Molokan and Prygun Home Page

Only Orthodox Russians crossed the Bering Strait in the 1800s, and they were not persecuted.No Molokane or Pryguny crossed the Bering Strait to America, nor are there Eskimo Molokane, nor is there a Molokan or Prygun congregation in Alaska. Later Russian Old Believers (staryvery) moved to Alaska. Less than 1% of all Molokane in Russia, and many Pryguny, migrated mainly to California, mainly as "poor peasants" in the "new wave", most from 1907 to 1912.

A History of Molokans in Boyle Heights, by Marco, Roosevelt High [Los Angeles], Grade 12, 1998, has 2 major errors. The photo: "The Russian cemetery" is the not the a Molokan-Russian Cemetery, but probably Evergreen Cemetery. Below this photo, Marco writes:

"Most of them left for America ... from 1900 to 1905. About 5,000 Molokans fled in large groups, called clans, to America. ... some of them settled in Canada... "

Clans: The large groups were not called "clans" but by the name of their home village, like Selimskii, Akhtinskii, Darachakskii, .... They organized in America first by village, then by clan. Often fractionating when the lead elder died. About 12 leaders immigrated to Los Angeles, and they did not all cooperate or agree on most issues.

Canada: No congregation of Molokane or Pryguny ever existed in Canada. This error is repeated in English and Russian sources. The facts are less than 1%, about 2500, of all Molokane and Pryguny in Russia migrated to America (about 75% were Pryguny) between 1904 to 1912. None organized in Canada. A few did move there as individuals. This confusion about Molokans in Canada may have 2 sources. First, because Molokane and Pryguny intended to move to Canada following the Doukhobors, but were more attracted to the large economically booming cities of California (Los Angeles and San Francisco). See: The Molokan Arrival in Manitoba, 1905 (Doukhobr Genealogy Website). Lev N. Tolstoy recommended that Pryguny and Molokane avoid Canada because the Doukhboors could not negotiate a large communal land deal in Canada and many wanted to relocated to the U.S. Second, because the UMCA Directory listed "Canada" on it's cover, though in the 2008 edition only 2 listings are in Canada 2,000 miles apart (Dobrinen married to Cogswell in British Columbia; and Professor William J. Samarin in Toronto, Ontario). Occasionally a descendant in Canada is revealed, like "Iren (from Montreal, Quebec)" (April 1, 2008). Molokan Soldier Enlisted in WWI Canadian Expeditionary Force — William Halopoff could be William I. Holopoff, one of the four scouts to America.

Other sources mistakenly citing Molokans in Canada (checked on Nov. 1, 2009):

Molokan: Encyclopedia II - Molokan - History, The Global Oneness Commitment.
Stephan Symko. From a single seed Tracing the Marquis wheat success story in Canada to its roots in the Ukraine, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 1999.

In Multicultural America: Russian Americans, Paul Robert Magocsi repeats the immigration error that 5,000 migrated to California; and shows a photo of Russian girls with this in the caption: "...lace shawls of these women are called kascinkas..." The text does not identify these as Molokan-Jumper girls visiting Mexico.

Dance expert Henry Morgenstein, on his Dance Quotations page, repeats a line from World History of the Dance (1963) by Curt Sachs: ".. In Europe we have the "loss of self" motif clearly illustrated in the whirl dances of the Russians sects of the Molokani in Armenia.." Sachs probably confused Molokan-Jumpers-Leapers with Moslem Whirling Dervishes of neighboring Turkey, or assumed the American Jumpers imported the spinning dance reported in Everan guberniia in the 1860s. Jumpers and Maksimisti sometimes jump, leap, and skip while waving one or both hands above and/or below their shoulders, to the beat of the singing, but today they don't spin to get dizzy as do the Dervishes.

Attempts to ask the owners of these abandoned web sites to correct their errors seems futile, but is ongoing.

Before the Internet, many erroneous news articles have appeared in print, particularly about Jumpers where I live in Arizona. One example among many is a 1992 report by an Arizona professional historian who was contracted to document the ethnic diversity of Glendale. He starts with: "Russian Orthodox Molokan". Such misinformation spreads. In 1999, Glendale city planning commission sub-committee minutes recorded a worker who attended a Jumper funeral praising the "Russian Orthodox singers" who came from Los Angeles (minutes to be posted).

