous interpretation of the Hebrew God's instructions to
his people to slay unoffending Amalekites and others whose
lands they coveted. But the expositor is quite sure that no
man has a right to say to his fellow : ' You must die, you deserve
death.' Nor can murder be justified by the plea: 'I slew him
to save my own life and property,' for Jesus forbade his disciples
to protect him by force of arms; still less is murder justifiable
on the ground that the murdered man was a foreigner or an
infidel. Even if it can be urged that Jehovah permitted the
Jews to slay their enemies, Jesus Christ anyhow bade us love
our enemies.
The Molokanye have ever been classed a dangerous sect by
the Russian Government, and that is perhaps the reason why
in their manifesto the Molokanye append to their commentary
on the seventh commandment a special disquisition upon mar
riage. It was ordained by God in the Garden, and it is an
union not of body with body so much as of soul with soul and
spirit with spirit, a fleshly union indeed for the multiplication
and increase of mankind, but also an association for mutual
aid and counsel and comfort. Divorce is forbidden except in
case of adultery; but second marriage after the death of one
of the parties is permissible. The prayers and lections of
Scripture with which the sect celebrates matrimony are given
in full. In these the bride and bridegroom pledge each other
to perpetual fidelity throughout life, and the parents on each
side must be present and give their blessing to the union before
God and the faithful meet to attest it. The prayers to heaven
and the angels to protect the newly-married couple and lead
THE MOLOKANYE 299
them in the path of peace, goodness and conjugal harmony are
not surpassed for simple eloquence and fervour by those of
any church. There is no crowning of the couple as in the
orthodox rite, which is declared to be unscriptural and invalid.
This is followed by a section repudiating the mutilators or
Skoptsy, who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of
heaven. Their interpretation of the text Mt. xix, 12 is rejected
and it is argued, as by orthodox exegetes in general, that it
should be interpreted allegorically and was intended to be so
interpreted, for otherwise both Christ and his Apostles must
have emasculated themselves, which they did not.
They condemn monkery mainly because of the drunken and
vicious and idle lives led by monks, and object to permanent
vows, though they admit the expediency of St. Paul's advice
that at times man and wife should keep apart for prayer and
religious meditation.
The comment on the eighth commandment consists wholly
of Scripture passages nor does the treatment of the last two
call for notice. The concluding section however of the tract
is devoted to the Church and is most characteristic. It begins
by insisting that it is the community of the faithful who accept
the teaching of Jesus and his Apostles, and appeals to such texts
as I Cor. iii, 16: "Know you not that ye are the temple of God
and the Spirit of God liveth in you," and I Cor. vi, 19: "Know
ye not that your members are a temple of the Holy Spirit dwel
ling within you, which ye have from God." Inspired with such
sentiments the Molokanye deny that any sanctity attaches to
buildings, altars, altar furniture, Antiminsia, ikons, relics and
the like." What connection, they ask, can there be between
a temple of God and idols? " For ye, the Apostle said (II Cor.
vi, 16), are a temple of the living God, as God hath declared
saying: I will dwell in them and will walk up and down in them,
and I will be their God and they shall be my people." Is not
the Russo-Greek Church teaching about the temple a destruc
tion of the temple of God? The founder and head of the
Church is Jesus Christ himself: "When two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in their midst."
(Mt. xviii 20). "And I will ask the Father, and he will give
you another Consoler and he shall abide with you for ever."
In this context Acts ii, 1,2, 4, is also cited along with Eph. v,
26-7; I Peter ii, 4-5; I Cor. xii, 12, 27; Eph. ii, 1&-22; I Cor.
iii, 11; Eph. iv, 4-6. Fortified with such texts they deny the
Greco-Russian or the Old Ritualists, or the Western Church
to be the true Church. These so-called Churches are in con
flict with the Teaching and have thus cut themselves off from
Christ.
From many passages of the New Testament, e.g., Hebrews
iv, 15; viii, 1 ; vii, 23-27; v, 4-6, it is argued that we can have
no High priest save Jesus Christ alone, and that it is vain for
the orthodox Churches to entitle men such. There is one
priest, who is our Lord.
The tract then describes the Molokan cult. It includes (1)
reading of Scripture with, occasionally, interpretation of it to
those who do not clearly comprehend its drift; (2) singing of
the Psalms and other canticles from Scripture; (3) Prayer,
answering to the precept laid down in Cor. iii, 16.
But it must not be supposed that theMolokanye dispense with
organization in their Church. On the contrary in each locality
to supervise their affairs and to lead their services they elect a
presbyter or bishop, that is a supervisor; for after the manner
of the eariiest Church they make no distinction between a
presbyter or elder and a bishop. Their bishop has two coadju
tors, who in case he is sick or absent, take his place. He is
chosen in accordance with the rules laid down in Tim. iii, 2-5.
They have no deacons. These, they say, were necessary in the
early Church for the keeping of good order. If they found
them essential to the extension of their Church, the Molokanye
would elect them, but so far they have found no use for them.
The duties of a bishop are those prescribed in I Peter v. 1-3.
He receives no salary as do the popes of the orthodox Church,
who exact payment from their faithful for every prayer they
repeat, forgetting that Jesus asked nothing when he suffered
and shed his blood in our behoof.
The Molokanye scrupulously disclaim any sacerdotalism.
Their presbyters or bishops are the equals only of the rest of
the congregation, according to the precepts Mt. xxiii, 8, 10.
THE MOLOKANYE 301
In their Church there are no Greater ones, no Lesser ones, all
are equal as brethren met together before God. One authority
only they possess and recognize, to wit, Jesus Christ; and there
fore they are the true Church. The presbyter may be deprived
if he offends against the rules set out in Tim. iii, 2-5.
They have no buildings reserved for religious service, and
hold that prayer hallows the building, and not the building the
prayers offered in it; because God lives not in temples made
with hands, and the hour is with us, when true worshippers
must worship in Spirit and in Truth. They argue that the
earliest Christians similarly met for prayer in private houses.
They reject utterly the doctrine of the Sacrament which has
been elaborated in the great Churches of East and West, and
to understand their objection we must bear in mind that in the
East the word for Sacrament (a Latin word) is mystery or
secret cult, the entire doctrine of which was taken over by the
early Churches of the East from the old Greek mysteries and
clothed with their paraphernalia. They hold that the recita
tion, standing, of the Lord's Prayer followed by the reading
and exposition (if needful) of the Scriptures (the congregation
sitting down) and by prayers with genuflexion this service in
itself constitutes communion in the body and blood of Jesus
Christ, and in evidence thereof they appeal to such texts as
John vi, 47-51; 53, 60-63. The fleshly communion which
consists in consumption of material bread and wine, which
being swallowed passes into the stomach to be evacuated (Mt.
xv, 17) is a vain thing falsely imagined. Neither if we eat it,
do we abound in grace, nor if we do not, lack the same (I Cor.
viii, 8). The only true communion is in the Word of God.
The vulgar Church teaching about the matter insults the body
and blood given and shed for our instruction and salvation by
Jesus.
The recital and intoning of Scripture in their divine service
may last some hours and is followed by prayers in a kneeling
posture according to the example of Jesus in Lk. xx, 41 and of
the early saints in Acts xx, 36. They do not cross their
persons, for to do so is vain and superfluous for those who carry
in their hearts the passion and cross of the Saviour; nor is it
anywhere prescribed in Scripture. The prayers recited by the
Presbyter are given in full. The first begins thus:
"Protect us, Lord, from the dwelling-place of thy Holiness.
Accept our prayers for all men, for the King and for all in
authority, to the end that we may live a life quiet and free
from turbulence in all piety and purity. For this is acceptable
before our Saviour, God, who desireth all men to be saved and
to receive the Truth with understanding. Look mercifully
and with favour, Lord, upon our offering, as thou didst on the
sacrifice of Abel; accept our devotion as thou didst Enoch's;
preserve us from a flood of vain imaginings, as thou didst Noe ;
save us from fire and brimstone, as thou didst Lot from Sodom;
and enlighten us, as thou didst Abraham, our father, with thy
Holy Spirit". . . At the end they pray that "our bountiful
mother Wisdom" may come unto them, an antique touch
reminding us of "Our Mother the Holy Spirit" in Aphraates.
This prayer is followed by Psalm 50: "Have mercy on me,"
then a prayer which begins: "To-day we glorify thee, Lord,
and bend our knee before thee our Lord and Creator, and mag
nify thy holy Name, and exalt the fleshless host of thy Angels
and Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim, and we follow the
Holy Prophets and Apostles and Martyrs and thy Elect ones;
for thou hast designed, Lord, that we should call upon thy all
serene and sanctified holy Name. Now therefore make us, thy
young men and women, worthy to dwell with thyself in the
Kingdom of Heaven for ever and ever."
There follows Psalm 26: "Lord our Illumination," and a
prayer: "To thee, Lord, we bend our knees, who createdst
heaven and earth. Lord, remit all our sins. Shelter us under
the shadow of thy wings from the fury of the enemy. Lord,
deliver us, thy young men and maidens, from eternal torment;
save us with salvation eternal; Lord, sanctify us in presence
of all nations, for thou hast loved thy saints. Amen."
There follows Psalm 85: "Incline thine ear O Lord," and a
long prayer beginning: "Blessed art thou, Lord our God, and
blessed is thy holy name for ever. . . " a prayer for replenish
ment and illumination by the Holy Ghost. After it they sing
Psalm 114: "I delighted that the Lord hearkened unto the
THE MOLOKANYE 303
voice of my prayer." Then a long prayer beginning: "Lord,
God of Heaven, Mighty, Powerful and Terrible, observe thy
promise and be merciful to those who love thee and keep thy
commandments . . . and now, Lord raise thy almighty hand and
extend it from on high from thy throne, and gather together
all who are thy chosen in the unity of faith. Raise, Lord,
around them a rampart of awe like a wall of fire," etc.
Psalm 140 is next sung: "Lord I called unto thee," followed
by a brief but characteristic prayer: "Lord, make us worthy,
thy sons and daughters, to stand in thine image and make us,
Lord, to resemble thy rubies; choose us, Lord, for thy founda
tions, as if we were sapphires ; uphold us and strengthen us in
thy sight as if jasper; and cleanse and purify us as crystals.
Teach us, Lord, by thy Holy Spirit, and save, our Saviour,
our souls henceforth and for ever."
Next is sung Psalm 87: "Lord, God of my salvation" fol
lowed by the Prayer of Manasses and the Psalm: "Lord, in
thy wrath, deny me not."
The above service of prayer and praise is followed by a love
feast, a "brotherly trapeza," devoid of sacramental significance.
In it they do but satiate their hunger, first thanking God for
the food he gives them. It is no part of the service and can be
dispensed with as well as not. On the anniversary of the Last
Supper they meet, and breaking bread, eat it in memory of the
Lord, holding withal holy conversation one with the other;
but this meal is not a sacrament in the sense of an arcane
mystery. On the contrary they reject all such mysteries,
because Jesus Christ at his advent revealed all mysteries as is
attested in Mt. xiii, 11 and Eph. iii, 4-5 and 8-10. The
mysteries of the Orthodox are idle trifling, since it is the duty
of Christians to reveal divine truth to all as the only means to
salvation, and not keep it secret and make a mystery of it, as
the Russo-Greek popes do, who hide away under superstitious
rites the truth that man is a temple of God in whom dwells the
Divine Spirit, and that all commandments are included in the
one precept to love one's neighbour as oneself, seeing that God
is our Father and men are sons of God. This truth lies open to
all in the New Testament; no other mystery was revealed
to us by Jesus Christ, and he that acknowledges it, shall live
for ever. No rites are to be performed, no incense burned, no
water sprinkled, no tapers lit. If the Molokanye, when they
assemble at eventide light candles, it is only in order to light
up their chamber. Do the popes imagine that the candles
which their faithful light, when they enter their churches, in
any way open their eyes to the Truth of God? Were it not
better if they explained the Gospel to them and enlightened
their understanding?
The presbyter of the Molokanye wears no special vestments,
but leads their prayers attired in his ordinary garb; the ortho
dox contention that the Apostles dressed up is false.1
Members of the sect believe in the future life, and when the
spirit quits the body they offer prayer and sing Psalms 23 and
145; and before the open grave Psalm 83. Then follow Acts
viii, 2, and Jesus Sirach xxxviii, 16, 17, 22. In the faith that
the dead rise again, they pray that their sins may be forgiven
in the spirit of II Mac. xii, 44-46. The tract ends with attes
tations from Scripture of the future life, e.g., Mark xii, 26, 27;
II Cor. v, 1; Isaiah lv, 17-18; Mt. xxiv, 30; John v. 28-9;
Rev. xx, 12-15, xxi, 1-5.
The accounts of Uzov, StoUov and Kostomarov
This account, given by the Molokanye of themselves and
their religion in 1862, harmonizes with that of Uzov, who,
following Stollov's articles in the National Memorials (Otetch.
Zap.) of 1870, No. 6, relates that they denominate themselves
the truly spiritual Christians, in contrast with all others whom
they call 'the worldly.' They are an offshoot of the Duk-
hobortsy, according to this authority, and were accounted one
sect with them until 1823, when they parted company with
them in certain matters of doctrine. In particular they are
closer to the Orthodox. The common people still in 1870
identified them with the Dukhobortsy. Some aver that they
split off from the latter about 17S0. Stollov states that the
M olokanye date their rise in the reign of Alexis Michailovich,
1 LrvanoT in Vol. I of his Raakoinitu St. Petersburg 1S72, pp. 446-459, prints
an order of common prayer in use among the Moiokurre.
THE MOLOKANYE 305
and that they were then called or called themselves Duk-
hobortsy. This title translates the Greek pneumatomachos, a
term of abuse leveled in the IVth Century at the Semi-Arian
theologians who scrupled to set the Holy Spirit on a level of
complete equality with the Father and Son in the Trinitarian
scheme of dogma. It is probable that orthodox Russian doc
tors used it in an equally derogatory sense of the ancestors of
the Molokanye, who, as we saw above, adopted it of themselves,
but interpreting it to mean not those who wrestle against the
Spirit, but in whom the Spirit wrestles against the world, the
flesh and the devil. Stollov also regards Matthew Semenov
as their founder, and he has been plausibly identified by
Kostomarov in an article in the same review (1869, No. 3,
p. 78) with Bashkin who was condemned at Moscow in 1555.
The chief author, however, of the separation of the Molokanye
from the older sect was Semen Uklein about 1780, son-in-law
of the well-known teacher Hilarion Pobirokhin; and his mem
ory is cherished by the Molokanye, as we saw in their own tract,
which fails to acquaint us with the fact that over two hundred
years transpired between Matthew Semenov and Semen
Uklein. The latter's propaganda attracted, says Stollov, the
orthodox as well as the Dukhobortsy, and he began in Tambov
and passed thence to the Voronezh and Saratov governments.
The success of his preaching exposed him to the reprisals of the
State, and I. V. Lopukhin (in the Transactions of the Imp.
Society of Hist, and Antiquity, 1860, bk. 3, p. 110) records that
his followers underwent various tortures and were condemned
to hard labour and the crudest imprisonment in cells so small
that they could neither stand upright in them or he down at
full length. They did but increase the more in number, and
information collected by the State in the years 1842-6 shewed
that there were 200,000 of them in the Tambov Government
alone.
In 1880 those of the Don differed somewhat from the other
two main divisions in Tambov and Vladimir (who still closely
adhered to the teaching of Semen Uklein) in political and reli
gious views. Those of the Don called themselves ' Evangelical
Christians.'
TJzov's outline of the common teaching of all three of these

