History of Spiritual Christians
from Russia
in North America
Purpose: To help educate the descendants of Spiritual
Christians from Russia who migrated to North America, and anyone
interested.
In the Russian Empire a national religious revival occurred in
the early 1600s caused by an effort
to unify diverse branches of the Orthodox state faiths,
and influenced by increasing contacts with the secular
(non-religious) and non-Orthodox Protestant visitors from the
West, mainly Anabaptists in Russia. About 1667 a permanent faith
"schism" (raskol)
divided followers of the old Orthodox faith and rituals during
an effort to unify all types of Orthodoxy. The disruption
divided Russian society and weakened the new State Church while
progress in laws, commerce, communication and travel allowed a
more worldly secular state and foreign visitors and
missionaries. By the end of the 1600s, clocks and calendars had
replaced icons in some government offices. To the devout elders,
these changes signaled the coming of the apocalypse. Out of this
chaos emerged numerous and diverse folk-protestant movements
ruled to be heresies by the Church. It was a felony for Russians
to refuse to be Orthodox. Despite their low status, over time
the State Church isolated and tolerated the heretics on the
borderlands of the expanding Russian Empire, where many of their
descendants persevered while formulating and evolving into many
different faith tribes. Many called themselves "Spiritual
Christians" while the Church gave them nicknames which described
their heresies. Some migrated to North America about from 1899
through 1930, in the 1950s, and a few after 1980.
Doukhobors (Canadian English for Dukhobory, Dukhobortsy, the heresy of spirit-wrestling/fighting)
Originally called ikonobortsy (icon wrestlers, Iconoclasts).
The largest organized group of Spiritual Christians to ever
leave Russia, and the largest colonial migration to Canada. Due
to a major 3-location simultaneous pacifist burning
of guns and weapons in 1895, followed by massive arrests,
imprisonment, exile, and many deaths, author Lev. N. Tolstoy
intervened with the Society of Friends, London, to expose the
crime of humanity and fund a migration.
About one-third, over 8,300 migrated
to central Canada from 1898 to 1930, most in the first
years, and most were followers of P. V.
Verigin who was released from exile to join them in
Canada. Before Verigin arrived, a zealous faction began a trek
on foot back to Russia, while some petitioned to move to
America. By the time Verigin arrived Dukhobortsy divided
into 3
groups: his communal followers, zealot protestors, and
independent homesteaders who integrated in Saskatchewan. Most of
Verigin's community Doukhobors moved to eastern British Columbia
where they built nearly 100 communal farms and businesses.
Because sectarians were illegal in Russia, their liturgy was
passed orally. They sing their own hymns, not from the Bible,
and continue Sunday meetings with no ordained clergy. 100s of
books and articles document their history from the early 1800s.
Taxonomy of Molokane, Pryguny and Dukh-i-zhizniki
Originally called ikonobortsy (icon
wrestlers, Iconoclasts).
Definitions and descriptions of 3 often confused faiths of
Spiritual Christians from Russia. They have two categories of
holidays Christ's and God's. Every holiday
is important, but the Molokane
and Dukh-i-zhizniki
each "reject half of our holidays" according to the Pryguny who celebrate
all 10 holidays. The Dukh-i-zhiznik
faiths were formalized in California and
Arizona after 1928.
Heretics
and
Colonizers:
Religious dissent and
Russian colonization of Transcausasia, 1830-1890 (Azerbaijan,
Armenia, Georgia)
1999 Januaryby Breyfogle, Nicholas Brenton,
University of Pennsylvania, PHD Thesis, 387 pages, 1998. "This
dissertation examines the settlement of Russian religious
dissenters (Dukhobortsy, Pryguny, Molokane,
Subbotniki) in Transcaucasia from 1830 to 1890. During
this period, officials promoted the relocation of sectarians (sektanty)
to Transcaucasia
to the exclusion of other Slavs in an effort to isolate
their 'heretical infection' from Orthodox Russians."
