Inochentism is a millennialist

Millenarianism

Millenarianism is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed, based on a one-thousand-year cycle. The term is more generically used to refer to any belief centered around 1000 year intervals...

 and Charismatic Christian

Charismatic Christianity

Charismatic Christianity is a Christian doctrine that maintains that modern-day believers experience miracles, prophecy, speaking in tongues, and other spiritual gifts as described in of the Bible...

 sect, split from mainstream Eastern Orthodoxy in the early 20th century. The church was first set up in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

, and was later active in both the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 and Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

. Its founder was Romanian monk Ioan Levizor, known under his monastic name, Inochenţie.

The Inochentists, regarded as heretics by Orthodox denominations, traditionally organized themselves into an underground church, and were once thriving in parts of Bessarabia

Bessarabia

Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....

 region. Inochenţie and his followers were singled out for their alleged preaching of free love

Free love

The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...

 and other controversial tenets, but the movement managed to survive Russian persecution and earned a dedicated following, especially among Romanians

Romanians

The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....

. It went into decline following its leader's death, and, during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, suffered mass deportation to Transnistria

Transnistria (World War II)

Transnistria Governorate was a Romanian administered territory, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, and occupied from 19 August 1941 to 29 January 1944...

. Weakened by Soviet rule, with its anti-religious campaigns

Soviet Anti-Religious Legislation

The Soviet Union had the elimination of religion and its replacement with state atheism as a fundamental ideological goal of the state. While religion was never officially made illegal, the state nevertheless made great efforts towards the goal of eliminating religion. To this end throughout its...

 and Gulag

Gulag

The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...

 deportations, it survives in small communities from the general area of Bessarabia—in Romania, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 and the Republic of Moldova.

Beginnings

The roots of Inochentism relate to Russian rule in Bessarabia (the Bessarabia Governorate

Bessarabia Governorate

Bessarabia was an oblast and later a guberniya in the Russian Empire. It was the eastern part of the Principality of Moldavia annexed by Russia by the Treaty of Bucharest following the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812...

), when the Russian Orthodox Church

Russian Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...

 was prevalent and official. According to Inochentist tradition, Cosăuţi

Cosăuţi

Cosăuţi is a commune in Soroca district, Moldova. It is composed of two villages, Cosăuţi and Iorjniţa....

-born 19-year old Ioan Levizor was sent by his father to carry some papers to the starosta

Starosta

Starost is a title for an official or unofficial position of leadership that has been used in various contexts through most of Slavic history. It can be translated as "elder"...

of the nearby village of Iorjniţa (now both villages are in Moldova). When he passed the chapel marking the place of an ancient monastery, he is alleged to have heard voices saying "Ioan! The time has come! Hurry up!" three times and three days later, while passing by the same place, he saw the Mother of God, an appearance which convinced him to become a Russian Orthodox monk at the nearby Monastery of Dobruşa.

Levizor spent three years at the monastery, where he acted as a holy fool, pretending to be a madman in order to push the others toward spiritual awakening. According to his hagiography, the other monks disliked him and Levizor suffered from this, finding his comfort in the Holy Mother's supernatural visits. Despite of his unpopularity among the monks, his superior Archimandrite

Archimandrite

The title Archimandrite , primarily used in the Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Catholic churches, originally referred to a superior abbot whom a bishop appointed to supervise...

 Porfiri entrusted him with the keys of the monastery, a position from which he used to help those in need, including giving monastery property to the nuns of a nearby convent. In 1897, Levizor left the monastery and wandered across the Russian Empire, moving from monastery to monastery, eventually returning to the Bessarabian Noul Neamţ Monastery, a monastery founded by Romanian Orthodox

Romanian Orthodox Church

The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...

 monks from Neamţ Monastery

Neamt Monastery

The Neamţ Monastery is a Romanian Orthodox religious settlement, one of the oldest and most important of its kind in Romania. It was built in 14th century, and it is an example of medieval Moldavian architecture...

. In 1899, the new Bishop of Kishinev

Archbishop of Chisinau

The archbishop of Chișinău was the head of the Orthodox Church in Bessarabia after its annexation by the Russian Empire.* Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni * Dimitrie Sulima * Irinarkh Popov * Antonie Shokotov...

