*** The most zealous younger Spiritual Christians insisted that their tribal rituals, songs, prayers, and books were God-sent, and must replace the New Testament, and must be used by other Spiritual Christian faiths.
It was this
challenge to older leadership — plus the desire to find ways
and means to control the needless, and at times, acrimonious
debates during religious
meetings church services that, in the summer of
1932, concurrent with the publication of
Pilgrims of
Russia-Town, prompted
- the Prygun Selimskaia congregation (Vasili T. Sussoyeff, presbyter),
- the Prygun Karmolinovskaia or Bechanakskaia (Buchanak village) congregation (Nikifor A. Uraine, presbyter) and
- the Prygun Ol'shanskaia congregation (David P. Meloserdoff, presbyter)
to combine into one
large congregation (bolshoi sobranie
: big meeting, Americanized as "Big Church") with a
bold new concept in Prygun Molokan church
government, a concept that eventually caused a major reshuffle
of congregation church
membership affecting not only the congregations of Los Angeles
but also all the congregations in the outlying communities —
Arizona as well as the San Joaquin valley.
Mixed and intermarried among the above 3 Prygun
congregations were real Molokane, like my
grandmother Parasha Susoeff-Conovaloff in Arizona, who
married a Pryguny but was allowed to remain Molokan
in belief because Pryguny also kept the Molokan
holidays. In contrast, members of Berokoff's Podval
(Klubnikin, presbyter) congregation and the Melikoi-Prokhadnoe
congregation were much more zealous, due to influence from
their Maksimist, Klubnikinist, Novyy
israil', Sionist, etc. believers, who rejected
the Molokan holidays, and condemned the 3
congregations that united because they had a required board
of directors, and a religious committee.
Can anyone explain why there was no Nikitino
congregation, from the village of M.G. Rudomyotkin now
in Armenia, the Maksimist faith dominated the most
zealous tribes in Los Angeles from Kars Oblast, now in
Turkey.
While most Molokan
families moved to San Francisco and northern
California, a minority of Molokane in Los Angeles and
Southern California were outnumbered, and probably confused,
by about a dozen different zealous Spiritual Christian faiths
from Russia that were not Molokane but insisted on
the Malakan or "Molokan" label for themselves and
everyone else, as first advised by P.A. Demens. The Molokan
identity was hijacked into a religious chaos.
Some Molokan
families, and Molokan
spouses married to a Prygun,
remained with the Spiritual Christians by joining the
most liberal new "Big Church" where they could find more
like-minded friendships and mates, and socialize separately
from the most zealous members of the other Dukh-i-zhiznik congregations. A
few Molokane got
the Holy Spirit and some became believers in the divinity of
Rudomyotkin. The Maksimist congregations
could not accept the Prygun
holidays and hated the original Molokane among them, so
they remained separated from "Big Church" to this day, while
they forced "Big Church" to convert to the Maksimist rituals and
books. It was like a huge strong tail wagging a weak dog. The
very vocal,
aggressive zealous minority persistently tried to rule the
majority until it eventually wore them out, and chased the
Americanized Christians away.
[PAGE 104] The three united Prygun congregations comprised a total membership of over 500 families in the 1930s and 700 in the 1960s. (I examined the registration cards in the 1960s.) This, large membership, of course, required a large building, so it was decided to purchase a site on 1714 East Third Street, between Bodie and Pecan Streets, where, in late summer of 1932, building operations were begun on a large handsome building for which a sum of money was enthusiastically subscribed. This site is now at the north end of 3rd Street east of Pecan Street, at the landscape bank of the I-5 Freeway. See the Google Map Street View (July 2012).
Map adapted from Sanborn Insurance Co., Los Angeles 1930, Volume 4, Sheet 1424, Geography Map Library, California Sate University, Northridge (CSUN). The new building had gas radiator heating, no chimney ("NO CH"), and electric lights. The dots along the outside wall corners of the building indicate brick construction (Sanborn Keys & Colors, Geography & Map Reading Room, Library of Congress website, Washington D.C.)
