Modern Saints and Seers Part 2

THE FUGITIVES

The suffering of a people nourishes the spirit of rebellion, enabling it to come to birth and to survive. There are some religious sects based exclusively upon popular discontent. The _biegouny_, or Fugitives, did nothing but flee from one district to another. They wandered throughout Russia with no thought of home or shelter. Those who joined the sect destroyed their pa.s.sports, which were considered a work of Satan, and adopted a belief in the Satanic origin of the State, the Church and the Law. They repudiated the inst.i.tution of marriage, the payment of taxes, and all submission to authority. Their special imagery included, among other things, the devil offering a candle to the Tsar, and inviting him to become the agent for Satanic work upon earth. Sometimes their feelings led them to commit acts of violence; one, for instance, would interrupt divine service; another would strike the priest. A peasant named Samarin threw himself upon the priest in a Russian church, forced him away from the altar, and, having trampled the Holy Sacraments under foot, cried out, "I tread upon the work of Satan!"

When arrested and condemned to penal servitude for life, Samarin was in despair because the death sentence had not been pa.s.sed, so sure was he that he would have gone straight to heaven as a reward for his heroic exploit.

CHAPTER V

THE SOUTAEVTZI

The Soutaevtzi (founded in 1880 by a working-man of Tver, named Soutaeff) scoffed at the clergy, the ikons, the sacraments, and military service, while upholding the principle of communal possession.

They very soon became notorious. Soutaeff travelled all over the country preaching that true Christianity consists in the love of one's neighbour, and was welcomed with open arms by Tolstoi himself. He taught that there was only one religion, the religion of love and pity, and that churches, priests, religious ceremonies, angels and devils, were mere inventions which must be rejected if one wished to live in conformity with the truth.

As to Paradise, when all the principles of love and compa.s.sion were realised upon earth, earth itself would be Paradise. Private ownership being the cause of all misery, as well as of crimes and lies, it must be abolished, together with armies and war. Further, Soutaeff preached non-resistance to evil, and the avoidance of all violence.

One of his sons, when enrolled as a conscript, refused to carry a rifle. Arguments and punishments had no effect. He proved that heaven itself was opposed to the bearing of arms by quoting the Gospel to all who tried to compel him; and in the end he was imprisoned.

Neither did Soutaeff allow that a man should be judged by his neighbour. "Judge not, that ye be not judged," was his motto, and his life filled his followers with enthusiasm, and many besides with astonishment. This uncultured peasant, who had the courage to throw on the fire the money he had earned as a mason in St. Petersburg, who carried the idea of compa.s.sion to such lengths that he followed thieves in order to give them good flour in place of the bad that they had stolen from him by mistake--this simple-minded being, whose only desire was to suffer for the "truth," possessed without doubt the soul of a saint and a visionary.

CHAPTER VI

THE SONS OF G.o.d

The "sons of G.o.d" held that men were really G.o.ds, and that as divinity is manifested in our fellows and in ourselves, it is sufficient to offer prayers unto--our neighbours! Every man being a G.o.d, there are as many Christs as there are men, as many Holy Virgins as there are women.

The "sons of G.o.d" held a.s.semblies at which they danced wildly, first together and then separately, until the moment when the women, in supreme ecstasy, turned from the left, and the men from the right, towards the rising sun. The dance continued until all reached a state of hysterical excitement. Then a voice was heard--"Behold the Holy Spirit!"--and the whole company, emitting cries and groans, would pursue the dizzy performance with redoubled vigour until they fell to the ground exhausted.

Their sect originated in the neighbourhood of a great hill, where dwelt a man named Philipoff with his disciples. He had retired there to work against the influence of anti-Christ, and it was there that G.o.d appeared to him, and said, "Truth and divinity dwell in your own conscience. Neither drink nor marry. Those among you who are already married should live as brothers and sisters."

Women were held in high esteem by the "sons of G.o.d," being venerated as "mothers or nieces of the Saviour."

