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The Cult Dossier · No. 022 · Christian-Derived

Khlysty

THE NAME IS THEIR ENEMIES'. They called themselves KHRISTY ('Christs'), KHRISTOVERY ('followers of Christ's faith'), or simply GOD'S PEOPLE / Khristovshchina

c.1645 – 1930s · Russia

II. MEDIEVAL — HERESY, DUALISM AND THE MILLENNIUM

Fully religious — underground Orthodox sect

Who led it

By tradition DANILA FILIPPOVICH, a peasant who around 1645 declared himself the incarnate Lord of Hosts and threw the holy books into the Volga; his successor IVAN SUSLOV, styled Christ. Each local congregation (korabl, ship) had its own living Christ and Mother of God.

What it worshipped and taught

Direct possession by the Holy Spirit through ecstatic whirling (radeniye) to exhaustion, producing prophecy and glossolalia. Strict asceticism outside the ritual — no alcohol, meat or marriage — combined with the belief that Christ is continuously reincarnated in living leaders. Persistent but largely unproven accusations of ritual orgy (svalny grekh) and, in the most lurid rumours, of infant sacrifice.

THE VERY NAME OF THIS SECT IS A HOSTILE PUN, AND THE FILE SHOULD SAY SO. Members called themselves KHRISTY — 'Christs' — or KHRISTOVERY, or GOD'S PEOPLE. Their opponents twisted KHRIST into KHLYST, the Russian word for A WHIP, and that is the name history kept. THE PUN WAS NOT WHOLLY ARBITRARY: SELF-FLAGELLATION WAS GENUINELY PRACTISED. But scholarship is clear that it was NOT UNIVERSAL ACROSS THE SECT'S CELLS — it was widespread enough for enemies to seize on, and they used it to define and caricature the whole movement as self-tormenting heretics. The result is a group known to history by a slur derived from a minority practice, its own name for itself erased. THAT IS THE SAME MECHANISM AS THE ASSASSINS AND THE HASHISH STORY, AND AS THUGGEE UNDER SLEEMAN: what survives is the destroyer's vocabulary.

Who was in it

Danila Filippovich; Ivan Suslov; Prokopy Lupkin; the Skoptsy founder Kondraty Selivanov, who began among them; GRIGORI RASPUTIN, investigated for Khlyst membership in THREE SEPARATE TOBOLSK CONSISTORY INQUIRIES (opened 1907 on a 1903 denunciation; concluded June 1908, again thereafter, and finally in NOVEMBER 1912 under Bishop Alexei of Tobolsk) and also by the Tsarist secret police — MEMBERSHIP WAS NEVER ESTABLISHED, and each inquiry returned him an Orthodox Christian.

How it ended, or where it stands

Suppressed successively by Tsarist and Soviet authorities.

The dead

Unknown

Of note

Almost all sensational descriptions come from hostile church investigators. The reliable core is the whirling ritual and the doctrine of the living Christ.

Its timeline

  1. c.1645 Danila Filippovich proclaims himself the incarnation of God in Kostroma province.
  2. 1733 and 1745 Two major state investigations in Moscow; leaders exiled, executed, or bodies exhumed and burned.
  3. c.1770 Kondraty Selivanov splits off to found the Skoptsy.
  4. 1903–1912 THE RASPUTIN KHLYST INVESTIGATIONS — THERE WERE THREE, NOT ONE, AND THIS FILE PREVIOUSLY COMPRESSED THEM. On 6 SEPTEMBER 1907, acting on a DENUNCIATION DATING FROM 1903, the TOBOLSK CONSISTORY opened a case accusing Rasputin of spreading false teaching resembling that of the Khlysty and of forming a society of followers around it. THE FIRST INQUIRY CONCLUDED IN JUNE 1908 with the verdict that he was 'a Christian from the village of Pokrovskoye'. A SECOND INQUIRY again found him a true Orthodox believer. THE THIRD WAS TAKEN UP PERSONALLY BY THE NEW BISHOP OF TOBOLSK, ALEXEI (MOLCHANOV), who studied the case materials, sought information from the clergy of the Church of the Intercession, and interviewed Rasputin repeatedly; HE CONCLUDED IN NOVEMBER 1912 that Rasputin was unequivocally 'an Orthodox Christian' with 'spiritual leanings, who sought the truth of Christianity'. With that the Church's interest ended. NO INQUIRY EVER ESTABLISHED KHLYST MEMBERSHIP. Note what these findings are and are not: three internal ecclesiastical investigations, conducted by the institution he was accused before, at a time when he held influence at court.
  5. 1930s Effectively liquidated under Soviet anti-religious campaigns.

Its people

Danila Filippovich

—

Founder, the Khlysty · c.1620 – c.1700 · active c.1645–c.1700

A peasant, possibly an army deserter, who by tradition declared himself the incarnate Lord of Hosts around 1645 and threw the holy books into the Volga, teaching that the Spirit speaks directly and needs no scripture. His movement organised itself into 'ships', each with its own living Christ and Mother of God, and worshipped by whirling to exhaustion until possessed. Almost everything recorded about the Khlysty comes from hostile church investigators, so the lurid accusations should be treated with caution; the whirling ritual and the doctrine of the living Christ are the reliable core.

Before the law. The movement was persecuted continuously by both church and state.

Where things stand. Deceased c.1700. The Khlysty were liquidated under the Soviets in the 1930s.

  1. c.1645 Declares himself the incarnate Lord of Hosts in Kostroma province.
  2. c.1650–1700 The movement spreads underground across central Russia.
  3. 1733, 1745 Major state investigations; leaders exiled or executed, some bodies exhumed and burned.

Checked

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