World religions. Рахимбергенова М.Х. - 38 стр.

tarians sometimes retained a certain degree of contact with the Orthodox              Bible as an external authority, emphasizing rather the illuminating presence of
Church and occasionally attended services. Their worship used song and dance          God within the individual and the community. Christ is a sinless human being;
to attain a state of ecstatic, Spirit-filled exaltation for which they prepared by    he and other spiritual leaders they recognize differ from other human beings in
fasting and ASCETICISM.                                                               the greatness of the divine spark illuminating him. Baptism was abandoned, to-
     The Postniki (Easters), an austere, tightly organized group, separated off       gether with the use of ICONS and all traditional forms of Orthodox worship,
under the Christ Kopylov in the eighteenth century, then split in the mid-            the priesthood, hierarchy and ecclesiastical law.
nineteenth century, producing the Old Israel and then circa 1885 the New Israel,           The Molokans (Milk-drinkers) or Spiritual Christians emerged in the same
each following a different Christ. The New Israel practiced the re-enactment of       regions as the Dukhobors at a similar period. The formation of the community
events in sacred history, sometimes with great numbers of participants. Many          was strongly influenced by the leadership of Semen Uklein. Molokans, though
Postniki emigrated to Uruguay in 1911–1912.                                           friendly towards the Dukhobors and often similar in lifestyle, differ sharply
     The Skoptsy (Castrators) emerged from the Khlysty in the late eighteenth         from them in centring their religious observance on the authority of the Bible.
century. Led by the Christ Selivanov, who introduced the “baptism by fire”,           Molokan communities traditionally attempted to maintain biblical dietary rules
they practised castration of males, which many women paralleled by cutting            and had their own butches. Several divisions appeared in the community, the
away their breasts.                                                                   most significant between the Postoiannye, the “Steadfast”, who claim to repre-
     In the late eighteenth century the Orthodox Archbishop Amvrosii of               sent the original Molokan tradition, and the Pryguny, the “Leapers”, named
Ekaterinoslav denounced as Dukhobors (Spirit-Wrestlers) a group which had             from the jumping, dancing movements used in their worship. The Leapers show
emerged in the mid-century in Ukraine and then come under the leadership in           great respect to the prophets within the community, who have a significant role
Amvrosii’s archdiocese of Silvan Kolesnikov. By the end of the eighteenth cen-        in worship; The Spirit and Life is a collection of prophetic works, which the
tury the Dukhobors had become the objects of state persecution and oppression,        Leapers use in worship.
and when in 1802 Tsar Alexander I offered to resettle Dukhobors in the Tavrida             A number of Molokans emigrated to America, and there are several Molo-
region in Crimea the long saga of Dukhobor migration and resettlement had be-         kan meeting houses on the west coast. The vast majority of Molokans remained
gun. Other groups were to be resettled in Transcaucasia. Under the leadership         in what became the USSR, where their communities withered under state op-
of Savelii Kapustin the Tavrida Dukhobors severed all residual involvement in         pression, but have now reemerged as visible worshipping communities, their
Orthodox religious rites, and practised a life of stern, upright morality. Their      known memberships now roughly similar to the number of America Molokans.
emphasis on pacifism, hard work and mutual help was put to a severe test when         A much smaller community migrated from America to Australia in the 1960s.
Nicolas I attempted to force military service and conversion to Orthodox on the            Molokan worship is characterized by the recognition of a variety of minis-
Dukhobors. The demand for an oath of loyalty from all citizens of the empire in       tries or functions, elders, singers, readers, and, in some communities, prophets,
1894 furnished the occasion for the great Dukhobor leader Peter Verigin (1859–        each of whom has a distinct role to play in the service. Both Molokans and
1924) to call for a refusal of the oath, a rejection of the power and authority of    Dukhobors maintain a rich tradition of unaccompanied singing in worship, the
the state and of all forms of militarism, and a reformation of life involving         Molokans in particular making great use of sing scriptural verses.
vegetarianism and abstention from alcohol and tobacco. In 1895 a mass burning              The doctrine, lifestyle and worship of the Russian sects often resemble
of weapons took place among the Dukhobors of the Caucasus, which led to fur-          those of religious movements, which emerged from the radical Reformation.
ther acts of repression. Eventually in 1897 the government gave the Dukhobors         They represent, however, distinctly Eastern Christian traditions of reform, and
permission to emigrate and several thousand moved to Canada, where in 1903            maintain a strong sense of ethnic identity.
Peter Verigin joined them. At first they were granted homesteads mainly in Sas-
katchewan, but when they refused an oath of allegiance imposed in 1905 were
dispossessed, many moving to communally purchased land in British Colum-
bia. The community divided into uncompromisingly traditionalist and more as-
similationist groups.
     At the heart of Dukhobor religion is a vivid sense of the presence of the
Christ-spirit in all things, especially all living things. They refuse to treat the

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