Filippovtsy

the adherents of a nonconformist religious sect that constituted an offshoot of bespopovshchina (priestlessness) during the schism. The Filippovtsy emerged in the early 18th century among the chernososhnye peasants (those directly dependent on a feudal government, rather than on a single landowner) of northern European Russia. The founder of the sect was the fugitive strelets (semiprofessional musketeer) Filipp (1672–1742), whose followers left a community of Old Believers in Pomor’e in 1737 and established a small monastery in Karelia. Persecuted by the state and the official church, the Filippovtsy occasionally resorted to self-immolation as a means of defending their faith. The dogma of the Filippovtsy resembled that of the Fedoseevtsy (see) but entailed stricter rites. The Filippovtsy were fanatically intolerant of other sects of Old Believers. As social inequality developed among them, they abandoned such practices as self-immolation and celibacy. By the end of the 18th century, they had begun to pay state taxes, which they had previously refused to recognize. There are a few isolated communities of Filippovtsy in the USSR.