I first learned of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps in the late 1970s when Herb Fox, Map Librarian at California State University, Fresno, showed me the huge map books that just arrived for Fresno city. Herb helped me find many maps for my research, including those published in the 1980 Молокан Directory. He told me the Los Angeles Sanborn maps were at the Cal-State University, Northridge (CSUN) Geography Department, which I visited during summer break. I found all the Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles maps stacked about 6 feet high in a small closet in the Geography Department, and the director was away for the summer. Staff showed me one book of the Flats, and I realized the books were very large, heavy and pages were too wavy (not flat) to photocopy. I would have to either trace each map, or print high resolution photos with a camera and money I did not have. Tracing would take about a month. I wish I traced them then to show to elders in Los Angeles before they died, to identify and relate stories. That history is lost. Previously I tried to map the Flats with a few elders (my relatives and others) to try to get them to draw a map of their childhood neighborhood. Their maps and memory were terrible. Later Harry Shubin managed to roughly draw a few maps on his own. I also drove a few elders through the Flats to point out buildings, which we did several times, but I had no easy way to document what they were pointing at and describing. About 2000, I went back to CSUN to photograph these maps with my new digital camera, a tripod and a lamp, but the photos were not satisfactory. The map librarians suggested that they could make high resolution photos because they were planning to digitize them, and I could purchase the first images. I ordered about 261 high resolution images for about $2,000. Months later in 2014 they sent me the images for Bethlehem, Boyle Heights to East Los Angeles, covering 1906 through 1940. About 2020, these images which I helped fund, went online. Read how the original maps were saved: Historical Atlases Rescued from the Trash Could Be a Boon to Historians, by Greg Miller, National Geographic, March 3, 2017.
While
the building project was advancing, a detailed set of by-laws
to govern such a large membership were being worked out by the younger educated men, some who also
co-founded the UMCA in 1926. The fact that
these "Big Church" organizers actually adopted "by-laws"
shows that several leading members understood American
laws of incorporating a non-profit. I suspect that they
may have been advised by the Drs. Young, and maybe other
organized churches. This organization indicated their
Americanization and education. During this
phase of the project the zealous
prophet Afonasi
T. Bezayeff was moved by the Holy Spirit to utter an
unfavorable prophesy concerning the whole new development. He also announced and placed the new Kniga
sontse, dukh i zhizn' on the altar tables. Other
zealous prophets
too, were active in opposition. The Maksimist Ivan
W. Sussoyeff predicted that dire consequences will result from
the union of the three congregations, that they will abandon
some principal tenets of the Dukh-i-zhiznik Molokan faiths. All these predictions
caused a considerable stir and endless discussions in the
community, both pro and contrary.
In Los Angeles upon the 1928 publication of
the Kniga solnste, dukh i zhizn', by 1930, within
the first generation (25 years since immigration in 1905),
the spectrum of different Spiritual Christians from Russia
in Los Angeles clearly separated, mostly by religious
affiliation, into 4 branches, with several divided types and
tribes in each branch:
- Zealous Prygun:
Minimal temporality
structure, Prygun and Maksimist families
who will embrace the Kniga solntse, dukh i zhizn',
avoid the UMCA and support the young peoples' meeting as
their indoctrination venue — 2 congregations: Romanovka
and Melikoi-Prokhladnoe
- Moderate Prygun: Prygun and Molokan
families, incorporated non-profit temporality
organizations (board of directors, committees), supported
the UMCA Sunday school, UMCA annual picnic, youth events,
and YRCA — 3 congregations: "Big
Church", Akhta, Armenian-Prygun
- Other Russian sectarian faiths : Subbotniki, Adventisty, Baptisty,Evangelical
- Assimilated-intermarried : Left
their heritage faiths to joined an "American" church and/
or intermarry, which are reasons for shunning and
excommunication by the most zealous Pryguny.
Due to family ties and friendships in different
branches, many floated among some or all of the above,
probably especially the educated young and curious
unmarried, who not considered a "whole person" until they
were married, then they could join a congregation.
