EELIGIOUS SECTS OF GEEAT IIUSSIA. 886 



Rkligious Sects. 



Russia forms a connecting link between Europe and Asia, no less in the reli- 

 gious than tlic moral and social order. Through the Catholic and Protestant 

 elements of its western provinces it is connected with the rest of Europe ; through 

 the Pagans, Buddhists, and Mohammedans of the east, with the Asiatic world. 

 But between these two extremes lies the great central mass of Greek orthodoxy. 

 Yet, in spite of this official creed, more religious sects are probably here developed 

 than in any other European state, and most of them take their rise amongst the 

 Great Hussian populations. The peculiarly mystic and polemical spirit so charac- 

 teristic of this race ; the more than Byzantine severity of the rites imposed on 

 them by the clergy ; the old pagan superstitions still surviving under new forms ; 

 the very character of the people, their gentleness and good nature, so easily 

 swayed by fanaticism ; lastly, the thraldom which so long oppressed the masses, 

 driving them to seek refuge in the supernatural world — all these causes have com- 

 bined to produce an endless variety of fantastic beliefs. They spring up, perish, 

 and are renewed like so much rank vegetation. At present there are recorded 

 from one hundred to one hundred and thirty recognised sects, and in the language 

 of the orthodox proverb, "Each mujik makes his own religion, as each old wointin 

 makes her own nostrums." Every great national event gives rise to fresh 

 varieties, all differing in name or in form, but substantially the same in their 

 moral aspect, and in the passions which they bring into play. With each suc- 

 f eeding generation there arise new Messiahs, sons of God, or God himself; or else 

 Czars, such as Peter III. and Alexander I., are worshipped and believed to be 

 still alive, because they were mild rulers. Napoleon himself had his votaries in 

 Pskov, Belostok, and even in Moscow, ruined though it was by him. In their 

 usual frame of mind a text of Scripture, or some old " Mother Shipton's prophecy," 

 is generally all that is needed to beguile the faithful into the most devious paths 

 of folly, such as self-mutilation, suicide, or murder. 



Until freedom of worship is established it will be impossible to form even an 

 approximate estimate of the actual number of dissenters. In 1850 the non- 

 orthodox Russians were officially stated to be about 830,000, but the Minister of 

 the Interior even then estimated them at 9,000,000, w^hich, allowing for the normal 

 increase of population, would make them at present at least 12,000,000. 



The various Raskolnik sects may be divided in a general way into tliree main 

 groups : the Popoftzi, or Presbyterians; the Bezpoportzî, those who reject the priest- 

 hood ; and the Spiritualists. The purely ritualistic movement of those who wished 

 to retain the national observances anterior to the seventeenth century coincides 

 with the dissatisfaction produced by the constant and vexatious intermeddling of 

 the clergy in civil and religious matters ; and to these sources of dissent was 

 added the more or less direct influence of Protestantism, and all these complex 

 causes had schism as their common result. An escape was also afforded in schism 

 from the intolerable burdens and drudgery of serfdom, whose victims had thus 

 at least the satisfaction of being able to anathematize their oppressors. For them 