Historian Peter Brock states "Skakuny ... the largish Molokan denomination" in new book Against the Draft: Essays on Conscientious Objection from the Radical Reformation to the Second World War (April 2006), page 318. Constants are the largest Molokan denomination, and some government demographers and historians will say that the Jumpers [Skakuny] are a separate sect. See Constants and Jumpers above.

3. Often Dukh-i-zhiniki are mislabeled by others or themselves.

Before the Molokan ("milk-drinker") label appeared, the ancestors of Iconobors, Doukhobors, and Molokans, called themselves "Spiritual Christians". Along with earlier groups, like "God's People", they shared similar beliefs against the divinity of icons, priests, and the tsar; war; anticipation of the millennium; and some had a Christ-like leader and/or ritualistic way to express the Holy Spirit. During the 1600s, the heresy labels of "milk-drinkers" and "spirit-wrestlers" had often been embraced by the condemned and reinterpreted as good labels. The "milk-drinkers" — molokane — during religious fasts diffused the verbal attack by finding a complimentary meaning for "milk" in the Bible. About the same time, Doukhobors, or "spirit-wrestlers", changed their derogatory label from those who wrestled against the spirit of the church and God to people who "wrestle with the spirit of truth." (See Koozma J. Tarasoff Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers’ Strategies for Living (2002)., Chapter 1.)

The most detailed first-hand reports of sectarians is found in archived Russian police reports after religious meetings are raided, and the participants arrested and interrogated. The police often have a different perspective than the Russian Orthodox Church authorities in documentation, and sectarians are known to lie and switch their claimed religion depending on their situation and/or to gain privileges, like a travel permit, to join family members, receive benefits, avoid arrest, etc. See Breyfogle's thesis (Chapter _) for examples of sectarian switching.

Molokane were often mistaken, intentionally and unintentionally, for other sectarian or schismatic groups in Russian history, like Pryguny, Doukhobors, Old Believers, Mennonites, etc.; or groups in America, like Quakers or Amish. Part of this is due to inattention to detail on the part of scholars, but even serious Russian religious scholars can be uncertain as to which sectarian group is which. Some of this is due to the heretics hiding their illegal heresy from authorities. Photos of conservative members of these various religious groups and sects often show bearded men, old Eastern European clothes, and coverings on women, which can easily confuse an outsider, scholar or journalist, into thinking they are all the same. Also labels applied by the authorities are not always the same labels which sectarians use to describe themselves. Labeling Russian religious dissenters was not easy. During the 1800s over 100 heresy, sect and schismatic labels were used by the Russian Orthodox Church. Molokane and Pryguny in Russia continue to first identify themselves as "Spiritual Christians", while this label is was soon dropped by those in North America and later in Australia. More confusion is due to Dukh-i-zhiniki calling themselves "Molokan", a form of identity theft or name hijacking, not appreciated by the authentic Molokane.

Dr. Breyfogle claims the label pryguny (Jumpers) first appeared in 1854 in Armenia guberniia, though the characteristics of Pryguny existed earlier under other labels (spiritual dancers, leapers, ...) in New Russia (South Ukraine). In 1858 Orthodox Russians in the Caucasus complained "...that fanatical Molokans [probably pryguny or Maksimisty] were invading their churches during services, throwing rocks, shooting at icons, and generally disrupting worship." (See: Breyfogle's thesis, page 101, footnote 57.)

There is such a distinct difference and separation between Pryguny and Molokane that they were nearly always classified by historians and themselves as separate religions until the 1900s. The Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religions, by James R. Lewis categorizes both as varieties of Molokan (page 496): "Molokan Spiritual Christians (Postojannye)", and "Molokan Spiritual Christians (Pryguny)." These are labels given by an outsider to try to make since of what he reads. There is no congregation in the world that labels themselves : "Spiritual Christian -Postojannye." Only a non-Molokan will use such a label. Dukh-i-zhiniki do the same when comparing themselves with real Molokane : "Those are postoyannye, we are the real Molokane."