, Yakov, became more open to the use of Romanian language

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

 in religious contexts. This allowed the creation of a Moldavia

Moldavia

Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

n monastery in Balta

Balta, Ukraine

Balta is a small city in the Odessa Oblast of south-western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Baltsky Raion , and located approximately 200 kilometers from the oblast capital, Odessa...

 (now in Ukraine) dedicated to Feodosie Levitzky, a priest known for his philanthropic activities. It was here that Levizor took the monastic name Inochenţie.

With the Holy Synod

Most Holy Synod

The Most Holy Governing Synod was the highest governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church between 1721 and 1918, when the Patriarchate was restored. The jurisdiction of the Most Holy Synod extended over every kind of ecclesiastical question and over some that are partly secular.The Synod was...

's approval, in 1909, Inochenţie moved Feodosie's remains from the cemetery into the church of the monastery. According to hagiographic accounts, a miracle occurred: the "pharisees" who tormented Feodosie during his life found themselves unable to reach the founder's tomb, and it was only Inochenţie who was able to get there, for which reason the bishop had to ordain him a priest (a simple deacon, story goes, would have not had the proper authority to accomplish that task). Inochenţie used his oratory

Oratory

Oratory is a type of public speaking.Oratory may also refer to:* Oratory , a power metal band* Oratory , a place of worship* a religious order such as** Oratory of Saint Philip Neri ** Oratory of Jesus...

 skills to promote the cult of Feodosie.

Inochenţie's leadership

Inochenţie, a "Heavenly Emperor", began constructing a "New Jerusalem

New Jerusalem

In the book of Ezekiel, the Prophecy of New Jerusalem is Ezekiel's prophetic vision of a city to be established to the south of the Temple Mount that will be inhabited by the twelve tribes of Israel in the...

" in Balta and, by 1911, became known as a miracle worker

Miracle Worker

"Miracle Worker" is the debut single by rock supergroup SuperHeavy from their self-titled debut studio album. It is a reggae/rock song performed by Damian Marley, Joss Stone, and Mick Jagger. It was released on 7 July 2011 as a digital download in the United Kingdom...

. The ensuing phenomenon was a mass religious movement of peasants from various parts of Bessarabia, but also from Podolia

Podolia Governorate

The Podolia Governorate or Government of Podolia, set up after the Second Partition of Poland, comprised a governorate of the Russian Empire from 1793 to 1917, of the Ukrainian People's Republic from 1917 to 1921, and of the Ukrainian SSR from 1921 to 1925.-Location:The Podolian Governorate...

 and Kherson

Kherson Governorate

The Kherson Governorate or Government of Kherson was a guberniya, or administrative territorial unit, in the Southern Ukrainian region, between the Dnieper and Dniester Rivers, of the Russian Empire. It was one of three governorates created in 1802 when the Novorossiya guberniya was abolished...

; scholar Charles Upson Clark

Charles Upson Clark

Charles Upson Clark was a professor of history at Columbia University. He discovered the Barberini Codex, the earliest Aztec writings on herbal medicines extant.-Biography:...

 describes Inochenţie's Balta as a "Moldavian Lourdes

Lourdes

Lourdes is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France.Lourdes is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees, famous for the Marian apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes occurred in 1858 to Bernadette Soubirous...

". The new converts considered Inochenţie the personification of the Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit (Christianity)

For the majority of Christians, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and is Almighty God...

.

The hieromonk was at first encouraged by his monastic superiors, but the Imperial Russian government was alarmed by the political implications and the spread of unorthodox practice, including glossolalia

Glossolalia

Glossolalia or speaking in tongues is the fluid vocalizing of speech-like syllables, often as part of religious practice. The significance of glossolalia has varied with time and place, with some considering it a part of a sacred language...

. Officials brought in psychiatrists to investigate the "Balta psychosis"; their reports had it that Inochentism was either an issue of poor nutrition and lack of education (V. S. Yakovenko) or just charlatanism from its leaders (A. D. Kotsovsky). When the large crowds of Bessarabian Romanians (Moldavians) who gathered around Inochenţie's cloister were identified as a threat, in February/March 1912 he was transferred to a monastery north of Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, in Murmansk

Murmansk

Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...

