DISSENT.
These dissidents, who ruffle so much the patient faces of the monks,
are gaining ground in other provinces of the empire as well as Perm.
Such tales as those of Ilyin and Pushkin open a passage, as it were,
beneath an observer's feet; going down into crypts and chambers below
the visible edifice of the Orthodox Church and Government; showing
that, in the secret depths of Russian life there may be other
contentions than those which are arming the married clergy against the
monks. On prying into these crypts and chambers, we find a hundred
points on which some part of the people differ from their Official
Church.
The Emperor Nicolas would not hear of any one falling from his Church;
"autocracy and orthodoxy" was his motto; and what the master would not
deign to hear, the Minister of Education tried his utmost not to see.
That millions of Mussulmans, Jews, and Buddhists lived beneath his
sceptre, Nicolas was fond of saying; but for a countryman of his own
to differ in opinion from himself was like a mutiny in his camp. The
Church had fixed the belief of one and all; the only terms on which
they could be saved from hell. Had _he_ not sworn to observe those
terms? While Nicolas lived it was silently assumed in the Winter
Palace that the dissenting bodies were all put down. One Christian
church existed in his empire; and never, perhaps, until his dying hour
did Nicolas learn the truth about those men whom the breath of his
anger was supposed to have swept away!
Outside the Winter Palace and the Official Church dissent was growing
and thriving throughout his reign. No doubt some few conformed--with
halters round their throats. When autocrat and monk combined to crush
all those who held aloof from the State religion, the sincere
dissenter had to pass through bitter times; but spiritual passion is
not calmed by firing volleys into the house of prayer; and the result
of thirty years of savage persecution is, that these non-conformists
are to-day more numerous, wealthy, concentrated, than they were on the
day when Nicolas began his reign.
No man in Russia pretends to know the names, the numbers, and the
tenets of these sects, still less the secrets of their growth. A
mystery is made of them on every side. The Minister of Police divides
them into four large groups, which he names and classifies as follows:
I.--DUKHOBORTSI, Champions of the Holy Spirit.
II.--MOLOKANI, Milk Drinkers.
III.--KHLYSTI, Flagellants.
IV.--SKOPTSI, Eunuchs.
In our day it is rare to find self-deception carried to so high a
point as in this official list. Four groups! Why, the Russian
dissenters boast, like their Hindoo brethren, of a hundred sects. The
classification is no less strange. The Champions of the Holy Spirit
are neither an ancient nor a strong society. The Milk Drinkers are of
later times than the Flagellants and the Eunuchs. The Flagellants are
not so numerous as the Eunuchs, though they probably surpass in
strength the Champions of the Holy Spirit.
The Flagellants and Eunuchs are of ancient date--no one knows how
ancient; the Flagellants going back to the fourteenth century at
least; the Eunuchs going back to the Scythian ages; while the Milk
Drinkers and the Champions of the Holy Spirit sprang into life in the
times of Peter the Great.
CHAMPIONS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
Though standing first in the official list, the Champions of the Holy
Spirit are one of the less important sects. They write nothing, and
never preach. The only book which contains their doctrine is "The
Dukhobortsi," written by a satirist and a foe! Novitski, a professor
in the University of Kief, having heard of these champions from time
to time, threw what he learned about them into a squib of some eighty
pages; meaning to laugh at them, and do his worst to injure them,
according to his lights. His tract was offered for twenty kopecks, but
no one seemed disposed to buy, until the Champions took it up, read it
in simple faith, and sent a deputation to thank the professor for his
service to their cause! Novitski was amused by their gravity;
especially when they told him a fact of which he was not aware; that
the articles of their creed had never until then been gathered into a
connected group! Of this droll deputation the police got hints.
Novitski, being an officer of state, was, of course, orthodox; and his
book bore every sign of having been written to expose and deride the
non-conforming sect. Yet the police, on hearing of that deputation,
began to fear there was something wrong; and in the hope of setting
things right, they put his tract on their prohibited list of books.
What more could an author ask? On finding the work condemned by the
police, the Champions sent to the writer, paying him many compliments
and buying up every copy of his tract at fifty rubles each. Novitski
made a fortune by his squib; and now, in spite of his jokes, the
laughing Professor of Kief is held to be the great expounder of their
creed!
