The Emergence of Sects of a Mystical Nature

Nikon accepted the patriarchate on July 25, 1652, and during these first five years he was connected with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich by a strong friendship. Not a single important state matter was resolved without the consent of the sovereign and the patriarch. At one time, the patriarch took an active part in the struggle against the plague, for which he was granted the title of "great sovereign" by the tsar. Patriarch Nikon approved several monasteries: Iberian, Cross and New Jerusalem. But, being a straightforward and uncompromising person, he gradually acquires influential enemies in the person of noble boyars. Four noble boyar families had the most negative attitude towards the patriarch: the Streshnevs, the Miloslavskys, the Odoevskys, and the Morozovs. At court, intrigues were woven in order to turn the sovereign against the patriarch. Soon the occasion presented itself. In 1657, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich returned from the Livonian campaign, where the military operation against Lithuania was not entirely successful for the Russian army, and the gloomy mood of the sovereign was aggravated by the news from the boyars that Nikon was wasting the state treasury on the construction of monasteries, the maintenance of the brethren, while this money could successfully be used for a military campaign against Lithuania. Relations between the tsar and the patriarch became strained. In addition, it was reported that the Patriarch spoiled the purity of the faith, tempted the people by correcting the liturgical books, etc. Concerning the question of reforming the resolutions of the Council of the Hundred Chapters, it should be said that this Council was held in 1551 under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Macarius, where Tsar Ivan the Terrible was also present. 37 issues concerning various aspects of church life were considered. In one hundred chapters were set forth the main doctrinal, ritual and other questions, from which the Council received the name "Hundred Chapters".

In order to bring everything to a common denominator, Patriarch Nikon established a scholarly brotherhood near Moscow, which analyzed Greek primary sources, sent a number of educated monks from the Kiev Academy to Greece, headed by Arseny Sukhanov, and finally, in 1654, convened a bishops' council, where the need to correct the liturgical books was recognized. Archbishop Pavel of Kolomna, the only hierarch who refused to sign the act of the council. Already in 1656, another council, which was attended by two patriarchs of Serbia and Antioch, confirmed the legitimacy of the council of 1654 and decreed: the newly corrected books were to be corrected in all churches, and the old ones were to be burned. Passions boiled. The enemies of Patriarch Nikon took advantage of the discontent of some of the laity and a number of priests, of whom the fathers of the Moscow Council would later say that they were "simplicity and ignorance," and they would be called "empty saints." The resistance of the "Pustosvyats" irritated the Patriarch: at first he admonished them verbally, and then severe sanctions followed. Bishop Pavel was defrocked and exiled to the Paleostrovsky Monastery, Priest Neronov to the Kamenetz Monastery, Archpriest Avvakum to Dauria, Prince Lvov to Solovki. Petitions to the tsar poured in. Although Alexei Mikhailovich did not share the convictions of the "empty saints", his relations with the Patriarch were strained due to other, objective, as it seemed to him, reasons. The tsar stopped inviting the patriarch to the Kremlin, including to receive foreign ambassadors. In 1658, the patriarch publicly took off his vestments in front of all the people at the liturgy and declared that from now on he was not a patriarch, since the tsar did not recognize him as such. He voluntarily retired to the Resurrection Monastery for eight years of imprisonment. Such behavior of the patriarch embittered the tsar, and instead of reconciliation, in 1666 he invited Patriarch Macarius of Antioch, Patriarch Dionysius of Alexandria, ten metropolitans, three archbishops, five bishops and a multitude of priests to try Nikon. The court charged the deposed Nikon with the following: unauthorized abandonment of the flock, pride, and not humility in court, humiliation of Metropolitan Paisius of Gaza, deprivation of bishops of their dioceses without a conciliar trial, rudeness and cruelty in the treatment of subordinates. In the rank of a simple monk, Nikon was exiled to a remote monastery for repentance. He died in 1681, and a year later a letter was received from the Eastern patriarchs, freeing Patriarch Nikon from conciliar condemnation. While Patriarch Nikon was in voluntary 8-year imprisonment, the adherents of the Old Believers were emboldened. Archpriest Avvakum was returned from exile and with enviable persistence began to consolidate the Old Believer movement around him. His speeches were harsh, the lack of knowledge and tact was compensated for by exaltation, which captivated a lot of people. His ardent adherents also appeared among the boyars. The persecution of the "pustosvyatsy" by the authorities was likened to the wind in the direction of a smoldering fire. Soon the Old Believer movement swept over the whole of Russia. The main distinguishing feature of the schism was attachment to the letter of the church service books and the rite without understanding its meaning and significance. They wanted to die "for one AZ". In their opinions on the issue of restoring lawful succession through ordination, the Old Believers were divided into two large channels. One branch (the priests) continued to seek ways to restore their priesthood through the Orthodox hierarchs, when in 1846 they turned to the out-of-the-way Greek Metropolitan Ambrose with a request to "bake" more bishops and priests for them, which the latter did in Bukovina. It is now called the Belokrinitsky concord. Others, on the contrary, rejected any contact with Orthodoxy, accusing it of all mortal sins, and then they had an avalanche-like fragmentation into a multitude of sects and interpretations. Briefly about the most famous of them.

