Khlyst

[William Ryan]

Daniel, you say:

    There were self-flagellants who practiced their masochism in
    private, and others who flagellated themselves in groups.  In either
    case the imitation of Christ is clear.

You use the term masochism to label individual self-flagellants (but 
then immediately suggest a motivation other than pleasure and with no 
obvious sexual component). By implication in your first sentence you 
apply the term also to the group practices. Do you think that the term 
masochism, in any of its many definitions, is admissible with reference 
to whole communities practising penitential rites? Some of the Khlyst 
practices you describe below have no element of pain (e.g. prostration), 
and those that do (e.g. flagellation) are, as you yourself describe, 
related to specific historical renactment , i.e. the imitation of 
Christ. The possible spectrum of discomfort experienced by penitents, 
ranging from fasting or abstention from particular foods to suffering 
physical pain, is very extensive and has an overt external motivation in 
the history of the religion of the penitent, and often a collective 
social context. It is hard to see how, for example, the common 
penitential practices in this season of Lent, e.g. fasting or abstaining 
from a favorite food or drink, can be pleasurable to an individual 
Christian, still less how it can be pleasurable to a whole community 
simultaneously. A psychiatrist may perhaps label as a masochist a single 
individual who inflicts pain on himself , but there may be many possible 
motivations other than (sexual) pleasure, especially in the religious 
context, and surely this cannot be extended to socially sanctioned, 
perhaps even prescribed practices of entire communities? Perhaps a label 
too far?

Will Ryan


Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> My thanks to all of you who have responded with generous suggestions 
> concerning the origin of "Khlyst."  Many of the the references you 
> mentioned were of course familiar - hence the problem, for they 
> contradicted one another in various ways.
>
> The issue comes up in the context of current research on the sign of 
> the cross in the history of Christianity.  For the time being I have 
> placed the Khlysty alongside medieval flagellant brotherhoods in 
> Western Europe as follows:
>
>> There were self-flagellants who practiced their masochism in private, 
>> and others who flagellated themselves in groups.  In either case the 
>> imitation of Christ is clear.  Among the indications that the public 
>> self-flagellants were imitating Christ was an oath many of them swore 
>> to scourge themselves in public procession for exactly thirty-three 
>> and one half days � this number replicating the supposed number, in 
>> years, which Christ lived on earth.[1]  Cruciform imagery also 
>> characterized the self-flagellant movements.  Cohn writes that the 
>> self-flagellants called themselves � among other things � 
>> �Cross-bearers� or �Brethren of the Cross.�  They wore uniforms with 
>> a red cross front and back, and caps or hoods marked with crosses.  
>> In one ritual they would throw themselves face down and lie 
>> motionless with arms outstretched in the form of a crucifix (a 
>> similar practice can also be found at other times and in other places 
>> in the Christian world).[2]  Some of the self-flagellants also 
>> allegedly claimed that
>>
>>
>>
>> . . . Christ himself had shown them his bleeding wounds and bidden 
>> them go out and beat themselves.  Some even said openly that no 
>> shedding of blood could be compared with theirs save that at the 
>> Crucifixion, that their blood blended with that of Christ, that both 
>> had the same redemptive power.[3]
>>
>>
>>
>> Strictly speaking, any assertion made about the redemptive 
>> significance of self-flagellation would have to be heretical in a 
>> Roman Catholic context, and it is not surprising that the organized 
>> self-flagellant groups were formally condemned and prohibited by Pope 
>> Clement VI in 1349, and that some particularly grandiose 
>> self-flagellants were later persecuted by the Inquisition.[4]  
>> Similarly heretical claims in an Eastern Orthodox context were also 
>> made, for example by various Russian sectarians such as the Khlysts 
>> (from khlyst, meaning whip or switch) starting in the second half of 
>> the seventeenth century, some of whom actually claimed to be 
>> Christ.[5]  The Khlysts too were formally condemned, for example at a 
>> 1733 trial in Moscow which resulted in the beheading of Khlyst 
>> leaders.[6]
>>
>>
>> [1]   Cohn 1970, 130, 133, 136; Lambert 2002, 242.
>>
>> [2]   Cohn 1970, 133; cf. Gougaud 1927, 13; Bailly 1964, 397; Bynum 
>> 2007, 35; Etkind 1998, 44.
>>
>> [3]   Cohn 1970, 137.
>>
>> [4]   Bailly 1964, 398-400.
>>
>> [5]   Etkind 1998, 49-53.
>>
>> [6]   Bulgakov 1993 (1913), vol. II, 1668.
>>
>
>
> With regards to the list,
>
> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
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