, Olonets Governorate

Olonets Governorate

The Olonets Governorate or Government of Olonets was a guberniya of north-western Imperial Russia, extending from Lake Ladoga almost to the White Sea, bounded W. by Finland, N. and E. by Arkhangelsk and Vologda, and S. by Novgorod and St. Petersburg...

.

The community of Balta continued to thrive even in the absence of their leader and in December 1912, in response to a letter of Inochenţie, hundreds of Bessarabian peasants sold their belonging to move in with him in Murmansk. On February 5, 1913, the local abbot, Archimandrite Merkuri, called on the authorities to remove Inochenţie and his disciples from the monastery. Within a few days, the Russian Army

Imperial Russian Army

The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...

 arrested Inochenţie, who was sent to prison in Petrozavodsk

Petrozavodsk

Petrozavodsk is the capital city of the Republic of Karelia, Russia. It stretches along the western shore of the Lake Onega for some . The city is served by Petrozavodsk Airport. Municipally, it is incorporated as Petrozavodsky Urban Okrug . Population:...

, while his followers were sent home in a military convoy.

In August 23, 1913, the Holy Synod condemned Inochenţie, whom they found responsible for "spreading demonic and nervous illnesses and even deaths among the people". He remained in prison until he repented; on November 26, 1914, he was released under the supervision of the local bishop. He continued to preach, but in May 1915, he was exiled to Solovetsky Monastery

Solovetsky Monastery

Solovetsky Monastery was the greatest citadel of Christianity in the Russian North before being turned into a special Soviet prison and labor camp , which served as a prototype for the GULag system. Situated on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, the monastery braved many changes of fortune...

, on the White Sea

White Sea

The White Sea is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of...

, living in a skete

Skete

A Skete is a monastic style community that allows relative isolation for monks, but alsoallows for communal services and the safety of shared resources and protection...

 on the remote Anzersky Island. Reportedly, the group preserved a mythical version of these events, which presumes that the church founder died a martyr

Martyr

A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

's death: "In 1914, the Russians set fire to New Jerusalem, and Inochenţie was subject to the most horrifying tortures and torments. For 40 days, he was chained, crowned with thorns

Crown of Thorns

In Christianity, the Crown of Thorns, one of the instruments of the Passion, was woven of thorn branches and placed on Jesus Christ before his crucifixion...

 and made to sit naked on broken glass. The saint's hair and nails were torn out with pliers; and for the course of seven days his left rib was poked at with a spear. Upon seeing that the Holy Prophet has braved all these torments, they proceeded to bury him in the earth, leaving only his head above ground, and for 33 more days they kept feeding him poison. On the fortieth day of torture and martyrdom, the sun went dark, and the saint rose to heaven."

Inochenţie was however freed following the February Revolution

February Revolution

The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...

 of 1917 and returned to Balta, reunifying the movement which had been divided by schismatic infighting during his absence. Together with several hundreds followers, mainly female and Romanian-speaking

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

, he founded a commune

Commune

Commune may refer to:In society:* Commune, a human community in which resources are shared* Commune , a township or municipality* One of the Communes of France* An Italian Comune...

 in Ananiv

Ananiv

Ananiv is a town in Odessa Oblast, Ukraine. It stands on the Tiligul River. Population is 8,723 . The town belonged to MASSR from 1924 to 1940....

 raion. The commune (named Rai or Raiu, "paradise"), was reportedly designed by a Bessarabian German

Bessarabia Germans

----The Bessarabia Germans are an ethnic group who lived in Bessarabia between 1814 and 1940. Between 1814 and 1842, 9000 of them immigrated from the German areas Baden, Württemberg, Alsace, Bavaria and some Prussian areas of modern-day Poland, to the Russian government of Bessarabia at the Black...

, and divided along three streets. It covered some 45 hectares, including a vineyard, orchard and garden, a deep pond used in baptism, a wooden church which could hold 600, a hostel and an inner citadel with a tower. Also featured was an intricate underground complex of galleries: from it, Inochenţie would "ascend to heaven" every evening. These stone "caves" also held private rooms or prayer cells, and were supposedly the most attractive part of the religious complex. Inochenţie died only months later, toward the end of 1917.

