More than 4,000 members of the Protestant Dukhobor sect have left Georgia to settle in Russia and Canada in recent years, the Russian daily Segodnya said Wednesday.

A group of 60 people is expected to leave Saturday to settle in the Bryansk region of central Russia, leaving only 2,000 Dukhobors in Georgia, the paper said.

The Dukhobors were prominent in Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries, before fleeing to escape Orthodox Church persecutions. Some of them sought refuge in Georgia and Armenia, while others emigrated to Canada, aided by a campaign run by the author Leo Tolstoy.

In the two-year period 1898-1899 alone, over 7,000 Dukhobors moved to Saskatchewan and later spread to the western province of British Columbia.

In doctrine, the Dukhobors are somewhat like the Quakers, completely rejecting priesthood, the sacraments and other outward symbols of Christianity.

According to a UN committee on human rights and ethnic relations, the Dukhobors have now almost entirely disappeared from Georgia.

The current exodus from Georgia began after the former Soviet republic won independence in 1991, because of the deterioration of the economic situation and an increase in what they call anti-Russian sentiment.