51 Letters
between Tolstoy and Molokans in Russian
and English
1999August-September51 hand-written letters between Count Leo
Tolstoy and Molokan elder Fedor Aleksseevich
Zheltov (photo, 51K) of Bogorodskoe (just
south of Nizhnii Novgorod) were recently discovered by scholars
helping the Doukhobors research information for the 1898
celebrations of the 100th anniversary of their migration from
Russia. 37 of these letters are from Zheltov to Tolstoy, and 14
from Tolstoy to Zheltov. See sample handwritten letter sent 19
August 1895 from Tolstoy to Zheltov, and the envelope
and transcription in Russian. Transcribing and typing the
Russian handwritten script has taken months. 300 copies were
donated, 2 for each Russian Molokan church. The project is a
cooperative effort between the State L. N.Tolstoy Museum,
Moscow, and the Slavic Research Group at the University of
Ottawa. Canadian scholar John Woodsworth did the transcription
and translation. The Highgate
Road Social Science Research Station (HRSSRS) published
the English translation version which will include all the
Russian transcription and more information about the history of
Molokane at that time. 500 English translations are
planned to be published based on advanced prepaid orders. Russian version front
cover and back
cover. Read the only review: Book Review: A Molokan's Search for Truth:
The Correspondence of Leo Tolstoy and Fedor Zheltov
by Dr. Joyce Story, Canadian
Slavonic Papers, Jun-Sep 2001.
The Russians'
Secret: What Christians Today Would Survive
Persecution?
1999 by Peter Hoover and Serguei V. Peterov 247 pages A
comparison and contrast of Russian sectarian history from the Raskol
(mid-1600s) to the beginning of WWII, focusing on how they
learned from each other in Russia, particularly in the "Milky
Waters" region of "New Russia" in the late 1700s and early
1800s, and their persecutions. Covers Spiritual Christians (Molokane,
Pryguny, Dukhobortsy, Kissers, People of God,
Nameless, Deserted, Flagellates (Khlysty), Baptists, ..),
German transplants (Mennonites, Stundists, Hutterites,
Anabaptists, ..), Staroobryadtsy (Old Ritualists) and
more. $10.27 from Benchmark Press, 1593 Pinola Road,
Shippensburg, PA 17257 phone: 717-530-8595 fax:
717-532-4974 email: benchmarkpress@juno.com
or ebbpinola@juno.com no credit cards. Amazon.com
Hilltop
Russians in San Francisco: A Record of the
Portrero Hill Colony
1941 30 color pastel water paintings by Pauline Vinson with
introduction by William Saroyan
I first saw this rare book in the 1980s after a meeting of the
Potrero Hill Historical Society. The owner, a local historian,
paid $100 for it then. I found a rare copy in 2000 at an auction
by Pacific Books for $44. Other copies sold for up to $350. I
scanned the entire book and color-enhanced the faded water
paintings. It shows Molokan life in San Francisco just
before the war dedushki, babushki, banya,
a wedding, the front of both the Prygun and Molokans
meeting halls; and, most significant to me, how Molokane prayed
then huddled in a tight circle, not like soldiers standing in
rows as they do now.
5
Photos, 6 Speeches and 9 Songs of San Francisco Molokane in the 1930s
1938-40 Similar to "Hilltop Russians" (above),
The
WPA California Folk Music Project was funded to provide
work after the depression. It was a joint effort of the Work
Projects Administration (WPA), the Library of Congress, and the
Music Division of the University of California, Berkeley. Social
scientists documented 16 ethnic groups in California, including
Molokane. The
American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, created a
database to provide this historical material on the Internet.
"Russian Molokan
congregation from Potrero Hill, San Francisco, performing
unaccompanied sacred music and preaching in the Russian language
... . The Russian Molokans, ... were a Russian peasant group
that dissented from the Russian Orthodox Church at least as far
back as the seventeenth century. The Molokans came to California
from the Transcaucausus in the early part of the twentieth
century."