divisions, which he bases on Stollov and Kostomarov, agrees
-well enough with the Molokan tract. There is the Trinity in
three persons, and Scripture as the sole source of doctrine. As
compared with the Gospel, Christology, they held, was of little
importance; and a man may allegorize away the historical
Christ altogether, if he likes, provided he practises the moral
teaching, which is very much what Marcion did. In any case
the letter of Scripture must not be insisted on to the detriment
of the spirit. They deny none of the events narrated in the
Gospels, but admit a man's right to find a higher moral mean
ing in them. Holy Writ is anyhow the source of moral perfec
tion, and such perfection is attained by anyone who adopts it
as his rule of life. "The letter killeth, the Spirit giveth life,"
say they. It is no use to believe what is recorded of Jesus,
unless you practise what he preached.
"During his lifeonearth," according to the Molokanye, "Christ
founded the Church; at first it consisted of the Apostles and
later on of all who believed in him. But the true Christian
Church only endured down to the IVth Century, when the
ecumenical councils and the teachers of the Church by their
arbitrary interpretations of the Bible perverted the religion and
imported into it pagan beliefs and rites. To-day the real
Church consists exclusively of the truly spiritual Christians,
who repudiate the traditions and canons of the doctors by which
the conciliar Church sets store, and profess what the Gospel
teaches and no more." 1
For this reason they "condemn as vain and fanciful the
Church teaching about Sacraments and deny it to be based on
God's word." 2
"Consider," they say to the Orthodox, "who invented your
Church rites and canons and why. They were devised by your
popes for their own gain." 3 In the opinion of the Molokanye
"the sacrament of Christian regeneration must be understood
1 Stollov, Nat. Records, 1870, p. 300.
Ortk. Review, {Pravosl. Obosar.) 1867, 1. 1, art. by Z., p. 327.
* Varadinov, Hist. Min. Vnvtr. Diet (Hist, of Ministry of the Interior), t, viii,
p. 617.
THE MOLOKANYE 307
spiritually."1 Accordingly baptism consists in the good tidings
of Christ's teaching, and is the spiritual cleansing from sin
along with belief in the three hypotheses or persons of God,
the mortification of the old man and his conversion to a life of
faith without stain.2
"Water baptism," remarks Kostomarov in the same journal
(1869, No. 3, p. 69), "has no virtue in their opinion; instruc
tion they say is what is wanted and a hold upon the teaching."
Communion equally consists in "study of the divine utterances
and in the fulfilment and keeping of the commandments;
repentance or penitence must be undergone immediately in the
presence of God himself, and last unction consists in earnest
prayer on the part of the faithful and the sick.
Marriage is no sacrament. Kostomarov remarks that in
proof of the fact that its essence is love and accord rather than
ritual, they ask whether evil relations between husband and
wife can be hallowed by the circumstance that they were
crowned. If they give notice that they are going to live
together and begin to do so in harmony and honestly, is
their joint life any less pleasing to God than that of two people
who, after being crowned in church, straightway begin to
quarrel, lose their mutual confidence and deceive each other?
By his account their marriage is even simpler than that we have
taken from their Geneva tract. The young man, he says,
makes his proposal to the girl and obtains her assent. He then
asks the parents for their blessing and they repair, as agreed
upon, to the home of one or the other; here witnesses are sum
moned before whom they receive the mutual blessings of the
parents of both parties and the marriage is finished. Nuptial
ceremonies there are none. According to Stollov, however,
the father leads his daughter by hand, and in giving her away
to the husband says: Here I give thee my daughter to wife
according to God's law, take her away with thee to thy father's
house. The Elder (or rector) reads passages of Holy Scripture
bearing on wedlock, they sing divers psalms, and the marriage
concludes, with the bridegroom embracing the bride amid
Orth. Rev. 1867, t. 1, art. by Z., p. 328.
' Nat. Records, 1870, No. 6, art. by Stollov.
felicitations on their lawful wedlock. Divorce,1 adds another

observer, is allowed; but only after it has first been decided, as
it were, in formal debate who was to blame for the domestic
quarrel and what was the cause. After hearing the complaint
made by the injured party and the defence of the accused, the
'Elder' proceeds to read out biblical texts relative to family
life and conjugal fidelity. "A husband should love his wife as
our Lord loved his Church," says the Elder. Does then Christ
wound and injure his Church? The union of a man and wife
must be one of love, a spiritual union. He who loves his wife,
loves himself; wherefore a man sins against the Lord's com
mandment who treats his wife harshly by word or deed. For
what love or harmony can there be between people who quarrel?
Without it a wife can be no helpmate to her husband, as our
Lord himself attested, but only a slave for carnal cohabitation,
degraded thereby to the level of a brute without reason, the
spirit and image of God in her lost and dishonoured. Unless
there be the link of affection to unite them their union is forni
cation and adulter}'. Another authority, V. Mainov, (in
Znanie, 'Knowledge,' 1874, No. 3), cites a definition of the
conjugal relation from the 'Faith and Doctrine of the Molo-
kani.' as follows : "Among us a woman is not a beast of burden,
but a helpmate and standby, a friend and companion in this
vale of misery."
In the Caucasus I have passed through many Molokan vil
lages in early spring and in late autumn. Their dwellings were
usually of wood, but sometimes of stone, often built in gardens
surrounded by walls. Everything was neat and clean, and
everywhere prevailed an air of sobriety and quiet industry.
It was a pleasure to see the stalwart tidy wives sitting outside
their houses in the sun. working at their sewing, the snow still
around their feet at the close of winter, which in the highlands
ttiween Tiflis and Erivan is very* severe.
Stollov describes the Molokan funeral. The 'Elders' or
Rectors read over the grave certain prayers and sing Psalms;
alter which ail present, or at least the older ones, are invited to
1 Nicolas Pocvt. *- Miterak for she hisory of the Pnestleae Communions in
Moscow," p. 130.
THE MOLOKANYE 309
the house of the deceased person's parents where prayer is
raised to God, while all partake of bread and salt, and offer
vows for the entrance of the dead into the Kingdom of Heaven
and for the happiness of the survivors.
The same author testifies to the Molokan rejection of exter
nal ritual and religious gestures, as well as of the invocation of
the Virgin and Saints. A writer in the Orthodox Review
(Pravod. Obozr. 1867, t. 1, p. 327) dwells on the absence among
them of a true hierarchy. Every man is a priest; their Elders
are no more than rectors chosen by the community and possess
no superior sanctity. Christ did not choose his Apostles from
among the Levites or priests nor consecrate them to be such;
nor are priests any nearer to God than unconsecrated laymen.
The Molokan Elder is not even an interpreter of religious
truths. The individual among them understands the Scrip
tures as he likes. In the matter of fasts they recognize that
the Old Testament rule to avoid pork, fish devoid of scales,
etc., is not feasible; but for the rest they abstain from wine and
eat no onions or garlic. They pretend that these are prejudi
cial to the bodily economy. One would like to know whether
the refusal of onions and garlic is not a survival of some ancient
taboo, like the English avoidance of horseflesh, snails, frogs,
cuttlefish, etc.
Stollov states that the above description is true of the vast
majority of Molokanye, but that those of the Don who call
themselves evangelical Christians are less rigorous in their
practice of Uklein's precept of spiritual worship, in that they
have certain ceremonies devised by themselves. For instance
their ' rectors ' are called in to read prayers over a child on the
first day after birth and to bestow a name on him. On the
fortieth day they read prayers for the purification of the mother
and her reconciliation or rather atonement with the Church,
and at the same time baptize the child, plunging it thrice into
the water, after, as a preliminary, they have invoked the Spirit
to descend and hallow the water.
One recognizes in the above rites a mere survival of those of
the Eastern Churches, and they were certainly not devised by
the Molokanye as Stollov supposes. He may also be wrong in
fixing the name-giving rite on the first day, for in all oriental
churches, even among the Paulicians of Armenia, it took place
on the eighth. This rite replaced among Gentile converts that
of circumcision, but was much older than Christianity. An
Italian child on the ninth day (counting in Roman fashion that
of birth as an entire day and so equivalent to our eighth) was,
according to Macrobius (Sat. i, 16) carried to the temple by the
friends and relations, cleansed with water, given a personal
name and recommended to the protection of a tutelar deity,
as in the Great Church a child is to that of a saint. The god
dess who in general presides over the rite was by the Romans
known as A'undina or goddess of the ninth day, and the day
was also called dies lustricus or the day of lustration. Similar
rites were in vogue all round the Mediterranean.
Among the Molokanye of the Don the presbyter, according to
Stollov, also receives the personal and private confessions of
penitents and reads over them prayers of absolution. Further
more he celebrates with suitable prayers the breaking of bread.
Early in the morning bread is set ready on a table with red wine.
After prayers have been recited the 'rector' or 'Elder' apos
trophizes the faithful in the words: "With fear of God and
faith advance," and then breaks the bread and distributes it to
each by hand in a white platter kept specially for the purpose.
He serves it round to men and women alike, who remain in
their places. The 'rectors' are also summoned to visit the
sick, whose confessions they receive, pray over them and anoint
them with oil thrice, in the name of the Trinity, on the forehead,
breast, hands, feet and spine. Before accomplishing this rite
they consecrate the oil with divers prayers and invoke upon it
the virtue of healing, reading James, v, 10-16 and Luke x,
25-37. Unfortunately, says Uzov, we lack information as to
the peculiar significance attaching to the 'rectors' among the
'Evangelical Christians'; but in view of the survival among
them of so many rites, performed by these 'rectors' the latter
must be invested with a higher dignity and importance than
they have in other Molokan sects.
Kostomarov points out that the Molokan conceptions of
civil society are direct inferences from their religious outlook.
THE MOLOKANYE 311
Society and Christ cannot be separated; they are one and the
same, and rest alike on the Gospel precepts of love and equality,
in accordance with the text (II Cor. iii, 17): God is a Spirit;
where there is the Spirit of the Lord, there is freedom. It
follows that we can have no other moral basis of true Christian
life than complete freedom and independence of any human
laws and constraint of any sort. The authority of men is not
binding on those who have the inspiration of the teaching of
Christ. Worldly authorities are salutary upon earth and
appointed by God, but only so for the children of the world;
and the Lord spoke of Christians when he said: They are not
of the world, as I am not of the world (John xvii, 14). For
spiritual Christians therefore, who are not of the world, worldly
authorities are not needful. As children of light, such Chris
tians strive to live according to the commandments of Jesus
Christ. Fulfilling God's commandments, they have no use for
human laws, nor are they under any obligation to fulfil them,
and by consequence their duty is to avoid fulfilment of laws
which violate the doctrine of God's word. Thus they ought to
avoid servitude under landowners (this was written after the
emancipation of the peasants as late as 1870), avoid war mili
tary service, and oaths as forbidden by Scripture. But as it is
impossible openly to oppose the Government and not to fulfil
their requirements, spiritual Christians in imitation of the first
Christians, must conceal themselves from it, and their brethren
in the faith are under an obligation to conceal them in fulfilment
of the Scriptural precept: 'Between thy walls hide old and
little, like unto Abraham who invited to his meal three wan
derers or to the harlot Rahab who hid in her household the
Hebrew spies ' (Esdras ii, 22).
In thus repudiating allegiance to human laws, the Molokanye
affirm, as Kostomarov remarks, that there is a higher law, an
unique, true law, which has got to be obeyed, a law written by
God on the fleshly tablets of our heart. This law is known and
adopted by dint of meditation and inflexible achievement of
acts of charity intimated to us by divine revelation. Human
laws are exposed to temporal change: what at one time and
under one Government is accounted a crime, at another time
and under another Government is accounted a good deed . . .