CHAPTER VII

THE TOLSTOYANS

The numerous admirers of Count Tolstoi will find in his writings some derivations, whether conscious or unconscious, from the principles elaborated by many of the Russian sects. The doctrine of non-resistance, or inaction, the abolition of the army, vegetarianism, the defiance of law, and of dogmatic Christianity, together with many other conceptions which either scandalised or enraptured his readers, were already widespread among the Russian peasantry; though Tolstoi was able to give them new forms of expression and an original, if disquieting, philosophic basis.

But even as the products of the earth which we consume return to earth again, so do ideas and doctrines ever return to the source from which they sprang. A great reformer usually gathers his ideas from his environment, until, transformed by the workings of his brain, they react once more upon those to whom they actually owed their origin.

Renan has traced very accurately the evolution of a religious leader, and Tolstoi pa.s.sed through all its logical phases, only stopping short of the martyrdom necessary ere he could enter the ranks of the prophets.

Imbued with the hopes and dreams that flourished all around him, he began, at a ripe age and in full possession of his faculties, to express his philosophy in poetic and alluring parables, the hostility of the government having only served to fire his enthusiasms and embitter his individual opinions. After first declaring that the masters of men are their equals, he taught later on that they are their persecutors, and finally, in old age, arrived at the conclusion that all who rule or direct others are simply criminals!

"You are not at all obliged to fulfil your duties," he wrote, in the _Life and Death of Drojine_, 1895, dedicated to a Tolstoyan martyr.

"You could, if you wished, find another occupation, so that you would no longer have to tyrannise over men. . . . You men of power, emperors and kings, you are not Christians, and it is time you renounced the name as well as the moral code upon which you depend in order to dominate others."

It would be difficult to give a complete list either of the beliefs of the Tolstoyans, or of their colonies, in many of which members of the highest aristocracy were to be found.

"We have in Russia tens of thousands of men who have refused to swear allegiance to the new Tsar," wrote Tolstoi, a couple of years before his death, "and who consider military service merely a school for murder."

We have no right to doubt his word--but did Tolstoi know all his followers? Like all who have scattered seed, he was not in a position to count it. But however that may be, he transformed the highest aspirations of man's soul into a n.o.ble philosophy of human progress, and attracted the uneducated as well as the cultured cla.s.ses by his genuine desire for equality and justice.

Early in June, 1895, several hundreds of _verigintzi_ (members of a sect named after Veregine, their leader) came from the south of Russia to the Karsk district. The government's suspicions were aroused, and at Karsk the pilgrims were stopped, and punished for having attempted to emigrate without special permission. Inquiries showed that all were Tolstoyans, who practised the doctrine of non-resistance to evil on a large scale. For their co-religionists in Elisabethpol suddenly refused to bear arms, and nine soldiers also belonging to the sect repeated without ceasing that "our heavenly Father has forbidden us to kill our fellowmen." Those who were in the reserve sent in their papers, saying that they wished to have nothing more to do with the army.

One section of the _verigintzi_ especially distinguished themselves by the zeal with which they practised the Tolstoyan doctrines. They reverenced their leader under the name of "General Tolstoi," gave up sugar as well as meat, drank only tea and ate only bread. They were called "the fasters," and their gentleness became proverbial. In the village of Orlovka they were exposed to most cruel outrages, the inhabitants having been stirred up against them by the priests and officials. They were spat upon, flogged, and generally ill-treated, but never ceased to pray, "O G.o.d, help us to bear our misery." Their meekness at last melted the hearts of their persecutors, who, becoming infected by their religious ardour, went down on their knees before those whom they had struck with whips a few minutes before.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SPIRITUAL CHRISTIANS

The Slavonic atmosphere exhales an intense longing for the ideal and for heaven. Often a kind of religious ecstasy seems to sweep over the whole length and breadth of the Russian territories, and Tolstoi's celebrated doctrines reflected the dreamy soul of the _moujik_ and the teachings of many Russian martyrs. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that it is only the peasants buried in the depths of the country who provide favourable soil for the culture of the religious bacillus. It is the same with all cla.s.ses--merchants, peasants, labourers and aristocrats.

The working-cla.s.ses, especially those of the large towns, usually offer more resistance to the influence of religious fanatics, but in Petrograd and Moscow they are apt to follow the general current. Lack of s.p.a.ce forbids us to study in all their picturesque details the birth and growth of religious sects in these surroundings. We must confine ourselves to one of the more recent manifestations--that of the mysterious "spiritual Christians."