In Romanian Bessarabia and Transnistrian deportation

Sources attest that, around 1918, the commune was in the care of Simeon Levizor (Inochenţie's brother), assisted in this task by fellow "Apostle

Apostle

An apostle is a messenger and ambassador.Apostle and apostles may refer to:-Religion:* Apostle , one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, named in the New Testament...

s" Iacob of Dubăsari

Dubasari

Dubăsari is a city in Transnistria, with a population of 23,650. The city is under the administration of the breakaway government of the "Transnistrian Moldovan Republic", and functions as the seat of the Dubăsari sub-district, Transnistria, Moldova.-Name:The origin of the town name is the plural...

 and Ivan of Cosăuţi

Cosăuţi

Cosăuţi is a commune in Soroca district, Moldova. It is composed of two villages, Cosăuţi and Iorjniţa....

.
On September 14, 1920, the monastery was forcefully closed by the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

s, while Inochenţie's family and the leaders of the Inochentists being either killed or arrested and tried in Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

. The Rai establishment continued to function in the 1920s, when Ananiv was included in the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The new Soviet administration tried to transform it into a kolkhoz

Kolkhoz

A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...

named "From Darkness to Light". However, in 1930, the Soviet anti-religious newspaper Bezbozhnik

Bezbozhnik

Bezbozhnik was a monthly anti-religious and atheistic satirical magazine, published in the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1941 by the Society of the Godless. Between 1923 and 1931, there was also a daily newspaper called Bezbozhnik u Stanka...

announced that Inochentism had been stamped out of Soviet Moldavia, noting that the sect was still active in Romanian Bessarabia

Union of Bessarabia with Romania

On , the Sfatul Ţării, or National Council, of Bessarabia proclaimed union with the Kingdom of Romania.-Governorate of Bessarabia:The 1812 Treaty of Bucharest between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empires provided for Russian annexation of the eastern half of the territory of the Principality...

. According to one Romanian account of the mid 1920s, the Inochentists were even making converts in the west and south, among peasants from the "Old Kingdom

Romanian Old Kingdom

The Romanian Old Kingdom is a colloquial term referring to the territory covered by the first independent Romanian nation state, which was composed of the Danubian Principalities—Wallachia and Moldavia...

". By the 1940s, the estimated total of Romanian Inochentists was 2,000. The surviving Inochentist sections in Soviet lands suffered during the Great Purge

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

: all the Inochentist nuns still living at Rai were put to death by the NKVD

NKVD

The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

.

In Romanian territories, the movement became the subject of renewed media and political interest, while coming into conflict with the prevalent Romanian Orthodox Church

Romanian Orthodox Church

The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...

. The new keepers of Inochentist doctrines, described as by "charlatans" by Clark, were self-appointed patriarch

Patriarch

Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...

s, deemed incarnations of the Holy Spirit or Second Comings of Christ. The government perceived the movement as "harmful" for Romanian society and in contradiction with public order, so, in 1925, the Inochentist church was officially banned. In 1926, a church leader was arrested by Romanian authorities as he tried to set up a new congregation in Budeşti

Budeşti, Chişinău

Budești is a commune in Chișinău municipality, Moldova. It is composed of two villages, Budești and Văduleni....

.

During mid 1930, the surviving branches were investigated by the authorities, who took with them field reporters from Dimineaţa daily. The resulting reports were compiled and analyzed by Romanian scholar and racialist

Racialism

Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations. Currently, racialism entails a belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but not necessarily that any absolute hierarchy between the races has been demonstrated by a rigorous and comprehensive scientific process...

 Henric Sanielevici, who focused on their allegations about the Inochentists' sexual promiscuity. At the time, the congregations had resorted to holding mass in Bessarabia's caves, forests and catacombs

Catacombs

Catacombs, human-made subterranean passageways for religious practice. Any chamber used as a burial place can be described as a catacomb, although the word is most commonly associated with the Roman empire...