Often among us, the Molokanye continue, the law prescribes
the opposite of good deeds, and forbids what charity and love
for one's neighbour demands, and in many cases prevents one
from doing good to one's neighbor. It is impossible, nor is it
one's duty, to do what authority decrees, if this be opposed to
the demands of conscience and right. Thus they point to the
example of the early Christians whom the Roman emperors
tried to force to bow down to idols. Emperors were invested
with all the power of the law ; and yet Christians did not fulfil
their commands when these violated their convictions. Thus it
was that the three youths, despite the threat of the Chaldean
furnace, refused to obey the king who violated their own law.
Christ, though he bade us render to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's, did so with the reserve that we render to God what is
God's. It is clear, therefore, that even if Caesar himself
requires aught of a kind to violate our own law and conscience,
which, as Scripture teaches, is the true law of God, written on
the fleshy tablets of our hearts, we must not, to please Caesar,
violate the Divine will, otherwise we are timeservers, respecters
of man, but reprehensible before God. By reason of this
preference of true welldoing to the rules of convention, the Molo
kanye go so far as to disdain positive law: authority as the
source of law and constraint to fulfil it is in their opinion liable
to reserves, to doubts and glosses.
Such is Kostmarov's account of the Molokan attitude on
the rights of conscience, and the writer in the Orthodox Review
(see above p. 309) sets before us the practical results of their
adoption thereof. They regard it as a first duty to avoid mili
tary service and resort to any means of escaping from it.
Secondly they are under no moral obligation to pay taxes.
They do not belong to Caesar, but to God, and can recognize
no overlordship of Caesar. Thirdly it is a pious duty to receive
and hide fugitives. Kostomarov states that in their estima-
, tion it is the best of deeds to conceal deserters from the army ;
and that not only deserters, but anyone fleeing from the per
secutions of the Tsar's Government finds a welcome among
them. They say that they do not know the wrongs or rights
THE MOLOKANYE 313
of the fugitives, but anyhow the law is frequently unjust and
the courts give false verdicts, and the authorities are given over
to vanity and make demands opposed to the divine law. The
culprit pursued therefore is as likely as not to be just and inno
cent. They are not judges, nor called on to decide ; but they
deem it right to help anyone who appeals to them to save him,
mindful of the text : Hide between the lesser and greater wall.
Nor have they failed to carry out in practice what they hold
as a theory. They did so in 1826 when they refused to pay
taxes and to serve as recruits. The Russian Government
treated them then as other Governments have treated those
who strive to live according to the abstract precepts of Jesus
of Nazareth. They were knouted and exiled to Siberia, and
many of them sent into madhouses where they perished.
Since 1827 the idea of refusing taxes has not been put forward
by the Molokanye who according to Varadinov (op. cit. viii 233)
punctually pay the imperial taxes. But as they obstinately
refuse to bear arms, they are assigned duties in Sanitary units,
hospitals, transport etc.1
To-day, says Kostomarov, the Molokanye hold this language :
"We must recognize the Authorities, whatever they be, as soon
as they come into existence. But we deem it impossible and
wrong to regard anything they do or say as excellent, in case our
own reason convince us that it is not so." " It is," they say,
"merely to submit to monarchical authority." But they do
not regard as valid any external tokens of its sanctity nor set
any store by any monarch as a divine anointed being; they are
more inclined in opposition to the monarchical institution itself
to point to the history of Saul: "By the lips of Samuel himself
the Divine being dissuaded the Israelites from choosing a king
for themselves ; and the prophet warned his people of the tribu
lations and iniquities they would suffer as soon as they set a
king over themselves". . ."Rejecting kingly power, they
equally reject every sort of personal distinction; for according
to their doctrine all men are equals of one another, all are
brethren, and there should not be nobles or plebeians; and
correspondingly all outward badges of distinction, titles, rank
1 Russk. Mir, Nov. 5, 1876.
are from their point of view vanities and contradictions of
'evangelical teaching."
They regard all war as forbidden, and maintain on the basis
of the precepts of Christ, that we ought not to resist evil, but
rather turn the other cheek to the smiter. They say that
blessed are they who live in peace and are peacemakers, for
they shall be called Sons of God. For the same reason they
refuse to bear arms, says the Archimandrite Israel in his Sketch
-of the Russian Dissenters (Obozren. russk. Raskol. p. 253), and
consider any revolt against the Powers which be, no matter
how unjust they are, as in itself a wrong act. They preach
instead a sturdy endurance and tenacity of purpose. Rebel
lion and open opposition bring in their train evil to one's neigh
bours and it is our duty to avoid anything that may do harm.1
There are those however who suspect the Molokanye of only
-counselling submission to the Authorities because they have no
choice, and say they only do so until the time comes when they
shall have won enough influence and become strong enough to
shake off the pagan yoke.1 Long ago there appeared to be a
basis for this suspicion, because among other things they sent a
-deputation to meet Napoleon in 1812 under the impression
that he would protect them. Its members however were cap
tured on the banks of the Vistula . as Aug. Haxthausen relates
in his Survey of interior relations (Izsleaov. rnutr. otnosh. p. 260).
During the Crimean war the Molokanye, according to the
-Orthodox Review (1867, art. 7, p. 337-. expressed the opinion
that prayer ought not to be offered up for the Tsar, but on the
-contrary for the defeat of those who oppressed the Spiritual
Christians and curtailed their liberties. Prof. Asher however,
who has studied them in our own day, writes as follows in the
European Messenger (Vesva. Europ. 1879, no. 9, p. 371): "The
Molokanye having long ago got accustomed to being referred to
in the laws as a dangerous sect, take up the same attitude to the
Authorities and the Government as did the earnest Christians:
they scrupulously obey them, but regard them as alien to them-
selves. The established Church they term the Russian and its
adherents Russians, as if they were themselves foreigners."
: Kix*onaroT .p. at jx. 76-7.
> Vandiai>T *?. aC Tin, 31&.
THE MOLOKANYE 315
They condemn, continues Kostomarov, all luxury and elab
orate food or dress, in general all expensive habits of life. On
this head they reason thus: If we insist on living luxuriously
and use up on ourselves a great deal of wealth, we shall only
help to disseminate misery among our neighbours. Every
superfluity we allow ourselves deprives others of our brethren
of what is indispensable to them. It is well to be rich, but
let your wealth be for the common benefit of our brethren, and
not spent to gratify the caprices of its owner. Let him find his
own greatest pleasure in this that, more than others, he can
contribute to the welfare of his society; but to do so he must
lead a simple life and not go mad about luxuries. After reading
the above we shall not be surprised to learn from S. Atav, writ
ing in the National Memorials (Qtech. Zajrisk. 1870, No. 4,
p. 621-3), that the Molokanye are thrice or four times as rich
as the orthodox; the reason being, among them as among our
own Quakers, their perpetual and habitual readiness to rescue
one another. We have been told, continues Atav, that there
never was a case of a Molokan household being ruined. Posi
tively they would never allow such a thing to happen. If a
calamity befalls one of them, all are prepared to assist him.
Another writer in the same journal (1828, pt. 33, p. 58) records
that the majority of the Molokanye love to do good; and even
endeavour to banish from their lives anything that in their
opinion can corrupt a man. Thus they condemn card-playing
and in general any game that aims at making money for the
player of it. They argue that such games are a useless waste of
time and teach a man to be rapacious; that they generate strife
among people because in them one wins at the expense of
another. Nothing is so pernicious as play and drink, they say,
nothing leads so directly to ruin and sin against the Christian
life. Both of these vices are equally to be shunned. Hard
work, according to them, is as necessary to man as bread and
breath of life. It not only furnishes means to live, but keeps a
man out of the way of ruin and depravity; consequently they
look upon work as a religious duty.1 These people, says
another authority, Philibert, in the Nat. Mem. (1870, No. 3),
1 Kostomarov, op. dX. p. 74-5.
the moment you come across them, rivet your attention by their
reasonable modes of personal expression and by the peculiarly
sensible way in which they talk. They are distinguished by
their sobriety and good manners and morals; by their addic
tion to labour and enterprise. Their villages are neat and well
built. In all branches of household economy they show a gift
of organization and attain great success in the production of
wool. This is particularly true of the Tauric Molokanye
according to a writer in the Nat. Mem. (1870, No. 3). The
same Heidelberg professor Asher in the European Messenger
( 1879, no. 9, p. 379) declares that you recognize the Molokanye
at first glance by their look of honesty, the gentle expression of
their countenances, by their frank and open demeanour.
They are keen propagandists, especially among the labouring
classes.1 For a long time stress of persecution made them very
circumspect, and it was only when persecutions relaxed some
what that they went to work openly. Every Molokanin is
familiar with the Gospel and overwhelms an adversary in dis
cussion with citations of it. The result is that a village priest
seldom risks a controversy with them. "More than once,"
says Atav,2 "I have seen priests subjected to resounding
defeats, followed most certainly by the conversion of very
many of the listeners. Nor do they confine themselves to
acquaintance with the Scriptures; for many of them buy or
obtain various books, which they devour in the hope of finding
in them arguments of some sort in support of their teaching."
The spiritual Christians of the Don Sect, who call themselves
Evangelicals, differ somewhat in their political and social views
from the followers of Uklein. Thus, to use their own phrase,
they have always fulfilled the orders of the Government with
out a murmur. Their Elders instruct those whom fate trans
fers into the ranks of the imperial army to accomplish their
duties as soldiers and to cherish in their souls the fear of God,
bearing in mind the precept of King Solomon: "Fear God, my
son, and the King, and oppose thyself to neither of them."
Hereby, so they insist to their flock, they are obliged to love
1 Ortk. Review 1876, vol. I, p. 333-4, art. by Z.
a Nat. Mem. 1870, No. 4, p. 622.
THE MOLOKANYE 317
the Ruler and serve him honestly. If they are required to take
an oath, they must tender it in the same form as others, only
omitting the words 'before the lifegiving cross.' They would
have it administered by an Elder of their own faith before an
open Gospel.1 Furthermore these evangelicals offer prayers in
their meetings for the Emperor and the Powers that be.2
It is evident from the above account of the Spiritual Chris
tians of the Don that the Geneva tract which we have summa
rized did not emanate from them, but from the followers of
Uklein, who eschew baptism and rites of communion. The
latter better reflect the Cathar tradition, or anyhow a tradi
tion closely resembling that of the Albigenses. The Evan
gelicals of the Don wear rather the air of a much expurgated
orthodoxy, and must be remotely derived from the Russian
Church, from which they are hardly more widely separated
than are extreme low churchmen of the Anglican communion
from the Romanizing ritualists.
Ivanovski's account
So far we have described the Molokanye from their own man
ual of instruction and from the accounts given by Russian
publicists, if not wholly favourable to them, at least fair-
minded. It remains to complete it from the pages of Prof.
Ivanovski who is openly hostile. His sources were as follows:
"History of the Ministry of the Interior," Suppl. to Vol. viii,
p. 232: also Livanov, Vol. 1, art. xii; Vol. ii, arts, vii and xiv;
National Memorials" (Otech. Zap.), 1867 for March and 1870
for June: "Orthodox Conversations" (Pravosl. Sobes.), 1858.
In general his conclusions and statements agree with those of
the sources I have set before the reader.
He regards the temper underlying this religious movement
as a mixture of wilful mysticism and irreverence for scripture,
for he cannot conceive of people seriously taking the Sermon
on the Mount as their rule of life. He is also very severe on
the half divine authority claimed by some of their leaders, such
1 Nat. Mem. 1870, No. 6, art. by Stollov, p. 309.
1 Orlh. Review 1867, vol. I, art. by Z., p. 331.
as Pobirokhin, who, he declares, pretended to be judge of the