Change as Confirmation of Continuity As Experienced by Russian Spiritual Christians Molokans
Margarita Mazo, PhD, Ethnomusicologist, Music Department, Ohio State University, Canton, Ohio
In 1992, Dr. Mazo, the only Russian born and trained ethnomusicologist at an American university, visits a new Molokan village south of Moscow composed of refugees mainly from Armenia and Georgia. She describes a service with guests from the Molokan Center in Stavropol' and attempts by a young leader to preserve his religious culture after perestroika. Mazo later arranges for Russian and American Dukh-i-zhiznik singers to meet in America, but Dukh-i-zhizniki refuse, passing the invitation to the Molokane in San Francisco and Russia.
Leo
Tolstoy:
An
Annotated
Secondary Bibliography of Writings from English-Language
Sources, 1970-1997
1998 Masters thesis by Georgiev, Ludmil
University of Alaska Anchorage The purpose of the present
annotated bibliography is to provide a listing of
English-language publications about Leo Tolstoy. It is directed
at those who are interested in Tolstoy's life and work. The
bibliography was compiled by searching the National Union
Catalog, Library of Congress Catalogs, MLA International
Bibliography (1970-present) and the Comprehensive Dissertation
Index.
Boyle Heights Project Open
2002 Sept 8 (Updated: Nov 9, 2007) Photos of 65 named Dukh-i-zhizniki
are on display in Los Angeles at the Japanese American National
Museum. I identified another 10 without names. See 45 display
items photos, texts, videos, and singing on CD. I first
reported on this Project in 2000, during planning, and a year
later. I was open for 6 months. Do you recognize these COs and
their sailor buddies in front of the UMCA in 1943? There are
over 1000 photos in the exhibit, so I cross-indexed every name
alphabetically with location to help you find friends and
relatives.
Glendale: Century of Diversity
1992 An illustrated history by Dean Smith published by
the City of Glendale, Arizona, Celebrating the Glendale
Centennial: 100 Years of Dreams, 1892-1992. Chapter 2: The
Convergence of Cultures Pages 34-36 Among stories of
Glendale's diverse founding nationalities (Chinese, Basque,
Japanese, Hispanic, German, etc) and religions (Catholic,
Baptist, Methodist, etc.) is this page about the Dukh-i-zhizniki.
Russian
Dictionary of Religions
Definition of Molokane, in Russian, use character
set--Cyrillic Windows-1251
Russian
History sites
A list of summaries and links to the best Russian history sites
on the internet.
Check these out: A Chronology of Russian History The Khazars
(Jews) Modern Customs and Ancient Laws in Russia Excerpts
from The Code of Law of 1649 (Ulozhenie)
Excerpts from The Code of Law of 1649 (Ulozhenie),
Chapter l - Blasphemers and Heretics The
Basic Principles of 1862: The Judicial System, Glossary
The
Russian
Post-Emancipation
Household: Two Villages in the Moscow Area
By Herdis Kolle
Master thesis in history, Department of History, University of
Bergen, Bergen 1995. Explains the context of Russian peasant
life in the mid-1800s, with useful terminology. Contents :
| 1. Introduction | 2. The Russian Village | 3. Historiography | 4. Sources | 5. Demography |
| 6. The Peasant Family | 7. Farmers and Craftsmen | 8. Conclusion | 9. Glossary | 10. Bibliography |
Russian
Baptists
and
the Military Question, 1920-1929
"While the confessional
position of the Baptist union before World War I had stated: 'We
consider ourselves obliged to perform military service when the
government demands it of us,'(8) not far below the surface of
the official position ran a strong current in favor of pacifism.
