Molokans (Russian for "milk-drinkers": молокане) are
sectarian Christians who evolved from "
Spiritual Christian"
Russian peasants that refused to obey the
Russian Orthodox Church, beginning in the 17th century. They were so named for their drinking milk on most of the approximately 200 fasting days, especially the
Great Fast (Lent)— an activity which was prohibited by ecclesiastical authorities. In contrast, they called themselves "true Spiritual Christians", rather than "milk-drinkers", because they could no longer accept the Russian Orthodox Church, nor that of the Protestant sects or the
Catholic Church. They may have been influenced by an earlier religious sect of
Armenian "
Paulicians", who became known as the "
Bogomils" of
Thrace, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Serbia.
In a sense Molokans are Protestants for rejecting Orthodoxy, and like Presbyterians in that they have a council of dominant elders. Though Molokans are somewhat similar to the European Quakers and Mennonites — for their pacifism, communal organization, spiritual meetings, and sub-groupings — they are ethnically much closer to Doukhobors and Sabbatarians (Subbotniki) because they evolved from the same Russian Spiritual Christian movement of Khristovers and Ikonobors (icon-wrestlers), and migrated together with some intermarriage.
History
During the reign of
Ivan the Terrible (1547-1584 A.D.),
Matthew Simon Dalmatov, the first martyr of the Russian Molokan faith, began to evangelize his family, his master, and local village members in and around the city of
Tambov. Dalmatov carried this sectarian belief into
Moscow, where a group of
Mordvins heard his message and embraced it. Dalmatov was later martyred by Orthodox priests in a monastery prison by
wheeling. Molokans were ostracized from Russian society in the 17th century for their refusal to bear arms and for their refusal to assist in any form of military service.
The name "Molokan" was used for the first time in the 1670s, in reference to the people who ignored the 200 fasting days, drinking milk (''moloko'' means "milk" in Russian). Molokans themselves did not completely reject the name—even adding words like "drinking of the spiritual milk of God" (according to I Peter 2:2, "Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation").
Heretics were punished in Czarist Russia. Beatings, torture, kidnapping, imprisonment, banishment, dismembering, killing, and other forms of punishment were inflicted upon those called "Spiritual Christians", as Molokan's called themselves. In the 19th century, the government's policy was to send the heretics away from the center of the country into Caucasus, especially Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, central Asia, and Siberia. In 1833, there was a reported outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon a number of Molokans in the Transcaucasus region. This created a schism between ''Constants (Postoyaniye)'' and the newly evolved Molokan ''Jumpers and Leapers''. With what the Molokans believed to be an additional manifestation of the Holy Spirit, this new smaller sect began a revival with intense zeal and reported miracles that purportedly rivaled that of Christ’s Apostles. Condemnation from the Constant sect led to betrayals and imprisonment for many of the Jumpers and Leapers, now called ''New Israelites'' by their anointed leader Maxim Rudometkin.
Maxim Rudometkin, while he was in prison, wrote a spiritual book that was smuggled out by close friends and relatives who came to visit him that become the basis of the Molokan faith. The Count Dmitry Tolstoy visited Russia's second most sacred religious site, Solovetsky Monastery (near the White Sea), in 1869 where he found the prison conditions to be repulsive. After having spoken to Maxim Rudometkin, Tolstoy found no basis for his life imprisonment, and so by favor of the Grand Duke, had him reassigned closer to his home at the Sudzal Monastery prison where he remained for 9 years.
At the end of the 19th century, there were about 500,000 Molokans within the Russia empire. Before World War I there was a well-known colony of Molokans that had been exiled to the Caucasus (an area long within Russian hegemony), mainly to what is now Armenia, Azerbaijan, and eastern Turkey (Kars plain). As a 12-year-old boy, Efim G. Klubnikin became known as a "seer", or prophet, depending on one's viewpoint. As a young boy, it is said that he was divinely inspired to prophesy about a coming time that would be unbearable and that the time to leave Russia was now. For "[s]oon the doors will close and leaving Russia would be impossible," he later wrote in his memoirs in his elder years.
