Gallipolis Journal

EXTRAORDINARY RELIGIOUS
SECTS IN RUSSIA,
Almost Incredible Delusion and
Fanaticism.
THE
IMMOLATORS.
The wildest among the Russian fanatics are the Morelshchiki, or Immolators. The leading idea is to mortify the flesh for the sake of saving the soul, and in order to do this efficiently they have recourse to various means of mutilation and death. Sects inculcating the virtues of suicide and murder naturally do all they can to keep their existence a secret, but every now and then a horrible story comes from the interior of some gloomy forest or dreary waste, which tells how some of these wretched people have died. Sometimes a pit is dug in the earth and half filled with wood and straw. This is set alight, and when the whole mass is in a blaze, the miserable creatures leap into the pit and are consumed in the fire, wildly singing hymns as they burn. At other times they meet in a wooden house, round which they have piled heaps of straw; and in it they deliberately burn themselves to death, their neighbors looking on quietly the while, for the act is a sacred one; the victims are undergoing "baptism by fire." Some years ago, says Haxthausen, a congregation of Immolators assembled at a spot on the left bank of the Volga, and agreed to put each other to death. But after six and thirty of them had fallen, "the desire of life awoke in a young woman, and she fled to a neighboring village. The people repaired to the scene of action, and found two of the murderers still alive, and forty-seven persons dead. The two who were taken were knouted-exulting at every stroke at the martyrdom they were undergoing." It is to this sect that the Scoptsi belong, of whom we have spoken in a previous chapter.
THE "SCOURGERS."
Next in singularity to these people come the Khlisti, or Scourgers-the Flagellants of the middle ages-whose notion of a religious service is a wild dance accompanied by severe castigation. In the middle of the room in which they meet stands a vessel containing water, and to this they go from time to time. in order to wet their beards or to drink out of their hands.— They then resume their stamping and their flogging; until they fall down utterly exhausted, or convulsions seize them, during which they utter ravings which they call prophecies. Every Easter night, one of his secretaries told Haxthausen, the fanatics."all assemble for a great solemnity, the worship of the mother of God. A virgin fifteen years of age, whom they have induced to act the part by tempting promises, is bound and placed in a tub of warm water; some old women come and first make a large incision in the left breast then cut it off, and staunch the blood in a wonderfully short time. Other barbarities follow, too shocking to be told. During these operations a mystical picture of the Holy Spirit is put into the victim's hand, in order that she may be absorbed in regarding it." Afterwards a wild dance takes place around the tub, kept up by the whole congregation until their strength is exhausted. The girls who have been thus mutilated are ever afterwards considered sacred. At the age of nineteen or twenty they are said to look like women of fifty or sixty, and they generally die before reaching their thirtieth year.
THE
DUMB."
Another very singular sect, which existed in former days, was that of the Beslovesniki, or the Dumb, but they seemed to have died out. Scarcely anything is known about them, for as soon as any one joined the community he became mute, and from that time forward no articulate sound ever escaped his lips. Various attempts have been made at different times to torture them into speaking, but always in vain. "A governor-general of Siberia, named Pestal, in the time of Catherine II., ordered them to be tortured in the most horrible manner. The soles of their feet were tickled, and melted sealing-wax was dropped upon their bodies; but they did not utter a sound."
THE 'TRUE CHRISTIANS."