To date, no Dukh-i-zhiniki joined the USCM Center, Russian Federation, opened in 1997; but the American Molokane did. The translated name of the RF organization is "Union of Spiritual Christians — Molokans", placing emphasis on "Spiritual Christian".

My late grandmother, Sasha Shubin, often repeated common oral history in 1960s Los Angeles that Pryguny should avoid (not marry, attend services with, ...) the Molokane because they were mean to Pryguny in Russia by reporting us to the authorities as the bad guys, but in fact Maksimisty were causing trouble. I knew she was repeating gossip and rumors and that she never visited Molokane in San Fransisco where I had relatives. When I first visited the San Francisco Molokan assembly in the late 1960s, I investigated several Dukh-i-zhinik rumors about Molokane.

Myth : "No Molokans are left in San Francisco, they all married out."
Fact : I found 65 to 75 Molokan adults attended a typical Sunday service in San Francisco during the 1960s-80s, more than any Dukh-i-zhinik congregation in the US or Australia. Compare to Big Church attendance during that time, where about 25 attended though their registered membership was 500-700. Ironically, Doukhobors visiting Los Angeles with a choir in 1974 said they also heard there were no Molokans [meaning Pryguny] left in LA because a Doukhobor visitor reported so few attended Big Church a few years earlier.
Myth : "They don't believe in the Holy Spirit."
Fact : They believe in the Holy Spirit but don't need to jump or have prophets.
Myth : "They serve Kentucky Fried Chicken in church."
Fact : This could only have happened when people bring food to share in the back kitchen area during a funeral wake when it is the responsibility of the family of the deceased to host their guests. Dukh-i-zhiniki sometimes appear in San Francisco for a funeral and probably noticed fast food among the snacks. After the burial, if the congregation hosts the memorial service and meal, the food is always traditional Russian sectarian and prepared in the prayer-house kitchen.

The Prygun prophet Rudometkin calls the Molokane "wayward / delusional", and is more critical of Subbotniki. An anti-Molokan sentiment prevails among many American Dukh-i-zhiniki leaders because of this passage. Molokane observe holidays abandoned by Rudometkin as pagan or from the Orthodox. Molokan leaders from San Francisco have never been welcomed guests at the UMCA (Dukh-i-zhiniki) picnic in Los Angeles since the 1960s. A Molokan minister (Edward Samarin) was not allowed to stand with his Dukh-i-zhiniki family during their father's (John Samarin) funeral at Percy Street assembly (Samarin's) probably because he married out, which is not a shunned sin among the Molokane.

Despite facts that Molokane and Dukh-i-zhiniki have different holidays, rituals, and officially avoid each other, the American and Australian Dukh-i-zhiniki register their "churches," cemeteries and organizations as "Molokan". The diaspora Dukh-i-zhiniki congregations that do not register report their religion is "Molokan." In practice they are different religions. Ironically, descendants of these these denominations groups is more likely to marry an outsider (American) than each other.

In 1917 during the Arizona draft registration protest Pryguny and Maksimisty identified themselves in the press as "Russian sectarians, Spiritual Christians-Jumpers" and "Holy Jumpers", and the press reported Jumper ritualistic behavior in the courthouse: “The dance was not unlike that done by Indians at ceremonials. Performed in unison, the effect was to almost rock the building." (“Jail for Anti-War Russians,” Arizona Republican, 10 June 1917.) By the 1960s, these self-reported labels in the press changed to "Molokan", and "Molakans".

The Library of Congress on its American Memory web site confuses the Molokans and Jumpers-S&L-users: "The Russian Molokans, also called Molokan Spiritual Jumpers, Spiritual Christians of the Sect of Jumper, or Milk Drinkers, ..." The songs and photos are of the largest Constant Molokan congregation in America, though a separate congregation of Spiritual Molokans, 2 blocks away, may have attended this event.