During the early 20th century under his fellowship, about 2,000 Molokans (mostly of the Jumpers and Leapers Sect) left for the United States and settled in the Los Angeles area near the area of Boyle Heights. It is there that they influenced in practice and doctrine a later American Revival called "the Pentecostal Azusa Street Revival" near the beginning of the 20th century. The founder of The Full Gospel Business Men's Association associates this Pentecostal Revival to the child prophet of the Molokan Jumpers. When they arrived in Los Angeles, California, they were befriended by local settlement house director Dana W. Bartlett) and some other parts of the West Coast and Canada. The Klubnikins continued to be involved in cattle and groceries, as they probably had done in the area of Tambov prior to exile. Others received a land grant from the Mexican government and settled in the Guadalupe Valley in Baja California, Mexico. An even smaller number of Constant Molokans fled Russia and settled mainly in the San Francisco, California and Sacramento, California areas.
Presently there are about 20,000 people who "ethnically identify themselves as Molokans." There are also approximately 200 Molokan churches, 150 of them in Russia and Azerbaijan. Approximately 25,000 Molokans reside in the United States, of which only about 5,000 "ethnically identify themselves as Molokans"; most of whom reside in California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Wyoming. Recent settlement of Molokans in southern Alaska during the 1960s was well documented. Molokans are said to be numerous in Canada, mainly over 1,000 reside in the province of British Columbia and hundreds more in Alberta with their traditional communal lifestyle remains intact today.
Significant numbers of Molokans live in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and throughout Russia. To a lesser extent, Molokans can also be found in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, and in northwest China. In 1995, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival featured Molokans as one of their peoples.
Molokans adhere to the Old Testament kosher dietary laws and do not eat pork, shellfish, or other "unclean" foods. Some refuse to serve on juries or file lawsuits against fellow church members. Church services are conducted predominantly in the Russian language, men and women sit apart, and services are usually quite active–comparable to Pentecostal activities. Molokan families encourage endogamy.
Naming
Molokans are known for having different spellings of last names within the same immediate family. This is mainly due to initial immigration to the U.S. through Ellis Island. Because many Molokans were not educated in English and couldn't translate how to spell their names (or write them), individual families members would be called to separate immigration windows and say their last name. The spelling was then at the discretion of the immigration's ability to sound-out the name. For example "Valov", "Valoff" were the spellings of s siblings' last names.
In Russian a father's first name becomes his child's "last" name until marriage (e.g. "Hazel William"'s father's first name is "William", or "Timothy Joseph"'s father's first name is "Joseph"). Upon marriage, the woman takes her husband's last name, and her father's first name becomes her middle name (e.g. "Hazel William" marries "Timothy Joseph Valov" and upon marriage her name becomes "Hazel William Valov").
Molokans are also known for having "first names" that aren't their legal names. Many common "first names" are actually based on nicknames from childhood within the church that stuck. These are not legal names, and as such become names that make tracing family history very difficult. For example "Hazel Valov" became known as "Percy Valov", for being very "persistent".
This naming process can help with family trees, but because so many relatives have similar names and many nicknames aren't legal names it can be complex.
See also
Doukhobor
Christian anarchism
Peace church
List of pacifist faiths
Simple living
A thorough account of Molokans in America is documented in a book, called Molokans in America by John K. Berokoff.
External links
Molokan Home Page
Origin and Meaning of Molokan Surnames
Mexico's Russian Colony
Russians in Mexico
Molokans Living in Flats
Russian Molokan Church service, September 14, 1938
Molokan Community Support Business Portal
The Guest - a 2009 film about Molokans in eastern Turkey
Detailed explanation of differences between Molokan, Prygun and Dukh-i-zhinik faiths, and between Molokan used as a religious and ethnic term
Category:Eastern Orthodox minor church bodies and movements
Category:Christianity in Russia
Category:Peace churches
Category:Religious organizations established in the 1550s
Category:Christian denominations, unions, and movements established in the 16th century
az:Molokanlar
de:Molokanen
eo:Molokanismo
fr:Moloques
hy:Մոլոկաններ
os:Малакантæ
ka:მალაკნები
hu:Molokánusok
ja:モロカン派
pl:Mołokanie
ru:Молокане
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