RASS
650
RASS
ing it under the cover of some distorted text of Scrip-
ture or some phrase of the ancient Church service.
II. SECrr.\RiANs. — The various bodies which make
up the Sektanslvo have seceded from the national
Russian Church quite independently of the schism
at the time of Nikon and the reform in the Church
books. They correspond more closely with the vari-
ous sects arising from Protestantism, and are founded
upon some distorted idea of the Church, or a rule of
life or doctrines of the Faith. Some of them are older
than the schism, but most of them are later in point
of time. The principal ones comprise between one
and two millions and may be subdivided or classified
as follows: (1) Khlysli ("Flagellants), who believe in
severe penances, reject the Church, its sacraments and
usages. They are also called the Ludi Bozhi, or
"God's People", and also the "Farmazoni" (Free-
masons) on account of the secret initiations they have.
They hold secret meetings in which they sing wild, st ir-
ring hymns, dress in white, and jump, dance, or whirl,
much like the negro revivals in the Southern States.
(2) Skoptsi (Eunuchs) who not only teach absolute cehbacy, but mutilate themselves so as to be sexless. They Ijoast that they are pure like the saints and walk untainted through "this world of sin, and take the literal view of Matt., xLx, 12. Women are also mutilated, particularly after they have borne children to recruit the sect, but these children are not born in wedlock. TheSkopIsi aresaid to be usurersand money changers.
(3) Molokani (Milk-drinkers) said to be so named because they make it a point to drink milk and use other prohibited foods during Lent and fast days, to show their objection to the Orthodox Church. They abhor all exiernal ceremonies of religion, but lav st ress upon t he Bible. They say t here is no t eacher of' the Faith but Christ himself, and that we are all priests; and they carrj- their logic so far as to have neither chvirch nor chapel, simply meeting in one anothers' houses.
(-1) Dukhobors (Spirit wrestlers) are those who deny the Holy Ghost and who place but a minor importance upon the Scriptures. They are bet- ter known to America, for some thousands of them emigrated to Canada, where they are now good colonists. They give a wide place to tradition, and designate man as "the living book", in opposition to dead books of paper and ink. In some respects they are pantheists, saying that God lies within us, that we must struggle with the spirit of God to attain the fulness of life. They do not give an historical reahty to the Gospel narrat'ives, but take them figuratively. Their idea of the Church is in conformity with their belief ; t hev consider it an assembly of t he right eous on earth, whet her Christians, Jews, or Moslems. Yet they have all the pecuharities and fanaticism of the Slav.
(5) StiDtdists, or a kind of Russian Baptists. These seem to be an offshoot from the Lutherans or Mennon- ites who settled in Russia. The name is derived from the German Slunde or hom-, because they assembled at stated hours to read the Bible or worship. They rejected the sacraments, even baptism at first, but yet retain it. They gave up all Church holidays, and agreed with the Melokaiii in repudiating the idea of a clerg>-. They are nearly all Little Russians, in the South of Russia.
(6) Subhotniki (Sabbatarians), who have substi- tuted Saturdav, the Jewish Sabbath, for Sunday. They have also taken up a great many Jewish practices from the Old Testament along with such elemental Christian forms which they retain. They are practically Unitarians, and ex-pect the Mes- eias; and they are also said to be like the Mor- mons, living in polygamy in many instances, although most of them are content with one wife. Besides these principal sects there are numerous smaller ones. One can run almost the same round of strange and
erratic religious behefs in Ru.ssia as in the United
States. There are the Pliassuny (Dancers), Samobogi
(Self-gods), Chislenniki (Computers), who have
changed Sunday so as to fall on Wednesday, and
Easter to the middle of the week, Pashkontes, Rad-
stockites (so named after their founders), and numer-
ous others, which exploit some peculiar tenet of their
various founders and believers. In addition to these
are the various missionary enterprises and local
churches of Western Protestantism, of which the
Lutherans and Baptists are the leading ones.
LEROT-BE.lcUEr. The Empire of the Tsars. Ill (New York, 1902) ; HE.4RD. The Russian Church and Russian Dissent (New York. 18S7) : Praiosiarnaya Bogoslotskaya Enciclopedia, II (St. Petersburg, 1903) ; Ignatius, Istoria Raskola r Tusskom Tserfcre (St. Petersburg, 1848): Smirnoff, Istoria rtt^skikh starorierykh Raskolnikoff (St. Petersburg, 1893).
Andrew J. Shipman.
Rass, Andreas, Bishop of Strasburg, b. at Sigols- heim in upper Alsace, 6 April, 1794; d. at Strasburg, 17 November, 1S87. After receiving his classical training at Schlettstadt and Nancy, Rass studied philosophy and theology at the seminary at Mainz under Liebermann and was ordained priest in 1816, At first he was a teacher in the seminary for boys at Mainz. In 1S22 he received the degree of doctor from the theological faculty of Wiirzburg. Wien Lieber- mann left Mainz for Strasburg Rass was made, in lS2o, director of the seminary at Mainz and professor of dogmatics at the same place. After failing to be elected Bishop of Mainz in 1S2S, on account of the opposition of the Hessian Government, he had charge for a short time of the theological seminary at Mols- heim; in 1S29 he became superior of the seminary for priests at Strasburg and professor of dogmatics, theology, and homiletics. On 5 August, 1S40. he was made coadjutor Bishop of Strasburg with the right of succession, and was consecrated on 14 February, 1S41. In 1842 he became Bishop of Stra,sburg. As bishop he devoted himself particularly to the training of the clergj- and the extension of religious societies. He was one of the most determined defenders of Papal Infallibility at the Vatican Council. His declaration in 1874 in the German Reichstag that the Treaty of Frankfort was recognized by the Catholics of Alsace and Lorraine did much to shatter the gi-eat popularity he had until then enjoyed among his fellow-country- men of Alsace.
In his earlier years, before he was raised to the epis- copate, Riiss showed great and verj- creditable activ- ity as an author. One undertaking which is much to his honour is the founding, with Nicholas Weis, of the "Katholik" at Mainz in 1821. In the years 1819-39, also with the aid of Weis, he published a large number of works, chiefly translations and revisions of French and English originals. Among the most important of these are Alban Butler's "Leben der Vater und MiirtNTcr" (20 vols., Mainz, 1823-26; 2nd ed., 23 vols.," 183S-40); a brief summary of this work: "Leben der HeiligenGottes" (4vols., Mainz, 1826 — ); later, completelv revised bv J. Holzwarth (2 vols., Mainz, 18,54—);' 13th ed. (1903); another was the "Bibliothek der katholischen Kanzelberedsamkeit" (IS vols., Frankfort. 1829-36), Riiss also brought about the German translation of the "Annalen der Verbreitung des Glaubens", which he edited, and in this wav did much to promote the interest in missions to the heathen. During his episcopate Riiss published his well-known and most important work: "Die Con- vertiten seit der Reformation nach ihrem Leben und aus ihren Schriften dargestellt " (13 vols, and index, Freiburg. 1S66-S0).
Bernhard (pseudon\-m for Grr.RBER), Andreas RSss. Bi- tchof ton Slrassbum (WQrzhurg, 1873) in the senes "DeiUsch- lands Episcopat in Lebensbildern ", I, pt. IV) ; Rass, Mgr A. Rass. Moue de Strasbourg, biographicsl notice in Retue calholiqM d'.Alsace. new series, XXI (1901). sqq ; R-iss, Andrf Rass ft Ourrf de la propagation de la foi (Rixheim, Strasburg, 1902),
Friedrich Lauchert.
