THE RUSSIANS AND ANTI-CHRIST.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2280, 11 November 1897, Page 56

THE RUSSIANS AND ANTI-CHRIST.

One of the moat; remarkable instances of modern fanaticism is afforded by the story of the sectarians of South Russia who made away with themselves at the beginning of thi3 year in order to escape the census. These sectarians lived in a hamlet scattered over the fertile fields and islands about Tiraspol, not far from the mouth of the Dniester. They consisted, of two • families : Kovalef, with his mother, wife, and children, and the Thomins, besides some score of zealots living in cells in an outhouse in the Kovalefs' yard. Not long before Christmas there came amoDg them a woman called Vitalia, who prophesied that the last days of earth were come, that Antichrist would send his servants to write

the people in his books, that then the earth would be destroyed by a oomet, the Day of Judgment would follow, and all who wore written in the books of Antichrist would be sorely damned, The sectarians .consulted together, and resolved to ensure their salvation by burying themselves alive. ' " "

■Every Rassian peasant has a •• pogreb,"or celler, dug in his yard, entered, by a covered flight of steps. Here he keeps his potatoes, small implements, &o. In the floor of such a " pogceb " in Theodore Kovalefs yard a pit" was dag and roughly roofed ; into this cavity crawled Kovalefs mother, his young wife, with two children (one of them only eight months old), one of the teachers of the sect, and the most saintly of the rest, taking with them candle, book, and bread. When they were all in, Theodore Kovalef, who is a brick-, stove builder by trade, bricked up the aperture; and within a very short time they died in great agony, aa is testified by their twisted' remains. Another.' party of martyrs was buried alive in the same way in Thomin's " pogreb." When the census-taker came to ? Kovalef 's, f he foqnd all the; doors olosed.-and, the only answer he received from within to his ■ queattons was, "Christ knows; save thy servant ! " He called the police to his aid, and the ''eight people found in the housed were 4 carried off to prison -to overcome their/ contumacy, , among ■ them Theodore Kovalef. and the' prophetess' yitalia. They refased'f ' food, one of them -died, and the rest were; released. They returned home . and cast/ lots who should bury the rest: Kovalef and* his brother-in-law immured their companions, and alone survived. The sudden diminution of the number of the inhabitants of Kova-. lef's house raised suspioion. Inquiry and search were made, and at last the remains of the martyrs, 25. in all, were unearthed, and the story pieced together. The incident has naturally aroused great cariosity: Government officials are at work apon it, the Synod - ' has sent an Archimandrite to make inquiries. Count Tolstoi has gone to see for himself. This case of self-immolation is .not an isolated phenomenon to be explained only by the peculiar fanaticism of these sectarian martyrs.: it is a fairly normal realisation of views which came into existence more than 200 years ago. The history of Russian sectarianism is for the most part the history of the doctrine of Antichrist. By the reign of Alexey, the father of Peter the Great, so many errors had orept into the Testament and Prayer Book through the ignorance of copyists and the doctrinal idiosyncrasies of editors that it was 'found necessary to revise them. The revision was carried out under the Patriarch Nikon, and the new books were authorised for use in the year 1666. The date was unfortunate; it was .plainly sealed -with the mark of , the beast. "Born, not created," said the/new bobks; in place of the old "born and not' created." "Thy glorious robe which gleameth brighter a than ' electron ' " (an alloy ■<>£ gold} said the^ new books in the prayer, t» the^ViVgiri;^ whereas the oljcl books had said . either "brighter than • alector'/' or* brighter tlian -• ' elector.' " ( V Heretic I * v crfed the people to ) Nikon.; " dost thou ■ dare to alter the; words -wherewith our blessed fathers saved their , souls 1 " " • Alector ' is Greek for a cock," replied SK Demetrius in defence of the Patriarch, "and 'elector' is Latin for one who elects ; to which is it most apt to com- • pare the robe of the Virgin — to an-eleotor, a>cook, or to the gleam of gold?" The commons .could not enter into, these subtleties. Moreover, many who had grown accustomed to sign the cross with two fingers found themselves persecuted and pronounced anathema for not adopting- the official three-finger cross, which the Dissenters say typifies the false Trinity of the serpent with Antichrist and his prophet (Nikon). Avvakum, the last of the editors of the books before the Patriarch Nikon, was sent to Siberia to think over the errors of bis recension. When Nikon fell oat " with the Emperor, Avvakam was recalled, took ' the lead of the dissentients, and departed with many of them out of Moscow. . When the Tsar Alexey died Avvakum wrote to bis successor, Theodore, and said that the Saviour had shown him Alexey sitting in torture for his heresies. Joachim, the new Patriarch, hunted . the fugitives, took AvvaI kum and bis henchman Lszar, and burned ■ them both alive.— G. A. CoTßii, in Temple Bar.