Khlysts
Khlysts or Khlysty (Хлысты in Russian), was an underground sect in the late 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th century that split off the Russian Orthodox Church and belonged to the Spiritual Christians (духовные христиане) tenency. 'Khlyst', the name commonly applied to them, is a distortion of they name they used; the original name was the invented word Христоверы (Khristovery, "Christ-believers") or Христы (Khristy); their critics corrupted the name, mixing it with the word хлыст (khlyst), meaning "a whip".
It is said to have been founded by a peasant, Daniil Filippovich (or Filippov), of Kostroma. The Khlysty renounced priesthood, holy books and veneration of the saints. They believed in a possibility of direct communication with the Holy Spirit and of its embodiment in living people. Curiously enough, they allowed their members to attend Orthodox churches. The central idea of Khlystys' ideology was to practise asceticism. Khlysty practiced the attainment of divine grace for sin in ecstatic rituals (called радения, or radeniya) that were rumored to sometimes turn into sexual orgies[citation needed]. Flagellation was also rumored, possibly due to the similarity of their name to the word for "whip".[citation needed]
Secret Khlysty cells existed throughout pre-revolutionary Russia (with approximately 40,000 followers in toto); they were most common in the factories of the Perm district. Each cell was normally led by a male and a female leader, who were called the "Christ" and the "Mother of God" respectively.
Grigori Rasputin was reputed to have, at some stage, been a Khlyst, and to have led some sort of secret Khlysty cell among the society ladies of Saint Petersburg.
The number of sectarians dropped drastically in the Soviet times. However, a few secluded Khlysty communities existed in Soviet Russia in Tambov, Kuibyshev, Orenburg and Northern Caucasus and in Soviet Ukraine.