Whips

People rhythmically jump around the large upper room, uttering inarticulate sounds, a whirlwind seizes a stranger with a tormenting sensual voluptuousness, awakening an irrepressible desire, which at the end of the joy will finally be fulfilled, to the great delight of those who are careful. But while they are whipping themselves and others with tourniquets and rods, and shouting aloud: "I whip myself, I seek God!" guttural strange sounds break from their lips, and unknown speech is sometimes intertwined with the general hubbub. Thus do the Khlysts care (serve God). This mystical sect was founded by Danila Filippov, as he himself explained, through "illumination" he obtained the truth. Later, he would call himself the God of Sabaoth, which would not surprise the sectarians at all, for they considered him to be such. A little later, in 1649, this fugitive soldier of the Kostroma province called the zealous follower of Suslov "his only-begotten son", that is, Christ Jesus. And again the sectarians will believe him, because Suslov will surround himself with the "Mother of God" and the twelve "apostles". Having bought a huge house in Moscow at the expense of his followers, he will call it "New Jerusalem". There will spin mind-blowing zeals, regularly ending in gross sin. In 1699 Danilo Filippov died – as the Khlysts would stubbornly assert – "ascended to heaven", and his place was taken by Prokopiy Lupkin, who in 1716 was put on trial in Yaroslavl, after repentance the authorities were released, but only in 1733 the sect was recognized as a malicious heresy, and everywhere in Russia persecution fell on the Khlystovism. But... Time is lost. Khlysts spread in the Ryazan, Tver, Simbirsk, Penza, Vologda, Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma, Vladimir and Yaroslavl provinces. What can we say for peace, if by 1733 there were already 8 Khlystov nests in Moscow monasteries alone. In the investigation, 416 people were found, some of whom were executed, some were exiled to Siberia, and the other part repented. Sectarian meetings usually take place in a secret place, hidden from the eyes of an outsider. A guard is posted in case of a raid. During meeting hours, the room is lit by a huge chandelier in the form of a chandelier. All those gathered change into white clothes. An essential element of the "divine service" is whirling ("salting") and prophecies. There are: a) single, b) wall (several people in a row), c) ship (running one after another), d) cross (in pairs crosswise). At the moment of spiritual ecstasy, the whirling becomes vortex. At this moment, the sectarian "flies into the sky" or "lures the bird of paradise." Then he falls into a frenzy and hallucinations begin; Someone is screaming, someone is climbing under the stove with eyes bulging with emotions. Universal indescribable delight ends in sexual unbridledness, which is popularly called "gross sin". To summarize the signs by which you can identify a whip, the following: folk rumor, ease of sexual relations, non-use of alcohol, appearance - a languid, yellow-pale face, dull look, a smoothly combed and oiled head in men, insinuating humble speech, impulsive inadequate body movements, a strange love of sweets, the use of diminutive names for each other's names. It should be noted that the zeal of sectarians is extremely contagious; It often happened that a person who once out of curiosity came to the zeal of the sect, practically did not return from it. Khlystovshchina absorbed many sensible people, including those from the Russian intelligentsia, who, out of idle curiosity, wanted to attend the celebrations.

