NEW SECTS.
These groups, so far from ending the volume of dissent, do little more
than open it up to sight. Stories of the Flagellants and the Eunuchs
are like old-world tales, the sceneries of which lie in other ages and
other climes. These sects exist, no doubt; but they draw the nurture
of their life from a distant world; and they have little more enmity
to Church and State than what descends with them from sire to son.
Committees have sat upon them; laws have been framed to suit them;
ministerial papers have described them. They figure in many books, and
are the subjects of much song and art. In short, they are historical
sects, like the Anabaptists in Germany, the Quakers in England, the
Alumbradros in Spain.
But the genius of dissent is change; and every passing day gives birth
to some new form of faith. As education spreads, the sectaries
multiply. "I am very much puzzled," said to me a parish priest, "by
what is going on. I wish to think the best; but I have never known a
peasant learn to read, and think for himself, who did not fall away
into dissent." The minds of men are vexed with a thousand fears,
excited by a thousand hopes; every one seems listening for a voice;
and every man who has the daring to announce himself is instantly
followed by an adoring crowd. These births are in the time, and of the
time; apostles born of events, and creeds arising out of present
needs. They have a political side as well as a religious side. Some
samples of these recent growths may be described from notes collected
by me in provinces of the empire far apart; dissenting bodies of a
growth so recent, that society--even in Russia--has not yet heard
their names.
LITTLE CHRISTIANS.
In the past year (1868) a new sect broke out in Atkarsk, in the
province of Saratof, and diocese of the Bishop of Tsaritzin. Sixteen
persons left the Orthodox Church, without giving notice to their
parish priest. They set up a new religion, and began to preach a
gospel of their own devising. Saints and altar-pieces, said these
dissidents, were idols. Even the bread and wine were things of an
olden time. They had a call of their own to teach, to suffer, and to
build a Church. This call was from Christ. They obeyed the summons by
going down into the Volga, dipping each other into the flood, changing
their names, and holding together a solemn feast. This scene took
place in winter--Ash Wednesday, February 26th, when the waters of the
Volga are locked in ice, and had to be pierced with poles. From that
day they have called themselves humbly, after the Lord's name, Little
Christians.
They have no priests, and hardly any form of prayer. They keep no
images, use no wafers, and make no sacred oil. Instead of the
consecrated bread, they bake a cake, which they afterwards worship, as
a special gift from God. This cake is like a penny bun in shape and
size; but in the minds of these Little Christians it possesses a
potent virtue and a mystic charm.
Hearing of these secessions from his flock, the Bishop of Tsaritzin
wrote to Count Tolstoi, Minister of Education, who in turn dispatched
his orders to the district police. These orders were, that the men
were to be closely watched; that no more baptisms in the ice were to
be allowed; that no more cakes were to be baked of the size and shape
of a penny bun. All preaching of these new tenets was to be stopped.
The bishop, living on the spot, was to be consulted on every point of
procedure against the sectaries. All these orders, and some others,
have been carried out; the police are happy in their labor of
repression; and the heresy of the Little Christians is increasing fast.
HELPERS.
A few months ago the Governor of Kherson was amused by hearing that
some villagers in his province had been arrested by the police on the
ground of their being a great deal too good for honest men. It was
said the men who had been cast into prison never drank, never swore,
never lied, owed no money, and never confessed their sins to the
parish priest. Nobody could make them out; and the police, annoyed at
not being able to make them out, whipped them off their fields, threw
them into prison, and laid a statement of their suspicions before the
prince.
These over-good peasants were brothers, by name Ratushni, living in
the hamlet of Osnova, in which they owned some land. Not far from
Osnova stands a small town called Ananief, in which lived a burgher
named Vonsarski, who was also marked by the police with a black line,
as being a man too good for his class. Vonsarski paid his debts and
kept his word; he lived with his wife in peace; and he never attended
his parish church. He, too, was seized by the police and lodged in
jail, until such time as he should explain himself, and the governor's
pleasure could be learned.
It is surmised that the monks set the police at work; in the hope that
if nothing could be proved at first against these offenders, tongues
might be loosened, tattle might come out, and some sort of charge
might be framed, so soon as the fact of their lying in jail was noised
abroad through the southern steppe.
Ratushni and Vonsarski were known to be clever men; to have talked
with Moravian settlers in the south. They were suspected of looking
with a lenient eye on the foreign style of harnessing bullocks and
driving carts. They were accused of underrating the advantages of
rural communes, in favor of a more equitable and religious system of
mutual help. They were called the Helpers. But their chief offense
appears to have been their preference for domestic worship over that
of the parish priest.
The Governor of Kherson thought his duty in the matter clear; he set
the prisoners free. When the Black Clergy of his province stormed upon
him, as a man abetting heresy and schism, he quoted Paragraph 11 in
his imperial master's minute on the treatment of Dissent; a paragraph
laying down the rule that every man is free to believe as he likes, so
long as he abstains from troubling his neighbors by attempting to
convert them to his creed. The prince added a recommendation of his
own, that the clergy of his province should strive in their own
vocation to bring these wanderers back into the fold of God.
NON-PAYEES OF RENT.
Near Kazan I hear of a new sect having sprung up in the province of
Viatka, which is giving the ministry much trouble. It may have been
the fruit of poor Adrian Pushkin's labor (though I have not heard his
name in connection with it); the main doctrine of the Non-payers of
Rent being the second article of Pushkin's creed.
The canton of Mostovinsk, in the district of Sarapul, is the scene of
this rising of poor saints against the tyrants of this world. Viatka,
lying on the frontiers of Asia, with a mixed population of Russ,
Finns, Bashkirs, Tartars, is one of the most curious provinces of the
empire. Every sort of religion flourishes in its difficult dales;
Christian, Mussulman, Buddhist, Pagan; each under scores of differing
forms and names. Twenty Christian sects might be found in this single
province; and as all aliens and idolaters living there have the right
of being ruled by their own chiefs, it is not easy for the police to
follow up all the clues of discovery on which they light. But such a
body as the Non-payers of Rent could hardly conceal themselves from
the public eye. If they were to live their life and obey their
teachers, they must come into the open day, avow their doctrine, and
defend their creed. Such was the necessary logic of their conversion,
and when rents became due they refused to pay. The debt was not so
much a rental, as a rent-charge on their land. Like all crown-peasants
(and these reformers had been all crown-peasants), they had received
their homesteads and holdings subject to a certain liquidating charge.
This charge they declined to meet on religious grounds.
Alarmed by such a revolt, the Governor of Viatka wrote to St.
Petersburg for orders. He was told, in answer, to make inquiries; to
arrest the leaders; and to watch with care for signs of trouble.
Nearly two hundred Non-payers of Rent were seized by the police,
parted into groups, and put under question. Some were released on the
governor's recommendation; but when I left the neighborhood,
twenty-three of these Non-paying prisoners were still in jail.
They could not see the error of their creed; they would not promise to
abstain from teaching it; and, worst of all, they obstinately declined
to bear the stipulated burdens on their land.
What is a practical statesman to do with men who say their conscience
will not suffer them to pay their rent?