sectarians optimists. The followers of Awakum dwelled on the coming reign of Antichrist and the need to prepare for judgment. They believed that earthly corruption had gone so far that God's final, wrathful judgment was all that could be expected from history. The followers of Kuhlmann, on the other
hand, generally believed that the promised thousand-year reign of righteousness on earth was about to begin. However sectarians differed as to the nature and location of this millennium, these self-proclaimed 'men of God' generally believed that they could help bring it about.
The Old Believers believed that heaven had moved irretrievably beyond reach; the men of God, on the contrary, believed themselves capable of bringing heaven back within man's reach.23
The sectarians were in many ways modern religious thinkers, beginning with the assumption that man was essentially an isolated being, separated from God in an unfriendly universe. The aim was to recapture lost links with God by uniting oneself with divine wisdom. Following the pantheistic tendencies of Central European mysticism, they saw all of creation as an expression of divine wisdom, for which Boehme used the hallowed Greek word 'sophia,' giving to it for Russian mystical and sectarian thought a different meaning from what it had traditionally possessed in Eastern Orthodoxy. 'Sophia' was understood as a physical-sometimes even sexual-force as well as a merely intellectual form of 'divine wisdom.' New paths to salvation were provided by a host of sectarian writers, some emphasizing the physical and ecstatic, some the rationalistic and moralistic, path to God. Occult and kabbalistic tracts were translated, revised, and plagiarized by a series of religious popularizers. Boehme's claim to have unraveled the 'great mystery' of creation and read the divine 'signature of things' inspired other prophets-as it had Kuhlmann-to draw up their own 'new revelation' or 'key to the universe.'24
Each sect tended to regard the teachings of its particular prophet as the revealed word of God, which was meant to supplement if not supplant all previous tradition and scripture. The emphasis on simplifying ritual and introducing new beliefs gave sectarianism many points of contact with the emerging secular culture of the new aristocracy. In contrast, the schismatics remained suspicious of, and isolated from, this new and Westernized world. Only when the aristocratic dominance of Russian culture came to an end in the mid-nineteenth century did the schismatics become an important force in the main stream of Russian culture.
The Russian sectarian tradition can be traced not only to the prophecies of Kuhlmann but also to transplanted White Russian Protestants who filtered into Muscovy in the late seventeenth century: the persecuted survivors of a once-rich Polish Protestant tradition. Typical of these was the gifted Jan Belobodsky, against whom Medvedev wrote his doctrinal treatises. Belobodsky was formally converted to Orthodoxy apparently to qualify as a diplomat and official translator in Moscow. His main interest,
however, lay in converting the new academy in Moscow into a kind of revanchist theological bastion for the struggle with the Jesuits: the 'Pelagians' of the modern world.25 The Jesuits offended Belobodsky's Calvinism by placing too much emphasis on what man can accomplish through his own works and on the saving power of the sacraments and too little on God's awesome remoteness. Although Belobodsky was soon condemned for heresy, his anti-traditional approach became fashionable in Petrine Russia, where even native Russians were found substituting a placard of the first two commandments for the traditional icon in the reception hall.26
Under Peter one finds the first mention of a new Russian sect: a curious group who called themselves 'God's people' (Bozhie liudi). Their more familiar name, 'flagellants' (khlysty), points to the ecstatic, Eastern strain that was incorporated into Russian sectarianism.27
The first documentary reference to this sect occurred in 1716, at the time of its founder Ivan Suslov's death; but it allegedly originated in the weird proclamation of a runaway soldier, Daniel Filippov, on a hillside near Viazma in 1645. Daniel claimed that he was God Sabaoth himself, come to give men twelve commandments in place of the ten originally given on Mount Sinai. He spent the disturbed early years of Alexis' reign prophetically exhorting Russians to leave the existing church in order to live as 'God's people,' throwing all books of secular learning into the Volga, and abstaining from alcohol, honey, and sexual relations. In 1649 Daniel apparently declared that Suslov (a peasant formerly bonded to the Westernized Naryshkin family, from which Peter the Great was descended) was his son, and thus a Son of God. Suslov's followers referred to Jesus as 'the old Christ' and Suslov as the new. As he moved from Nizhny Novgorod to Moscow and thence (apparently in 1658) to prison, fanciful pseudo-Christian legends were attached to his name. The building in Moscow where his followers met was said to be 'the House of God' or the 'New Jerusalem.' Suslov was said to have been born of a barren 100-year-old woman, crucified in the Kremlin (with Patriarch Nikon as Caiaphas and the author of the law code of 1649 as Pontius Pilate), and then resurrected from a tomb which was watched over by a faithful group of virgins dressed in white.
Actually, Suslov appears to have lived on in Moscow until his death at the age of nearly 100, and the Suslov legend may well have been embellished by the new 'Christs' that succeeded him.28 The first of these was a former leader of the streltsy, who entered a monastery and began systematically recruiting harassed monks for the new sect in the early eighteenth century.29 His wife also entered a convent and began winning over feminine followers. The growing strength of the sect led to a heresy trial
of seventy-eight in 1733, the exhumation and complete destruction of all remains of the two 'Christs' in 1739, and a further trial involving 416 of 'God's people' that lasted from 1745 to 1752. But the sect flourished under conditions of increased publicity and martyrdom. New 'Christs' began appearing in various sections of Russia, often accompanied by twelve apostles and by feminine 'angels' who were in turn headed by a prophetess known as the 'Mother of God.'
The forms of devotion practiced by 'God's people' link them with the classic dualistic heresies of Christendom with their demands for self-mortification and their claim to constitute a secret elect. 'God's people' met not in a church but in a secret meeting place usually known as 'Jerusalem' or 'Mt. Zion.' They conducted not a service but a 'rejoicing' (radenie) or 'spiritual bath.' They comprised no* a congregation but a 'boat,' and were led not by a consecrated priest but by a 'pilot' for the voyage from the material to the spiritual world-into the seventh heaven where men could in fact become gods. The means of ascent lay partly in the 'alchemy of speech'-spiritual songs were sung and incantations uttered in semi-hypnotic repetition, such as 'Oh Spirit, Oh God, Tsar God, Tsar Spirit.' Soon, however, rhythmic physical exercises began; and the one most certain to produce spiritual ecstasy, a sense of liberation from the material world, was the 'circle procession.' As the pace of circular motion increased, these whirling dervishes of Russian Christendom began their process of mutual- and self-flagellation accompanied by the rhythmic incantation: 'Khlyshchu, khlyshchu, Khrista ishchu' (I flagellate, flagellate, seeking Christ).30
If the flagellants represent the frenzied aspect of Russian sectarianism, the second important sect to arise, that of the 'spirit wrestlers,' illustrates a more moralistic, Western element. Characteristically, this sect arose as a reform movement among 'God's people' rather than as a completely separate movement. The sectarians, like the schismatics, split up into many subgroups, but all sectarians shared key characteristics derived from the first sect, just as all schismatics derived their main characteristics from the original, fundamentalist martyrs.
The spirit wrestlers first appeared in the 1730's or 1740's in the region of Tambov. They accepted the flagellant idea of the need to combat earthly things while seeking the world of spirit; and they produced as many 'Christs' for leaders as had their forebear. But the new sect appears to have been largely founded by military personnel seeking refuge from tsarist service. Their main interest was in finding a faith more simple than that of the alien Orthodox Church and in securing relative freedom from the authority of the state-controlled hierarchy. Within their own communities
they became increasingly concerned with moral questions-leading a highly puritanical, communal life that