This propensity within the Baptist movement reflected the
influence of the Mennonites and Molokans upon the
Baptists in the south of Russia. Since the Mennonites had given
aid to the Shtundist movement in Ukraine and the original
Baptists of the Caucasus came out of Molokan
communities, there were natural conduits through which pacifist
sentiments could flow into Baptist ranks. Baptist relations with
both Mennonites and Molokans remained close throughout
the history of the Baptist union."
"... on 30 August 1921 the Commissariat
of Justice ... told courts that exemption could be granted only
to members of sects that had included refusal of military
service among their obligatory dogmas prior to the revolution
and whose members had been convicted and punished for that
refusal by the tsarist government. Such sects included Dukhobors,
Mennonites, Molokans and some Old Believers; but
Baptists were not among them."
The Last Jumper in the Empire
Alksander Prokhanov
by Aleksandr
Dugin (in Russian). Text borrowed from The
New Book.
Archived. Translation in-progress.
The confused writer mixed different Spiritual Christian faith
groups Molokane, Pryguny, Khlysty with an organizer
of Baptisty. See: Gerald H. Anderson. "Prokhanov,
Ivan Stepanovich (1865-1935)," Biographical Dictionary
of Christian Missions, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999,
page 550.
Spiritual
Christians in 1870s Russia
1905 Russia, Chapter 17 Among the Heretics by Donald
Mackenzie
Wallace Over period of thirty-five years, Wallace
traveled Europe and Russia. In the 1870s he documented his long
religous conversations with Molokans he met along the Volga,
near Samara. I published this excellent historic chapter in my
1980 Molokan Directory, and just found the entire book on-line.
He describes a false prophet Elija (Belozvorof), the Jumpers,
Khlisti, and evaluates what he sees from his perspective.
Chapter 17 is 35K, the entire book is about 1700K. Be patient if
you don't have a fast connection.
California
Gold:
Northern
California
Folk Music from the Thirties Russian Molokans
National Library of Congress, American
Memory--Historical Collections for the National Digital Library,
27 items. Digital photos, songs, and speeches recorded in the
1930s. The Russian Molokan congregation at Potrero Hill,
San Francisco, performing unaccompanied sacred music and
preaching in the Russian language. The Russian Molokans, also
called Molokan Spiritual Jumpers, Spiritual Christians of the
Sect of Jumper, or Milk Drinkers, were a Russian peasant group
that dissented from the Russian Orthodox Church at least as far
back as the seventeenth century. The Molokans came to California
from the Transcaucausus in the early part of the twentieth
century.
Spiritual Christian
HomePage Short Description and History
By A.J. Conovaloff Molokans, like the
Doukhobors, are sectarian Bible-centered Christians who evolved
from Spiritual Christian Russian peasants who refused to join
the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1600s. A Russian who was not
Orthodox was "sectarian". During the 1800s both sects became
widespread in Southern Russia. For insisting on religious
freedom, many were persecuted by the Church and State, and many
expelled to the Transcaucasus. By 1900, Molokans numbered over
100,000 in Russia. About 2,500 migrated to America just before
the Russian Revolution.
Dukh-i-zhizniki in
America
A corrected update of Molokans
in America by John K. Berokoff, Los
Angeles California, 1969 Web-published beginning in 1998 after
correcting the original for spelling and grammar, errors
and omissions, enhancing with clarifications, and adding
hyper-links and maps.Work in-progress.
Kars Area
Spiritual Christians
Go to Thumbnail Album if your computer and modem work fast.
1939 Photos from Al Serguiff's journey from Los
Angeles to find relatives. 1960's Pictures from Turkdogan's
Ph.D. Thesis Book 1987 Photos by Anne (Tolmasoff)
Strubar and daughter Rose, from
Oregon.
A
History of Spiritual Christians Molokans
in Boyle Heights
by Marco, Roosevelt High
School, Grade 12, May, 1998; from Boyle Heights: America In
The Mirror, a "project .. to enable students to apply
Social Studies skills, concepts, and themes to the study of
local history and geography."
