Russia Essay, Research Paper
Their chief stronghold is the Rogozhsky quarter in Moscow, where they have their
great cemetery, monastery, cathedral, church, and chapels. In 1863, at the time
of the Polish insurrection, the Raskolnik archbishop and his lay advisors sent out
an encyclical letter to the “Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of the Old Believers”,
supporting the tsar and declaring that on all main points they were in agreement
with the Established Church. This again split their church into two factions which
last to this day: the Okruzhniki or Encyclicalists, and the Raznordiki or
Controversialists, who denied the points of agreement with the national Church.
In addition to this the Established Church has set up a section of these
Raskolniks in union with it, but has permitted them to keep all their peculiar
practices, and these are called the Yedinovertsi or “Uniates”. A great many of
the Controversial section of the Raskolniks are coming into the Catholic Church,
and already some eight or ten priests have been received.
Bezpopovtsi, or the Priestless, seemed to represent the despairing side of the
schism. They have their greatest stronghold in the Preobrazhenky quarter in
Moscow, and are strong also in the Government of Archangel. They took the view
that Satan had so far conquered and throttled the Church that the clergy had
gone wrong and had become his servants, that the sacraments, except baptism,
were withdrawn from the laity, and that they were left leaderless. They claimed
the right of free interpretation of the Scriptures, and modelling their lives
accordingly. They recognize no ministers save their “readers” who are elected.
Lest this be said to duplicate Protestantism it must be said that they have kept
up all the Orthodox forms of service as far as possible, crossings, bowings,
icons, candles, fastings, and the like, and have regularly maintained monasteries
with their monks and nuns. But they have no element of stability; and their sects
have become innumerable, ever shifting and varying, with incessant divisions and
subdivisions. The chief of these subdivisions are: (1) Pomortsi; or dwellers near
the sea, a rural division which is very devout; (2) Feodocci (Theodosians) who
founded hospitals and laid emphasis on good works; (3) Bezbrachniki (free
lovers) who repudiated marriage, somewhat like the Oneida community in New
York; (4) Stranniki (wanderers) a peripatetic sect, who went over the country,
declaring their doctrines; (5) Molchalniki (mutes), who seldom spoke, believing
evil came through the tongue and idle conversation; and (6) Niemoliaki
(non-praying) who taught that, as God knows all things it is useless to pray to
him, as He knows what one needs. These various divisions of the priestless are
again divided into smaller ones, like many of the strange sects in England and
America, so that it is almost impossible to follow them. Often they indulge in the
wildest immorality, justifying it under the cover of some distorted text of Scripture
or some phrase of the ancient Church service.