Doukhobors

Who are the Doukhobors? 

The Doukhobors are a group of Russian language-speaking religious dissenters who migrated to Canada in 1899. Today there are between 30,000 and 40,000 Doukhobors in Canada, and another 30,000 in Russia. They had been persecuted in tsarist Russia for their religious beliefs, which included the conviction that pacifism and non-compliance with militarism is essential to Christian practice because the law of God is greater than the laws of a secular state. These convictions culminated in the 1895 Burning of Arms in Russia, when Doukhobors destroyed their weapons and refused, despite tsarist persecutions, to serve in the Russian army. This protest might have been the first organized pacifist group protest in modern history.

The Doukhobors practice a form of Christianity and believe that Jesus Christ is a spiritually advanced teacher and example to others. They also believe that people are capable of divine reason and can spiritually develop without the help of intermediaries. For them, therefore, there is no need for priests, religious ceremonies, spiritual symbols or temples of worship, although there have been leaders among the Doukhobors who have exercised considerable authority. The only symbols Doukhobors commonly recognize are those of bread, salt and water, the basic elements needed to sustain life.  These are on a table at all Doukhobor meetings and important events.

The Doukhobors have at times participated in communal living and, like the Mennonite, Quaker and Hutterite groups, in the practices of pacificism, hard work and simplicity in all things.  One of their slogans, coined by one of their leaders, Peter V. Verigin, summarizes this belief as "Toil and Peaceful Life."  Instead of dependence on a written book such as the Bible, the Doukhobors sing a capella psalms, spiritual songs and hymns in Russian at their prayer meetings and gatherings.  These are sometimes based on the psalms of the Old Testament, but others were composed by Doukhobors from the eighteenth century onward.   Other psalms and hymns are about Doukhobor history and beliefs. Together, these psalms, hymns and spiritual songs are called "Zhivotnaya Kniga," or in English, The Living Book.  

Because many of their members originally only recognized the authority of God before recognizing the authority of the secular state, the Doukhobors did not always experience peaceful life, although as peasants and migrants they certainly knew about toil.   Tsarist governments in Russia kept Doukhobors on the move for more than a century to the furthest reaches of the Russian empire, and the persecution that Doukhobors endured in Russia just before coming to Canada was severe. In Canada, a series of difficulties led to conflict with Canadian authorities which twice left Doukhobors without the land they worked hard to develop:  once in Saskatchewan, and once in the Kootenay region of British Columbia. Radical movements such as the Sons of God early in the twentieth century or the Sons of Freedom (svobodniki) from the 1930s onward sometimes developed unusual forms of protesting problems some Doukhobors had within their communities and with provincial and federal government policies.

Today, most Doukhobors do not live communally, although many of the most active of them still live in the Kootenays and do participate in Doukhobor organizations and groups.