The Champions build no churches and they read no Scriptures; holding,
like some of our Puritan sects, that a church is but a house of logs
and stones, while the temple of God is the living heart; that books
are only words, deceitful words, while the conscience of man must be
led and ruled by the inner light. They show a tendency towards the
most ancient form of worship; holding that every father of a family is
a priest. Many of them join the Jews, and undergo the rite of
circumcision. Now and then they buy a copy of the Hebrew Bible, though
they can not read one word of the sacred text. They keep it in their
houses as a charm.
MILK DRINKERS.
The Milk Drinkers are of more importance than these Champions of the
Holy Spirit.
Critics dispute the meaning of Molokani. The original seats of the
Milk Drinkers are certain villages in the south country, lying on the
banks of a river called the Molotchnaya (Milky Stream); a river
flowing past the city of Melitopol into the Sea of Azof, through a
district rich in saltpetre, and pushing its waters into the sea as
white as milk. But some of the secretaries whom I meet at Volsk, on
the Lower Volga, tell me this resemblance of name is an accident, no
more. According to my local guides, the term Milk Drinker, like that
of Shaker, Mormon, and, indeed, of Christian, is a term of contempt
applied to them by their enemies, because they decline to keep the
ordinary fasts in Lent. Milk--and what comes of milk; butter, whey,
and cheese--are staples of food in every house; and a sinner who
breaks his fast in Lent is pretty sure to break it on one of the
articles derived from milk; chiefly by frying his potato in a pat of
butter instead of in a drop of vegetable oil.
These milk people deny the sanctity and the use of fasts, holding that
men who have to work require good food, to be eaten in moderation all
the year round; no day stinted, no day in excess. They prefer to live
by the laws of nature; asking and giving a reason for every thing they
do. They set their faces against monks and popes. They look on Christ
with reverence, as the purest being ever born of woman; but they deny
his oneness with the Father, and treat the miraculous part of his
career on earth as a tale of later times. In a word, the Milk Drinkers
are Rationalists.
The name which they give themselves is Gospel Men; for they profess to
stand by the Evangelists; live with exceeding purity, and base their
daily lives on what they understand to be the laws laid down for all
mankind in the Sermon on the Mount. Under Nicolas they were sorely
harried. Sixteen thousand men and women were seized by the police;
arranged in gangs; and driven with rods and thongs across the dreary
steppes and yet more dreary mountain crests into the Caucasus. In that
fearful day a great many of the Milk Drinkers fled across the Pruth
into Turkey, where the Sultan gave them a village, called Tulcha, for
their residence. Wise and tolerant Turk! These emigrants carried their
virtues and their wealth into the new country, prospered in their
shops and farms, and made for their protectors beyond the Danube a
thousand friends in their ancient homes.
FLAGELLANTS.
The Flagellants are older in date, stronger in number than the
Champions and the Milk Drinkers. They go back to the first year of
Alexie (1645); to a time of deep distress, when the heads of men were
troubled with a sense of their guilty neglect of God.
One Daniel Philipitch, a peasant in the province of Kostroma, serving
in the wars of his country, ran away from his flag, declared himself
the Almighty, and wandered about the empire, teaching those who would
listen to his voice his doctrine in the form of three great
assertions: I. I am God, announced by the prophets; there is no other
God but me. II. There is no other doctrine. III. There is nothing new.
To these three assertions were added nine precepts: (1.) drink no
wine; (2.) remain where you are, and what you are; (3.) never marry;
(4.) never swear, or name the devil; (5.) attend no wedding,
christening, or other feast; (6.) never steal; (7.) keep my doctrine
secret; (8.) love each other, and keep my laws; (9.) believe in the
Holy Spirit. Daniel roamed about the country, preaching this gospel
for several years, gathering to himself disciples in many places,
though his headquarters remained at Kostroma. He was God; and his
converts called themselves God's people. Daniel chose a son, one Ivan
Susloff, a peasant of Vladimir; and this Ivan Susloff chose a pretty
young girl as his Virgin Mother, together with twelve apostles. Flung
into prison with forty of his disciples, Susloff saw the heresy
spread. It ran through the empire, and it has followers at this hour
in every part of Central Russia. "God's House," Daniel's residence in
the village of Staroï, still remains--held in the utmost veneration by
country folk.
The chief article of their faith is the last precept given by Daniel,
"Believe in the Holy Ghost." All their discipline and service is meant
to weaken the flesh and strengthen the spirit; to which end they fast
very often and flog each other very much.