world. After all even Orthodox Bishops claim the right, and
exercise it, of excommunicating whom they will; so we may
pardon the minor extravagances of a fervent Russian peasant.
Semen Uklein, whom the Molokanye reverence as their proxi
mate founder, was a tailor, who in following his trade, moved up
and down the Governments of Tambov and Voronezh. He was
already married, but falling under the influence of Pobirokhin
he fell a convert to the Dukhobor faith, to which his famili
arity with Scripture already predisposed him. He now aspired
to marry his teacher's daughter and she became his spiritual
wife. But presently he came to find fault with his father-in-
law's obstinate claim to judge all men and bis preference for
his own inner lights over the authority of the Bible, and after
five years he finally emancipated himself from his influence.
Meanwhile many inhabitants of the Tambov province infected
with the rationalism, as Ivanovski calls it, meaning thereby
the temper which rejects orthodox accretions on the Chris
tianity of the New Testament of Tveretinov, had attached
themselves to Uklein. They had been marked down by the
ecclesiastical authorities as dangerous people, but formed no
distinct sect until Uklein organized them as such, and choosing
seventy of them as his disciples or apostles made a solemn
entry into the town of Tambov, singing hymns and proclaim
ing his new doctrine. It may be that he was inspired by the
story of Palm Sunday and saw no reason why the Orthodox
should have a monopoly of Tabors or religious processions and
of similar spectacular enterprises.
All this occurred in the reign of Catharine II, whose police
now seized and locked him up. He was given a choice of
punishment or of returning to the orthodoxy in which he had
been brought up. He made belief of returning, but in fact
went on with his propaganda, and converted as many as 5000
souls in the provinces of Tambov, Voronezh and (the modern)
Saratov. His sect also spread to Ekaterinoslav, Astrakhan and
the Caucasus.
As early as 1765 the church consistory of Tambov labelled
them Molokanye because of their drinking milk during the
THE MOLOKANYE 319>
canonical fasts. The name stuck, and they interpreted it
themselves as meaning that the simple evangelical teaching on
which they fed was the Milk of the Word. In general they
called themselves as the Spiritual Christians, and they regard
themselves as the only true successors of the Church of the
first three centuries.
Ivanovski has of course little difficulty in shewing that many
traditions, especially that of episcopacy, which they reject,.
were well established long before the year 300, and pathetically
complains of their rejection of the authority of the Fathers. He-
testifies that they do not trouble their heads very much about
minutiae of Trinitarian theology, Uklein being so ignorant as
to suppose that the Son and Holy Spirit are not coequal in
dignity with God the father. Ivanovski also imparts to us
the very significant information that Uklein held a more or less
docetic view of Christ and taught, like Marcion and the Cathars
and Anabaptists of a still later age, that the Son of the Virgin
did not take from her real human flesh, but resembled in this
matter Tobit's friend and guide, the Archangel Raphael, who
declared as follows: "All these days did I appear unto you,
but I did neither eat nor drink, but ye did see a vision." x In
this semi-phantastic body then, according to the Molokanye,.
Christ ascended into Heaven, and being endowed therewith, it
follows that his death was not the death of ordinary men, but
of a kind peculiar to himself. As a rule, however, they set small
store by such speculations, reserving all their ardour for the
upholding of those tenets wherein they contrast externally
with the Orthodox Church, whose sacramental theory, rites,,
fasts, icon-worship, etc. they summarily reject. In these
matters they retain the essential teachings of the parent Duk-
hobor sect, only differing from it in this that they want to-
prove everything out of scripture. But in interpreting scrip
ture they explain away as allegory and parable all that stands
in their way, e. g. the words 'of water' in John iii, 5, which
it may be well noted Justin Martyr, c. A.D. 150, our earliest wit
ness to the said text, significantly omits. Had these Russian
1 From the same docetic standpoint Philo interprets the visits of the three
angels to Abraham.
heretics studied the early Fathers, they would have found
much to their advantage and to the discomfiture of their
orthodox persecutors. In this particular text they argue that
water no more signifies the real water than it does in the text
John vii 38: "He that believes in me, out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water." Another example of their exegesis
particularly irritating to Ivanovski is their conjunction of
John vi, 63 with John vi, 51 to prove that the story of the Last
Supper should be taken figuratively and not literally, for "the
letter killeth." Nor can he excuse them for insisting that our
Lord's petition that his persecutors might be forgiven, as also the
Beatitudes and the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, are of
universal range and anyhow apply to modern Russians. Such
texts, says Ivanovski, only apply in their contexts and in view
of the peculiar setting and background of historical events in
which they were delivered. Called upon to practice Christ's
own teaching the orthodox divine suddenly becomes the most
extreme of higher critics and discovers it to have been a mere
ad interim morality.
Ivanovski devotes a special chapter to the religious services
of the Dukhobortsy and Molokanye, in which he repeats what
Livanov has to say in his first volume, articles XVI and XXIII,
and in his second, articles VII, XI, XIV, and XXVI; also what
he has read in the Orthodox Conversations of 1858. He also
uses two manuals of devotion issued by the Molokanye them
selves. The leading difference in matters of cult between the
Dukhobortsy and the Molokanye is that the former recite in
their gatherings their "living book." The Molokanye meet in
an ordinary chamber, devoid of ecclesiastical furniture and deco
rations, with a table in the middle and benches or stools along
the walls. The other sect prefers to hold its meetings out of
doors. The men sit on the right hand, women on the left.
On entering the meeting a Dukhoborets cries: "Glory be to
God," and those already present answer: "Great is his name
all over the earth." Very generally when they thus meet the
men salute the men and the women the women; each takes the
other by the right hand and, after the manner of the medieval
Cathars and of Christians in the age of Tertullian, makes three
THE MOLOKANYE 321
low bows, one to another, kissing each the other thrice. The
bow is a token that they are iheophoroi, as St. Ignatius was
entitled, or that they bear Christ and the Holy Spirit in their
hearts and persons. Children on these occasions prostrate
themselves thrice at the feet of their elders and kiss their hands.
It is possible that the prayers I have found in the Geneva
yriftTinal are those which Uklein certainly composed for sundry
occasions. Some of his prayers were to be repeated kneeling,
others standing up with hands raised to heaven after the man
ner of the primitive oranti depicted in the Christian catacombs.
Ivanovski records, however, that after Uklein's death the addi
tion in some congregations of fresh prayers, unauthorised by
him, led to schisms. The Molokanye, as we saw. recognize the
chief Christian feasts, so contrasting with the Dukhobortsy who
refuse to regard one day as holier than another. Every free
day is by the latter equally holy to worship, and they have a
jingle in which they proclaim Monday (Ponedydnik) as sacred
to God's works (dyela Gospodnya), Tuesday to regeneration
of man, etc. They equally reject the occasional rites devised
by the Molokanye for the events of birth, marriage and death.
Ivanovski confirms the statement that the Molokanye in their
rite of 'Churching' a child (the original nwanbig of the cere
mony of the fortieth day, see Luke n, 22 foil.) blow or breathe
on the child's tips, as Jesus blew on his Apostles, by way of
communicating to it the Holy Spirit. In the rite of marriage
he notes that the parents bless their respective children by
laying their hands on their heads, they kneeling while the
appropriate prayers are read over them. This is done in the
respective houses. The families then meet and the girl's
father, taking her hand, says to the bridegroom: "I give thee
my daughter to wife." The young parties are asked if they
love each other, mutual vows are interchanged, and the rite
ends with lections of the Apostle and prayers with genuflexion.
He notes also that the Molokanye, like the Armenian and many
other churches, have separate funeral rites for adults and chil
dren.
Ivanovski notes that these sects infer from the fact of be
lievers being equals in religion and before God, that they should
be equals in civil rank and dignity. He deplores their con
fusion of religions with civil and social life. Though he does
not accuse them of setting the civil authorities at naught, he
urges that their doctrines tend to weaken their obedience to the
State and that they set up an impossible ideal, which tends to
the denial of the necessity of civil authorities. They even go
so far as to deny that the Tsar is the anointed vessel of divine
election, and so rob him of his holy and religious character
words which make queer reading to-day.
The Dukhobortsy are sure that theirs is the freedom of the
Gospel, and that all legitimate authority is from God. Uklein
distinguished less emphatically between divine and human law,
laid stress on obedience to constituted authority and insisted
on prayers being said for the Tsar. Both sects condemn serf
dom, war, and the taking of oaths, and encourage the harbour
ing of deserters.
Ivanovski makes much of the occasional extravagances of
Molokan leaders, and it is inevitable that such incidents as
the following should occur amidst a population so devout,
humble and impressionable as the Slavs. One of Uklein's
successors, Sidor Andreev, a deserter from the Army, fled into
Persia. Returning thence after some years into Russia, he
settled among the Molokanye of the Government of Saratov
and began to preach that God was about to appear and liberate
them from oppression by the Russian State, and he promised to
lead them into a land flowing with milk and honey in the neigh
bourhood of Mount Ararat. Just then Russia had annexed
Persian Armenia, which included the fertile basin of Ararat,
and it is likely enough that the biblical and other legends
centering round that famous mountain appealed to the imagi
nation of Russian peasants schooled to regard the Bible as the
sole source of religious truth. What would not have been the
effect of a similar conquest on the evangelical and methodist
sects of England and Wales? Andreev therefore set out to lead
his followers to so famous and holy a locality, but under the
tutelage of the Russian Government he found his way instead
to the mines of Siberia.
In 1815 an English Methodist, Young Stilling, published a
THE MOLOKANYE 323
book entitled "The Triumph of Christian Faith,' of which the
Russian translation achieved great vogue and contributed not
a little to stimulate the growth of mystical dreams among the
Molokanye. It was a commentary on the Apocalypse, in which
the Church was identified with the evangelicalism which rejects
the sacraments and ritualism of Rome; the Russian sectaries
had no difficulty in applying Stilling's arguments to the Ortho
dox Church, and greedily welcomed the idea that Christ would
ere long inaugurate the Millennium in the basin of Ararat, the
home of the human race and traditional site of Paradise. This
was in 1830, immediately after Russia had acquired these regions
by the treaty of Turkmanchai in 1828. The thousand years
of glory were to begin in 1836, according to Niketas Ivanov, a
Molokan prophet of Melitopol, and others like him. The
result was a considerable movement of peasants towards the
new Jerusalem, and they began to flock from various Govern
ments to the Caucasus. An Elias appeared among them in
1833 in the person of Terence Byelozorov of Melitopol, who
even foretold the very day on which at the expiration of two
and a half years Elias would, as apocalyptic story required,
reascend to heaven. Crowds duly collected to witness the
miracle, and the prophet with desperate leapings and waving
of his arms attempted, like Simon Magus and St. Peter, to take
to the air. But earth chained his specific gravity, and Russian
officials his further freedom, and he was locked up until such
time as he should forget his apocalyptic privileges.
In 1836 a false Messiah from Moldavia made his appearance,
Lukian Petrov, and chose from among his followers two to
impersonate Enoch and Elias. Next he persuaded a number of
Molokanye to don their Sunday garb and start for the Caucasus,
so as to be in time for the second Advent. He is said to have
paved his way with supposititious wonders. He persuaded two
girls to simulate death like well-trained dogs; then at his magic
word they leapt into life amidst the plaudits of the faithful.
Two other false Messiahs appeared among the Molokanye of
Samara. Meanwhile new essays at ascension into Heaven
were made in the region south of the Caucasus by an Elder
who had discovered the New Zion at Alexandropol. He had,
like the early pioneers of modern aviation, made himself canvas
wings, with which he attempted nights from house-tops and
summits of hills veiled appropriately with clouds.
Ivanovski relates these incidents with sombre joy, and. it
would not astonish us if they really took place amid enthusiasts
hard-pressed by the iron hand of persecutors and thrilled with
the perusal of such a weird monument of early Christian faith
as the Apocalypse. Let us not forget that the Greek Church,
under the influence of such teachers as Dionysius of Alexandria
and Eusebius of Caesarea, removed that book for hundreds of
years from their canon of scripture precisely because it roused
men to excesses of Millenarist enthusiasm. History repeats
itself, and these Molokanye enacted over again scenes of which
we read in the pages of Irenaeus, Hippolyt us and other ante-
Nicene Fathers.
We noticed above the anxiety of the authors of the Manual to
repudiate the literal keeping of the Jewish Sabbath and the
observance of Jewish food taboos, pork, fish without scales, etc.
This is explicable from the fact attested by Ivanovski that some
groups of the Molokanye, under the influence of the 0. T., and
perhaps of the millions of Jews who inhabited then as now the
South of Russia, set themselves to Judaue. Semen Dalmatov, a
partisan of Uklein, led the way, and is said to have really con
verted his leader to his views. If so, Uklein did not attempt to
impose them on his followers. We have seen Bibliolatry lead to
many curious movements, so it is only natural it should have had
similar results in Russia, and Ivanovski indicates various
sources of information concerning them, namely the Orthodox
Conrrrsations for 1858-9; National Memorials for 1828, pt. 33,
p. 57, for 1864, bk. 5, for 1867, July, for 1870, June; Strarmik
for 1S7S, January; Journal of the See of the Caucasus, for
1S75, p. 195.
These sources incline us to suppose that Uklein really adopted
the Judaism of Dalmatov. But his followers could not agree,
and the quarrel spread to the Government of Saratov, where
under stress of opposition Uklein's followers went so far as to
exalt the Mosaic Law above the Christian, and taught that
Jesus was no more than a man born of men, a prophet indeed,
THE MOLOKANYE 325
but inferior to Moses. Perhaps this was a reaction against
the docetic view of Jesus' flesh current among them in some
circles. It is exactly the sort of thesis and antithesis which
we find between the Gnostics and the future Catholic Church
in the early stages of the Christian religion. The Judaizers of
Saratov, we learn, rejected essential Christian dogmas and
feasted Saturday instead of Sunday under the leadership of a
peasant named Sunbukov of the village Dubovsk in that
province. These called the other Molokanyewhodisagreed with
them the Sundayites. Unlike the true Jews, however, Sunbu-
koVs sect do not look forward to a Messiah. There already
existed in Russia before the year 1800 groups of Jewish prose
lytes, and to them this new sect in time affiliated itself. To-day
they deny the Divinity of Christ in the sense that others assert
it and repudiate all the external rites and symbols of orthodox
Christianity; yet they are eclectics and do not adopt indiscrim
inately all the observances of Russian Jews; for example, they
do not insist on circumcision and the feast of new moons. They
interpret, as did the good bishop Archelaus and the Gnostics,1
the text of Isaiah 'a Virgin shall conceive,' etc. of the Virgin
Church, and they deny that the scene of the Messianic King
dom will be laid on earth. On the contrary the Messiah will
be a mighty moral teacher, renovating mankind with his
teaching and inaugurating an epoch of freedom and sweet
reasonableness. In their dwellings these Judaizers of Russia
keep the sacred books under a veil on a shelf in the corner of
their room, where the orthodox peasant hangs up his ikon.
They are reckoned, or were till yesterday reckoned, by the
Russian Government as one of the more noxious sects, because
they deny the dogma of the Incarnation. They evidently
reproduce many characteristics of early Ebionite Christianity.
Uklein, as we have seen, tried in opposition to the Dukho-
bortsy from whom he was sprung, to institute among his fol
lowers the ideas and practices of the Apostolic age; and his
follower Isaiah Krylov of Saratov, a deserter from the army,
who had fled into the Caucasus, spread his master's tenets in
that region in the first quarter of the XTXth Century. The
1 Cf. the Ada Arehelai.
police drove him back into Russia, and he settled in the village
of Salamatir in the province of Saratov. He knew the Bible
almost by heart, and introduced a rite of the Breaking of Bread,
and of prayers partly with genuflexion, partly with uplifted
hands. After his death his innovations were, in spite of the
opposition of one Pchelin, further developed by Maslov, who
wrote prayers and chose lections for the evening rite of the
Breaking of Bread. He is also said to have devised the rite of
Namegiving in use among the Molokanye along with that of
blowing on a child's lips on the fortieth day after birth, and also
the rite of marriage. One of his adherents, a Cossack named
Andrew Salamatin in 1823 propagated his tenets in the Tauric
Chersonese, and his teaching was developed into that of the
Molokanye of the Don. The rites and teaching, of the latter
are described by Ivanovski from three sources, the National
Memorials of 1870, bk. 6; the Orthodox Review of 1867, pt. 22;
and a manual drawn up by themselves in 1875. His descrip
tion agrees in all essential respects with that which we have
already furnished. He rightly observes that, of all the Molo-
kan groups, that of the Don approximates most closely to the
Orthodox Church.
CHAPTER III
THE COMMUNISTS, STUNDISTS AND OTHER SMALL SECTS
The Communists
This sect is a ramification of the Molokanye, from whom they
only differ in details of social organization. It was founded
by a well-to-do peasant of Samara named Maxim Akinthiev
Popov who about the year 1820 wrote a tract upholding the
communism of the earliest Church as described in the Book of
Acts, and working out a scheme for a communistic society
organized in families, villages and unions of villages. No
member was to own anything except his wife and children, all
earnings were pooled and stored in a common treasury, or,
where they were in kind, in common granaries; all the instru
ments of labour were common property, and as many as twelve
different orders of officials were to be instituted for the regu
lation of religious services, of social economy and education in
common schools of the young. Even the school-books of the
children were provided out of the common stock.
The scheme is detailed in an article written by Shchapov
in the Delo of 1867, No. 10, but it hardly went beyond the
limits of theory; and C. V. Maximovich in another article of
the same journal for 1867 tells the story of its failure in practice.
Popov, who was a Molokanye of the following of Uklein, began
by gaining a considerable number of adherents, who were
impressed by the manner in which, faithful to his principles,
he gave away all he had to the poor. His fame spread quickly
among the Molokanye beyond the Volga, and the villages of
Yablonovoe (Yablonovoe gay) and Lake Tyagloe went over
to him en masse. The inevitable then occurred. Popov was
seized by the Government and transported from the Niko-
laevski province of the Samara Government to the Caucasus
along with a number of his adherents. There, in spite of
poverty and distress, they attracted new adherents, with the
result that the leader was deported afresh, this time from
327
the Government of Shemakhin to the Menzelin district of the
Yenisei Government where he was still living as late as 1867
in the Shushin volost or county.
The ideal of the sect was to live in families, but to pool their
work as also their goods and chattels. Twelve 'apostles' were
chosen among them, at whose feet they were to lay all their
property. They built common magazines, and appointed
common treasuries. But the enthusiasm which originally
inspired their renunciation of meum and teum presently died
down, as it did in the case of the early Church, and they had
to admit to themselves that "they had been carried away by
indiscretion"; at least such is the report of the Orthodox Con
versationalist of 1859 (pp. 408 and 439). It was too lofty and
exacting an ideal and overtaxed their moral energy. The
time soon came when they judged it best to restore to each
family as nearly as could be what it had contributed to the
common stock and start afresh along humbler lines. Yet the
essay they had made in collectivist communism left its mark
upon them, and they remained after they gave it up on a higher
social and moral level than they were before they attempted it.
They still retained a common magazine, in which each head of a
family was obliged to deposit, for the use of the poor, a tenth
part of all he had, in money or in kind. Over and above that,
each member at the meetings for prayer laid what he could
afford in a plate over which was laid a napkin, so that no one
could criticize his neighbour's benevolence. In all this they
rose, we are told, well above the level of most Russian peasants.
Varadinov, another observer of their communities, relates
in the History of the Ministry of the Interior, (Vol. viii, p. 500)
that they chose an official called 'judge' or 'almoner' to whom
they confided the money thus offered for him to distribute it
to the poor and indigent. They chose other officers as well for
the regulation both of their religious services and civil affairs,
bearing such unusual titles as conductors, prayers, clerks or
rhetors, singers, officers de secretis, men of counsel or mentalists.
Some of them during service held a sort of spiritual rank and
gave the blessing, expounded the Scriptures when the prayers
were ended, interpreted their meaning for the past and future.
COMMUNISTS, STUNDISTS, AND SMALL SECTS 329
Out of church, however, they became again ordinary members
of the community. The choice of these officials was not really
popular. They were nominated by their predecessors in office,
and their names publicly proclaimed.
The right of the individual to interpret Scripture for himself,
so wide in the sister sects, is limited in this one. No one can
undertake the task in the meeting without informing the
'judge' beforehand of what line he will take. The founder
Popov was not fond of being contradicted, nor are his successors
in office; and obedience to officers is a cardinal duty among
them. The members of the sect are forbidden all secular
literature and only allowed to study the Bible, in contrast with
the disciples of Uklein.
The Communists, of course, no longer deserve their name,
since they long ago gave up Popov's principles. Maximov in
1867 counted 120 families of them in Nikolaievsk, but if all the
Transcaucasian members of the sect could have been assembled
in one place there would have been 645 families. This village
lies near Lenkoran, surrounded by Armenians, Tatars and
other foreigners. At that time they carried on little propa
ganda, and indeed in their situation were little able to do so, for
the Russian authorities prevented their holding communica
tion with European Russia. All their letters, going or coming,
were opened by the police.
In matters of creed and cult the Communists differ little
from the followers of Uklein, but out of them issued about 1830
a sect of religious leapers, forming as it were a link with the
Khlysty. Lukian Petrov was the founder of these. The
Communists are reputed by Tolstoy, who described them in an
article in the Proceedings of the Imp. Soc. of Hist. for 1864,
bk. 4, not to pray for the Tsar. Indeed another writer in the
National Records (Otetch Zap. for 1878, No. 10) states that they
called the government the Scourge of Antichrist. They are
careful about the schooling of their children, but in 1850 their
school in Nikolaievsk was closed by the Holy Synod, as a centre
of heretical infection. Under a new regulation it was allowed
to continue, if the teacher was appointed by the local governor,
but the writer in the Proceedings just above mentioned does
not know if the sect complied or not. Ivanovski's account of
this sect substantially agrees with that of Uzov and the sources
I have cited, but he gives no estimate of the numbers of the
sect at the end of the last century. Probably they were very
reduced.
The Righthand Brotherhood or Zion's Tidings

Ivanovski describes this obscure sect from the Orthodox
Conversationalist of May, 1876, the Orthodox Review, June,
1867, and the Perm Diocesan Gazette, 1867, No. 24, and from
a MS. book sent him by an examining magistrate. It is
probably a sect as feeble in numbers as its tenets, as recorded
in this work, are violent. Its founder was a Staff-captain of
artillery named Ilin, who was banished in 1856 to the Solovets
monastery; previously he had lived in the Baltic provinces.
At the end of the last century his followers were chiefly encoun
tered in the Governments of Perm and Ural. His book
regarded as a sort of gospel by them is partly in prose, partly
in verse.
The main source of his inspiration is the Apocalypse, and we
have pictures of the destined end of the world and of the
Church and of their present condition. Like the Dukhobortsy
this sect rejects all externals, invocation of saints, relics, ecclesi
astical authority. The following verses contain the gist of the
founder's message :
"Nor churches raise of stone, nor altars rear,
But everywhere God glorify and fear.
Your priests we own not, rites away we fling,
With us each brother is a saint and king."
But he has a higher Christology than the Dukhobortsy, who
in 1816 informed the two worthy Quakers who visited them that
Jesus was mere man, for this book teaches that Jesus Christ
was Jehovah crucified, God-man, after the manner of the
ancient Patripassians.
Ivanovski declares that there is no trace of Christianity
in the book save the name I&us, the use of which seems to indi
cate that it was penned under the influence of the Old believers.
It is, however, strongly tinctured with Judaism, for it inculcates
the observance of the Sabbath, circumcision and disuse of pork.
At the same time the Jews are called a congregation of Satan,
and the author assails the Jews of Paris in particular!
He looks forward to the institution of a Judaism in accord
ance with the New Testament and believes that Jehovah will
soon appear, and, after separating the left from the right among
us, gather the latter into a millennial Kingdom in Judaea. In it
"all sorts of blessings are to be heaped Uke mountains on us,
woods, green fields, gardens, honeycomb and fruit, gold, bronze
and silver, gems. There will be no barbaric studies, no schools
for recruits, no violence or tricks, no reports, no flattery of the
authorities. All will be equal and of one rank, no poUce, no
judges, everywhere sanctity and common people."
The Stundists
More important is the sect of the Stundists, in describing
which Ivanovski relies mainly on the Archpriest Rozhdest-
venski's volume, South Russian Stundism, published in Peters
burg 1889, and the Missionary Troitski's Refutation of the errors
of Stundism, Kiev, 1890.
It is the most recent of the widespread Russian sects and the
only one clearly due to German influences; it is mostly
diffused in the South Russian Governments, especially those
of Kherson, Ekaterinoslav and Kiev, where towards the close
of the XlXth Century it had begun to excite the attention of
priests and policemen. Its real founder is said to have been
Jacob Spener, a German pastor, who died 1705. He encour
aged that form of pietism which delights in meetings where the
Bible is read and made the object of meditation, and he insisted
on the pious devoting certain hours (German Stunde) especially
on holidays to such spiritual exercises. But so far there was no
separate sect or religious organization, and at the meetings in
Hamburg and elsewhere, Lutherans, Calvinist and Baptists
mingled together. There was an agreement to do without
formal rites, and internal spiritual illumination was by grace
divine.
In 1817 Stundism was carried by German settlers to the
steppes along the Black Sea into regions where the dregs of
Dukhoborism and of the Molokan sect still lingered, in spite
of the fact that the bulk of them had been transported beyond
the Caucasus. With these dregs Stundism rapidly allied itself.
Ivanovski admits the deplorable religious conditions in those
regions a hundred years ago, and adduces in proof the testi
mony of several Russian divines, e.g., of Bishop Nicanor, who
declared that the inhabitants had neither churches nor religion.
Children and young people received no religious training what
ever, the educated people were libertines, while among the
common people vice, drunkenness and dissoluteness reigned
unchecked. He admits that here was a soil favourable for the
implanting and spread of a sect which laid stress on morality,
and that Stundism was such a sect. Its earliest Russian con
verts and propagandists, Ratushnyi, Tsimban, Ryaboshapka,
declared that before they joined the sect they had led a disso
lute life and " tasted of vice in all its forms."
But the early Stundists took up no hostile position against
the Orthodox Church; their object was merely to moralize its
members, just as Wesley, at any rate to begin with, had no idea
of founding a separate sect outside the Anglican communion.
In the Kherson Government, Bonekemipher, a reforming pas
tor, exhorted those who listened to his preaching not to desert
the Orthodox Church, but only to adapt their lives to the pre
cepts of the Gospel. The eariier preachers of the movement in
Little Russia, Ratushnyi and Ryaboshapka, and Gerasim
Balaban and Yakob Koval in the Government of Kiev, worked
along the same lines; and it was only about 1870 that the new
pietists organized themselves into a distinct sect; till then they
baptized their children in the orthodox churches, confessed and
received the communion in them, and kept the Easter fast.
The separate movement was due to the influence of the Bap
tists or Mennonites of South Russia and the Caucasus. This
explains why they underwent baptism afresh, no doubt be
cause they regarded infant baptism as neither scriptural nor
primitive. Ivan Ryaboshapka. already named, was the first
to submit to the rite at the hands of Ephim (Euthymhis)
Tsimban. Thenceforth they formed a sect and administered
their own rites of baptism, marriage and burial.
Ivanovski details their tenets from a manual of the Kosya-
kovski Stundists, met with in the Tarashchan district or
county of the Kiev Government. It contains fifteen sections,
and each tenet is clearly expressed and evidenced by texts
from scripture. It was translated from a German original.
Like the Molokanye, they profess to build entirely on the Bible,
and like them are the more difficult to controvert because they
interpret a text which prima facie is against them by the light
of another which favours their views; if hard pressed they even
resort to allegory in order to get out of a text. It is not how
ever always apparent what they seek to evade in the examples
of allegorization adduced by Ivanovski. For example they
explain Gethsemane as meaning the world, the Disciples who
went to sleep are those who are sunk in religious torpor till
they become Stundists, while those who rejected and crucified
Jesus are the orthodox of to-day.
Their tenets are a mixture of the Lutheran, Calvinist and
Baptist. Sin was originally due to the Fall of Man and they
declare man since the fall to be incapable of good and radically
prone to evil. With the Calvinists they hold that certain souls
are elect and predestined to Salvation; and these were handed
over by the Father to the Saviour, as the reward of his death
struggle, nor can they ever be lost or taken from him.
The means, however, by which they will find Salvation are
five : the first is the Word of God from which at Baptism they
acquire faith in Christ. Baptism is the second, and is the
first fruits of faith and love for Christ, a triumphant confession
of sin forgiven and washed away. The Breaking of Bread is
the third, for in this Holy Supper we spiritually partake of the
body and blood of Christ. The fourth is the Communion of
Saints, the supreme expression of church unity. Fifth and last
is repentance with prayer; but repentance with a pure heart
does not involve absolution pronounced by a priest, for prayer
is more efficacious as a release from sin than is that; and it is of
two sorts, external when attended with sighs, tears, sorrow and
uplifted hands; internal- as a meditation upon God and the
divine verities.
The ecclesiastical organization of the Stundists is simple.

