The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

RELIGIOUS SECTS OF GREAT RUSSIA. 387{Filipovki), so called from their founder Philip, with settlements in East Prussia,Moldavia, and even Dobruja, collectively known as Lippovanes, a term oftenapplied also to various Easkolnik sects. They taught that death was preferableto uttering the Czar's name in their devotions, some going even so far as to refusecoins bearing the imperial effigy. But abroad they have gradually modifiedtheir views, and some of them are now amongst the most zealous Muscovitepatriots.The Philippites were the most ardent apostles of self-immolation, and duringthe terrible persecutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries many committedthemselves spontaneously to the flames or the water. But suicide wasoften their only escape from torture, for the first stakes had been kindledby Orthodox executioners.Between 1687 and 1693 about 9,000 Old Believersvoluntarily perished by fire in the region between Lake Onega and the WhiteSea, and a single holocaust in the island of Paleostrov, Lake Onega, wascomposed of 2,700 persons. Such spectacles became contagious, and manysectarians openly preached suicide by the flames, interment, or starvation. Onmore than one occasion even in this century parents have murdered their childrento save them from future sin, and enable them at once to enter the gates ofheaven. In some communities hymns are still sung ending with the words,"Proclaim my will to man—to all Orthodox Christians: that for my sake theythrow themselves into the fire, themselves and their innocent children !Another of the Bezpopovtzi sects is that of the Fugitives (Beguni) or "Wanderers(Strannikt), founded by the deserter Euphimius towards the end of the lastcentury. They hold that all Government officials are agents of Satan ;consequentlythat it is unlawful to obey them. An official seal is for them a "mark of thebeast," and they eagerly destroy all sealed documents falling into their hands.Hence they would pass their days in prison, or in the mines of Siberia, if they didnot quit "Babylon in order to have no part in her sins." They prefer to wanderfrom village to village propagating their doctrines, or prowling about like thewolves of the forest.ThePopovtzi are settled chiefly in the centre, the Bezpopovtzi in the north, andthe Spiritualists in the south.These last are the most persecuted, and consequentlypreserve the greatest secrecy as to their tenets and practices.They claim to possessthe divine spirit, to be themselves " men of God," or " Christs." God the Fatheragain descended from heaven with his Son in the seventeenth century, in order toaccomplish the divine sacrifice, and the Holy Ghost still speaks through themouths of apostles and prophetesses. Their chief sect, the KhUstovM, or" Flagellants," do not immolate themselves, but they dance like David, jumpingand whirling about till they fall prostrate with exhaustion. Others scourge andtorture each other, and during the Easter services they are said occasionally to killa newly baptized infant, devouring the bleeding heart mixed with honey.Under the influence of the general progress of thought all the sects arebecoming more and more rationalistic in religion, and radical in politics. ThePopovtzi are adopting wholesale the ideas of the Bezpopovtzi, while these last are