Jumpers

In a hotly heated upper room, people are sitting on benches near the walls. With a sly smile, a quick, ruddy peasant sings a prayer composed by him to the tune of a Russian folk song. He is unanimously pulled up by the audience, and only a little at the beginning the tune that was guessed turns into a jubilant song "Oh, you, sleigh, my sleigh". The song reverberates through the village. During the singing, the spirit rolls over the "prophet" (i.e. on the ruddy peasant). He stops the song and prepares to receive the "spirit", expressing this by stamping his foot on the floor and smoothing the hair on his head. This is followed by a swaying of the body in different directions, and finally, unable to restrain his ecstasy, he begins to dance before the prophetess, who, without moving from her seat, responds to him with a nervous twitch of the shoulders. And then the "prophet", raising his hands up, begins to jump. Jumping higher and more actively, he puts his hands on his partner's shoulders, and then they both start dancing. Those present are imbued with the "sacred action" of the prophets, and they themselves begin to jump until they fall down in exhaustion. (Often an outside observer who was present at the celebration caught himself jumping to his amazement.) Then someone starts muttering all sorts of nonsense, but it's a "prophecy," and every word that is spoken is listened to in order to interpret what is said. For the post of prophet, people are selected who are young and quick, but most importantly, who know how to dance well. Meetings of the jumpers are held from Friday to Saturday, because the sect adheres to the Mosaic Law. The sectarians explain this form of service simply: King David sang and danced in front of the Ark, and God did not impute this to him as a sin. The founder of the sect is considered to be Lukyan Sokolov (1862), but the real ideological inspirer and universally recognized leader is Maxim Rudometkin, nicknamed "Komar". The sect was born in Transcaucasia in the 50s of the XIX century. The sect celebrates all Jewish holidays, but it is difficult to judge how widespread it is at the present time, since no one has kept such statistics. At one time, this trend was very widespread in Russia, but, as is known, many mystical sects were simply absorbed by rationalistic Protestant sects. This fate did not pass by the jumpers either.

