Crypto-Mormons or Pseudo-Mormons?

Most memorably and sensationally, Bulgakov continues, at their meetings Khlysty were said to practice "striving" or "rejoicing" (radenie) (Bulgakov [1913] 1993:1636). At these sessions, one of their number was posted to prevent any outsiders from entering. Candles or, if the adherents were in the forest, campfires were lit. Then rejoicing began and manifested itself in many forms such as walking, shuffling, dancing, hopping, or whirling around and around in a circle alone, in pairs, or as a large group holding hands while singing and praying ever more ecstatically as they felt the Holy Ghost descend upon them. But the form of radenie most talked about and condemned were the times Khlysty reportedly became so physically aroused and overcome with the Holy Spirit that, having extinguished the candle or fire, they collapsed, exhausted, into a heap, and engaged in random sexual activity (sval'nyi grekh). According to the reports, children born from these encounters were believed to be of the Holy Spirit and, hence, acceptable. Despite occasional manifestations of spiritual gifts, primarily in the nineteenth century, Latter-day Saint services have historically been sedate and devoid of any kind of worship practice that might be regarded as sensational or ecstatic.

Bulgakov concludes his article on the Khlysty by reporting, "From the end of the nineteenth century and especially during the last decade the Khlysty have begun to come under the influence of rationalist sects, namely the Molokans and especially the Stundists, and also the Tolstoyans, and to break into various persuasions." Bulgakov then lists ten of these persuasions, the second of which are the "Mormons,"24 by which he apparently means not Latter-day Saints but a group called "Samara Mormons." Bulgakov claims the sect arose in the 1840s. These "Mormons" also practiced radenie, "sometimes partially unclothed" (polurazdetye). Those who became Samara "Mormons" had to swear an oath to keep their rites secret and to obey no one and no authority but the "living God," their leader. These "Mormons" did eat meat, however, and they reportedly practiced polygamy. Otherwise they led "a disciplined and abstemious life." Bulgakov claims the name Mormon is "arbitrary" (proizvol'noe), given to this group simply because "like the American Mormons they allow polygamy" (1636).

Confusion about unusual family arrangements is a key factor in the practice of calling indigenous Russian groups "Mormon."25 Historically, when people have engaged in arrangements other than monogamous marriage as a matter of religious principle, outsiders often mistake disciplined observance for excessive libertinism. According to Eugene Clay, an American specialist in the history of Russian religious sects, many unrelated groups came to be called "khlysty," and sexual radenie may not have happened at all except in the suspicious imaginations of non-Khlysty Russians who could not believe the Christ Believers' extraordinary commitment to celibacy (Clay 1997:425-39). Khlysty sexual radenie, if it even happened, is only superficially similar to, and uninfluenced by, Latter-day Saint plural marriage, which involved establishing households after the example of Biblical patriarchs. Contemporaneous non-Mormon observers of Latter-day Saint plural marriage found it to follow, and even exceed, restrained Victorian norms in every respect except in the number of wives a man was allowed to marry (Eliason 2001:155-190; Tuttle 1987:307-15; Hardy 1992:84-126). The deepest similarities between Khlysty and Latter-day Saints appear to lie in a shared negative public perception rather than in similar theology and practice.