Among the variety of religious movements, which are based on a distorted form of Christian teaching, a special place belongs to the sect of scribes - people who deliberately mutilate their own flesh in the hope of overcoming its natural, and according to their ideas, sinful urges. Despite the extremely sharp condemnation of this phenomenon by the Russian Orthodox Church, in certain historical periods it was widespread. Let us dwell in more detail on who the scribes are and what is the peculiarity of their worldview.
Self-proclaimed messiah
The founder and ideologist of Russian society is considered a fugitive serf peasant of the Oryol province Kondraty Ivanovich Selivanov (1740-1832). He began his religious quest in the sect of whips, whose members preached their way into the Kingdom of God - different from the one that the official Church led its flock. For this, they were persecuted by the authorities and often found themselves behind bars. Kondraty Ivanovich left them not because of fear of punishment, but only because he was disappointed in their religious beliefs.
Having settled in the village of Sosnovka in the Tambov province, he created his own sect (“ship” - as its members put it), declaring himself to be no less than the Son of God sent to the world to help people get rid of sins, the most harmful of which he considered adultery. It was upon him that the new-born Messiah took up arms with all the recklessness of religious fanaticism. And what is the most reliable way to save people from sin? Yes, simply to scatter them, making it impossible for them to fall into temptation.
Among the residents of the Tambov province, who previously had no idea who the scribes were, he found many followers. This is all the more remarkable because Selivanov did not even carry out his “surgical operations” with a knife, but with an ax, burning with fire, which inflicted incredible suffering on the new converts. This barbarism was called "fiery baptism." In 1775 he was arrested and spent the next 20 years in hard labor.
Community exiled to Siberia
As mentioned above, money-laundering was prosecuted by law, and lawsuits that dealt with the affairs of sectarians were by no means uncommon. For example, in 1772, a whole community of eunuchs was judged, consisting of 250 people. All of them were exiled to Siberia, but, despite the severity of the sentence, they continued to preach “fiery baptism” there as the only way to pacify the flesh and acquire the kingdom of God. The people, however, treated them extremely ambiguously. Sometimes, all sorts of fables were told about the Skoptsy, accusing them of almost witchcraft, and sometimes endowed with immense sanctity.
The vicious circle of hardworking people
Over time, the skoppy communities, or, as they called them universally, “ships” (the term was borrowed from the Khlysts), formed a separate independent society, which is a very well-organized organization with significant capital. Their material independence was explained by the fact that over time, many merchants, industrialists, and also other entrepreneurs entered the number of sectarians.
All of them tried in every possible way to support their brothers in faith and thereby contributed to increasing the general well-being of members of the sect. If we take into account that the prohibition was strictly observed in the communities and hard work was elevated to the highest virtue, it is not surprising that their members did not know the need. This attached special importance to the word "Skopets", which often meant not only voluntary castration, but also belonging to a vicious circle of wealthy people.
"White Doves"
The head of each community, which consisted of compactly lived scribes, was its spiritual leader, called the “helmsman,” who, despite the declared equality of all “brothers” and “sisters,” possessed a number of authority. To help him, a woman was called a “Mother of God”. This custom was also borrowed from the whips. The members of the sect called themselves “white doves,” and the act of segregation itself was called “whitening.” Along the way, we note that the whips also called themselves “pigeons”, but only gray.
Children
Since the birth rate in the communities, for an obvious reason, was reduced to zero, there was an acute question of the involvement of new members in their ranks. The preservation of the sect depended on this, and it is not surprising that proselytism was widely developed among the eunuchs - an activity aimed at converting as many people as possible into their faith. At the same time, to attract newcomers to the sect, any, even very dubious, ways were considered acceptable. Researchers note the five most common ways to replenish communities.
First of all, this is an accumulation (whitening) of young children from among relatives. The child could not evaluate the consequences of what he was persuaded to, and only with age did he understand the irreplaceability of the injury inflicted on him. In most cases, they did not even require formal consent.
Money as a Way of Converting
The economic enslavement of the intended proselyte (convert) was widely used. As mentioned above, among the scribes there were many wealthy people. Among other activities, some of them were engaged in usury. Having entangled a person with a network of debts from which he could not get out, he was told that accumulation is the only way to solve the problem. Having sacrificed his masculine nature, the “newly whitened dove” became a member of the community, and all debts were forgiven to him.
Replenished the "dovecote" and seduced the money of those for whom there was no other way to get out of poverty. Seeing before them even the lean, but always well-fed faces of the community, the stepsons of fate accepted their conditions. We note along the way that over time, the expression “fire baptism” became purely symbolic, and the red-hot iron was replaced with a sharpened knife “from condescension to human weakness”. That is what the sectarians themselves said, but it is thought that by this they tried, if possible, not to intimidate the newcomers.
In addition to the above ways of recruiting new adepts, ransom from the landlords of serfs was widely used. They were offered the will in exchange for consent to go through castration and become a member of the community. Since, leaving the master, the peasant was deprived of his former means of livelihood, in addition to bliss in heaven, he was guaranteed a stable income on earth. Having accepted the conditions, he subsequently worked for one of his new brothers in faith.
Reasoning of sectarians about who the scribes are in the Bible
And, finally, propaganda of the purity of faith was used very effectively, in which proselytes very skillfully referred to the Holy Scriptures, from which they selected the necessary quotes, deliberately tearing them out of the general context. As the main argument, they used the lines from the 19th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, which cite the words of Jesus Christ about people who, at their own request, became eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Giving them an extremely biased interpretation, the sectarians claimed that, according to the Bible, the eunuch is a doer of God's will.
In addition, the ideologues of skoppitstvo often quoted the words of the Savior quoted in the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, which is almost literally transmitted in the 9th chapter of his work by the holy evangelist Mark. This is the famous passage in which Jesus, referring to His disciples, says that if a member seduces a person, then he should be cut off, but not give in to temptation. This deeply philosophical statement of the Son of God was interpreted in a narrow sense and was issued as an encouragement of self-harm.
Four Seals of Excellence
Concluding the conversation about who the scribes are, we dwell in more detail on the features of the operation, which they mutilated themselves in the hope of receiving heavenly bliss. It is known that in the beginning only the testicles were removed - the “ ’ ’twins,” as the sectarians themselves expressed it. In this case, hot iron was used for disinfection. Later, various cutting tools began to be used, and they were burned only to stop life-threatening bleeding.
However, such an operation, called the “first print,” only dulled sexual desire, but did not exclude the possibility of sexual intercourse. In view of this, the penis was also amputated during the sputtering. This was called the "adoption of the second seal." For greater fidelity, the nipples were cut off (the third seal), and the sectarian who still had a triangle cut out on the side (the fourth seal) was considered the top of perfection; historians have no common opinion on the symbolic or practical significance of this.
Crippled "doves"
The most egregious manifestation of religious obscurantism is the ossification of women who are members of the “white doves” community. They also had their degrees (“seals”) of perfection. So, the removal of the labia, then the clitoris and, finally, the chest was considered the initial stage of the ascent. It is interesting to note that at the same time, the "dove" retained the ability to bear children.
There are even several cases described in the book of the famous Soviet ethnographer and scholarship scientist N. N. Volkov (1904–1953), when women who went through all stages of “whitening” broke with sectarianism and, having married, produced healthy offspring. Thanks to his works, the question of who the scribes are and what place they allotted to them in the history of Russian sectarianism received full coverage.