In Arizona, a Tolmachoff clan of confessed Baptists and non-Jumpers (kids of Jack Wm. & Doris, and Pete Wm. & Sally) is trying to steal the congregation properties by falsely filing documents at the Arizona Corporation Commission, and falsely labeling themselves "The Christian Molokan Church of Arizona." The original name of "Church of the Spiritual Christian Molokans of Arizona, Inc." was reinstated in 2005 after a 3-year investigation by the state. But many errors persist in the unofficial pubic record. Besides their huge personal debts, illegally changing the church and cemetery locks, and other crimes, they demand that their members take communion (juice and bread) to prove they are "Christian". They even fooled the LA-UMCA by providing a bogus change of presviter for the 2004 Russian Molokan Directory. The real presbyter was locked in a house in Avondale, with the help of Mike Zaremba, a Cowboy cousin by marriage, while his Jack John Conovaloff impersonated his father to steal money ($300,000 cash) from his parents estate. They tried to Dukh-i-zhiniki from Kerman, California by mascaraing in Russian dress for a funeral, something they only do in Arizona when someone from California is visiting, but could not conduct the actual service.

This labeling for personal gain, especially to hide illegal acts, also persists for the Canadian Doukhobors who have tried to correct the press for decades to not label the "Sons of Freedom" (also see), or Freedomites, as Doukhobors. But, most people mistakenly still think Doukhobors are the burners, bombers and strippers. In 2002, an educational video for kids to correct this error was funded by the Canadian government, My Doukhobor Cousins:

"Mention the word 'Doukhobors' to most Canadians, and it conjures up images of fire and nudity shrouded in religious fervor. ... The Cousins' research helps dispel the confusion between the orthodox Doukhobors, the independents and the freedomites, better known as Sons of Freedom Doukhobors. Over the years, all of these sects have been lumped together in the media, while, in fact, most of the negative images reflecting their unorthodox behavior are more synonymous with the actions of the freedomites [now extinct]."

After decades of public relations, Doukhobors are still being confused with the Dunkers, a German sect, according to Koozma Tarasoff a Canadian-Doukhobor and historian. The words sound alike. On October 14, 2005, Tarasoff presented his paper: "How the Church, the Mass Media, and the Zealots Hijacked the Doukhobor Name" at the Conference of the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. In 2006, the professional Peter Langer Associated Media Group, which sells 182,000+ high quality travel and culture photos, misidentifies and sells a photo of Hutterite women as "Saskatoon: Doukhobor women." These different colonies are next to each other as this map shows. To try to correct this myth, Larry Ewashen, Director of the Doukhobor Discovery Centre reviewed how Doukhobrs have been misrepresented in print: Doukhobors and the Media.

3a. Sub-Groups

To confuse matters more, hybrid and new sub-groups evolved within and split from the Spiritual Christian Molokans — Molokan-Subbotniki, Shaloputy-Molokans, Communal-Molokans, Saturday-Molokans, Pryguny, Pryguny-Maksimisty, New Molokans, Dry Baptist Molokans (spiritual christening), Waterers (vodianie, water christening) Don (Kossak) Molokans [Donskoi Tolk], Spiritual Molokans, Molokan-Mormons, Armenian-Molokan-Pryguny, etc.; and in America new-subgroups: "Re-Formed" in Oregon (descendants of Pryguny and Dukh-i-zhiniki who converted to Pryguny and translated their services into English), and "Clarkys" in California (ultra-orthodox Maksimisty who shunned other Dukh-i-zhiniki for 10 years). These groups differ in location, day of worship (sabbath), holidays celebrated (traditional and/or Old Testament), prayer meeting room (church) decor, and service rituals. Intermarriage between these sub-groups and with Doukhobors and other sectarians and Orthodox is rare, permitted after conversion, yet persecuted. This diversity caused the original Molokans in the mid-1800s were called postoyannie (unchanged) to distinguish them as the original group and separate themselves from the more zealous and radical off-shoots. But even among Molokane in Russia, regional differences are obvious in singing style and the kissing ritual, due to a century of separation, is changing where refugees from diverse populations congregate in Russia and adjust to each other.