In 1893, a man named Michael Raboff arrived in St. Petersburg. Peasant by birth, carpenter by trade, he immediately began to preach the tenets of his "spiritual Christianity." He became suspect, and with his friend Nicholas Komiakoff was deported to a far-distant neighbourhood; but in spite of this his seed began to bear fruit, for the entire district where he and Komiakoff were sent to work was soon won over to the new religion. The director himself, his wife, and all his workmen embraced it, and though the workshops were closed by the police, the various members distributed themselves throughout the town and continued to spread Raboff's "message." Borykin, the master-carpenter, took employment under a certain Grigorieff, and succeeded in converting all his fellow-workers. Finally Grigorieff's house was turned into a church for the new sect, and an illiterate woman named Va.s.silisa became their prophetess. Under the influence of the general excitement, she would fall into trances and give extravagant and incomprehensible discourses, while her listeners laughed, danced and wept ecstatically.

By degrees the ceremonial grew more complex, and took forms worthy of a cult of unbalanced minds.

At the time when the police tried to disperse the sect it possessed a quite considerable number of adherents; but it died out in May, 1895, scarcely two years after its commencement.

The "spiritual Christians" called themselves brothers and sisters, and gave to Raboff the name of grandfather, and to the woman Va.s.silisa that of mother. They considered themselves "spiritual Christians" because they lived according to the spirit of Christianity. For the rest, their doctrine was innocent enough, and, but for certain extravagances and some dangerous dogmas borrowed from other sects, their diffusion among the working-cla.s.ses of the towns might even have been desirable.

s.e.xual chast.i.ty was one of their main postulates, and they also recommended absolute abstention from meat, spirits, and tobacco. But at the same time they desired to abolish marriage.

When the police raided Grigorieff's workshops, they found there about fifty people stretched on the ground, spent and exhausted as a result of the excessive efforts which Raboff's cult demanded of them. At their meetings a man or woman would first read aloud a chapter from Holy Scripture. The listeners would make comments, and one of the more intelligent would expound the selected pa.s.sage. Growing more and more animated, he would finally reach a state of ecstasy which communicated itself to all present. The whole a.s.sembly would cry aloud, groan, gesticulate and tear their hair. Some would fall to the ground, while others foamed at the mouth, or rent their garments. Suddenly one of the most uplifted would intone a psalm or hymn which, beginning with familiar words, would end in incoherency, the whole company singing aloud together, and covering the feet of their "spiritual mother" with kisses.

CHAPTER IX

A LABORATORY OF SECTS

We will now travel to the south of Russia, and examine more closely what might be called a laboratory of sects, or in other words a breeding-ground of religions whose idealism, whether foolish or sublime, is often sanctified by the blood of believers, and descends like dew from Hermon into the midst of our busy civilisation.

The mystical tendencies of the popular soul sometimes develop in a fashion little short of prodigious, and to no country do we owe so many remarkable varieties of religious faith as to that portion of Russia which lies between Kherson and Nicolaev. There is seen in full activity the greatest religious laboratory in the world; there originate, as a rule, the morbid bacilli which invade the rest of Russia; and there do sects grow up like mushrooms, only to disappear with equal rapidity.

An orthodox missionary named Schalkinsky, who was concerned especially with the erring souls of the region of Saratov, has published a work in which he gives a fantastic picture of the events of quite recent years.

He was already the author of several books dealing with the sect of the _bezpopovtzi_, and his high calling and official position combine to give authority to his words.

When we consider the immense variety of these sects, we can easily imagine what takes place in every small village that becomes possessed of the craving for religious perfection. Prophets, G.o.ds and demi-G.o.ds, holy spirits and apostles, all kinds of saints and mystics, follow thick and fast upon one another's heels, seeking to gain the ascendancy over the pious souls of the villagers. Some are sincere and genuinely convinced believers; others, mere shameless impostors; but all, manifesting the greatest ardour and eloquence, traverse the countryside, imploring the peasants to "abandon their old beliefs and embrace the new holy and salutary dogmas." The orthodox missionaries seem only to increase the babel by organising their own meetings under the protection of the local authorities.