; since 1928, the church was presided upon by the 35-year-old Neculai Barbă Roşie ("Red Beard"), formerly a Gendarme

Jandarmeria Româna

Jandarmeria Română is the military branch of the two Romanian police forces .The gendarmerie is subordinated to the Ministry of Interior and Administrative Reform and does not have responsibility for policing the Romanian Armed Forces...

 in Cetatea Albă County

Cetatea Alba County

Cetatea-Albă was a county of Romania, in Bessarabia, with the capital city at Cetatea-Albă.-Neighbours:The county neighboured Odessa Oblast of USSR to the east, the Black Sea to the south-east, the counties of Tighina to the north, Ismail to the south and Cahul to the west.-Administration:The...

, and two "eunuch

Eunuch

A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...

s" (Ion Antiminiuc, Ivan Strugarin).

Successive governments continued to issue anti-sectarian directives targeting the church. One such act, passed in 1937 by the Gheorghe Tătărescu

Gheorghe Tatarescu

Gheorghe I. Tătărescu was a Romanian politician who served twice as Prime Minister of Romania , three times as Minister of Foreign Affairs , and once as Minister of War...

 cabinet, prohibited the activities of Inochentists, whom it grouped together with the Old Calendar Orthodox

Old Calendar Romanian Orthodox Church

The Old Calendar Romanian Orthodox Church is an Orthodox Church that uses the old-style Julian calendar. This church was split in 1925 by Metropolitan Glicherie, formerly a member of the Romanian Orthodox Church...

, the Pentecostals

Pentecostal Union of Romania

The Pentecostal Union of Romania is Romania's fourth-largest religious body and one of its eighteen officially recognised religious denominations. At the 2002 census, 330,486 Romanians declared themselves to be Pentecostals; ethnically, they were 85.2% Romanians, 10.6% Roma, 1.9% Ukrainians, 1.8%...

, the Nazarenes

Apostolic Christian Church (Nazarene)

The Apostolic Christian Church is a Christian denomination of the Anabaptist movement. It was formed in the early 1900s as the result of separating from their sister church, the Apostolic Christian Church of America. The Nazarene faith is widely spread across the globe, with congregations in...

, the Apostolic Faith Church of God

Apostolic Faith Church of God

The Apostolic Faith Church of God is a Pentecostal Christian denomination founded in 1909 by Charles W. Lowe following the teachings of William J...

, Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses Association of Romania

Jehovah's Witnesses Association of Romania is the formal name used by Jehovah's Witnesses for their operations in Romania, with a branch office located in Bucharest. It is one of eighteen officially recognised religious denominations in the country. According to the organisation, it has 38,000...

 and Bible societies

Bible society

A Bible society is a non-profit organization devoted to translating, publishing, distributing the Bible at affordable costs and advocating its credibility and trustworthiness in contemporary cultural life...

. Interest in the activities of Inochenţie's followers was kept alive by Romanian writer Sabin Velican, in his 1939 novel Pământ nou ("New Land"); it fictionalizes the movement's alleged sexual practices.

Bessarabia's Inochentists fared badly during World War II. In 1941, the region changed hands between a Soviet administration and Nazi

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

-allied Romania. In summer 1942, Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu

Ion Antonescu

Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...

 gave the order that virtually all conscientious objector

Conscientious objector

A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....

s belonging to the Inochentist church to be deported to the concentration camps in Transnistria

Transnistria (World War II)

Transnistria Governorate was a Romanian administered territory, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, and occupied from 19 August 1941 to 29 January 1944...

, together with the Bessarabian Jews

Bessarabian Jews

-Early history:Jews are mentioned from very early in the Principality of Moldavia, but they did not represent a significant number. Their main activity in Moldavia was commerce, but they could not compete with Greeks and Armenians, who had the knowledge of the Levantine commerce and relationships...

 and nomadic Roma

Roma minority in Romania

The Roma constitute one of the major minorities in Romania. According to the 2002 census, they number 535,140 people or 2.5% of the total population, being the second-largest ethnic minority in Romania after Hungarians...

. During the Antonescu years, Romanian Orthodox Church authorities also received help for setting up a special mission to Transnistria, which was designed to target local Inochentist and Baptist communities. Some Baptists and Jehovah's Witnesses, taken together with the Inochentists, were deported from other areas to internment sites in Transnistria. At his 1946 trial, Antonescu acknowledged some of these measures: "Many Romanians, unfortunately, joined these sects in order to escape the war [...]. What was the spiritual basis of these sects? To avoid taking up arms and fighting. So when we called them up, they refused to lay their hands on a weapon. There was a general revolt, and so I brought in a law introducing the death penalty

Capital punishment in Romania

Capital punishment in Romania was abolished in 1989, and has been prohibited by the Constitution of Romania since 1991.-Antecedents:The death penalty has a long and varied history in present-day Romania. Vlad III the Impaler was notorious for executing thousands by impalement...

