Molokan
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The Molokans (Russian: Молока́не) are a "Biblically-centered" sectarian religious movement, among Russian peasants (serfs), who broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1550s. Molokans denied the Czar's divine right to rule and rejected icons, Orthodox fasts, military service, the eating of unclean foods, and other practices, including water baptism. They also rejected the traditional beliefs (held by Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians) in the Trinity, the veneration of religious icons, worship in cathedrals, the adherence toward saintly holidays, and the decisions of Synods and Ecumenical Councils.
[edit] History
During the reign of Ivan the Terrible (1547-1584 A.D.), Matthew Simon Dalmatov, the first martyr of the Molokan faith, began to evangelize his family, his master, and local village members in and around the city of Tambov. Dalmatov carried this sectarian belief into Moscow, where a group of sojourners from northern Russia (near the Finnish border), which were Mordvins, heard his message and embraced it. Dalmatov was later martyred by Orthodox priests in a monastery prison by being placed upon a device in which two large wooden wheels with iron spikes would spin in opposite directions thereby pulling the individual’s body apart from the inside out. Unlike their Doukhobor neighbors, Molokans were actually ostracized from Russian society in the 1400's for their refusal to bear arms and for their refusal to assist in any form of military service.
The name "Molokan" was used for the first time in the 1670s, in reference to the people who ignored the 200 fasting days, drinking milk (moloko = "milk" in Russian). Molokans themselves did not completely reject the name—even adding words like "drinking of the spiritual milk of God" (according to I Peter 2:2, "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation").
Heretics were punished in Czarist Russia. Beatings, torture, kidnapping, imprisonment, banishment, dismembering, killing, and other forms of cruel punishment were inflicted upon those called "Spiritual Christians". In the 1800s, the government's policy was to send the heretics away from the center of the country into Ukraine, central Asia, and Siberia. In 1833, there was a reported outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon a number of Molokans in the Transcaucasus region. This created a schism between Constants and the newly evolved Jumpers and Leapers. With what the Molokans believed to be an additional manifestation of the Holy Spirit, this new smaller sect began a revival with intense zeal and reported miracles that purportedly rivaled that of Christ’s Apostles. Condemnation from the Constant sect lead to betrayals and imprisonment for many of the Jumpers and Leapers, now called New Israelites by their anointed leader Maxim Rudometkin. Maxim Rudometkin, while he was in prison, wrote a spiritual book that was smuggled out by close friends and relatives who came to visit him that later become the basis for a sub-sect of the Molokan faith. This book, used as a companion to the Holy Bible, is known as the Book of Spirit and Life. Molokans who accepted this book and who followed Maxim's interpretations of the Bible are known as Maximisti, which make up most of the Jumper and Leapers sect. The famous writer Leo Tolstoy visited Russia's second most sacred religious site, Solovetsky Monastery (near the White Sea), in 1869 where he found the prison conditions to be repulsive. After having spoken to Maxim Rudometkin, Tolstoy found no basis for his life imprisonment, and so by favor of the Grand Duke, had him reassigned closer to his home at the Sudzal Monastery prison where he remained for 9 years. From then on, Tolstoy grew fond of the Molokans and secretly conversed with many of them regarding spiritual matters.
At the end of the 19th century, there were about 500,000 Molokans in Russia. Before World War I there was a well-known colony of Molokans that had been exiled to the Caucasus (an area long within Russian hegemony), mainly to what is now Azerbaijan, Armenia and eastern Turkey (Kars). As a 12-year-old boy, Efim G. Klubnikin became known as a "seer", or prophet, depending on one's viewpoint. As a young boy, it is said that he was divinely inspired to prophesy about a coming time that would be unbearable and that the time to leave Russia was now. For "Soon the doors will close and leaving Russia would be impossible." He "foreknew" that when he would be an adult that the Ottoman Turks would be heading for Armenia and Ararat, and he was able to provide leadership in getting the Molokan community and others out of harm's way. Only about 2,000 Molokans (mostly of the Jumpers and Leapers Sect) left for the United States and settled in the Los Angeles area and some other parts of the West Coast and Canada. The Klubnikins continued to be involved in cattle and groceries, as they probably had done in the area of Tambov prior to exile. Others received a land grant from the Mexican government and settled in the Guadalupe Valley in Baja California, Mexico. An even smaller number of Constant Molokans fled Russia and settled mainly in the San Francisco, California and Sacramento, Californiaareas. Presently there are about 20,000 people who "ethnically identify themselves as Molokans." There are also approximately 200 Molokan churches, 150 of them in Russia. Approximately 25,000 Molokans reside in the United States, of which only about 5,000 "ethnically identify themselves as Molokans;" most of which, reside in California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. Molokans can be found in Russia, Turkey, Mexico, Armenia, Brazil, Azerbaijan, Australia, Uruguay, Mongolia, the northwest China, and in the United States. Not long ago the Smithsonian Folklife Festival featured Molokans as one of their peoples.
Molokans adhere to the Old Testament kosher dietary laws and do not eat pork, shellfish, or other "unclean" foods. They also do not drink alcohol, smoke, take drugs, gamble, steal, file lawsuits, serve on juries, or partake in pornography. Church services are conducted in the Russian language, men and women sit apart, and services are usually quite active–comparable to Pentacostal activities. Molokan families encourage endogamy.