About 1930, upon confrontation
with the spiritual significance of the new Kniga solnste, dukh i zhizn' among
Maksimisty, The First United Christian
Molokan Church of Spiritual Jumpers ("Big Church") could have remained steadfast
(postoyannie) as Pryguny, declared control of
the UMCA, and honestly declared they were of a different
faith than the Maksimisty congregations and Molodoi sobranie. This
would have physically and legally separated these two
branches in Los Angeles, into those "with" and "without" the
new religious text. Instead, leaders decided to somewhat
tolerate each other by all pretending to accept the ritual
books of the emerging compromised Dukh-i-zhiznik faiths as if they were all
somewhat of the same faith (in books and ritual), while many members could not accept the
merger of so many different faiths with the new book imposed
upon the Bible. Part of the compromised was to all falsely call
themselves
"Molokans" as
Pyotr Demens did when they began to arrive in large numbers
in 1905. This
socio-political compromise gave the new tribes of faithful Dukh-i-zhizniki
a strategic
permanent foothold inside all American Prygun
congregations, led by a few zealous prophets, while most
youth lacked enough Russian literacy to understand the
religious texts, service, or arguments. The erosion of the Prygun
faith in Los Angeles continued for 20 years until a
large number of Pryguny and Molokane immigrated
from Iran about 1950 and clashed with Dukh-i-zhizniki
and the new book for the first time. The biggest hoax was
that everyone in Southern California falsely called
themselves Molokans, which baffled the arriving Molokan
and Prygun immigrants.
Imagine. If the Kniga
solntse, dukh i zhizn' was rejected by the lessor
zealous congregations (the non-Maksimist half) of the
Pryguny in
Southern California, as it was in Russia, and by 3
congregations outside of Los Angeles — (San Francisco Pryguny,
Mexico (Pryguny + Molokane), Arizona (Selimskaya)
—, these Spiritual Christian congregations could have
delineated their two independent faith groups, rather than
pretending to be the same while uncivilly battling for
control of common ground for generations. In Los Angeles the
Subbotniki, Armenian Pryguny, and Persian Adventisty had no
trouble independently co-existing separately among
Dukh-i-zhizniki and Maksimisty who dismissed them as being
among their cursed "666 false faiths." A similar honest
mutual divorce could have stabilized the Brotherhood of
Spiritual Christians in America by allowing the original Prygun faith to continue to flourish
in both Russian and English, as had occurred among the many
German Anabaptist immigrant faiths. Also, a congregation of
Molokane should have been established in Los Angeles
to allow all descendants a wider choice among their heritage
faiths. Imagine, what if?
Nevertheless, the construction was progressing without a let up and the by-laws were being readied for approval. In February of 1933 it was nearing completion and Sunday the 26th of February was designated as the day of dedication. It was decreed that the first day of the assemblage was to be attended by the membership and their families only.
The appointed day
turned out to he one of those beautiful, pre-spring February
days that Southern California is noted for. The day was warm.
The sun was shining brightly as each individual congregation
assembled at their old premises; The Selimskaia on 357 S. Pecan St. The Ol'shanskaia (Zekhrap, Zagrap)
in the rear alley building on 114 S. Utah St. and the
Karmalinovskaia on 1750 E.
Third St. directly across the street from the new
project. The Ol'shanskaia
(Zekhrap, Zagrap) building became molodoi sobranie —
the young people's meeting ("young church").
Each group was to
regulate their departure so as to arrive at the new church
building at eleven o'clock sharp. Saying their final prayers
at the old locations, each group marched [PAGE
105] through the middle of the
streets with their respective presbyters in the lead holding
the Opened Bible in their hands while the choir was singing
the designated psalm (Psalm 121 "I rejoiced when they said
unto me: 'Let us go unto the house of the Lord'.")
The Spiritual Christians from Russia vary from the traditional Russian greeting in that the guests do not break a piece from the bread, dip it into the salt and eat it during the greeting ceremony, rather follow the person carrying the bread and salt on a towel into the building. This main loaf of bread is may have been taken to the kitchen while the gathering assembled on benches to conduct their first joint meeting, or placed on the altar where it remained during the meeting, and stayed to be eaten during the meal that followed.
No guests or non-members were present during the festivities of the first Sunday's service. The official dedication was to take place the following Sunday. For this event invitations were sent out to all the local congregations as well as to all similar Spiritual Christians from Russia Molokan communities in other cities and town. There is no mention if real Molokane from San Francisco or Northern California were invited.
