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Crypto-Mormons or Pseudo-Mormons?

Western Folklore, Summer 2002 by Eliason, Eric A, Browning, Gary

Latter-day Saints and Russia's Indigenous New Religious Movements

In 1990, when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints established its first mission in Russia, Mormon1 missionaries almost immediately began hearing and passing on stories from native Russians about long-established "Mormon" communities already there (Browning 1997). "Whole tribes of native Siberians call themselves Mormons. Many people in villages around Orenburg and Samara are Mormons but will deny it if you ask them. My grandfather was a Mormon, but he died long ago," are paraphrases of the more common story types.

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These rumors intrigued missionaries and Latter-day Saint scholars alike, since the limited missionary resources of the early Church and the effectiveness of both Tsarist and Communist opposition to foreign missionaries kept Latter-day Saints from establishing an official presence in Russia until Gorbachev's reforms in the late 1980s. There is no known historical evidence that the LDS church had any converts in Russia before 1989, except for one pre-Soviet-era family that left the country. Nevertheless, for over a decade, many Latter-day Saint missionaries and members, scholars, and various Russians have assumed a historical link of some sort between reported indigenous Russian "Mormons" and the newly arrived Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Some sort of link seemed plausible since locals explained that besides sharing a name, the Russian "Mormons" also often did not smoke or drink, had strong family values, held secret worship services, and may have once practiced something like polygamy. The rumors even alluded to secretly transcribed copies of the Book of Mormon circulating in Russia for decades. Based on such parallels, some Latter-day Saint missionaries tried to reintroduce the local "Mormons" to the official Church but had difficulty finding them. At times they seemed ephemeral. It seemed most stories of "lost Mormons" in Russia would be best understood simply as new additions to a vibrant body of Latter-day Saint missionary folklore about independent "Mormon" groups in remote areas.2 Such folklore arises despite the Church's great care to "go through the front door" and obey local laws. For example, eager young missionaries occasionally circulate rumors about secret Church organizational efforts in countries closed to missionaries, such as the Soviet Union to the 1990s and China to the present.3

However, the whole body of stories about Russian "Mormons" cannot be readily dismissed as enthusiastic but spurious rumor. The existence of "Mormons" in various places in Russia long before 1990 is alluded to in the works of early twentieth-century Russian religious studies scholars such as S. V. Bulgakov and Timofei Ivanovich Butkevich.4 In the 1950s, Russian "Mormons" came to the attention of John Noble. After World War II, this American, who was accused of spying, served time in Vortuka, a Soviet labor camp incarcerating many "religious criminals" near the Arctic Circle. Noble wrote:

Assisting the [Mennonite] bishop in the stockroom was another elderly man, a Mormon. The Mormons in Soviet Russia and its satellite countries are a very small group. They are also relentlessly persecuted, due to the fact that the belief in the Book of Mormon originated in the United States . . . and that the international headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is located in Salt Lake City, Utah. . . . There were only a handful of Mormons in our compound but on their days off they would always meet for meditation and prayer (Noble and Everett 1959: 124, 126).

Noble suggests that the "Mormons" he came in contact with were the same people who bear this nickname in the United States. However, Bulgakov and Butkevich both claim that some of Russia's pre-1990 "Mormons," notably those around Samara, had nothing to do historically with the Utah-headquartered Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but got the nickname Mormon only because they practiced something akin to polygamy. The dated and sketchy reports of Bulgakov, Butkevich, and Noble leave a host of questions unanswered about why the term Mormon was, and still is, being used in Russia to refer to various people who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and who may or may not practice a related form of religion.

Apart from the informal reports of the Church's missionaries, no contemporary research has focused on "Mormons" in Russia today who are not members of the LDS church. As with many smaller religious groups, it was not clear if, or how well, Russia's "Mormons" had survived the Soviet era. If living representatives of these groups could be contacted and interviewed, perhaps a tangled knot of puzzling historical questions about the origins and current status of "Russian Mormons" could begin to be unraveled. The results could provide insight into the issues of survival and representation that many marginalized religious movements have faced.

Crypto-Mormons or Pseudo-Mormons?

Western Folklore, Summer 2002 by Eliason, Eric A, Browning, Gary

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