They have no bishops, but presbyters are chosen by the faith
ful to govern and administer their affairs, teachers to preach.
These two orders can baptize and serve the Eucharist, assisted
by an order of deacons or servers. They have no fixed rites,
but church service begins with reading and interpretation,
of the Bible, then hymns composed by themselves are sung to
popular airs unlike those of the Orthodox Church. In their
assembly they sit, but sometimes walk up and down debating
the sense of a text. They recognize none but adult baptism,
for Jesus (Mark 16 xvi) prescribed faith as the sine qua non of
baptism.1 Accordingly the Stundists re-baptize those whom
they convert from orthodoxy; and, following the Lord's
example, they baptize in a river.
The rite of breaking bread is held once a month, in the presence
of all the Stundists of a locality. It begins with the lections of
the Last Supper, followed by hymns. Then, all standing, the
presbyter prays to the Lord to deign to receive his body in
purification from sin. The deacon next brings slices of bread
on a plate, which the presbyter breaks into pieces, communi
cates himself and others in them, the deacon bearing the
morsels to the faithful. Next they sing solemn verses about the
cup, and read appropriate lections from the Gospel, after which
they communicate in the wine. The rite ends with a prayer of
thanksgiving.
All other rites they reject; so too fasts, which they say are
even harmful, for a man is more likely to do harm when he is
hungry, and it is not that which enters the mouth which defiles
us. They venerate neither cross nor ikon, nor commemorate
the dead. Saints they refuse to invoke, and in particular
ridicule the cult of St. Nicholas, so popular in Russia On
Good Friday even the poorest among them eat meat.
There is a minority among the Stundists who, like the fol
lowers of Uklein and the Dukhobortsy, renounce all rites even
1 Ivanovski appeals to Mart: 10 hr: "Forbid them not, for of such is the
kingdom of heaven," forgetting that the children in question had certainly not
been baptized, and that the text, if it has any bearing on the point at issue, is
rather an argument than not for dispensing with baptism altogether.
baptism and the Eucharist, insisting that Christianity is
something wholly spiritual. Their teaching is given in a
manual compiled by Jacob Koval, and they are found espe
cially in the province of Tarashchan in the Kiev Government.
This teacher argued that the baptism of Jesus was a unique
event. "We," he said, "do not frequent the banks of the
Jordan, but are purified of sin by being baptized into the death
of Christ. With him we die and rise again, but not by water.
The communion, they argue, of which Paul wrote, stands in the
communication of the Holy Spirit through union with Holy
Church. In it we are fed with truth and peace. The Saviour
was the word made flesh, and if we assimilate the Word, he
manifests himself in us."
Part III
THE MYSTIC SECTS
CHAPTER I
THE KHLYSTY
For my knowledge of the mystic sects, the Khlysty and

