The Malakani; or, Spiritual Christians in Eastern Russia [pp. 437-446]

APPLETONS' JO URNA L.
considers sectarian propagandism as a crime, and
the Malakani as sectarians of the most danger ous kind; and thousands of reports and proto cols of criminal inquests into Malakanism, there fore, exist in the head office and the branch
offices of the Ministry of the Interior, to whose
functions those inquests, which were indeed
more administrative than juridical, appertained
till not long ago. The inquisitors were of course
obliged to ask the accused, "What is your faith?"
and the accused were obliged to answer. All
these professions of faith are therefore, in fact,
answers to questions of men belonging to the
orthodox Church, although their form does not
always indicate it. E. g.:
"Priests and Bishops.-' We have a great high
priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son
of God, let us hold fast our profession' (Heb. iv. I4).
"Images.-We have a priceless image, the Son
of God,'Who is the image of the invisible God, the
first-born of every creature' (Coloss. 1. I5).
"Censer and Incense.-Our incense consists in
prayers.'Let my prayer be set forth before thee as
incense' (Ps. cxli. 2)."
The scarcely veiled meaning of the above and
of a number of similar answers is, "We do not
accept the rites and dogmas of the established
Church, because they are not in accordance with
the Bible." Besides such negations there is in
these professions of faith a much more positive
element; for instance:
"Baptism.-The soul's diving into God's word
and love.
"Comzmunion.-The soul's partaking in the good
word of God.
"Confession.-The prayer addressed to Jesus that
he may act as mediator for the forgiveness of sin."
Although these answers fully agree with the
Malakani's convictions, we should be much mistaken if we considered them as their intellectual
property. They are, indeed, nothing but the petrified remnants of the doctrines of Duchobortsi
(spiritual warriors), the older sect, from which
Malakanism sprang. That sect, which, as already said, derived its origin from Quaker teaching, is perhaps even more remarkable than the
Malakani. Its principal abode, on the Molotchnaya River, in the Crimea, was visited in I8x8
by the Quaker R. Allen and two other Quakers,
and in 1842 by Baron Haxthausen; and all these
travelers were astonished by the Duchobortsi's
mystical speculations and the dialectical subtilty
with which they defended them. The Malakani,
on the contrary, are as far as possible from being
great thinkers. They no doubt show some
adroitness in fencing with the orthodox clergy;
but their principal arm in such disputes is their
own absolute incapacity to follow up a theologi cal argument. They drive their adversariesthemselves no very great lights-to despair by
persistently misunderstanding them, and by over
and over again repeating the same texts. Malakanism is an entirely practical and absolutely undogmatical religion. It takes its foundation for
granted, and makes no effort to investigate it.
All the Malakani can and do read; but, having no literature of their own except some manuscript prayers and religious songs, they must
look elsewhere for intellectual food; and the
choice made by them throws a curious light on
their intellectual sphere, proving how completely
they are cut off from the general movement. Besides Bibles and psalters in Slavonic-the same
which are used in the orthodox Church-New
Testaments, and a few parts of the Old Testament in modern Russian, and still fewer commentaries on the whole or part of the gospels,
all of them likewise published by the orthodox
Church, the Malakani read, as far as I was able
to discover, only four books-the "Magazine of
all the Amusements," the "Writings of Skovoroda," "Jung Stilling's Autobiography," and Livanoff's "Essays on Russian Sects." The latteriauthor, though employed by the Government
to attack sectarianism, and having for that purpose free access to the archives of the Ministry of
the Interior, extols the Malakani almost beyond
measure, and draws, with wonderful audacity,
ironical parallels between them and the adherents of the established Church. The "Magazine
of all the Amusements" is a collection of astrological, chiromantical, and other mantic tracts,
apparently translated about fifty years ago from
much older German publications. Skovoroda
was a Cossack, a quaint Christian philosopher
and poet of the last century. "Jung Stilling's
Autobiography" was translated into Russian in
I8I 5, and was in high favor with the mystics of
St. Petersburg. It probably reached the Malakani from Sarepta, the Hernhut colony on the
river Volga; and an adversary of the Malakani
asserts that they at one time prized that book
above the gospel. Malakan owners of books
certainly glory a little too much in the possession
of these treasures, frequently mixing scraps from
them with their conversation. For, though quite
without spiritual pride, they are not free from a
naive, childlike vanity.
The Malakan congregational organization is,
according to their own opinion, the counterpart
of the organization of the early Church, and the
resemblance is undeniable, because there is some
similarity between the two situations. The Malakani, long accustomed to be treated by the law
as dangerous sectarians, and to be deprived of
many of the natural rights of unoffending men,
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