. I did not apply it. And I succeeded in getting rid of these sects. The more recalcitrant ones I seized and deported."

Communist persecution and later revival

After Bessarabia was again incorporated in the Soviet Union as the Moldavian SSR

Moldavian SSR

The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...

, the Inochentists gathered their ranks and established a new center in the city of Bălţi

Balti

Balti can refer to:* Balti language, a language spoken in Baltistan in Pakistan and Ladakh in Kashmir* Balti people, Muslims of Ladakhi/Tibetan origin from Baltistan in Pakistan and Ladakh in Kashmir...

. They were accused by the Soviet authorities of sabotaging the state plan for agricultural deliveries and resisting the collectivization of agriculture by withholding grain from the authorities. This was, however, a thing common to the Moldavian peasants of all religions. In a memorandum dated October 17, 1946, B. Kozachenko, the Vice-minister of State Security of the Moldavian SSR, reported that virtually every village in four districts of Bessarabia (Bălţi, Soroca, Orhei

Orhei

Orhei is a city and the administrative centre of Orhei District in Moldova with a population of 25,680. Orhei is approximately 50 kilometers north of the capital, Chişinău.-Demographics:...

 and Chişinău

Chisinau

Chișinău is the capital and largest municipality of Moldova. It is also its main industrial and commercial centre and is located in the middle of the country, on the river Bîc...

) each had a group of Inochentists, and that their priests were among the "most reactionary

Reactionary

The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...

 and backward". This memorandum resulted in a repression of the Inochentists, which started only a few months later. In January 1947, ten Inochenist leaders were sentenced to terms between six and ten years in the "corrective labor camps

Gulag

The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...

".

On April 6, 1949, Operation South began, as a mass deportation to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

 of people (and their families) who were suspected of anti-Soviet feelings

Anti-Sovietism

Anti-Sovietism and Anti-Soviet refer to persons and activities actually or allegedly aimed against the Soviet Union or government power within the Soviet Union.Three different flavors of the usage of the term may be distinguished....

. This included 35,000 people, not just wealthy peasants and former landowners, but also members of sects deemed illegal, including Inochentists. Two years later, on March 3, 1951, another wave of deportations began, as Operation North

Operation North

Operation North was the code name assigned by the USSR Ministry of State Security to massive deportation of the members of the Jehovah's Witnesses and their families to Siberia in the Soviet Union on 1–2 April 1951.-Background:...

, which also deported all members of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The deportees were allowed to return home only after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 died and Nikita Khruschev gave his famous De-Stalinization speech

On the Personality Cult and its Consequences

On the Personality Cult and its Consequences was a report, critical of Joseph Stalin, made to the Twentieth Party Congress on February 25, 1956 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. It is more commonly known as the Secret Speech or the Khrushchev Report...

 of 1956. According to a 1957 report, 150 Inochentists were back in the Moldavian SSR.

In April and May 1957, another group of Inochentist leaders were arrested. The main local newspaper, Sovetskaya Moldaviya, ran attacks on the Inochenitists and a negative propaganda film was made in reference to them. The persecutions were intensified during Khruschev's campaign of religious persecutions

USSR Anti-Religious Campaign (1958–1964)

During a more tolerant period towards religion from 1941 until the late 1950s in the Soviet Union, the church grew in stature and membership. This provoked concern by the Soviet government under Nikita Khrushchev, which decided in the late 1950s to undertake a new campaign to quell religion in...

, which lasted between 1959 and 1964. By the end of the campaign, 20 illegal churches and all the monasteries (which gave support to the movement from its very beginning) in the Moldavian SSR had been closed. Internal memos of the Soviet administration show that the campaign was relatively successful: in 1960, a report had it that the number of Inochenitists dropped from 2,000 to just 250. Nevertheless, their religious group survived and the Soviet authorities continued publishing pamphlets even in the 1980s. In 1987, it was reported that an Inochentist community still existed near the ruins of Inochenţie's monastery in Balta, Ukrainian SSR

Ukrainian SSR

The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...

