Modern Saints and Seers. Jean Finot
the "Holy Ghost," and promenaded the village, summer and winter, in a long blouse without boots or trousers, riding astride a great stick on which he had hung a bell and a flag, and announcing publicly the reign of Anti-Christ. In addition the village was visited by orthodox missionaries, but, as the Reverend Father Schalkinsky naïvely confesses, "the inhabitants fled them like the plague." They interviewed, however, the so-called chiefs of the new religions, who listened to them with gravity and made some pretence of being convinced by the purveyors of official truth.
CHAPTER X
THE DOUCHOBORTZI
The religious ferment of South Russia was due to some special causes, its provinces having served since the seventeenth century as lands of exile for revolutionaries of all kinds, religious, political and social. Dangerous criminals were also sent there, and a population of this nature naturally received with open arms all who preached rebellion against established principles and doctrines.
About the year 1750, a Prussian non-commissioned officer, expatriated on account of his revolutionary ideas, appeared in the neighbourhood of Kharkov. He taught the equality of man and the uselessness of public authority, and was the real founder of the douchobortzi, who believed in direct communion with the divinity by aid of the spirit which dwells in all men. The sparks scattered by this unknown vagabond flared up some time later into a conflagration which swept away artisans, peasants and priests, and embraced whole towns and villages.
The beliefs of the sect were that the material world is merely a prison for our souls, and that our passions carry in themselves the germs of our punishments. Nothing is more to be decried than the desire for worldly honour and glory. Did not Our Lord Himself say that He was not of this world? Emperors and kings reign only over the wicked and sinful, for honest men, like the douchobortzi, have nothing to do with their laws or their authority. War is contrary to the will of God. Christ having declared that we are all brothers and sisters, the words "father" and "mother" are illogical, and opposed to His teachings. There is only one Father, the Father in Heaven, and children should call their parents by their Christian names.
Except for these leading tenets, their doctrine was variable, and they not only gave rise to about a hundred other sects, but were themselves in a continual state of evolution and change. At one time it was their custom to put to death all children who were diseased in mind or body. As God dwells in us, they said, we cannot condemn Him to inhabit a body that is diseased. One leader of the sect believed himself to be the judge of the universe, and terrorised his co-religionists. Another ordered all who betrayed the doctrines of the sect to be buried alive, and legal proceedings which were taken against him and lasted several years showed him to be responsible for twenty-one "religious murders."
CHAPTER XI
THE MOLOKANES
A sect of considerable importance, that of the molokanes, owed its origin to the douchobortzi. It was founded by a sincere and ardent man named Oukleïne, about the end of the eighteenth century. Moloko means milk; hence the name of the sect, whose adherents drank nothing else.
Improving upon the principles of liberty professed by the douchobortzi, the molokanes taught that "where the Holy Ghost is, there is liberty"; and as they believed the Holy Ghost to be in themselves they consequently needed neither laws nor government. Had not Christ said that His true followers were not of this world? Down, then, with all law and all authority! The Apostle Paul states that all are equal, men and women, servants and masters; therefore, the Tsar being a man like other men, it is unnecessary to obey him.
The Tsar has ten fingers and makes money; why then should not the molokanes make it, who also have ten fingers? (This was the reply given by some of them when brought up for trial on a charge of manufacturing false coinage.) War is a crime, for the bearing of arms has been forbidden. (It is on record that soldiers belonging to the sect threw away their arms in face of the enemy in the Crimean War.) One should always shelter fugitives, in accordance with St. Matthew xxv. 35. Deserters or criminals—who knows why they flee? Laws are often unjust, tribunals give verdicts to suit the wishes of the authorities, and the authorities are iniquitous. Besides, the culprits may repent, and then the crime is wiped out.
The molokanes have always been led by clever and eloquent men. Uplifted by a sense of the constant presence of the Holy Ghost, they would fall into ecstatic trances, fully convinced of their own divinity and desiring only to be transported to Heaven.
Of this type was the peasant Kryloff, a popular agitator who inflamed the whole of South Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Intoxicated by the success of his oratory, he grew to believe in his own mission of Saviour, and undertook a pilgrimage to St. Petersburg in order to be made a priest of the "spiritual Christians." Poor visionary! He was flogged to death.
Another molokane leader was one Andreïeff, who long preached the coming of the prophet Elijah. One fine day, excited by the eloquence of his own discourses, he set forth with his followers to conquer the "promised land," a rich and fertile district in the neighbourhood of Mount Ararat, but accomplished nothing save a few wounds gained in altercations with the inhabitants. On returning to his own country, he was deported to Siberia for having hidden some dangerous criminals from justice.
As the number of molokanes increased, they decided to emigrate en masse to the Caucasus. Their kind actions and enthusiastic songs attracted crowds of the poor and sick, as well as many who were troubled by religious doubts. At their head marched Terentii Bezobrazoff, believed by his followers to be the prophet Elijah, who announced that when his mission was accomplished he would ascend to Heaven to rejoin God, his Father, Who had sent him. But alas, faith does not always work miracles! The day being fixed beforehand, about two thousand believers assembled to witness the ascension of their Elijah. By the prophet's instructions, the crowd knelt down and prayed while Elijah waved his arms frantically. Finally, with haggard mien, he flung himself down the hillside, and fell to the ground. The disillusioned spectators seized him and delivered him up to justice. He spent many years in prison, but in the end confessed his errors and was pardoned.
Many other Elijahs wished to be transported to heaven, but all met with the same fate as Bezobrazoff. These misfortunes, however, did not weaken the religious ardour of the molokanes. A regular series of "false Christs," as the Russians called them, tormented the imaginations of the southern peasantry. Some believed themselves to be Elijah, some the angel Gabriel; while others considered themselves new saviours of the world.
One of these latter made his début in the rôle of Saviour about 1840, and after having drained the peasants of Simbirsk and Saratov of money, fled to Bessarabia with his funds and his disciples. Later he returned, accompanied by twelve feminine "angels," and with them was deported to Siberia.
But the popular mind is not discouraged by such small matters. Side by side with the impostors there existed men of true faith, simple and devout dreamers. Taking advantage of freedom to expound the Gospel, they profited by it for use and abuse, and it seemed to be a race as to who should be the first to start a new creed.
Even as the douchobortzi had given birth to the molokanes, so were the latter in turn the parents of the stoundists.
CHAPTER XII
THE STOUNDISTS
This sect believed that man could attain to perfection of life and health only by avoiding the fatigue of penance and fastings;