In America in 1926, a new youth education and service organization, the United Molokan Christian Association, was incorporated using 5 words to describe their members — "Russian Molokan Spiritual Christian Jumpers". These 5 descriptors also appeared on the sign of the first Prygun cemetery in Los Angeles, at which are buried Amenian Pryguny. This public relations effort helped to unite most all the factions that immigrated. But, today in America and Australia, most Dukh-i-zhiniki call themselves Molokans, sometimes Protestants, partially to avoid explaining to an outsider, and/or identifying with, the radical spiritual component of Maksimisty. These semantics have confused many descendants of American Dukh-i-zhiniki to believing that one cannot be a western Christian and a Molokan at the same time. This is in part because they also confuse the Russian historical label of "sectarian" and "sekt", meaning Russian but not Orthodox (a group of persistent heretics), with the modern western use of "sect" to describe a new religious group started by a single person, like the recent cult of Jim Jones. In Russia, Molokane and Dukh-i-zhiniki are historical indigenous sects, and American scholars often call them an ethic group and a religion, not a western sect. Some in America may claim that zealous Dukh-i-zhiniki who mention Maksim G. Rudomyotkin in song or prayer are an American sect or cult, but this usage of Rudomyotkin's name in praise differs little from the way Catholics or Orthodox refer to Saints. Also there is no living Christ-like leader among Dukh-i-zhiniki in the world today, nor among Doukhobors.

Many Canadian Doukhobors have embraced the analysis of Russian historian A.I. Klibanov who concluded that Doukhobors evolved from a sect to a "social movement" when they burned their guns in three large demonstrations in the Caucasus on Easter morning 1895. (See The Events That Shook the World in 1895, and The Doukhobor Peace Day, both by Koozma J. Tarasoff.)

The most common misuse of the term Molokan in America and Australia is by Dukh-i-zhiniki who only identify themselves as Molokans.

3b. Doukhobors

About 2 dozen commercial online encyclopedias (like: FreeGlossary, Encyclopedia4U, Encyclopedian, ExplainThat, FactBase, Masterliness, Opentopia, What is.TV, etc.) confuse Molokane with Doukhobors ("the sect from which Molokans evolved"), perhaps because both sects are Spiritual Christians. This misinformation has been transferred to scientific documents, like The Linguasphere Register, 1999/2000 edition, page 442, ISBN / EAN: 095329191X ("index of over 70,000 linguistic and ethnic names") [Update Sept 11, 2007: The 2006 Linguasphere Register and a new website are in-progress. Liguasphere Press ceased operations in 2006. Its work is being continued by GeoLang Ltd.] These errors are slowly being corrected by the anonymous contributors who mostly copied this mis-information from sites like Wikipedia, where it is now corrected, but not corrected on the more numerous "daughter" sites. You can tell that these encyclopedia sites have old information if the link to the Molokan Home Page is to the old "gecko" server which was discontinued in June 2004.

From a single seed Tracing the Marquis wheat success story in Canada to its roots in the Ukraine, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. — ... a set of millstones located at the entrance to the office of the Lake of the Woods Milling Company in Winnipeg as having been brought to Western Canada by Russian Doukhobors. (7, pp. 136-137) However, these stones might have been brought over just as easily by Molokans (sectarians from Ukraine) ...

Even Russian writers confuse Molokane with Doukhobors and other sectarians. Update In-Progress

3c. Orthodoxy

Confusing Raskolniks with Sectarians (second half of page) is unfortunately common, even in the Former Soviet Union. It appears that very few people who were students during Soviet times and studied the "Raskol" and "Sectarians" in social studies classes had any personal knowledge with these faiths. After the dissolution of the USSR, the textbooks changed and the Raskol appears less taught.

Old Believers are "Raskolniki" — ethinic Russians who preserved the old Orthodox rituals and language, and were condemned by the Russian Orthodox Church for not reforming. Molokane are "sectarians" — ethnic Russians who disobeyed and left the Church. They are heretics, like Protestants. By law, ethnic Russians must be Orthodox.

Some scholars and writers call Molokane "Old Ritualists", or "Old Believers" (another example), or “molokan branch of old believer church”, even in officials government reports by the U.S. State Department in 2002, and by Armenia to the Council of Europe. They may mean that Molokane have an "old religion", but probably confuse the two. "Old Believers" (Russian: starovery), are un-reformed Orthodox who predate the "Molokan" label. You'd think our governments would know we are not Orthodox.

