Kunama's Quotes Page

The Dukhobortsy, or 'Fighters for the Spirit' emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century, also probably from the Khlysty. Their theology was vague. They taught that human souls had been created before corporal bodies. Some, having sinned before the creation of the world, were punished by being cast into the material world without recollection of what had gone on before. All rituals and all institutions are the products of original sin. The Dukhobors also believed in Christ 'entering' the souls of living people.

Aided by Leo Tolstoy, they migrated early in the twentieth century to Canada where they have distinguished themselves by spectacular acts of civil disobedience.

Page 239, Russia under the Old Regime, by Richard Pipes; published by Fletcher & Son Ltd, Norwich in Great Britain