Also see: Historical Perspectives: Immigration and the Rise of a Distinctive Urban Region, 1900-1970, John H. M. Laslett, Ethnic Los Angeles, (New York: Russell Sage, 1996), pp. 39-75.
"The outstanding social fact of the early downtown era, however, which lasted from 1880 until the 1920s, was not social conflict and ethnic segregation but rather racial mixing and relative tolerance. Admittedly Chinatown, which had been founded in the late 1860s in the area around First and Main streets, was cut off from social and business interaction with the other parts of downtown. But along the edge of the Los Angeles River, behind the Plaza, many other ethnic groups lived side by side. Near the Plaza area, for example, was the city's largest Russian colony, consisting of several hundred ιmigrι members of the Molokan religious faith. During the 1880s, nearby Boyle Heights became the center of a large, flourishing Jewish community, its focal point Brooklyn Avenue. Mixed in along the downtown streets were Italian groceries, African American blacksmith shops, Irish saloons, and German Turnvereine (gymnastics clubs). One commentator, noting several German breweries in the emerging Little Tokyo district, said that the area should have been called Little Berlin instead, because Germans "were the largest single nationality in the district."'
The
Daily
Life of the Household in Medieval Novogorod
1998 PhD Thesis by Berger, Jean Kathryn University
of
Minnisota
This thesis is the first attempt to create a clear picture of
the daily life of ordinary people in the medieval city of
Novgorod, Russia from the tenth through the fifteenth centuries.
A
Comparison of the Mennonite and Doukhbor Emigrations from
Russia to Canada, 1870-1920
1998 Masters thesis by Swatzky, Robert John
Dalhousie University, Canada This thesis examines two
emigrations from Russia to Canada by members of the Mennonite
and Doukhobor religious sects in the late nineteenth century.
The first took place between 1874 and 1880, when roughly 17,000
Mennonites left their homes in southern Ukraine to establish new
settlements in the western frontiers of North America. Included
in this number was a contingent of about 7,000 who formed
colonies in the southern regions of Manitoba, Canada, instead of
settling with the majority of their fellow emigrants in the U.S.
Midwest. The Doukhobor emigration involved approximately 7,400
sectarians from Transcaucasia who migrated to the Western
Canadian territories of Assiniboia and Saskatchewan in the years
1898-99. This thesis recognizes an underlying cause for the two
migrations which is rooted in the internal struggles of the two
sects. [I ask why did the Molokans wait until 1904 to begin to
leave? The legend of the Klubnikin prophesy was unknown by and
did not influence the Mennonites or Doukhobors.]
The
Wall
of Faith
1998 Masters thesis by Birk, Thomas
California State university, Dominguez Hills The purpose of
this creative project is to show, through the life of a
Pentecostal believer in the Soviet Union--Emilia Kolyvanova--the
effect that Communism had upon the lives, religion, culture, and
history of the people who survived those difficult years under
its rule from 1917 to 1989.
The
Most
Dangerous Sect: Baptists in Tsarist and Soviet Russia,
1905-1929
1998 PhD thesis by Coleman, Heather Jean
University of Illinois at Ubana-Champaign This study explores
a period of profound religious searching, possibility, and
change in Russia through the prism of the Baptists, the fastest
growing non-Orthodox religious movement among Russians in the
early twentieth century.
Homeland,
Diaspora
and Nationalism:
The
Reimagination
of American-Armenian Identity Since Gorbachev
1998 PhD thesis by Gakavian, Armen University
of
Sydney, Australia This thesis discusses the evolution of
modern Armenian territorial nationalism, beginning with the
annexation of Eastern Armenia by Russia in 1828. It focuses on
the impact of the homeland and of the diaspora-homeland
relationship on Armenian diasporan identity. In particular, it
analyses the response of the American-Armenian community to
recent events in Armenia, and the impact of these events on that
community.
