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Crypto-Mormons or Pseudo-Mormons?
Western Folklore, Summer 2002 by Eliason, Eric A, Browning, Gary
The first group began in the 1850s near Novouzensk to the southeast of Samara. It emerged under the leadership of a Khlysty and Methodist-influenced Molokan named Ivan Grigorev Kanygin. Orthodox priests began calling Grigorev's followers "Mormons" noting their Christian communist practices, and rumors of a "community of wives." In 1869, Orthodox Priest Khrisanf Rozhdestvenskiy published a document "On the Teachings and Rituals of the Molokan-Mormon Sect with Criticisms against Them." This appears to be the first written reference to any indigenous Russian religious movement as "Mormon." The term "Mormon" for this group never gained popular local currency outside the community of Orthodox priests and did not endure past about 1880.
In the 1870s, another group emerged in villages around Samara (including Bogdanovka) and later moved into Samara itself. This group organized themselves into tight social groups of prosperous economic cooperation and lead clean and sober lives. Following the pattern set by Rozhdestvenskiy, this group came to be called Mormons. They accepted this term but also sometimes called themselves Molokans. These "Samara Mormons" were also said to include community of wives in their conception of having all things in common, but clear information about their religion was difficult to obtain since a strict vow of secrecy bound adherents to silence about the nature of their beliefs and practices. Like the Grigorev Methodists, the "Samara Mormons" apparently followed a syncretic set of beliefs that drew on the practices of several Russian dissenting groups including the mystic ecstasy of khlysty radenie and the Molokans' rational Christian primitivism. However there appears to be no direct connection or influence between the Samara Mormons and the Grigorev group.
Several forces sent Russian Mormonism into steep decline in the early twentieth century. Decentralized leadership led to diverging doctrinal development in each village. But much more devastatingly, Bolshevik collectivization, ensuing famine, deportation, and organized assassinations decimated rural "Mormonism" around Samara. After World War II, Mekhzavod's Nineteenth Kilometer area became a gathering place for scattered Mormon remnants. Scott estimates that in 2001 about 300 Mormons live in the town of about 30,000. The Mormons are known for their financial prosperity and persistent adherence to a code of silence that prevents them from even admitting their religion's existence to outsiders. They are known as Mormons, Molokans, Khlysty, and/or Old Believers by their neighbors.
While Mekhzavod and a few other places in Samara contain the only known groups of apparently still-practicing Mormons, hundreds of others in Samara and surrounding villages, such as Bogdanovka, know of Mormon ancestors but little or nothing of the faith. Some Mormon descendants still abstain from alcohol and tobacco and are devout. But their devotion tends to express itself publicly in Russian Orthodoxy rather than a dissenting sect. The devastating nature of the early twentieth century disruption of Russian Mormon communities lends credence to the possibility that the Orenburg Mormons are related to Samara Mormons even though they profess no knowledge of this. It is also possible that Orenburg Mormons adhere to a similar code of concealing their esoteric religious beliefs but neither Scott's informants nor ours provide clear indication of this. Scott's website contains a link to an article in Russian by an Orenburg police chief who believes that the Orenburg Mormons do have a sectarian past but are concealing it to further their political goals.