On the following Sunday (26 February 1933) the new building was overflowing with the invited guests. Large delegations arrived from all outlying communities. Each brought a monetary contribution to help defray the building cost. A large group of local government officials arrived with the mayor of Los Angeles John C. Porter at its head.
The membership of the remaining three [Maksimist] congregations, the Prokhladnaia [Melikoy, Gage Street, Costa Glen], Akhtinskaia [Samarin's, Percy Street, Pioneer Blvd.], and old Romanovskaia [Starie Roman, Blue Top, Clela Street] were sharply divided in their attitude towards the new congregation. [One not listed: Podval, Klubnikin's, Shubin's, Clarence Street, 605, Clark Street.] A majority were in sympathy with it while a good sized [PAGE 106] minority vehemently opposed it and refrained from attending the dedication ceremonies, basing their opposition on the prophesy of [Maksimist] Afonasy Bezayeff who said that the new congregation will be divided into three groups and giving each group a derogatory appellation, further saying that their presbyters, the well respected Vasili T. Sussoyeff and Nikifor A. Uraine, will soon shed tears of repentance. In addition to these there was the prophesy of [Maksimist] Ivan W. Sussoyeff who predicted that the new congregation will eventually reject many ordinances of our forefathers.
[On 10 March 1933, about 2 weeks after the "Big Church" dedication, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake occurred in Long Beach which killed 115 people. Extensive building damage included the Santa Fe "La Grande" train station west of the LA Rivet, south of First Street, where Russian Spiritual Christians arrived in Los Angeles. A new "Union Station" train depot was built May 1939, one kilometer (0.6 mile) north, now a public transportation hub and historic site.]
The position of those who were opposed to the new group ["Big Church"] was strengthened when the by-laws of the United congregation were revealed during the dedication ceremonies.
These by-laws, among other things, provided that the affairs of the congregation were to be governed by several committees as done by most all American churches.* One of these committees was to look after the financial "temporalities" — church property, collect dues, etc., while another committee, which was to be called the "Dukhovny Komitet" (Spiritual Committee), was to oversee the spiritual affairs of the congregation, to settle disputes between members, to deny any recalcitrant member access to church sacraments pending his reconciliation, to appoint proper members to responsible church positions and to maintain order and harmony during services etc. The by-laws also specified that the presbyters and elders were obliged to abide by the decisions of the Komitet in all such matters. If anyone has a copy of these original by-laws, please post.
* Temporalities are the opposite of spiritualities. Religious organizations typically separate their (A) spiritual religious work from their (B) worldly (temporal) legal obligations as a non-profit corporation. "Temporal" because man lives temporarily on earth, but his "Spirit" lives forever. Spiritual pastoral evangelical work (A) should not involve the business end (B). But, when televangelists pray for a miracle that you will "tithe 10%", "donate now", or will your estate to them, the A-B line becomes blurry. For a good examples of church financial and accounting guidelines see: "Temporalities Manual for Parishes : Accounting and Budgeting Manual for Parishes," Archdiocese of New Orleans, Approved April 2019, 43 pages; and "Temporalities Manual for the Diocese of Beaumont, its parishes/schools/entities", Revised Spring, 2005, 344 pages.This was a clear departure from the traditional [Prygun]
Another innovation that weakened the authority of the presbyters and elders was the rule by which the chief speaker was elected annually for a term of one year, in effect demoting the senior speaker and his colleagues and thus depriving the [PAGE 107] presbyters of one of their traditional duties, that is appointing the speakers as the need arose [for life]. This was the rule that was expected to control the acrimonious debates in the services.
It was claimed by the proponents that such rules were necessary, in fact, indispensable for governing a large congregation and that by relieving the presbyters of the above mentioned minor but onerous duties, they would have more time to minister to the spiritual needs of the congregation.
Be that is it may, it was an innovation, one that was unanimously accepted and approved by the whole congregation and to which the presbyters acquiesced, albeit reluctantly.
