Khlysts
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Khlysts or Khlysty (Хлысты in Russian), a distorted name, which comes from the word хлыст (khlyst), meaning "a whip"; the original name was a made-up word Христоверы (Khristovery, "Christ-believers") or Христы (Khristy), was an underground sect in the late 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th century that split off the Russian Orthodox Church and belonged to the Spiritual Christians (духовные христиане) tenency.
It is said to have been founded by a peasant, Daniil Filippovich (or Filippov), of Kostroma. The Khlysty renounced priesthood, holy books and venerating the saints. They believed in a possibility of direct communication with the Holy Spirit and of its embodiment in living people. Curiously enough, they allowed their members to attend Orthodox churches. The central idea of Khlystys' ideology was to practise asceticism. Khlysty practised the attainment of divine grace through sin in ecstatic rituals (called радения, or radeniya) that sometimes seem to have turned into mass orgies. Flagellation was also a frequent practice.
Secret Khlysty cells existed throughout pre-revolutionary Russia (with approximately 40,000 followers); they were most common in the factories of the Perm district. Each cell was normally led by a male and a female leader, who were called the "Christ" and the "Mother of God" respectively.
Grigori Rasputin was reputed to have, at some stage, been a Khlyst, and to have led some sort of secret Khlysty cell among the society ladies of Saint Petersburg.
The number of sectarians dropped drastically in the Soviet times. However, a few secluded Khlysty communities existed in Soviet Russia in Tambov, Kuibyshev, Orenburg and Northern Caucasus and in Soviet Ukraine.
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