Even worse, an old information web site still states: "Molokans (a Russian Orthodox sect )", (Moldava: Religion, "Data as of June 1995"). In a 1994 report to the World Bank someone recognized a difference: "Molokans... A sect related to the Old Believers...(footnote 10)" A recent posting by blog photographer Nazarian (12/15/2005) explains: "Molokans ... in Armenia... belong to two different sects in Russian Orthodox religion. One is more strict and the other one is more liberal and welcomes progress." Nazarian realized there were different groups calling themselves Molokan but continued the erroneous label of Orthodox.

In July 2006, someone posted: "Molokan, as far as I know is a Russian Orthodox group founded by Leo Tolstoy, or supported by him." The first part is not true, but the second part is. Tolstoy supported the Molokans and Doukhobors. See: A Molokans's Search for Truth: The Correspondence of Leo Tolstoy and Fedor Zheltov.

On March 11, 2008, The New York Times errored in an article about Turkey, A Patchwork Land Confronts a Lie of Whole Cloth, by stating in paragraph 16: "...Molokan, also known as Russian Old Believers." I complained and the paper published a Correction on March 25, 2008 and changed the online text to "... Molokan, who have their roots in Russia." Progress!

3d. White-Russians

This term has 2 origins: (a) Belarus, the "White Rus" republic east of Moscow, and (b) White Russians who were the exiled "aristocrats" — nobles, princes, princesses, military officers, professionals, intellectuals — waiting to return to Russia; called “white” because of their opposition to the “red” Soviet state. Most likely Molokane are confused with the second group, many of whom also immigrated to Los Angeles and hired Pryguny.

A similar term — white émigré — describes those who emigrated after the Revolution and opposed the Russian political climate or change in regimes. Since Pryguny and Molokane moved to America before the revolution, the term is a weak fit since many reported that they left because their privileges had expired for taxes and the military draft, to follow the Doukhobors, or due to guidance by the Holy Spirit.

Prygun and Molokan immigrants were mainly peasants, but often in Los Angeles were labeled "White Russian" by East LA Mexicans and others. This mistake occurred recently at the University of Southern California (April 27, 2000), where many descendants of Dukh-i-zhiniki graduated. I helped with the Boyle Heights Project and complained about this mistake which was corrected on 2 subsequent USC web pages posted a month later( 1, 2).

3e. Brethren, Mennonite, Amish, Quaker, Baptist

In the early 1900s, some reporters and historians called Molokane Quakers, probably from Quakers who visited and documented Molokane in the early 1800s and from Western scholars having no other groups with which to compare them, or because some American Molokans and Jumpers did alternative military service in Quaker CO camps during World War II.

In his 1974 review of Bekker's "Origin of the Mennonite Brethren Church", Giesbrecht misquotes “Molokan brethren”. About 4 times Bekker mentions Molokane who visited his church in the mid-1800s, and once calls them brethren, similar to the use of "brother" in "Christian brother in Christ", identical to Berokoff's use: "... Molokan Brethren in Iran ..." In 2002, a woman described her Molokan best friend: "...the best way to describe Molokans is Russian Mennonites or Quakers." A 2004 UK Government study reported Molokane as "a quasi-Baptist group", perhaps because founders of the the Russian Baptists were Molokane (Pavlov, Vorinin, Prokhanov). In 2005, an Armenian thinks Dukh-i-zhiniki are "a Russian version of Amish".

3f. New Labels

In 2005, Armenian reporters label Maksimisty as "Maximalists" or "extremists", short for "Jumper-extremist". This could be (a) a misuse of a historic term for the Soviet party of Socialist-Revolutionaries, (b) "Biblical maximalism" (literal interpretation of the Bible, fundamentalist), or (c) "believing that the Church's scope was broad and rich enough to embrace everyone and all things religious and cultural." Do you know?

If you find more examples, send them in. Be sure to include the complete URL, web address, for the web site.

For corrections, comments, suggestions, or questions about the Molokan and Prygun Home Page,
e-mail the Web Master: A.J. Conovaloff at Administrator@Molokane.org