Great numbers of these Flagellants have been sent into the Caucasus
and Siberia, where many of them have been forced to serve in the
armies and in the mines.
EUNUCHS.
A more singular body is that of the Beliegolubi (White Doves), called
by their enemies Skoptsi (Eunuchs). These people "make themselves
eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake," and look on Peter the
Third, whom they take to be still alive, as their priest and king.
They profess to lead a life of absolute purity in the Lord; spotless,
they say, as the sacrificial doves! The White Doves are believed to
live like anchorites; all except a few of their prophets and leading
men. They drink no whisky and no wine. They think it a sin to indulge
in fish; their staple food is milk, with bread and walnut oil. White,
weak, and wasting, they appear in the shops and streets like ghosts.
The monks admit that they are free from most of the vices which
afflict mankind. It is affirmed of them that they neither game nor
quarrel; that they neither lie nor steal. The sect is secret; and any
profession of the faith would make a martyr of the man upon whom was
found the sign of his high calling. Seeming to be what other men are,
they often escape detection, not for years only, but for life; many of
them filling high places in the world; their tenets unknown to those
who are counted in the ranks of their nearest friends.
The White Doves have no visible church, no visible chief. Christ is
their king, and heaven their church. But the reign of Christ has not
yet come; nor will the Prince of Light appear until the earth is
worthy to receive Him. Two or three persons, gathered in His name, may
hope to find Him in the spirit; but not until three hundred thousand
saints confess His reign will He come to abide with them in visible
flesh. One day that sacred host will be complete; the old earth and
the old heaven will pass away, consumed like a scroll in the fire.
So far as I can see (for the Eunuchs print no books, and frame no
articles), their leading tenet, borrowed from the East, appears to be
that of a recurring Incarnation of the Word. Just as a pundit of
Benares teaches that Vishnu has been born into the world many times,
probably many hundred times, a White Dove holds that the Messiah is
for evermore being born again into the world which He has saved. Once
He came as a peasant's child in Galilee, when the soldiers and
high-priests rose on Him and slew Him. Once again He came as an
emperor's grandson in Russia, when the soldiers and high-priests rose
on Him again and slew Him. He did not die; for how could God be killed
by man? But He withdrew into the unseen until His hour should come.
Meantime he is with His Church, though not in His majestic and
potential shape, as hero, king, and God.
The White Doves have amongst them, only known to few, a living Virgin
and a living Christ. These incarnations are not Son and Mother in
their mortal shapes; in fact, the Son is generally older than the
Mother; and they are not of kin, except in the Holy Spirit. The
present Christ exists in his lower form; holy, not royal; pure, not
perfect; waiting for the ripeness of his time, when he will once again
take flesh in all his majesty as God. A Virgin is chosen in the hope
that when the ripeness of His time has come, He will be born again
from that Virgin's side.
Alexander the First was deeply moved by what he heard of these
sectaries. He went amongst them, and held much talk with their learned
men. It has been imagined that he joined their church. Under Nicolas,
the "Doves" were chased and seized by the police. On proof of the fact
they were tied in gangs, and sent into the Caucasus, where they
lived--and live--at the town of Maran, a post on the road from Poti to
Kutais, waiting for Peter to arrive. A second colony exists in the
town of Shemakha, on the road from Tiflis to the Caspian Sea. They are
said to be docile men, doing little work on scanty food, giving no
trouble, and leading an innocent and sober life. At present, they are
not much worried by the police; except when some discovery, like the
Plotitsen case in Tambof, excites the public mind. A Dove who keeps
his counsel, and refrains from trying to convert his neighbors, need
not live in fear. The law is against him; his faith is forbidden; he
is not allowed to sing in the streets, to hold public meetings, and to
bury his dead with any of his adopted rites; these ceremonies of his
faith must be done in private and in secret; yet this singular body is
said to be increasing fast. They are known to be rich; they are
reported to be generous. A poor man is never suspected of being a
Eunuch. When the love of woman dies out, from any cause, in a man's
heart, it is always succeeded by the love of money; and all the
bankers and goldsmiths who have made great fortunes are suspected of
being Doves. In Kertch and Moscow, you will hear of vast sums in gold
and silver being paid to a single convert for submitting to their
rite.
The richest Doves are said to pay large sums of money to converts, on
the strength of a prophecy made by one of their holy men, that so soon
as three hundred thousand disciples have been gathered into his fold,
the Lord will come to reign over them in person, and to give up to
them all the riches of the earth.