Sects (entry)

Categories / Religion. Church/Religious Faiths
SECTS, religious associations, which do not belong to any of the worldwide religious confessions. A considerable group is comprised of Protestant sects. The most numerous sect of St. Petersburg before 1917 were Evangelical Christian Baptists. In 1880, the Baptist House of Prayer was opened in Bolshaya Podyacheskaya Street. In 1884, the first congress of Evangelical Christians and Baptists of Russia was held in St. Petersburg. Soon Baptist sermons were prohibited, in 1905 they received permission to operate. From 1911, the House of the Gospel functioned in St. Petersburg (at 11 Twenty-Fourth Line of Vasilievsky Island). In 1924, Baptists and Evangelic Christians merged their churches together (by the middle of the 1920s, they had at their disposal more than ten prayer houses). In 1930, the Home of Gospel was closed, and in 1938 – the last House of Prayer in Leningrad was closed. Communities of Evangelical Christian Baptists were revived after the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. In 1962, they acquired the former Orthodox Holy Trinity Church for their services (29a Bolshaya Ozernaya Street). In 1989, the community acquired the former Orthodox Church of the Holy Virgin Intercession to use as a Home of the Gospel (52 Borovaya Street). By 2002, there were also communities of Baptists on Old Peterhof highway, on Mokhovaya Street, in Kolpino, Pushkin, Pavlovsk, Kronschtadt, and Krasnoe Selo (with a total of 4,000 parishioners). Sects of the Gospel faith (Christians of the Holy Spirit) whose house of prayer is located at 13 Slavyanskaya Street, as well as free Christians are close to Baptists. Seventh-Day Adventists who appeared in St. Petersburg in the 1890s are also a Protestant sect. They formed several communities the last of which was liquidated by the Soviet government in May 1938. Having resumed their activities after the war, Adventists consisted of nine communities by 2002 (the community centre located at 85 Toreza Avenue). In the 1990s, the most widely spread of Protestant sects were Jehovah’s Witnesses (their regional centre is located in the village of Solnechnoe; the Kingdom Hall is located at 21 Kolomyazhsky Avenue). By 2002, they had 60 communities with 8,000 members in St. Petersburg. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (otherwise known as the Mormons) is also active with six parishes in St. Petersburg located at 11 Moika River Embankment, 56 Fontanka River Embankment, etc. The Christian Charismatic Word of Life Church has two communities; the Church of New Apostles has one prayer house at 113 Leninsky Avenue. At the beginning of the 20th century there appeared over ten Orthodox communities of Christians for Temperance headed by I. Churikov ("adherents of Churikov"). Their movement was destroyed in 1929-30; a small community of Christians for Temperance was revived in the early 1990s. At that time there appeared the so-called Centre of Our Lady with the main community in Kuznetsovskaya Street, and a separate retreat in the village of Mentsary on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. The so-called White Brotherhood has Russian-Ukrainian origin (its centre is located on Poklonnaya Hill). The sects of Eastern origin in St. Petersburg include followers of the faith of Bachhai (Bacchaists), the Society of the Mind of Krishna (Hare Krishnas) – with the centre at 58 Angliisky Avenue, the sect of Aun Senreke which had been active at the beginning of the 1990s and Moonists (follows of the Korean founder S. Moon).

Reference: Буткевич Т. И. Обзор русских сект и их толков с изложением их происхождения, распространения и вероучения и с опровержением последнего. 2-е изд., испр. и доп. Пг., 1915; История евангельских христиан-баптистов в СССР. М., 1989; Из истории церкви Адвентистов седьмого дня в России. Калининград, 1993; Гордиенко Н. С. Российские свидетели Иеговы: история и современность. СПб., 2000.

M. V. Shkarovsky. Churikov Ivan Alexeevich
Moon S.
24th Line of Vasilievsky Island/Saint Petersburg, city, house 11
Angliisky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 58
Bolshaya Ozernaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 29, litera л. А
Borovaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 52
Fontanka River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 56
Kolomyazhsky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 21
Kuznetsovskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Leninsky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 113
Moika River Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 11
Mokhovaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Slavyanskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Staro-Petergofsky Ave/Saint Petersburg, city
Thorez Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 85
История евангельских христиан-баптистов в СССР. М., 1989
Из истории церкви Адвентистов седьмого дня в России. Калининград, 1993
Гордиенко Н. С. Российские свидетели Иеговы: история и современность. СПб., 2000 Brotherhood of Sobriety Dedicated to Alexander Nevsky