The Icon and the Axe

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 minimized prophetic revivalism in favor of homely readings from their "revealed" book: The Living Life.31