Skoptsy, I am chiefly indebted to the monumental work of
Professor Karl Konrad Grass of Dorpat, Die Russischen Sekten,
Leipzig, 1905-1914, and to his Geheime Heilige Schrift der
Shopzen, Leipzig, 1904. His account of the Khlysty fills 714
pages of small print, that of the Skoptsi, some 1100, and every
page is full of learning. He has ransacked the Russian archives
in order to present us with as complete a history as possible;
and on dubious or disputed points he sets before us the conclu
sions of Russian workers in the same field, of whose works he
adds a copious bibliography. Too much praise cannot be
lavished on a work embodying so much research, patient,
exhaustive, clearly written and well-arranged. It was almost
superfluous to consult other sources, but I have paid attention
to the works of Ivanovski and Liprandi.
The tenets of the Khlysty have no more relation than those
of the Dukhobortsy to the stereotyped ' high ' Christology of the
great historical churches. In the Khlysty hymns, indeed, recur
in plenty such terms as the God Sabaoth, God the Father,
Christ son of God, the Holy Spirit, the Mother of God this
last a shibboleth, as is well known, of the Council of Ephesus.
But in the Christian Shamanism which here lies before us we
breathe another atmosphere than that of the speculative doc
tors of Byzantium, remoulding the messianic ideal according
to the categories of Greek philosophy and suppressing, so far
as could be, its pneumatic and prophetic aspects. The real
parallel to Khlystism is to be sought in some of the earliest
phases of our Faith.
In that widespread form of Christianity generally called
Adoptionism the Holy Spirit descends from heaven, disguised
in the similitude of a dove, to take possession of the ' man born
of men,' Jesus of Nazareth, who was singled out for such honour
339
because of his having kept all the precepts of the Law and the
Prophets. In him old Jewish prophecy culminated. But the
grace of prophecy and of election by the Spirit did not end with
Jesus, but only entered in him on a new cycle of development.
The same Spirit of which the fullness dwelt in him descended
afresh on the day of Pentecost, this time with tongues of fire
and even odour of sanctity upon the faithful. They too by
this baptism of the Holy Spirit and of fire became elect sons of
God, spiritually animated Christs; for Christhood was not the
privilege of the Founder alone, but was equally the guerdon of
his followers. In this early stage of the Christian religion there
was no distinction of the r61es of Christhood, of Spirit, of divine
Logos or Word. Like St. Paul, the Adoptionists felt that they
had died and risen again with their Master, and in them the
Spirit dwelt and spake, not merely in the inarticulate jargon,
of tongues, but in sober discourse as well.
In the earliest phases of Christianity we have also the same
cult of virginity, male and female, as among the Khlysty. The
student knows it under the name of encratitism. Tertullian
felt it to be incompatible with the spiritual gifts received in
baptism for a Christian to continue in carnal relations with his
wife, and the same scruples were felt a century later in the age
of Augustine. So we read in St. Paul's Epistles of the Apostles
taking with them on their missionary travels sister-wives, of
the brethren of the Lord doing likewise, of the converted of
Corinth aspiring to practise the same continency, though, it
seems, less successfully. Everywhere in the Christian litera
ture of the early centuries we come upon the same custom; in
Rome, in North Africa, in Syria, in Anatolia where it inspired
many of the poems of Gregory of Nyssa, even in the old Celtic
church. It underlay the chivalry of the Middle Ages with its
idealized mistresses, it inspired Dante's dream of Beatrice.
To-day it is spread before us far and wide, up and down, the
whole of Russia; and those who practise it call themselves
Christs, a title of honour which the population round them has
perverted by a pun into Khlysty or flagellants.
As then among the Dukhobortsy, so among the Khlysty, the
cardinal doctrine is that of the reincarnation of Christ in the
THE KHLYSTY 341
individual; and the doctrine often assumes the form of a belief
that at the death of one of their Christs, the Christhood passes
into the body of another.1 But this must not be interpreted
in the sense that there is among them no more than one Christ
at a time. On the contrary, almost every congregation, every
ship or nave as they call it, has its own Christ, and alongside of
him its Mother of God or Theotokos, by whom is signified a
female consort of the Christ, like him plenarily inspired with
the Holy Spirit.
The Khlysty are not unacquainted with the Old Testament
and hold that the ancient Patriarchs were incarnations of
Christ, just as Cyrus was a Christ. Even the burning bush in
Exodus, Ch. 3, is interpreted as a parable of the flesh tenanted
by the Spirit. From the bush it entered Moses, and after him
Joshua and other spiritual leaders until finally the Fire
descended on Jesus in the Jordan, when, as the old Western
text relates, a light shone around upon the waters. The oldest
Epiphany hymns of the Eastern Churches make much of this
episode.
Grass (p. 256) remarks that Russian students of the sect at
first hand recognize as its tenet, everywhere and always, that
Jesus of Nazareth was an ordinary man until he was thirty
years of age, his birth from a virgin being interpreted to mean
that he was brought up to the true faith by his mother. In the
early days of Christianity we equally often meet with the idea
that the holy virginal aeon, the Church, preceded Christ and
was, spiritually of course, his mother. So Tertullian, the
Montanist, recognized in the Church the Mater Domini and
in his physical Mother Mary an image of the unbelieving
Synagogue.
After a forty days' fast Christ came to baptism, and then the
Spirit of God descended on him, whereby he was anointed the
Christ. This ancient tenet was attributed by Justin Martyr
(c. 140) to a large body of his fellow-believers. Such an adop-
tionist opinion underlay the old gnostic systems of the second
century and was in the second century dominant among ortho
dox circles in Rome. The Khlysty may conceivably have
1 Grass, p. 253.
/ r
inherited it from antiquity. On the other hand, as it is the
apparent sense of the synoptic gospels l they may have merely
inferred it from a study of those documents.
The Khlysty hold that Christ's body lay in the grave after
his death, like any other man's body. The Resurrection really
means that the Divine Spirit which had constituted him a
Christ was bequeathed by him to successors worthy thereof.
Thus the incarnation, the man-becoming, or as the Fathers
termed it, the enanthrdpesis of God in Jesus of Nazareth, was a
filling of Jesus with the Spirit of God, and was only the first of
that series of such fillings which we witness in the Christian
Church. The Khlysty, no more than the Shepherd of Hernias,
know of any distinction between Christ the Son and the Holy
Spirit. They are essentially a pre-Trinitarian sect, though in
their hymns we meet with tags of Trinitarianism borrowed
from the Orthodox Church.
The Khlysty naves or ships form a loose congeries united only
by the cult of one Danila Philipov, whose legend I give below
and whom they regard as their proximate founder and prophet.
I use the word proximate, because Danila only lived in the
second half of the XVIIth Century, whereas their hymns 2
recognize that the sect is as old as Dmitri Donskoi, prince or
grand duke of Moscow from 1363 to 1389. For Dmitri cruci
fied one of their Christs named Averzhan on the battlefield of
Kulikov; another of their hymns also celebrates the memory of
a Christ named Yemeljan who suffered under Ivan the Terrible
(1533-1584). Danila was pre-eminent among their spiritual
founders because he was not merely Christ, but God Sabaoth
himself. He was 'godded,' to use a good old English word,
by the descent of God himself upon him out of the seventh
heaven in the shape of a bright falcon. As an incarnation
of God himself, Danila precedes in dignity all the Christs and
Mothers of God of the sect.
Such identification of a mere man with God himself is strange
to our ears, but in fact Russian peasants are not far removed
1Except, of course, that the Gospels put the fast after the Baptism, not
before it.
' Grass, p. 1.
THE KHLYSTY 343
intellectually from the oriental populations who were ready to
accept an Augustus or a Tiberius as objects of divine cult.
They style even their ikons bogi or "gods," as Grass remarks
(p. 255). The men of Lystra were quite prepared to add Paul
and Barnabas to their Pantheon, and we have seen a John of
Kronstadt elevated in modern Russia into something higher
than an ordinary saint of the calendar.
The question arises: what are the credentials of a Christ?
How is he to be recognized? The answer is : By his sufferings.
Danila the Founder was crucified at least twice over, and the
Russian Government was certain to provide this test for many.
The rack and the knout were ever handy. But mortification
of the flesh by the candidate for Messiahship is no less essen
tial. Thus Roman Likhachov late in the last century was
believed by his followers in the Caucasus to have fasted for
forty days on end. Some time before 1825 Awakum Kopulov,
a peasant of the Tambov Government, achieved the same feat.
Early in the XVIIIth Century Ivan Pimenov, a peasant of
Alatur in the Nijni Novgorod Government, attained the dignity
by walking barefooted through the forests in summer and
winter, feeding on roots and shrouding his thoughts in a per
petual mutism. He lived to be a hundred. The self-discipline
of silence reminds us of Apollonius of Tyana and the Neo-
Pythagoreans, and in general the exaggerated asceticism of the
Khlysty reminds us of the Indian Fakhirs and of the monks of
the Thebaid. The claims of rival pretenders to Christhood are
settled by their followers who watch them for years to see which
of them undergoes the worst sufferings. In such circumstances
it is inevitable that the ascetic should sometimes trick his fol
lowers and even himself; and this was no doubt the case with
Gregory Shevshchenko, who died and came to life again at
Alexandropol in the Ekaterinoslav Government about the year
1889 to the surprise and delight of his adherents; parallels
will occur to the reader of Hindoos buried alive and resuscitat
ing themselves.
As Grass remarks (p. 260), all these exploits, together with
the self-glorification which attends them, seem at first sight to
be performed at the cost of Jesus of Nazareth, and Ivan
Gregoriev taught in Orlov Gai in 1858 that the Son of God was
not in the historical Jesus Christ alone. Even before Christ
he was in the Righteous, and in the same way He has subse
quently come down among us in many righteous and faithful
ones. In such teaching, however, we have little more than a
protest against the Greek Churches which insist on the unique
Divinity of Jesus; the sectaries, if they were better read, could
adduce on their side the testimony of Justin Martyr {dialogue
'with Tryphon, 268) that there were Christians in his day who
believed Jesus to have been born a man and to have been
anointed and become Messiah by way of election; or of Hege-
monius (Acta Archelai) who takes up the same standpoint, and
assumes that, as Jesus for his merits was chosen to be a vessel
of the Holy Spirit and became Christ by adoption, so were the
Apostles and the faithful in general. In fact they do not yield
to ordinary Christians in their veneration for the Man of Naza
reth. This is evident from their hymns which address Jesus
as the Allmighty and heavenly Lord. Not only the rank and
file, but their Christs equally, invoke him in prayer as God the
Father. The Virgin Mary is equally an object of their cult,
none the less solemn and sincere because they venerate their
own mothers of God.
Two of their hymns reproduced by Grass (p. 261) from
Barsov illustrate the above points. The first is
"Our redeemer Christ hath consummated the task of his all
purest flesh,
Yet he still doth consummate it in other elect bodies of flesh.
He, ever the one and same Christ, God, Saviour,
Abideth inseparably with the Father in Heaven,
Sendeth his Holy Spirit, through whom he begetteth Christ.
We are the earth and the little world, but the Son is Son of
God.
He riseth in the hearts of those who love him, like the sun,
He riseth up, sets not again, but tarrieth always;
He transmutes his Word into flesh, whereby he redeemeth the
entire world;
The believing heart knoweth how the light streams forth.
Then doth God beget Christ, when all things die away.
THE KHLYSTY 45
When the Son of God shall appear, all things shall be changed,
The creature shall be reborn, shall be transformed into Christ,
When love, pure humility, faith and patience
In us, my friends, shall prevail, then will Christ come unto us.
Thou the only, the perfect, the word made flesh!
Thou, hypostatic Son of God, born before world and time
began!
Where thou wilt, in whom thou restest thou dost manifest
thyself!"
The second is:
"The Liberator, who is come into the world, sent from God,
He cometh forward, the fair sun; open ye your hearts!
Open them, welcome in the King of Glory,
And so well as ye may, my friends, cleanse your hearts!
In heartfelt penitence humble ye yourselves,
And with heartfelt tears wash yourselves clean !
Be ye pure, spotless, as the children of God.
Welcome ye the heavenly light, unfold the petals of the heart.
Praise ye in the flesh your little Father akin to you.
The Word of God was made flesh, revealed himself among us,
In his fulness it was revealed, appeared in the creature.
It dwelleth together with us and instructeth us.
For thee are temples made ready, O opened heart,
Come, eternal life, descend into our hearts!
Despise not, thou Son of God, our blackness."
But in this sect are many grades of holiness. Danila was
God of Sabaoth incarnate, and many are the Christs and
Mothers-of-God, presiding over the various ships. But the
vessel is also freighted, like the Church of St. Paul, with others
who in their measure have received the Gift of the Spirit, with
Apostles, Prophets, Prophetesses, People of God in general.
All are elect, all have the grace of God, but all are not in the
same measure endowed with the spirit. All initiates of what
ever grade of sanctity, are admitted to the meetings which are
strictly secret. Then are chanted the hymns of which I have
given these two examples.
And these, be it remarked, for anything they contain, might
equally be Dukhobor compositions. They are composed in
double rhymes, in stately rhythm and in pure well chosen
language. Once I was in a Russian posthouse, a solitary place,
perched high upon the lofty hills which confront Ararat across
the plain of Erivan. It was a clear moonlight night, and a
troop of Russian dissenters, whether Dukhobortsy or Molo-
kanye or Khlysty I know not, came marching along the road,
singing in parts such a hymn as the above. It was the most
stirring devotional music I have ever listened to, transcending
any elaborate Italianized chorus I ever heard in the Kazan
Cathedral of Petersburg. St. Augustine describes in bis
inimitable way the impression which the devotional music of
Milan made upon him: it must have resembled the singing
of Russian dissenters, as I have heard it.
Among the Khlysty then the two chief sacraments, the essen
tials in order to salvation, are firstly mortification of the flesh,
sufferings self-imposed or inflicted by a Russian Government
ever ready to inflict them; and secondly, reception of the Holy
Spirit, and the latter commonly shews itself, as it shewed itself
in the early Church, in the form of trance, of ecstasy, of spiri
tual convulsions and contortions.
The Holy Spirit dwells in the seventh heaven and his sudden
clutch of the devotee is likened in the hymns to the swoop of a
falcon, or an eagle, seldom, as in our Gospels, to the gentle
downward flight of a dove. The mere singing of hymns suffices
to throw some of the faithful into an ecstasy, and a meeting
commonly begins with a metrical paraphrase of the Lord's
Prayer. The first lines of this in what Grass (p. 265) regards as
its most primitive form runs thus :
"Give us, Lord,
To us, Jesus Christ!
Give us, Son of God,
Light; have mercy upon us!
Ruler, Holy Spirit,
Have mercy upon us!
Lady Ruler, our little Mother!
Ask, Light, for us
The Light, thy Son,
THE KHLYSTY 347
The Spirit of God, the Holy one!
Light, by thee are redeemed
Many sinners on the earth,
Unto the little Mother, unto our Lady Queen,
Light, unto her that cherishes us."
There are a hundred other hymns which contribute to the
same effect; but the most potent means to produce union with
the spirit is the religious dance known as Radenie, a word which
implies zeal, labour, fervour. With Russians, emotion as
naturally translates itself into dancing as among orientals;
and it is possible that the Khlysty imitate in some degree the
Mahommedan Dervishes of whose transports they were eye
witnesses during the long subjection of their country to the
Tatars. Stephen Graham in his volume upon Russia and the
World (London, 1915) has a graphic picture of Russian peas
ants dancing which reminds us of some of the Radenie.
The early Christians graced every festival of a Saint with
"the customary dances"; l and if they were subsequently for
bidden in the Spanish and other Churches, it was only because
they were irreverently conducted and not because they were
objectionable in themselves. Even in Spain I have myself wit
nessed the graceful dances of the Acolytes in the Great Church
of Seville.
The following is an example of the hymns which among these
people preludes the descent of the Spirit:
"Strings, his strings
The prophet David (smote)!
The prophet played upon the strings
He burst into tears;
With the upper Powers
He prayed unto Sabaoth:
Have mercy on me, O God!
Pour out thy grace on me!
Mighty are the graces
Freely bestowed on thee, who prayest!
In thy sight have I sinned,
1 Ada of S.' Polyeuctes.
Before thee I bow myself down,
Give me faith, hope
To thee I pray.
By thy grace
Am I for ever made strong,
Like a child
I am anew reborn.
By thy holy Spirit
Am I now swept away in transport.
With us have they assembled,
In the assembling place the assemblage,
They have called the Spirit down,
They have shed tears,
They have dispersed their sins,
In themselves they have awaited
In fear the King of Glory.
And all with one accord
Lifted their voices to heaven:
Float down, Son of God,
Good Spirit, guide!
As in earlier days
A roar was heard from heaven,
Thou unto thine elect ones
In fiery tongues descendest,
Thus in thy speech to be heard by all
From that day unto this."
Picture the surroundings : it is the evening of one of the many
feasts of the Russian Church, for a gathering of people on such
a day is least likely to excite the attention of the police. The
meeting is held in a long whitewashed chamber, with benches
along the walls, and to one side there is a table on which is set
loaves and a jug of water or of mild and unintoxicating kvas,
the elements of the Khlysty Eucharist. Such is the scene of the
rites to follow. The faithful enter; they have shed their heavy
cloaks and foot-gear; for when you enter a Russian house you
leave your over-boots at the door as a matter of course, and the
floor here, like that of a mosque, is holy ground. Men and
women alike are clad in a white flowing raiment, and, as in the
THE KHLYSTY 349
sister sect of Skoptsy, each carries a white handkerchief to be
waved aloft in the dance in imitation of an angel's wings. They
approach in couples the presiding Christ or Mother of God, and
prostrate themselves before them in token that God and Christ
are in them made flesh. They probably listen to a little homily
against the use of intoxicants and tobacco, against backsliding
and on the duty of guarding in silence even on the rack and
under the lash the mysteries of the sect. In the XVIIIth
Century innumerable monks and nuns from orthodox convents
frequented such meetings, and with them may have originated
in the sect the practice which sporadically continues to-day of
burning incense before the suspended ikons and of adoration
paid to the Cross hung in a comer of the chamber.
The homily finished, the dance begins, at first an orderly
circular dance in which men and women join hands; all are
singing the Prayer of Jesus given above in alternation with
other hymns. Faster and faster revolves the human circle,
more animated become the vocal strains, and presently they
burst into a chorus recalling that of the Bacchae in the ancient
mysteries of Dionysus:
" Past us in paradise a bird is hovering,
It flies amain,
To yonder side it glances,
Where the trumpet's blast 1 is heard,
Where God himself is speaking:
O God, O God, 0 God,
O Spirit, O Spirit, O Spirit!
Float down, down, down!
Oi Yega! Oi Yega! Oi Yega!2
It floated down, it floated down,
The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit!
'Twill blow where it will, where it listeth,
The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit.
0 I burn, O I burn,
The Spirit burns, God burns!
1 The trumpet means the Christ or prophet presiding over the scene.
' Perhaps the pronunciation is yeha, an abbreviation of the name Jesus.
Light is in me, Light is in me,
The Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost!
0 I burn, burn, burn,
Ghost! Oi Yega! (four times)
Yev6ye! Host Yevof (thrice)
Soon isolated figures detach themselves from the throng and
spin round, like Dervishes, with incredible rapidity. Others
begin to stamp, kick, hop, leap, shriek; all are bathed in sweat,
all are foaming at the mouth, all are gesticulating wildly, all are
ejaculating such phrases as : Oi Duyh, Oi Dukh, Svkatoi
Duch, Okh, 6kh, okh!1
It is a final token of the presence of the Spirit that they drop
exhausted and inanimate on the floor, insensible to external
impressions. On such occasions they have failed to notice
the entrance even of the hated police in their chamber; or, if
they have been warned in time, they have fled barefooted in
their scanty garments to their homes across fields of snow in
forty degrees of frost and suffered no harm thereby.
But some under the intoxication of the Spirit begin to speak
with tongues, which it is the task of others to interpret. Even
these uncouth utterances are often marked by rhythm and fall
into rhymed verses, but not always as the following inharmon
ious specimen shews ?
Nasontos, Lesontos, phurtlis, natruphuntru, natrisinphur,
Kreserephire, Kresentrephert, tscheresantro,ulmiri,umilisintru,
gereson, drowolmire, tsch^sondro phorde, kornemila, koremira,
gs'drowolne, korlemire gdrowolde, kaniphute, jeschetschere
kondre, nasiphe nasophont, meresinti, pheretra.
Such is the tongue talked by the Holy Spirit in Russia, and it
especially affects a combination of consonants nt rare in the
normal speech. Harnack has conjectured that the gibberish
of the old Greek and Egyptian magic papyri was taken down
from the lips of devotees fallen into a religious trance, and these
utterances of the Khlysty go far to confirm his conjecture.
Khlysty of whom the Spirit has taken possession and who
have subsequently revealed their experiences to the profane, are
1 "Ho Spirit, Spirit, Holy Spirit, Ho, Ho, Ho."
! Grass, p. 123 whose transliteration I follow.
THE KHLYSTY 351
agreed that in such moments its advent is marked by a feeling

