RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Dn Guet Dulia
This curious secretiveness, the outcome of much persecution, still remains characteristic of the clan. They systematically throw dust in the eyes of all inquirers as to the nature of their internal government; and this has led to endless confusion and misunderstandings among those who, lacking the real clue to the situation, have attempted to study the sect. Kapoustin established community of property, and maintained that system for many years; but ultimately he terminated it in a manner which left him and his family in control of large communal estates. His immediate successors, his son and grandson, supported by an oligarchy of thirty elders, grossly misbehaved and appear to have terrorized their opponents by a series of secret assassinations carried on under the maxim; " Whoso denies his God shall perish by the sword."
In 1841-44 the Russian Government, after a prolonged investigation into these crimes, banished the sect to the Caucasus. Here they lived quiet,
industrious lives till the death of
Peter L. V- Kalmikova, who had succeeded
Verigin. to power on the death of her husband,
Peter, the great-grandson of Kapoustin. This woman had shown favor to a young man, Peter Verigin, who belonged to the ruling family, and whom she probably intended to appoint as her successor. However, after a quarrel with him she died suddenly, without having made the appointment, and strife broke out in the sect. The maj ority acknowledged Peter Verigin as leader, but an influential minority (including those who had managed affairs under Kalmikova) refused to do so. The Russian authorities, in 1887, banished Verigin to Archangel for five years, and at the end of that time sent him to Siberia. In exile Verigin became acquainted with Leo Tolstoy's teaching; and, recognizing in it much that corresponded to the original Dukhobor doctrines, he " advised " (his advice amounting to a command) his followers to rename themselves " The Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood"; further (1) to refuse military service; (2) to divide up their property equally; (3) to cease killing animals for food, and abstain from intoxicants and tobacco; (4) 'to refrain from sexual relations during their time of tribulation (i.e. , during the persecution which arose in connection with his leadership). About this time Tolstoy made the acquaintance of some of Verigin's adherents; and, being misled by them as to the real state of the case, wrote a series of articles which ignored the fact of Verigin's theocratic authority, and represented the Dukhobors as an example of a sect of peaceful anarchists, who conducted their affairs without a government of any kind, except that of their own reason and conscience. Verigin's advice led to a fresh split in the sect. Nearly half his followers, finding his demands too severe, seceded, while the rest accepted them and entered on a campaign of passive resistance against conscription for army-service.
In 1898 the loyal Veriginite Dukhobors were allowed to migrate to Canada, and, having secured from the Canadian government a pledge that they ehould be exempt from all forms of conscription,
7,363 of them arrived there in 1899. Verigin being
still in exile, and they being unwilling or unable
without him to decide on what lines
The Du- the new life should be arranged, great khobors in confusion arose, leading ultimately to
Canada, a strange pilgrimage which set out to meet Verigin when the news of his release from Siberia was at last received. After his arrival in Canada, in 1902, the clan gave the government less difficulty; but owing to their unwillingness to own allegiance to any one but Verigin, and their consequent reluctance to become British subjects, there was still some friction. More than 1,000 Dukhobors have now broken away from Verigin's community, and the superstitious reverence for him has much decreased. It is only the more ignorant members, especially some of the women and children, who still regard him as a superman.
The Dukhobors are remarkably honest, sober, temperate, and frugal, and they are also generally industrious, well-mannered, self-respecting, and hospitable to strangers. Their differences with the Canadian government have all pivoted on the question of Verigin's leadership, and have been increased by the extraordinary duplicity and mendacity which they never scruple to practise in order to screen their leader from responsibility for the consequences of actions they take at his prompting. Allowance should, however, be made for the difficulties experienced by members of a sect-clan who had always been accustomed to a communal or semicommunal way of life in which public affairs were managed for them, and who suddenly found themselves in a land of individual enterprise and democratic institutions, the laws and language of which they did not understand.
Aylmer Maude.
Bibliography: The only full account yet published is by A. Maude, A Peculiar People : the Doukhobors, New York, 1904. Further references are: Stepniak, The Russian Peasantry, London, 1894; Christian Martyrdom in Russia, ed. V. Tchertkoff, with chapter by L. Tolstoy, ib. 1897; L. Tolstoy, in London Daily Chronicle, Apr. 29, 1898; idem, Essays and Letters, in World's Classics Series, ib. 1903; J. Elkinton, The Doukhobors, their Hist, in Russia, their Migration to Canada, Philadelphia, 1903 (better on the Canadian episode than in the other part). Material is also to be found in: Life . of William
Allen, London, 1847; Life . of Stephen Grellett, ed. Seebohm, ib. 1862; Canadian Magazine, xx (1903), 211 sqq. The fully authoritative work on the sect in Russia will be K. K. Grass, Die russischen Sekten, vol. iii.; Leipsic, not yet out. Consult also the literature under Russia.
DULCINO, DULCINISTS. See Dolcino.
DULIA (Latinized form of the Gk. douleia, " servitude, service "): The name technically applied in Roman Catholic theology to the veneration accorded to the saints and angels, and sharply distinguished (in kind, not alone in degree) from latria (Gk. latreia), or the worship due to God alone. Hyperdulia is a somewhat higher degree of veneration paid to the Virgin Mary on account of her intimate relation to God. Dulia is expressed by external acts of reverence and by invocation, and may be extended, in the former shape at least, to objects closely connected with the saints, such as their garments and other relics and their images, which
Dulles Dun in