Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/236

Rh erosity of all her subjects for the general good. Great public misfortunes level minor distinctions and draw together communities suffering from a common evil; the people responded heartily to their sovereign's call, regardless of class or creed, and among the first to offer their services were the Feodocians.

This sect, named from its founder, Feodoceï, was an offshoot from the Pomortsi, or Dwellers by the seashore, a very numerous branch of the Bezpopovtsi, inhabiting the region between the great lakes and the White Sea. It seceded from the main body, whose centre was at Vygoretsk, on the river Vyg, early in the eighteenth century, on account of the extreme violence and ultra nature of the opinions of its adherents and their fanatical enthusiasm.

About 1737 it first appeared at Moscow, where it labored secretly, but most earnestly, to propagate its doctrines, which were eminently hostile to the government, and maintained the principle of resistance to the tsar as Antichrist. Its efforts were crowned with such measure of success as to render it one of the most influential of the many sects of the Bezpopovtsi.

Its leaders, shrewd and astute men, saw their opportunity in the public distress, and, masking an ulterior purpose under the guise of solicitude for the general welfare, begged permission to contribute to the measures of relief, and offered to create, at their own expense, hospitals for their sick, and to give burial to their dead. Other sects of the Bezpopovtsi joined with them, and the Popovtsi followed the example. Charitable impulses, always strong and easily aroused among the Russian people, were stimulated by the evident contingent advantages likely to accrue, and which the Raskolniks, from their greater spirit of initiative and intelli-