However, these new rules planted another seed of discord throughout the whole [Prygun] Molokan brotherhood [, but not the Molokane in Northern California]. To some they appeared as a panacea for all its ills. Elect a Komitet and there will he nothing but harmony in the church henceforth. To others they were anathema, a worldly innovation and were to he resisted at all costs. Eventually all these arguments led to a permanent division in the Prokhladnoye [congregation] church, in the old Romanovskaia and in the Akhtinskaia congregations. The Arizona congregation, small as it was, also split up* and remained divided for [10]
* Originally Arizona had 4 congregations which reduced to 2 when most colonists abandoned their properties and moved to California in the early 1920s after both presbyters were arrested and fined $300 each for not registering marriages, births or deaths. In 1925 the Arizona Prygun Selimskii presbyter Lukian I. Conovaloff (near Tolleson) was considered the most knowledgeable of the Arizona elders, so the Maksimist Darachatskii congregation (near Glendale) invited him to join and lead them, which he did until 1936. The Maksimist ritual book Dukh i zhizn', published in 1928, was not fully supported by Pryguny, which caused tension. In 1936, the State notified the Darachatskii congregation, founded in 1911, to renew their corporate filing, required every 25 years at that time. The State letter was given to Ivan Kulikoff, the most literate, who consulted an attorney in Glendale. They had to hold a corporate meeting, elect a board of directors and file articles of incorporation with the Corporation Commission; or pay 25 years back taxes. The majority reluctantly agreed to avoid payment by incorporating. When incorporation was complete, zealous Maksimisty immediately expelled Kulikoff for his sin of incorporating their congregation, and probably for putting the 666 mark of the beast upon them. The Pryguny supported Kulikoff for obeying the law, and they gladly left along with Conovaloff who remained the Prygun Selimskii presbyter until his death in 1940.In 1936 Fred F. Wren (Uren) became the new Dukh-i-zhiznik presbyter of Darachatskii sobranie. William Alex Tolmachoff sided with the Pryguny, leaving his siblings and wife behind, which was an embarrassment to his extended clan. The 2 congregations co-existed for another 10 years, meeting less than a mile apart, until 1947 when the Darachatskii congregation proposed to invite W.A. Tolmachoff to be their next presbyter AND president of their board of directors. This unconventional idea of combining the "temporal" AND "spiritual" duties into one person merely appeared to solve 2 problems. It seemed to settle the zealous Arizona Dukh-i-zhiznik fears of komitet, it joined the Tolmachoff clan in one congregation to showcase to other congregations that they were now united (somewhat),
but larger problems remained to haunt the hybrid congregation descendants, particularly among those Tolmachoffs with mental illnesses.
In the 2000s several delusional people hate each other in Arizona but forgot why, and invent new reasons or use perversions of their family oral history. Since about 2000, William Mike Shubin (from Fresno) visited annually coaching his wife's nieces, married to Jack W. Tolmachoff's sons (The Cowboys), to attack the Maksimisty and remove their Satanic books, which they did, and illegally forged their names on state corporate papers and locked others out of the building and cemetery. Some stole money from presbyter John J. Conovaloff]
For several years the feelings were so strong that there was very little fraternization between the two sides [of Pryguny and Maksimisty, though both were sitting at the same table with the Dukh i zhizn']. But with the passing of the years it was shown that laws were only as strong as the will of the people to obey them. It was also shown that a strong presbyter was able to veto the komitet if he felt that the latter's acts were contrary to common sense or to the [Dukh-i-zhiznik] traditions
It was also being realized by both sides that the brotherhood at best was not so numerous nor so strong that, divided, each side could stand up against the onslaughts of the world, that there were problems requiring common, united action for their [PAGE 108] solution. Especially was this true when in 1940, as a result of the expansion of the European war into a world wide conflict, the United States Congress passed the Selective Service Act requiring all men between the ages of 18-45 to register for military service.
This was one problem that required concerted action of the whole community to uphold its position as religious conscientious objectors. [But what label(s) should they use to identify themselves to the government? Pryguny? Maksimisty? Dukhovnie khristiane pryguny? Russian? Sectarian? Molokan? Spiritual? Christian? Jumper? Holy Jumpers? Users of the Dukh i zhizn'?]
[After the war, the collective Dukh-i-zhizniki refused to pay their CPS debt of $17,0024, forever casting them as "deadbeats," and tarnishing their reputation as a honest "peace church."]
Spiritual
Christian History
Spiritual Christians Around
the World