Skoptsy

A red-hot metal rod is pressed against the root of the reproductive organ with ferocious determination. Burning criminal pain pierces and breaks the body, the painful shock neutralizes the consciousness of the adept, blood gushes down the thighs like a fountain... So Lieutenant Selivanov signed his insane fanaticism with a voluntary gesture. The formula of sin is indicated in the Scriptures: "... the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16). "In order to free oneself from 'babbling', one must be castrate," Selivanov declared, pointing to a passage from Matt. 19:12. Selivanov's followers were discovered in Russia in 1772, and he himself was expelled from the Khlystov ship for this act and soon headed for the Tula province. There he preaches "from the roof" about a certain "fiery baptism" to which he subjected himself, "washing away the babble of sin." In Tula, Selivanov soon gained followers, who by 1775 were already 60 people. Children were also castrated with the consent of their parents. "Teachers" often, infecting their followers with this idea, castrated them by getting them drunk or turning off their consciousness with some other potion. A terrible, torn scream rushed to the heights of light and sorrow as the mind returned to the desecrated body, but nothing could be corrected. And the capture of the "teacher" began by the crippled adept who saw the light, where the first were simply killed. History is replete with similar phenomena in moments of spiritual upheaval. Many centuries have passed, and even today it is still terrible to read about the zeal of the gals-eunuchs, when they whirl in a frenzied dance, scourge until they bleed, until they fall down in exhaustion. Many, who have come only to look at the spectacle, become infected with madness, suddenly start dancing themselves and, grabbing one of the swords lying right there at the ready, castrate themselves... The fanatical character of the sect is determined by a certain "great" ("royal") and "small" seals. With the "royal" seal, both the sexual organ ("the key of the abyss") and the testicles ("the gates of hell") are removed, and with the "small" seal, only the scrotum is removed. In women, the clitoris and sometimes the breasts are removed. In 1775, an investigation was carried out in the case of the eunuchs, and soon there followed harsh sanctions by state officials against fanatics. Selivanov went into exile in Siberia, his active follower Shilov - in Riga. The heresy gave a powerful growth in the Orel, Kaluga, Tambov, and Tula provinces. Selivanov flees from Irkutsk and secretly appears in Moscow. He was soon arrested, and Tsar Paul I, having learned about the incident, demanded that Selivanov be personally introduced to him. By his order, an audience tete-a-tete took place, after which the tsar proposed to lock the criminal fanatic in a psychiatric hospital for life, which was done. However, after the death of Paul I, the Skoptsy actively established their own communities in Russia – "ships", and only from 1819 the authorities again really faced the problem of sectarianism of this orientation, when the soldiers – the foundation of any power, the intelligentsia, the inhabitants who fell under the influence of the "ship" – were castrated. Selivanov was subjected to church admonition, but, as is known, there was no way back for him. Exile to the Suzdal monastery followed, which became a detonator for the followers of the great martyr to turn him into a great martyr. Pilgrims from the sectarians considered it a great honor to get their idol's nails, hair, and bread scraps in Suzdal. The most drastic measures against the eunuchs were taken by Tsar Nicholas II, declaring them the most "harmful" sect. For one suspicion of belonging to the Skoptsy, they were tried. Sectarians fled to Romania and Turkey, settling en masse in Bucharest, Iasi, and Izmail. In 1871, a new trend arose among them, the so-called "New-Skopsky movement". On the whole, having transformed and adapted to the conditions of survival in any state with its laws, the leader of the Novoskopje movement, Kuzma Lisitsin, pointed out the priority of the moral castration of the heart over the carnal castration. And the latter, he asserted, could be done on the deathbed at an old age, which the Lord would count as a lawful castration. At the same time, Lisitsin even pointed to many Russian princes and nobles, satiated with an excess of sins of various kinds, who took schema on their deathbeds... He was believed, and a split occurred among Selivanov's supporters. The doctrinal feature of the eunuchs is as follows. Adam and Eve were created with ethereal bodies that had no sexual characteristics. As a result of disobedience, God puts seals on them – these distinctive features that make the first people carnal, and since the presence of these signs is the seal of sin, it must be destroyed. Encirclement among them is called "whitening" and "new baptism." They have a particularly revered and Orthodox saint - the martyr Moses Ugrin. Later, the sectarians would again break up into talks—Kutkintsy, Prokolysh, Kruchenyki, where their very name testifies to the fact that the sectarian interpretation appeals to the practical form of liberation from carnal bonds. In our time, materials about their followers who preserved the teaching in Siberia and the Far East occasionally appear in the press. But on the whole, of course, there is no need to talk about the mass nature of the sect, since such a form of "baptism" will certainly scare away even a lover of religious exoticism. It would be more correct to say that in our time, eunuchs are the lot of curious historical antiques and are of interest only to a narrow circle of specialists.

About Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy received from God a great talent for artistic perception and reflection of the world, which allowed him to write the historical literary canvas "War and Peace", the psychological drama "Anna Karenina", and at the end of the 70s he began the atheistic treatise "Confession" and ended his anti-church activity with the philosophical opus "Critique of Dogmatic Theology". As is known, children's faith is the foundation on which all subsequent religious life of a person is based. And Christ Himself spoke about this: "... Let the little children go, and forbid them not to come to me..." (Matt. 19:14). Tolstoy, in his own words, lost this childish faith forever by the age of 16, turning into a nihilist. He wrote: "... I have lived in the world for 55 years and with the exception of... 15 childhood years, 35 years I lived as a nihilist, in the sense of the absence of any faith." Having reached the point of complete spiritual devastation and being on the verge of suicide, Tolstoy tried to mechanically perform the external rites of the Orthodox Church. However, this was self-deception, because all the rituals took place in his absence of faith in God. Therefore, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that traditional Orthodoxy is a lie. Having lost faith in a personal God, Tolstoy began to look for "spiritual crutches", which became for him the French philosopher (in our textbooks – "enlightener") J.-J. Rousseau, who was an open opponent of Christianity in general. Rousseau's ideas had a decisive influence on the entire subsequent life of Tolstoy. He wrote: "Rousseau was my teacher from the age of 15"; during these years, he wore a medallion with a portrait of Rousseau around his neck instead of a pectoral cross. "Many of his pages are so close to me that it seems to me that I wrote them myself...," Tolstoy admitted, "quite recently (in 1905; Tolstoy is 77 years old), I happened to read some of his works, and I experienced the same feeling of elevation and satisfaction that I experienced when I read him in my first youth." But could such a powerful talent be directed towards the destruction of strongholds? Could the enemy of the human race use his writing skills to destroy shrines? Yes, he could. Then the question arises, when did Tolstoy get this "ally"? The first moment of possession can be attributed to a biographical fact. As a 27-year-old officer, being near Sevastopol, one day after a frenzy of night revelry and a major loss, Tolstoy recalls in his "Diary": "... The conversation about divinity and faith led me to a great, enormous thought, the realization of which I feel capable of devoting my life. This thought is the foundation of a new religion of Christ, but purified of faith and mystery, a practical religion, which does not promise future bliss, but gives bliss on earth." Tolstoy devoted the entire second half of his life to this proud idea (until the end of the 70s until his death in 1910). In 1899, the novel "Resurrection" was published in the magazine "Niva". Direct, rude and blasphemous attacks on the Orthodox Church took place in chapters 39 and 40. It is too offensive for the Orthodox feeling to quote these passages from the novel, so it is better to omit them. The cup of patience of the Orthodox Church was overflowing, and the question arose of excommunicating the heretic writer from it. On February 20-22, 1901, a special decision of the Holy Synod was made. We quote verbatim: "The Holy Synod, in its concern for the children of the Orthodox Church for their protection from destructive temptation and for the salvation of those who err, having a judgment on Count Leo Tolstoy and his anti-Christian and anti-church false teaching, considered it opportune, in preventing the violation of the peace of the Church, to publish through the publication in the Tserkovnye Vedomosti the following Epistle: "By the grace of God. The Holy All-Russian Synod to the faithful children of the Orthodox Catholic Greek-Russian Church, rejoice in the Lord." We beseech you, brethren, to guard yourselves from those who stir up strife and strife, except the doctrine which ye shall learn, and turn away from them (Rom. 16:17). From the beginning, the Church of Christ endured the blasphemy and attacks of numerous heretics and false teachers, who sought to overthrow it and shake in its essential foundations those who were based on faith in Christ, the Son of the Living God. But all the powers of hell, according to the promise of the Lord, could not prevail against the Holy Church, which will remain invincible forever. And in our days, by God's permission, a new false teacher, Count Leo Tolstoy, has appeared.