Not quite so wild as these sects, but still sufficiently erratic. are those of Molokani and Dukhobortsi. The Molokani are so styled by the people on account of the quantity of milk (moloko)they consume, but they call themselves "true Christians." The sect has existed about a century, during which time its members have generally led peaceful and steady lives, in many respects resembling those of the Moravians. Now and then, however, they are carried away by outbursts of fanaticism, as on one occasion when a Molokan rushed into the midst of a church procession, seized a picture of a saint, threw it on the ground, and then trampled on it. At first the bystanders stood silently aghast; but they soon recovered from the shock and piously put the offender to death. (In the year 1833 a certain fanatic named Terenty began to preach repentance to the Molokani. He gave himself out as the prophet Elias, ordered them to desist from the work and give themselves up exclusively to praying and singing hymns, announcing that the millennium was close at hand, and ultimately fixed a day on which he promised to reascend to heaven before their eyes. When the appointed day arrived he appeared in a carriage, and ordered the crowd which had assembled to meet him, composed of many thousands of Molokani from all parts of Russia, to kneel down and pray with him. At the end of his prayer he flapped his arms and tried to fly; but he only fell heavily to the ground, injuring a woman in his fall. A great uproar followed and his disappointed disciples handed him over to the police, who sent him to prison for a time. After his release he recovered some of his influence over the Molokani, to whom he preached the coming end of the world to the day of his death.— Eventually his flock migrated to Georgia, where they settled down within view of Ararat and united with a colony of Lutherans from Wertemberg. When Napoleon was in Russia the Molokani imagined that he was the Lion of the Valley of Jehoshaphat described in their old Psalms, who was destined to overthrow the false Emperor, and restore the throne of the white Czar." So the Tambof Molokani appointed a deputation from their body "to go clothed in white and present an address to him," in the year 1812. The deputies made their way through Little Russia and Poland, as far as the Vistula, but they were made prisoners. One of them escaped, and got safely home; but the rest were never heard of again.- Liprandi, in the report he drew up (in Russian) for the government in the year 1853, says that "the Napoleonovshchina, or sect of worshippers of Napoleon, reappeared in 1820 at Byelostok. and at Pskoff. and again in 1844, at Moscow." The worshippers of Napoleon at Moscow meet with the utmost secrecy in a private stone house in the middle of the town. There. after performing other rites, they prostrate themselves before a bust of Napoleon as before a divinity. For them Napoleon is still living. and they believe that some day he will return from Siberia, together with Peter III. Then Peter will mount the throne of the world. and Napoleon will command the legions of the faithful under him.-- Liprandi goes on to tell how the police contrived in November, 1845, to get hold of certain secret pictures belonging to this sect; one of which he laid before the Ministers of the interior.- These pictures were printed on very thin paper, in order that, being slipped between the leaves of books and atlases. they might get passed unseen from hand to hand. And these pictures represent Napoleon ascending to heaven." Liprandi ends his report (which was never intended to be other than strictly private and confidential by remarking how strange it is that "in Moscow there should have sprung up a religious sect of Napoleon-worshippers.'
THE
"SOUL-WRESTLERS.
From among the Molokani have arisen the Dukhobortsi or soul-wrestlers, who hold that the Dukhoborets is God. and cannot sin, but the non-Dukhoborets is radically wicked-all that he does, even what appears to be good, is sin." One of their characteristics is "the remarkable handsome forms.both of men and women. and the health and strength they display." This is partly to be accounted for by the fact that they put to death every child that is delicate or deformed. "The soul." they say, "being the likeness of God. must dwell in a worthy, noble and vigorous body. If we find it in a weak and poor one. we are bound to free it from its ignoble prison; it then chooses for itself, according to the law of the transmigration of souls, another and a better body." Such child murders gives little pain to their parents, for their theory is that "the soul, the image of God, recognizes no earthly father or mother," and that "there is only one father, the totality of God, who lives in every individual; and one mother, universal matter of nature, the earth." Consequently, the Dukhobortsi never call their parents "father' or "mother" but only "old man" and "old woman;" and a parent does not speak of "my"children, but of "ours," meaning the community's. The career of the great chief of the Dukhobortsi, Kapustin by name. had something in common with that of John of Leyden. He must have been no common man, who, although "merely an uncultivated Russian peasant," was able to create, and maintain for several years, "a complete theocratic State, comprising 4,000 persons--a platonic Utopia founded upon religious, Christian, and Gnostic principles." It was near the Sea of Azof that the Dukhobortsi settled, and there Kapustin, who had persuaded them that the soul of Christ dwelt in his body, ruled them despotically. In 1844 he was imprisoned, but he was soon liberated on bail. After a time he disappeared, and it was not till long after he was dead that the cave in which he had spent the last years of his life became known to the public, After his death the colony fell into disorder. The Council of Elders which ruled it became a terrible inquisitional tribunal. Torture and death followed close upon the slightest sign of an intention to go over to the Russian Church.-- "Within a few years about two hundred people disappeared, leaving scarcely a trace behind; an investigation by the authorities. too late to prevent the mischief, revealed a dreadful state of things; bodies were found buried alive, and many mutilated." In 1843 and the following year most of the Dukhobortsi were transplanted to the-Caucasus. Such are a few of the strangest offshoots from the main body of Russian dissent. Of the great mass of the Raskolniki, comprising the Old Believers and other respectable sects, our space has not permitted us to speak.-- V. Y. Observer