The MolokansA little-known sect on Potrero Hillby George John Poppin
It is the Sobranie, the meetinghouse, the place where a religious sect of Russian-American Protestants known as Molokans congregate to worship God. The story of the Molokan community in San Francisco is one of those curious chapters in the City's history that gets "curiouser and curiouser" the more you look. Chances are you never heard of them; yet a sizable number of Molokans have lived on the same part of Potrero Hill for over 70 years. The Molokans, which in Russian means "Milk Drinkers," came to San Francisco, via Galveston, Texas, in 1905. In Russia they had long been a persecuted minority, since Orthodoxy was very nearly the state religion. From their founding in 1765 until 1805 they had met only in strict secrecy. Czar Alexander I granted them religious freedom in 1805, but unofficial persecution continued. When the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 brought the prospect of military conscription to the pacifist Molokans, they decided it was time to leave. About 5000 [more like 3000] came in a group to the United States that year and settled mainly in Los Angeles and on San Francisco's Potrero Hill, which at that time was relatively barren and uninhabited. Many early settlers worked at the Torres Rag Factory at the foot of the hill. Others worked as stevedores. In 1917-18 another large group arrived, fresh from the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. The last sizable integration of Molokans came in the late Thirties, escaping the Chinese Revolution [via Harbin, China]. Since the Church won't allow an outsider access to its official archives it is impossible to determine just how many Molokans have lived on the hill at any one time. Today, roughly 500 remain in San Francisco. What's remarkable about the Molokans, and sets them apart from the majority of their fellow countrymen in San Francisco, is that they have tenaciously held to the old ways. To see an elderly Molokan couple on the street is to be jettisoned back to turn-of-the-century Russia. The old men sport long, flowing beards and wear the traditional Russian shirt: high, round collar and buttons halfway down the left breast. His wife may be wearing an ankle-length white dress with elaborate hand embroidery around the cuffs and the neck and down the front, and an embroidered white veil. The younger women wear dresses no less elaborate, but compromise with modernity to the extent of having them knee length and colored. Sunday brings out the finest attire, though the older Molokans dress traditionally every day. San Francisco was permitted to attend a Sunday thanksgiving service, including a banquet following, with one stipulation: no cameras inside the church. Many of the members had been fasting for the three preceding days and attending evening prayer meetings. The service was conducted entirely in Russian, which is the primary, and in some cases, the only language of the Molokans. The minister is a man elected by the congregation to lead the meeting, though most of the church elders participate in the service. The entire two-hour service is devoid of all ritual, in keeping with their belief that salvation is achieved through a personal relation with God, not via rituals or symbols. which explains the absence of any crosses or icons in the church. The longest part of the meeting consisted of elders who each read passages of gospel, followed by brief commentaries and interspersed with beautiful hymns, which the entire congregation chants. The high point of the meeting occurs near the end when most of the elders, men and women, rise from their benches, chant a solemn hymn and proceed to atone for their sins through open weeping and wailing. That done, noses blown, eyes dried, they sing a few more hymns while the younger men remove the benches and set up long tables for the banquet. The meal was a feast of traditional food served in a traditional manner. The Molokans continue to use carved, wooden spoons to sup the cabbage borsht, and the salad, prepared on the table, is eaten on bread like an open sandwich. Tea is taken with a spoon rather than drunk from the glass, and the meat course, served on a large platter set in the middle of the table, is taken in small and repeated quantities and again often eaten on bread. The women are responsible for preparing the salads, serving the borsht, cutting the meat and preparing the fruit. Throughout the meal different people rise to either read from the Bible or offer prayers. A young man acts an official "admonisher" throughout to see that everyone listens to the speakers. The meal lasts for an hour, then more hymns are sung and Bible reading offered. The younger members tended to drift away, leaving the elders to continue the meeting alone. Outside, the young and middle-aged gathered to have their pictures taken and tell us about their church, while the solemn chanting continued inside the walls. Except for the remarkably beautiful dresses and the high-collared shirts, they many have been any second- or third-generation group of Americans. They're relatively affluent, educated, and most of them speak respectable English. The children, of course, speak better English than Russian. They're proud of their traditions, though the younger people seem to value them mostly for their uniqueness. They're well aware that with the passing of the older generation, the traditions will also pass into obscurity, as many of them already have. As the children marry into non-Molokan families they find new, European-American religions. The sect is slowly diminishing, at least in San Francisco, and the young Molokans acknowledge the fact with only a hint of regret. Several young, college-educated women with whom we spoke expressed a desire to begin documenting the history and tradition of the church while there is still time. After nearly six hours of prayers and hymns, the elders emerged from the church into the late afternoon sun. The young people had gone their own ways and the elders, bent and wrapped against the November chill, helped one another up and down the steep hill their nearby homes. Vasily Petrovich Semenoff, 83 years old, and his wife Alice stopped to talk briefly with us, mostly through an interpreter. He had come to San Francisco as a young man in 1911, settled on the hill and worked in the shipyards below. In 1923 he had returned to Russia, hoping to stay but, finding conditions intolerable, he returned to the City in 926. He remembered helping to build the church, and he spoke of the old days when meetings were held in private homes. He laughed when we asked him if we could take his picture, and answered, "OK, I am not afraid of nobody." [J.S., San Francisco, before 1975, pgs 29-30] George John Poppin is a retired high school teacher who lives in San Francisco For more about Molokans in San Francisco see:
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Near the crest of
Potrero Hill, [San Francisco] on the
northern slope, the First Russian Christian Molokan Church stands like
an improbable memorial to the ethnic and religious diversity of San
Francisco. The building is plain; but for the sign, in Russian and in
English, over the door it might be anything from an apartment building
to a union hall. The inside is even less suggestive of its real
function. The downstairs is a large room with chalkboards, and upstairs
is a kitchen and another large room, empty but for wooden benches and a
table. No altar, no crucifix, no candles, no stained glass, no pulpit.
The chandeliers suggest that the main room is either unfinished or
being prepared for a paint job, neither of which is true, since it has
been this way since the building was erected in the early Twenties.