of profound inward exaltation and joy. They are no more
themselves, the normal man or woman is dead in them, their
hearts flutter, their tongues are stirred by the new soul within
them, they are raised into the seventh heaven, are in paradise,
they even see God and the angels face to face. So the Bogomils
of the Xlth and XII Centuries had ocular visions of the
Trinity. Occasionally, like the second century Montanist
prophetess Maximilla, they are conscious of being God and
cry out to that effect. Such 'enthusiasm' was almost normal
in Christians before A. D. 250 and sporadically continued,
especially among monks and nuns. Of such ecstasy many of
the Khlysty hymns are the fruit. They are the utterances of
the Holy Ghost speaking in the flesh; taken down in writing
or faithfully remembered, they form in their entirety the Dove
Book (Kniga GolvJbina), which like the hymns of the Dukho-
bortsi, takes precedence in the matter of inspiration even of
the New Testament; though no doubt the Bible, especially the
Book of Sirach and the Gospels, is held in high reverence.
The former was the only old Jewish scripture recognized by
the Manicheans and Cathars, no doubt because the Jews
rejected it, and these sects inherited the anti-Semitic bias of
Marcion. For those, however, who are recipients of the Dove
Book the Bible is really superfluous, save in so far as it serves
to confirm their faith, which by dint of allegory its most refrac
tory passages may be made to do. For example they interpret
the veil of Moses as the holy estate of matrimony, which they
regard as did the Cathars, as being no better, perhaps worse
than adultery; 'the greater adultery' was the Cathar expres
sion for it.
The Khlysty, male or female, so thoroughly repudiate worldly
marriage, that on initiation they take a spiritual wife or hus
band. Not that the wife of the unregenerate phase is wholly
discarded; for she often continues to sleep in chastity in her
husband's bed, in company with the spiritual wife; but her
children, born of sin, are denominated in the argot of the sect
'little sins, whelps, young cats,' and are not allowed to call their
parents father and mother. At initiation every Khlyst swears
to eschew orthodox marriage and not to attend a christening.
They teach that if God desires a virgin to conceive, he will
impregnate her with his Holy Spirit as he did Mary the Mother
of Christ. In spite of such beliefs, however, they illogically
insisted on the line of their founder Danila Philippovich being
maintained for some generations in the ordinary manner until
his last female descendant was immured by the Russian
Government in a convent, where she was inaccessible. After
that their devotion to his memory centred in his relics, his hat,
stick, the rags he wore and hairs of his head.
In their diet they are very abstemious. They eschew meat,
like the Skoptsy (a branch of their sect), because flesh is the
product of copulation; at least this is their reason according to
Liprandi (Raskolov Eres\ 1853, Leipzig Ed. of 1883, p. 29).
The reason is probable enough, for the Cathars also gave it;
and it is perhaps the real basis of the Catholic rule of fasting.
But the Khlysty illogically forbid fish as well, which being
born in the water had not the same taint for the Cathars or for
the early Christians, who for that reason made it the symbol
of Jesus born again the Christ in the waters of Jordan,
Piscis natus aquis as the old Latin Christian poet has it. Like
the Molokanye and no doubt the Dukhobortsy, the Khlysty
abjure the onion and garlic, because they interfere with the
odour of sanctity which they detect in one another. They
also avoid potatoes, a prejudice they have in common with
many Old believers, who believe it to be the identical fruit with
which Eve tempted Adam. That the foreign-minded Catha
rine II introduced it from the West was enough to condemn it;
and for a like reason they abhor tobacco. Both are 'western
poison.'
Khlysty girls enthusiastically uphold the Encratite rule of
spiritual wedlock, and regard a man's legal wife, assumed
before he entered the order, as a Gift of the Devil. The ascetic
life they pursue gives to the members of the sect a peculiar
look by which they are easily recognized. No one who has
encountered them will forget their deep-set intensely gleaming
eyes, their spare emaciated frames, their reposeful manner.
They seem to have dropped out of another world into this one.
THE KHLYSTY 353
They have been accused of ending their radenia or religious
dances with wholesale debauchery, the lights being first put out.
Grass examines the evidence very carefully and impartially,
and rejects the story as calumny. The only thing that gives
it colour is that often, when the ecstasies are over, the exhausted
votaries drop down on the floor and sleep till dawn, the men on
one side of the apartment, the women on the other. Their
doing so, instead of going home at once, is a necessity dictated
either by the climate or by. fear of the Russian police, whose
suspicions would be roused if they trooped home at a late hour.1
Tertullian, after he became a Montanist, accused the Catholic
deacons of deflowering the deaconesses at the close of their
agapes; but no ecclesiastical historian wholly credits his story,
although no doubt the then prevailing custom of virgines subin-
troductae, i. e., of nuns living for the sake of protection or human
sympathy with monkish priests and laymen, occasionally gave
rise to such abuses as Gibbon satirizes and Cyprian attests.
That this may occur among the Khlysty also is undeniable,
but those in a position to judge admit it to be rare. The same
stories were current in Medieval Europe about the Cathars,
and with equally little reason. Still more horrible stories are
told of the Khlysty communicating in the blood of a baby boy
born to one of their virgins and so forth. The ancient Jews
accused the early Christians of such Thyestean banquets, and
so did the pagan populace. All through the Middle Ages the
Catholics accused the Jews of them, and rival monastic orders
even charged one another with them. In Russia the same
tradition of anti-Semitic calumny prevails to-day. Only
just before the war, the orthodox were offering up prayers all
over Russia, and especially in the Kazan Cathedral in their
capital, for the conviction of a miserable Jew accused in Kiev
of murdering a Christian child for ritual purposes. Such
superstitions are hard to kill in Russia, which in many respects
remains medieval. There every Jew is believed to bear the
brand of Cain, not on his brow, where it could be seen, but
under his clothes on his breast. Grass, then, examines this sort
1 In a peasant's izba or hut it is usual for both sexes, old and young, to repose
together on the top of the stove during the long winter.
of story about the Khlysty with his accustomed thoroughness,
setting all the evidence in full before us, and no one will wade
through it and not dismiss it with contempt. The extraor
dinary secrecy with which for two and a half centuries the
sect has, under pain of being knouted, exiled and burnt alive,
concealed its rites, often under the cloak of devout adherence
to the Orthodox Church, sufficiently accounts for the genesis
of such stories.
From their outward show of orthodoxy and perhaps from the
circumstance that in the XVIIIth Century their cult flourished
so vigorously inside convents and monasteries, certain orthodox
observers agree that they regard the Greek Church as a sort of
vestibule to their mysteries. They are the perfecti, the com
mon church man is only an auditor or catechumen. But their
affectation of orthodoxy is at best a screen. At the most,
observes Grass (p. 348), the Khlysty would allow that the
Orthodox Church witnesses even against its will to their own;
but in reality they utterly reject it with all its sacraments.
They hold that if the Orthodox Church has any super
natural role, it is a purely satanic one. They are the only
Apostolic Church, the true successors of the holy Martyrs whom
the kings of the earth persecuted of old, as to-day the Orthodox
"Jews and Pharisees" persecute the Khlysty.
Having, like the Dukhobortsy and the Cathars, a baptism of
the spirit, they reject the water baptism of John as an institu
tion that with the advent of Christ lost its significance. Like
the Hydroparastatae and other followers of Tatian, numerous
in the early church, they refuse to use wine in their communion,
for wine renders the sacrament sinful and fleshly. Observers
have recorded of them that when they go to church and partake
of the village pope's cup of wine, as the law forces them to do
at least once a year, they retain it in their mouths till they can
quit the church and spit it out. What they signify by the
simple meal of bread and water is not clear; we have seen
that the Molokanye retain it, while disclaiming for it any sacra
mental significance; nor is it intelligible that alongside of the
plenary inspiration of the Radenie it could possess any for the
Khlysty.
THE KHLYSTY 355
Russian authorities (eunumerated by Grass, p. 278) declare
that in one form of the Radenie the sectaries dance round and
round a tub full of water, for which reason they are in some
places popularly known as Kadushniki from kadushka, a
small tub. As they dance round it, flagellating themselves,
they sing a refrain:
I scourge, scourge, I seek Christ.
Come down to us, Christ, from the seventh heaven,
Circle with us, Christ, in the holy ring,
Hover down from heaven, Lord, Holy Ghost!
There is no fire beneath the tub, yet presently it begins as their
fervour waxes, to simmer and bubble. A vapour rises off it,
and amid the vapour in a nimbus of golden light they discern
a child, or a mother and a child. Some relate that not a child,
but a dark bird, like a raven, is materialized in the steam.
The votaries when they see the apparition fall prostrate in
ecstasy and terror.
That they conduct some such dance round a tub, seems too
well attested for us to doubt it. I believe, if it exists, it may be
a relic of the Epiphany consecration of water in commemora
tion of the descent of the Spirit in Jordan upon Christ.1 The
raven variant is bred of their common comparison of the Spirit
to a falcon or an eagle. In the Great Churches a stoop of water
is consecrated for use in baptisms etc. on this festival. For the
excited dancers to have such a vision is natural enough.
Stranger miracles are worked every day among ourselves by
mediums in spiritualist seances. It would be enough for one
votary to cry out that he saw it, and all present would behold it
too.
The prophecies indulged in by those of whom the Spirit takes
possession on such occasions, are of the naive and homely char
acter we might expect among Russian peasants. The prophet
foretells what the weather is going to be, whether the crops will
fail or whether there will be a bumper harvest, matters of
1 Cp. the old Slavonic rite (translated from a lost Latin text) of exorcising the
waters at Epiphany, published by Franz Radic from a Curzola MS. of c. 1400, in
Wissenschaflliche MiUheilungen aut Bosnien und der Herzegovina, Wien 1894, p.
179 foil.
great concern in Russia. They also forecast the take of fish in
the rivers, conflagrations of individual cabins or entire villages,
which in Russia are mostly built of wood. They also predict
persecutions by the Government, a class of event which could
be safely predicted at any time and anywhere. Sometimes
the predictions relate to the death of members of the sect or to
their sins. All sorts of devices are employed by the prophet
to shadow forth the future, and there are rules for interpreting
his actions, no less than his utterances. For example, he swings
a lamp to and fro : if it remains alight all present are blameless ;
if it goes out, someone has sinned. Or he takes, says Grass
(p. 287), all the handkerchiefs which they waved as they danced,
and lays them together in the form of a cross on the floor.
Then all step over them, but if anyone trips and touches the
pattern with his toe, he is a sinner and must do penance. Grass
enumerates other equally simple forms of old-world ordeal.
We must bear in mind that in the old Russian codes the ordeal
was much in evidence, and the peasantry still believe in it.
Among ourselves it has survived as an innocent method of
fortune-telling familiar to folk-lorists.
Auricular confession of sins to the Christ or Prophet or
Mother of God appears to be in vogue among all the groups of
Khlysty who exist under various popular names all over the
Russian empire. In some groups a simple form of spiritual
marriage exists ; as also simple rites for the initiation of novices,
though, be it remarked, the Radenie is the only proper form
of reception of the spirit. We have also hints of a rite of
anointing for the sick and of funeral ceremonies.
The origin of the Khlysty is lost in antiquity, but Uzov and
Grass are clearly right in supposing it to be a form of Bogo-
milism at least as old in Russia as the prevalent orthodoxy.
Russian divines who regard Western Europe as the home of
rationalism derive it from that quarter; but it has nothing in
common with the Protestant Reformation; it has affinity with
the gospel of Madame de Guyon, and it resembles externally
the Avignon Brotherhood of the end of the XVIIIth Century,
the English Quakers, the Russian freemasons; but all these
points of contact are superficial. Still more ineffective is the
attempt of Russian anthropologists to derive it from the
THE KHLYSTY 357
Shamanism of the Finns, displaced by the Muscovite Slavs so
far as the latter did not blend and become one race with them,
only imposing on them their language and religion.
The determining factors to be borne in mind in any discus
sion of their origin are their Adoptionist Christology and their
disciplina arcani. But neither of these necessarily implies,
as Grass imagines, a gnostic origin, for the Great Church was
largely adoptionist until the age of Paul of Samosata, as are
the Synoptic Gospels themselves; and the disciplina arcani
was maintained in the church long after it had lost its meaning
and importance. The gnostic sects were Adoptionist because
they grew up within an early Christianity that was dominantly
such. As regards the disciplina, it is difficult to say just how
far it is in the case of a Russian dissenting sect due to persecu
tion and how far traditional.
We have seen that the Khlysty themselves recognize their
sect to be older than their God Zebaoth, or Sabaoth, Danila,
whose memory and relics are sacred to all its branches. He
probably found the idea of divine incarnation current, put
himself forward as a signal example of it and found devoted
followers to accept his claims to godship. The descent of the
Spirit on him took place at a fixed date and in a particular spot.
He was a peasant of the Government of Kostroma, and lived
during the reign of Alexis Michailovich (1645-1676). He had
deserted from the Army, and is said to have been a Bezpc-
povets and a follower of Kapiton, after whom one of the Priest-
less groups was called. He could write and read, possessed
Old-believer books and was recognized as a teacher. As he
stood on the hill of Gorodina in the Volost of Starodub in the
Government of Vladimir, the God Zebaoth descended on clouds
of fire in a fiery car, with his cortege of angels, seraphim and
cherubim, and took possession of his all-holy and pure person.
Thus Danila became the living God. None of his successors
have risen above the level of Christs, Prophets or Mothers of
God. This second advent the first was in Jordan took
place in 1645, a date which conflicts with the tradition that he
was an Old-believer; perhaps the last year of Alexis's reign
should have been assigned rather than the first.
Danila began his preaching in the Staraya village, 30 versts
from Kostroma, and called his home the house of God, his fol
lowers the people of God. Presently he removed to Kostroma,
the New Jerusalem of the sect, and to emphasize the fact that
the Dove Book had superseded all Church books, he threw all he
could find of the latter into the Volga. This, it is said, caused
the Patriarch Nikon to imprison him in a dark cell in the
Bogoyavlenski cloister. Escaping thence back to Kostroma,
he delivered to his followers, like Jehovah on Sinai, his Twelve
Commandments, as follows:
1. I am God, foretold of the prophets, and am come
down to earth a second time to save men's souls.
There is no other God than I.
2. There is no other teaching but mine. Seek ye none
other.
3. Whereunto ye are appointed, abide therein.
4. Keep God's commandments, be ye fishermen of the
world.
5. Drink no intoxicant, commit no sins of the flesh.
6. Marry not. He that is married shall live with his
wife as with his sister, as is declared in the old scrip
ture. Let the unwedded wed not, the wedded sepa
rate.
7. Utter not foul words nor black speeches (i. e. invoca
tions of the Devil).
8. Go not to weddings or baptisms, nor frequent drink
ing resorts.
9. Steal not. If a man steal but a single kopeck, it shall
in the dread judgment be laid on his skull, and when
the coin melts in fire on his head, and not before, shall
he gain remission of his sin.
10. Keep these rules in secret, reveal them not even to
father or mother, and even if men scourge thee with
whip or burn thee with fire, bear it. So doing the
true shall after the pattern of the old martyrs win
heaven, and on earth spiritual satisfaction.
11. Visit one another, practise hospitality (lit. bread and
salt), practise charity, keeping commandments, pray
to God.
12. Have faith in the Holy Spirit.
THE KHLYSTY 359
Fifteen years after his Epiphany at Gorodina, Danila begot
a spiritual son after the manner of St. Paul. This was Ivan
Timofeyevich Suslov, the son of Timofe and Irina, respectable
people of the neighbourhood. The legend is that Irina was a
hundred when he was born, and that he was her firstborn. He
was Jesus, incarnate over again, and in his thirty-first year
received Godship at the hands of Danila, after being for three
days translated with him to heaven. This incident took place
at Staraya; returning to Michailizy on the River Oka, Suslov
chose twelve apostles and a Mother of God. His brothers
became his disciples, and began to spread the cult of Danila
along the banks of the Oka and the Volga. When his fame as a
thaumaturge spread abroad, the Tsar Alexis seized him and
handed him too over to Nikon who sent him to the boyar
Morisov; the latter recognizing that he was a divine being,
excused himself from trying him on the ground of illness. The
Tsar then set the boyar Odoyevski on to him, who racked him
with irons and fire, but failed to extract from him any statement
of his faith. In the end Suslov was crucified on a Friday, and
rose from the dead the following Sunday. Then the Tsar
seized him afresh and flaying him, crucified him afresh. A
virgin had kept his skin which he donned afresh only to be
crucified a third time. Apparently these crucifixions occupied
a considerable space of time, and it was only Natalia Kirillovna,
the wife of the Tsarevich Peter (the Great) who finally put
an end to them. That is why the sect honours her pictures as
those of a saint. In some of the hymns Suslov's rescue is set
down to successful bribery by Danila or his followers.
Thus freed, Suslov continued to teach in Moscow for thirty
years, living in a good house behind the Sukharev tower.
Danila at Kostroma heard of his success and, though aged one
hundred years, went to visit him. On January 1, 1700, at the
conclusion of a long service of dancing, on the day of St. Basil,
Danila in the presence of all the occupants of the New Jerusa
lem, as Suslov's house was called, went bodily up to heaven.
But according to a rival legend his body was buried in the vil
lage Kriushino in the Government of Kostroma. Fresh
persecutions, however, were in store for Suslov. He fled from
Moscow, but returned, and after three years ascended into
heaven, though he also left his body behind on earth. Peter
the Great, according to the Khlysty, changed the beginning
of the civil year to January 1, because Danila died on it!
The limits of this work forbid me to follow Grass into his
examination of the above legend, which I have given in outline,
and as it is embodied in many hymns. After all its main inter
est lies in the glimpses it furnishes of the mentality of the sect.
It is clearly designed to suggest a parallelism between Jesus
Christ and the founders of the sect.
There can in the nature of things be no reliable statistics on
the strength of the Khlysty and of the Skoptsy, their congeners.
Pobedonostsev, with his customary effrontery estimated them
together in his religious census of 1903 at 3,887 souls, although
in the statistical tables of the Ministry of the Interior they were
already as early as 1863 reckoned at 110,000. The two sects
together may safely be to-day reckoned at 300,000. They are
specially numerous in the Caucasus, where they are called
Shaloputy.
Their increase, admitted by all authorities, depends on their
preaching and teaching only, and in the Baltic provinces they
convert not a few Lutherans. Their sobriety and mutual
charity render the Khlysty sect attractive. They are careful
of education, and in the Caucasus the converted send their
'little sins' to the orthodox schools. Their economic life
resembles that of the peasants in general, and they adhere to
the ancient four field system with common tillage. No one
starves among them, they help one another in misfortune, and
having rich merchants among their converts, they never want
funds. A single rich convert has been known to rebuild an
entire village which had been burned down, merely because
there were a few Khlysty in it. Their charity is extended to the
orthodox, partly to disarm the suspicions of the Holy Synod;
but their industry, intelligence, purity of life, self-respect are
acknowledged by the most hostile observers. They will not
practise usury among themselves nor do they ever carry an
internal dispute before any of the tribunals of the State.
Their leaders settle it for them. They are clean in person and
in dress, and the inns or rest-houses which they keep, especially
in the Caucasus, are models of tidiness and sobriety.
THE KHLYSTY 361
The lines of the diffusion of Khlystism are difficult to deter
mine. The legend of Danila establishes that in the last half
of the XVIIth Century it already flourished both in Vladimir
and Kostroma as well as in Moscow. The earliest inquisition
began by discovering in Moscow in January, 1733, as many as
78 adherents; in July, 222 more. In all over 300 were con
demned, 5 of them to death, the rest were knouted or had their
tongues cut out, were sent to hard labour in Orenburg and
Siberia, shut up in monasteries, etc. As many as 80 of them
were monks or nuns, 50 merchants or craftsmen, 100 peasants.
One of the ladies condemned belonged to the nobility.
In 1745-1752 followed a fresh inquisition also in Moscow,
presided over by the notorious Grinkov. Victims were racked
every day, searing with hot irons being the most approved
method of torture. Five were burnt alive in public, 26 con
demned to death, the rest to the knout, deprivation of their
noses, exile, etc. In all 454 were punished, among them 70
monks and nuns and a few of the clergy, 50 merchants and
craftsmen, over 300 peasants; of the victims only 164 were
residents in Moscow, the rest mostly from the upper Volga.
These data prove that about 1700 the sect was mostly confined
to Moscow, where many converts harboured it. After the
second persecution the members fled in numbers from Moscow
and carried their tenets rapidly to all points of the compass.
In 1746 we hear of it in Petersburg, and in Alatur to the East.
By the year 1775, the history of the Skoptsy reveals it in some
strength in the city of Tula.
"
CHAPTER II
THE SKOPTSY
It remains to describe the Skoptsy whose fame has spread