Marriage,
Gender,
Family and the Old Believer Community, 1760-1850
1998 Phd thesis by Korovushkina, Irina
University of Essex, UK The present work is a study of the
impact of the Schism (1656-68) on the social development of
Russia. It is concerned with religious community and gender,
marriage and family among Old Believers.
Public
Identities
in Catherinian Russia: The Free Economic Society,
1765-1775
1998 PhD thesis by Leckey, Colum University
of Pittsburg Founded in 1765, the Free Economic Society was
imperial Russia's most prestigious agricultural society and
first free secular association. ... the principal obstacle to
establishing an autonomous public in Russia was not the
political dominance of the autocracy and state institutions, but
rather the servile agrarian regime itself. ... the Society
became an institutional ornament of Russia's Enlightenment,
ineffective both as a vehicle of agricultural improvement and a
mouthpiece of the educated public.
The
Russian
Religion Law: Freedom of Religion or Freedom from
Religion?
1998 Masters thesis by Regule, Christina Ann
Regent University This study analyzes the 1997 Russian
Federation Religion Law, On Freedom of Conscience and on
Religious Associations, based on the 1993 Russian Federation
Constitution and international agreements. In this law, not all
'religious associations' in Russia have their inalienable human
rights preserved. Instead, 'religious groups' in Russia do not
enjoy the same fundamental freedoms and privileges protected for
'religious organizations.' See
the first 24 pages.
The
Aftermath
of Trauma and Immigration:
Detections
of
Multigenerational
Effects
on Mennonites Who Emigrated from Russian to Canada in the
1920s
1998 Doctoral thesis in Psychology by Reynolds, Lunda
Klassen California School of Professional
Psychology - Fresno This study compared the scores of
Mennonites who emigrated from Russia to Canada during 1920 to
1929, and the scores of second and third generations Mennonites
with the norms on the MMPI-2 and Personal Experience
Questionnaires. The purpose of the study was to investigate the
psychological effects of trauma and immigration on the first
generation, and to determine if transmission of these symptoms
was occurring across generations. Questionnaire data revealed
that both the second and third generations strongly value the
Mennonite identity and Pacifism. The second generation reported
both negative and positive aspects resulting from being raised
according to Mennonite values. As a group, the third generation
strongly endorsed the positive influence of their grandparents
and their desire to be more informed about their experiences.
Ways
of
Russian
Theology
Chapter 5: Struggle for Theology
by Georges
Florovsky "By statute and design the Bible
Society was to embrace all confessions, so that all
"confessions" might be represented in the Society as equally
possessed by the sanctity of God's Word. ... Very often
religious toleration and the principle of equality of all
confessions became metamorphosed as patronage for
sectarians, especially for the Dukhobors and Molokans,
but even for the Skoptsy." "Shishkov [incorrectly]
suspected that this separate publication [Pentateuch] had been
conceived and executed in order to push the common people into
the arms of the Molokane heresy or simply into Judaism."
"Makarii ... prayed with the "Spiritual Children" (the
Molokans), and found that the light of God's
illumination glowed in their warm faith."
Chapter
4:
The
St.
Petersburg Revolution
"The second half of the century also marked an increasing
dreaminess and mysticism among the people. All of the basic
Russian sects- the Khlysty, Skoptsy, Dukhobors,
and Molokans developed during those years. In the
Alexandrine age, these two currents, the mysticism of the lower
and the higher classes in many ways converged, thereby revealing
their inner affinity. They shared precisely that "anguish of the
spirit" which was by turns dreamy or ecstatic."
Also see the notes
to
chapter
4 numbers 138 Khlysty),139 (Skopsy), 140 (Dukhobors), 141
(Molokans)
(Link thanks to Bill Rushby who found this at: MYRIOBIBLOS: The eText
Library of the Church of Greece)
See also Molokan
and Jumper NEWS
Molokans and Jumpers Around the
World