Count Tolstoy preaches all this continuously, in word and in writing, to the temptation and horror of the entire Orthodox world, and in this way, undisguisedly, but clearly before all, consciously and deliberately denied himself from all communion with the Orthodox Church. The attempts that came to his senses were unsuccessful. For this reason the Church does not consider him to be her member, and cannot do so until he repents and restores his communion with her. Now he testifies to this before the whole Church for the affirmation of the rights of those who stand and for the enlightenment of those who have gone astray, and especially to the new admonition of Count L. Tolstoy himself. Many of his neighbors, who keep the faith, are sorrowful that at the end of his days he remains without faith in God and the Lord our Savior, having renounced blessings and prayers and all communion with it. Therefore, bearing witness to his falling away from the Church, praying together and praying, that the Lord grant him repentance to the understanding of the truth (2 Tim. 2:25). We pray, O merciful Lord, do not desire the death of sinners, hear and have mercy on him, and turn him to Thy holy Church. Amen." The original was signed by: Humble Anthony, Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga. Humble Theognost, Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia. Humble Vladimir, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna. Humble Jerome, Archbishop of Kholm and Warsaw, Humble Jacob, Bishop of Kishinev and Khotyn. Humble Boris, Bishop. Humble Markel, bishop. At first, Tolstoy did not want to respond to the above-mentioned decision of the Synod, but then, on April 4, 1901, he decided to respond. His "answer to the Synod" was widely known at that time and there is no need to quote it in full. We will cite only those passages where the writer denounces himself: "The fact that I reject the incomprehensible Trinity, which has no meaning in our time, the fable of the fall of the first man... blasphemous (?) story about God, born of a Virgin, who redeemed the human race, then this is quite just. It is also said that I reject all sacraments. This is absolutely fair. I believe that the will of God is most clearly and understandably expressed in the teaching of the man Christ, whom I consider the greatest blasphemy to understand by God and to pray to. Yes, I really renounced the Church, ceased to perform its rites, and wrote in my will to my relatives that when I die, they would not allow church ministers to see me, and that my dead body would be removed as soon as possible, without any incantations or prayers over it, as one removes a disgusting and unnecessary thing, so that it does not interfere with the living." The sister of the famous Russian philosopher Professor L.M. Lopatin, recalling her conversation with Tolstoy's sister, nun Maria, conveys the characteristic words of this mother about her beloved brother: "What kind of person was Lyovochka? Absolutely wonderful! And how interesting he wrote! But now, as I sit down to my interpretations of the Gospel, I have no strength! True, there has always been a demon in him...", and Lopatina adds on her own behalf: "I have never doubted it" (Ivan Bunin. "The Liberation of Tolstoy". Paris, 1937. P. 125). In response to the decree of the Holy Synod. of the Synod on the excommunication of Leo Tolstoy, his wife Sophia Andreevna Tolstaya wrote a harsh ill-considered letter to the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Anthony of St. Petersburg, who was the first present in the Synod. On March 24, 1901, in No. 17 of Tserkovnye Vedomosti, published under the auspices of the Holy Synod, a letter from Countess S.A. Tolstoy and the Metropolitan's reply were published. Both of these letters are bibliographic rarities these days, so we will cite them in full in order.

Letter to S.A. Tolstaya:

"Your Eminence! Having read yesterday in the newspapers the cruel decree of the Synod on the excommunication of my husband, Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, and seeing your signature among the pastors of the Church, I could not remain completely indifferent to this. My sorrowful indignation has no bounds. And not from the point of view that my husband will die spiritually from this paper: this is not the work of people, but the work of God. From a religious point of view, the life of the human soul is known to no one except God and, fortunately, is not subject to it. But from the point of view of the Church to which I belong and from which I will never depart, which was created by Christ to bless in the name of God all the most significant moments of human life: birth, marriages, death, sorrows and joys of people... which must loudly proclaim the law of love, forgiveness, love for enemies who hate us, pray for everything – from this point of view, the order of the Synod is incomprehensible to me. It will evoke sympathy (except for the Moscow Vedomosti), and indignation among people and great love and sympathy for Leo Tolstoy. We have already received such statements — and there will be no end to them — from the whole world. I cannot help but mention the grief I experienced from the senselessness of which I had heard earlier, namely, the secret order of the Synod that priests should not perform the funeral service in the church of Leo Nikolaevich in the event of his death. Who do they want to punish? — a deceased person who no longer feels anything, or those around him, believers and people close to him? If this is a threat, then to whom and what? Is it possible that in order to bury my husband and pray for him in church, I will not find either such a decent priest who will not be afraid of people before the real God of love, or a dishonest one, whom I will bribe for this purpose with a lot of money? But I don't need that. For me, the Church is an abstract concept, and I recognize as its ministers only those who truly understand the meaning of the Church. If we recognize as the Church people who dare to violate the higher law – the love of Christ – by their malice, then all of us, true believers and attending the Church, would have left it long ago.