Colonel V. A. Pashkov and the Late Nineteenth-Century Protestant Movement in Russia, Jan M. Surer, 1999

ed at this time. 10 This 7 Untitled article in Golos . No. 252 (September 1880), PP 4/1, p. 29. The article states that Pashkov's brochures could be found in their huts, although, since they were illiterate, propaganda was conducted orally. 8 Skvortsov, pp. 3-8; Simmons, pp. 393-94; 399-400. According to Simmons, Syutaev had read the Bible and memorized the New Testament in his youth, which was probably well before the time of Pashkov's activity. 9 Skvortsov, p. 1. 10 A. S. Prugavin, Raskol i sektantstvo v Russkoi narodnoi zhizni , Moscow, 1905, pp. 64 and 68. Determining which sects are rational and which mystical is not always clear. As one mention of the distinction, Heier notes, "the development of the religious nonconformists assumed either an emotional, mystical, or intellectual, rational trend." See Heier, pp. 17-18. Prugavin, in discussing the foreign influences on the rational Russian sects (those that reject the church and its rites), claims that some of the offshoots of the Old Believers had exceeded the Western- influenced sects in their rationality. See Prugavin, pp. 70-81. Nor are elements sometimes termed "mystical" entirely absent from sects doctrinally closer to the Pashkovites. 64 designation includes the Molokans, Stundists, and Baptists. The evangelical sects The general distinguishing characteristic of these sects, as contrasted with those more closely related to the Old Believers, was their greater reliance on the Scriptures, which they "construed. . . a priori . 1 ' 11 They repudiated all or most of the traditional church rituals and practices, thus becoming even more removed from the Orthodox Church than the Old Believers. Both the Molokans and Dukhobors had existed since at least the late eighteenth century, 12 and both have the strongest claim to being indigenous movements. 13 According to a late nineteenth-century English commentator, the Dukhobors placed the revelation of their own "inner light" on a par with that of the Bible and viewed God in an almost pantheistic manner; they rejected all church forms, sacraments, and offices, and refused to take oaths and to perform military service. 14 Tolstoy became very interested in the fate of this group and assisted in their emigration to Canada in the late 1890's after their difficulties with the government. 11 "Russian Dissenters and the Russian Government," by an English Resident in Russia, Sunday Magazine . XXII, 1893, p. 548. 12 Ibid., pp. 548-9. Prugavin cites the absence of Protestant colonists in the province of Tambov, where, also according to Prugavin, a former Dukhobor founded the Molokans (Prugavin, pp. 77-8). 14 Sunday Magazine , pp. 548-9. See also "Dukhobory," Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History . X, pp. 30-33. 65 Also rejecting the Orthodox Church's rituals, including fasts (hence the name, Molokany [milk-drinkers]), the Molokans regarded Scripture very highly and attempt