outside Russia and is out of all proportion to their numerical
importance ; this being what one would expect of a sect whose
history interests the criminologist at least as much as it does
the analyst of religion. About 1770 there were some thousand
Khlysty in Tula, divided into several ' ships ' or congregations,
all of them recognizing an aged woman Akulina Ivanovna as
their Mother of God. Under her were ranged prophets and
prophetesses, one Anna Romanovna being the chief of the latter
Her prophecies, as usual, concerned fisheries and fields, and
her fame in prediction extended even outside the sect. She
had the merit, however, of discovering the religious value of
one Selivanov. They seem to have lacked a Christ in Tula
at the time, and we only hear of a chief prophet Philimon, who
in spite of his own spiritual ambitions was constrained by the
spirit to acclaim Selivanov, his rival, as his superior, just as
St. John acclaimed Jesus. The congregations danced on
ground measured off for them by the prophets, who prophesied
in the name of God or of the Holy Ghost. Thus Anna Roma
novna, like Priscilla, exclaimed in the spirit of the faithful,
"Why have ye not found me, God, and seen where I dwell? "
These details come from Selivanov's autobiography, com
mitted long afterwards to writing, and from it we also learn that
marriage was rigorously forbidden in the Tula 'ships'; Seli
vanov alludes to the good old times, i. e., of Danila and Suslov,
which were revived when he became the Christ.
Selivanov found matter for criticism in the behaviour of his
co-sectaries. They were too lax in their morals; and this is his
own account of why they quarrelled with him, delated him to
the Government and slew his spiritual offspring Martin.
The name under which this obscene fanatic is venerated by
the Skoptsy is Kondrati Selivanov. His real name was Andrei
Ivanov, and on one occasion he called himself Simeon, in order
to evade pursuit. He also passed himself off as a Kiev monk.
We have a contemporary picture of him in a writ for his arrest
issued in August, 1775, when Catharine II was residing in
Moscow. He is described as of middling height, of pale com
plexion, sharply cut nose, reddish-yellow hair, almost beardless,
about fifty-three years of age, shorn in the peasant style and in
the same style dressed, and withal a Skopets (emasculated).
Some time before the year 1772 Kondrati, faithful to the text
Mat. 19, xii, and convinced that baptism by spirit and by fire
connoted no less, emasculated himself with a hot iron. He
claimed in his later life to have done the deed when he was
fourteen, i. e., about the year 1736; but his own followers
believed he was a man of forty at the time. He was a peasant
of Stolbov in the Oryol Government and a serf of Prince Kante-
mir. By his own testimony he was a Khlyst beforehand, hav
ing been converted to that sect by a woman, Akulina Ivanovna,
who, after her convert became a "Christ," if not before, became
herself, by the fact of having converted him, a Mother of God or
Theotokos. His first converts were certainly members of the
sect, and that he began his new gospel inside its pale is shewn
by the fact that he himself initiated as a Khlyst one of his
earliest adherents, Alexander Ivanovich Shilov. His original
programme was merely to supplement the encratite rule of the
Khlysty and raise a barrier against its infraction. From an
ukase of Catharine II dated July 2, 1772, our earliest document
respecting the new sect, we know that it had by that time
gained many adherents. Catharine describes it as a new sort
of heresy that had appeared among the peasants in Oryol, and
instructs Prince Volkov that it is best to nip in the bud such
rash follies and save innocent people from such chicanery.
The author or authors of it are to be seized, knouted and sent
to Nerchinsk in Siberia; the preachers are to be beaten with
rods and sent to work on the fortifications of Riga; the mere
dupes to be sent home to their masters, if they are private serfs,
to the crown estates, if royal serfs.
At that date Kondrati had already mutilated or caused to be
mutilated as many as thirteen peasants in Bogdanovka, and
THE SKOPTSY 365
was conducting his propaganda in the provinces of Orlov and
Tula. Presently he was arrested, tried with his chief associates
at Sosnovsk in Tambov and exiled to Siberia, where he began
to pass himself off as Peter III, who had been murdered by his
own wife, Catharine II, on July 19, 1762. His assassination
was shrouded in some mystery, as such deeds usually are; the
episode of the False Dimitri's proves how easy it is in Russia for
a pretender to a royal name to get himself accepted by the
crowd. Nor was Kondrati the only claimant to the honour of
being the murdered man. In 1773 a Don Cossack, Pugachev,
was able to raise a peasant revolt by assuming his style and
title. Five years before a Serbian adventurer, Stephen the
Little, had posed as Peter III and in that guise grasped for
himself the principality of Montenegro.
Such a pretension may naturally have been accepted in
Siberia, but it is odd that they were accepted twenty years
later in the best circles of Petersburg society, when the Empe
ror Paul (1796-1801) had brought him back to the capital.
There he was at first interned in a home for lunatics, but later
on the mild and enlightened despot Alexander I (1801-1825)
released him, and at the request of rich Skoptsys and in particu
lar of his chamberlain, Elianski, allowed him to live in a hostel
and acquire the rank of a free citizen. As such he took the
name Selivanov. He was now more at liberty than before to
conduct his propaganda of baptism by fire and spirit, and with
his own hand mutilated as many as 100 adults. His adherents
now collected his reminiscences and miracles in a work known
as The Passion which circulates widely among them and has
been translated by Grass in its entirety. It is worth study,
being full of autobiographic touches.
This lurid impostor now literally took Russia by storm.
People, not by any means of the humblest rank, crowded from
all over the country to visit and venerate him, and returned
to their homes bearing relics of him in their bosoms; his nail
parings, hairs, bath water, clothing, all was carried off and
found to be endowed with magical powers : Every Skopets
carried as an amulet a silver rouble of Peter III, burned tapers
before the picture of the murdered Prince, prostrated himself
and said his prayers. The same worship is still accorded all
over Russia to his relics, and in the ecclesiastical archives are
stored not a few of his portraits, seized at various dates by the
police. Grass reproduces one of the most characteristic of
them, made when he was already an old man. It is a convinc
ing likeness, forcible but gruesome. The small mouth, the
determined lips, the piercing eyes, are those of a fanatic who
must have exercised a mesmeric power on all who approached
him. His eyes and expression remind one of those of George
Whitefield in the portrait hung in Mansfield College at Oxford.
Whitefield in his letters was wont to describe himself as "this
tottering tabernacle." His portrait barely gives us such an
impression of him.
The crowds that flocked to see Selivanov and the number
of his victims at last excited the suspicions of the Russian
Government, and in 1810 he was forced to sign an undertaking
to drop his peculiar propaganda. He continued it however,
and his lodging was known as the House of Davidov (House of
the Son of David), that of his prophetess Anna Safonovna as the
monastery of the Virgin Mother of God. Officials of the Army,
civil service, even the clergy succumbed to his dupery. In
1818 the Government again interfered and banished two of his
intimates to the monastery of Solovets; but this only confirmed
his own and their presumption. Finally the authorities in the
hope of circumscribing the movement sent him in 1820 to the
Spaso-Efimovski cloister in Suzdal, which at once became a
holy place and resort of Skoptsy pilgrims. Pains were now
taken to repress them and the leader died in 1830.
But the faithful discredit his death, and believe he will
reappear alive in the neighbourhood of Irkutsk, to inaugurate
the Millennium, as soon as the tale is complete of the 144,000
of the elect of the Apocalypse (14, iv) which "were not defiled
with women, for they are virgins. These are they which follow
the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. . .they are without blem
ish." Such texts the Skoptsy, as many other fanatics have
done before and after them, interpret of their own nave or ship,
as, following the Khlysty, they denominate their sect. He is
believed, as many Skoptsy documents seized in the Inquisition
THE SKOPTSY 367
of 1843 and on later occasions, reveal, to be still alive, to be
indeed the living God. When at his second advent he reaches
Moscow, he will sound the big bell of the Uspenski Cathedral.
Regiment on regiment will then join him, to prevent the wolves
from any more tearing of the sheep. Ships will arrive for his
children freighted with gold and jewels.
The apocalyptic number of the elect is, according to Grass
and other competent observers, not far short of completion.
For the sect is reputed to number at least 100,000 and is ex
traordinarily active. How many of these are ' perfect ' members
and 'without blemish' is not known, but being great traders
and usurers, they can be detected even by the eye of a foreigner
in every bazaar in Russia, where, as Leroy-Beaulieu observes,
everyone can see them, except as a rule the police whom they
bribe to ignore their presence. Being knit together in mutual
charity, being ascetics, thrifty and unencumbered with families,
they have been able, like certain monastic orders, to accumulate
great wealth; and the mere fact that they cannot waste money
on mistresses recommends them in so corrupt a society as that
of Russia. Financial magnates, who have important credit
transactions to conduct, can trust them, just as a rich Turk
trusts his harem with their Mahommedan analogues. Neverthe
less they are often driven out of Russia by the police into
neighbouring countries, especially Roumania, where many of
the droshki drivers of Bucharest can be recognized as members
of their sect, and where the Government seldom molests them,
because for a Latin race their tenets have no attraction.
The Skoptsy rites are in general identical with those of the
Khlysty; they meet and adore one another and sing their
hymns, and dance until they fall into ecstasy and begin to
prophesy. But the Radenie or ritual dance has not among
them quite the same sacramental value as among the Khlysty.
The rite of emasculation, baptism with fire and spirit, is their
supreme sacrament. Their Christology is adoptionist like
that of the Khlysty. Jesus was an ordinary man who was
replenished with grace; and after his resurrection, his grace
descended into Peter III who is head and defender of the faith.
But Jesus was the first of the White Doves, as they call them
selves, for he too emasculated himself. This rite is the sole
mode of redemption and means of grace. There is ground for
thinking (Grass, p. 655) that, like the Cathars, they do not
believe in the Crucifixion as an historical event, and wholly
reject the tenet that Jesus rose and ascended in the flesh into
heaven and sat down on the right hand of God. On the con
trary, his body rotted in the tomb. In all this they agree with
the Khlysty, from whom they inherited their earliest hymns and
whose sacred poetry has supplied them with their models.
Wherever they spread, they formed naves or Korablya, pre
sided over by Christs and prophets, male and female. Their
rigorous asceticism and simulation of orthodox piety often
leads the Russian clergy into the error of regarding them as
good Christians, and enables the officials and police whom they
perpetually bribe, to pretend, when the truth transpires, that
they thought they were orthodox. They never touch meat
and, like the Cathar elect ones, the men never go near or touch
women, if they can help it, even those of the sect. Meat they
religiously eschew, urging, as the Cathars did, that it is the
fruit of copulation. But they ignore the orthodox rules of
fasting and eat eggs, milk and cheese in Lent. Nevertheless,
as Leroy-Beaulieu remarks, their disgust for generation is no
more due to pessimism than was the same scruple in Origen
and in some early Christian circles that practised emascula
tion. That they are so singularly addicted to money-making
does not savour of an oriental pessimism.
There are other details of their origin or rather superstition
which are necessary to complete my account of them, but which
I would rather reproduce in the polished idiom of the accom
plished French writer I have just named, than translate into
our own coarser tongue.
"Ce n'est point d'ordinaire sur les jeunes enfants que les
Skoptsy pratiquent leur rite fondamental ; c'est le plus souvent
sur les hommes faits, alors que le sacrifice est le plus dur et
1' opration la plus dangereuse. Cette sanglante initiation a
parfois plusieurs degres: la mutilation est complete ou incom
plete; suivant l'un ou l'autre cas, elle porte, chez les sectaires,
le nom de sceau royal ou de seconde purete\ Les femmes
THE SKOPTSY 36
n'chappent pas toujours l'horrible baptme. Pour elles,
la mutilation n'est pas obligatoire; beaucoup cependant, lors
de leur admission parmi les ' colombes ' reoivent les stigmates de
la secte et le sceau royal, qui est le signe de l'entre au nombre
des purs. Chez elles, les Skoptsy paraissent s'en prendre
plutt la facult de nourrir qu' la facult d'engendrer. Le
sein nouvellement form de la jeune fille est amput ou dfigur,
sa poitrine soumise une sorte d'odieux tatouage. Parfois les
deux mamelles sont entirement enleves. Chez quelques
femmes le fer des fanatiques va plus loin, il s'attaque des
organes plus intimes, sans que le plus souvent ces incisions,
excutes par des mains ignorantes rendent les malheureuses
qui les subisent incapables d'tre mres. Des procs ont mis
en lumire ces outrages la nature humaine. On a discut
devant la justice les procds chirurgicaux employs pour ces
dtestables crmonies. Les juges ont vu de vieilles femmes
octognaires et des jeunes filles de quinze, de dix-sept, de vingt
ans toutes diversement dformes par le couteau ou les ciseaux
fanatiques."
He adds that similar mutilations of women were common in
pagan Russia and occur to-day among some Finnish tribes.
They are in vogue in Dahomey among the so-called 'Amazons. '
In Skoptsy circles a boy grows up with the certainty of what is to
happen to him, for needless to say many of the males have
begotten children before they underwent the rite, and these
unfortunates remain in their power. An adult who refuses to
submit is dogged by the members of a sect diffused all over
Russia and in the long run is assassinated unless he submits.
The Sicarii of ancient Judaea would waylay a pagan who had
expressed approbation of their monotheist tenets and circum-
cize him against his will. So the Skoptsy are reputed to way
lay those whom they hear express approbation of their prin
ciples. It is not for nothing that the mass of peasants know
them as the dark sect. Some Russians have even stated
that a few years ago the little Tsarevich, heir of the deposed
Tsar, was temporarily kidnapped by a Skoptsy nurse who had
insinuated herself into the royal household and was ritually
mutilated by her co-religionists. If we bear in mind their cult
/-
/
of Peter III, the story is not wholly incredible. They may have
desired to rid their future ruler of the <pp6vrifj.a a-apKot which in
the persons of Adam and Eve ruined the human race, and as
pired to render him Christ and Tsar in one. As our French his
torian, cited above, remarks, the modern Russians are after all :
un peuple credule et epris du merveilleux, un peuple esclave et
revant de vague delivrance, accueillant avec la meme naivete"
les faux tsars et les faux Christs.
As a final word in the history of Russian dissent it may be
noted that until lately there existed, and perhaps still exists,
a Russian sect, fairly numerous, that deified Napoleon I.
In their meetings they bowed before his picture as before the
ikon of a saint, burnt incense, sung hymns and said their
prayers.
r
.-

Frederick C. Conybeare. Russian Dissenters. 1921

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Frederick C. Conybeare. Russian Dissenters. 1921

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This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized

by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the

GEORGE F. MOORE, JAMES H. ROPES

This work was begun in 1914 and completed nearly as it stands

BaOjiioTeKa p,jin ^TeHia ; C. IleTep- Library for reading; St. Petersburg.

List of Russian Periodicals Cited vii

THE OLD BELIEVERS OF GREAT RUSSIA

Chapter I. The Conditions leading to the Schism .... 13

Chapter II. The Early Days of the Schism 79

Chapter III. The Dispersion 101

Chapter IV. The Bezpopovtsy or Priestless Sect .... 151

Chapter V. The Question of Marriage 189

activity is not lessened but extended by education." 1 Count

I have begun my study of Russian dissent with the above

No Church historian believes that great schisms are wholly

The Struggle against Centralisation

the ranks of socialism and of those who are in revolt against

"It is a lie. Creators they were who created the peoples

One of the malcontents, the Boyarin Simeon Streshner,

old style of Church-service, Nikon ordered the old books to be

history with petitions to the civil rulers.1 "Gracious Tsar,"

of it popular leaders made their appearance and took command,

with Michael Theodorovich and Alexis Michailovich Russia

ordinances of common councils and provincial autonomy.

the Monks of Athos and other centres who translated them

netski and Arsenius Satanovski, an ill-sounding, but really

wravered over the use of the three fingers in blessing, though he

on Lake Kozhe on the western shore of the White Sea. In that

Arsen also criticised the slovenliness with which the

you, since one who so keenly fears to slip in small things is

To return to Nikon. Duly installed as patriarch, he pre

The Council of Stoglav

af the Stoglav Council the Raskol themselves set aside, so

The position of affairs in 1655

rendered into Russian. The Synod of April 1656 ratified its

From the Fall of Nikon to the Council of 1666

rising, and as has happened again and again in times of stress,

Never was a great schism forced on a great Church upon a

It is opportune, in illustration of Uzov's contentions, to add

In 1659 Elias died, and his successor Bartholomew of Vol

rioted or rebelled against an emperor's authority, and argues

for it was impossible to draw such a cordon that they could

Peter the Great

tion, yet the masses "impelled by mediaeval tendencies to

He was, they declared, a false Messiah who magnified himself

in the so-called Book of Cyril compiled by Zizania. The

either in Church or in private, not to read their heretical books

The death in 1656 of Paul of Kolomna, the only bishop who

Ivanovski, dwelling on the above facts, strives to shew that

among Old believers. But how could they hope to obtain on

Raskol. Others among their teachers held that a genuine

Epiphanius, the First Raskol Bishop

an apocryphal letter purporting to be from the hand of the

and declared that he died a martyr by the violence of the

The Uniat Movement

of Saratov, Moses; by their craven action they so incensed the

Cornelius made no attempt to resist, but took the keys of his

In Moscow also under Nicholas an attempt was made to

Alexis Ivan Khludovo deposited therein. Paul had come to

The Austrian Hierarchy