. Meanwhile, the location where Inochenţie began his mission had been turned into a gym.

Inside Romania, itself under a communist government

Communist Romania

Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...

 from 1948 to 1989, the Inochentists continued to be explicitly banned alongside Jehovah's Witnesses, Bible students and the other groups listed in 1930s bans. The basic legislation was Government Decree 243, passed in September 1948. It resulted in a circular letter of the Internal Affairs Ministry, which included the listed Inochentists and other Orthodox splinter groups among the lesser threats by comparison with foreign-born new religions, and specified of the former: "These banned religious associations are intensely active in propagating anarchic ideas which damage public opinion and the security of the State. All those who are suspected of being affiliated with these sects are to be held under continuous supervision, tracked down in all their enterprises, and, once certified, they are to be sent to court."

Although Inochentism was not included among those movements who could seek assistance abroad, and who were therefore listed as especially dangerous, Romanian officials even assumed that the Inochentists were spying for the United States. The discrepancies were noted by researcher Nicolae Ioniţă, who found that homegrown sects, Inochentism included, were much more exposed to persecution than international churches.

An Inochentist revival was taking place in the two decades after the dissolution of the Soviet Union

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...

. In the late 1990s, an elderly Inochentist group was still residing in Balta, the "New Jerusalem" envisioned by Inochenţie. Another presence was noticed elsewhere in Ukraine's Odessa Oblast

Odessa Oblast

Odesa Oblast, also written as Odessa Oblast , is the southernmost and largest oblast of south-western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Odessa.-History:...

. The story was covered in 2010 by Segodnya

Segodnya

Sevodnya founded in 1997, is a Russian language Kiev-based tabloid newspaper, second only to Fakty i Kommentarii in circulation, with over 700,000 subscribers. While run from Kiev, it is linked to Donbas political and business groups, supporting former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych for the...

newspaper, who cited cases of Inochentists who awaited the Second Coming, built at a new subterranean monastery, and vocally demanded that Inochenţie be recognized a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church

Russian Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...

 (which still refers to them as to a heretic sect). Most adherents, however, are residents of either Romania or the Republic of Moldova—a few thousands, mostly descendants of 1920s converts.

Identity

Inochentism was described by various outside witnesses as appealing only to ignorant and superstitious

Superstition

Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....

 masses. Dr. V. S. Yakovenko described its adherents as afflicted by "abuse of liquor and poor food", "spiritual darkness", and a "low level of intellectual and moral development", arguing that this degeneration was favored by anti-Moldavian education policies in the Bessarabia Governorate

Bessarabia Governorate

Bessarabia was an oblast and later a guberniya in the Russian Empire. It was the eastern part of the Principality of Moldavia annexed by Russia by the Treaty of Bucharest following the Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812...

, before 1917. Yakovenko adds: "In their ignorance [the Inochentists] are very credulous, and take as gospel all they hear, and particularly what comes to them from the church and in their own language." A similar point was made later by Bessarabian historian Nicolae Popovschi, who mentioned some positive aspects of the movement, while also attributing its success to Bessarabian underdevelopment. However, according to Romanian theologian Laurenţiu D. Tănase, the ideological source of Inochentism is to be found in the 17th-century Raskol

Raskol

Raskol |schism]]') was the event of splitting of the Russian Orthodox Church into an official church and the Old Believers movement in mid-17th century, triggered by the reforms of Patriarch Nikon in 1653, aiming to establish uniformity between the Greek and Russian church practices.-The Raskol:...

phenomenon, which split Russian Orthodoxy and had a number of ramifications in Romania. Tănase lists Inochentism together with Lipovan Orthodoxy

Lipovan Orthodox Old-Rite Church

The Lipovan Orthodox Old-Rite Church is the Romanian based jurisdiction of the Belokrinitskaya Hierarchy ....

, the Dukhobortsy

Doukhobor

The Doukhobors or Dukhobors , earlierDukhobortsy are a group of Russian origin.The Doukhobors were one of the sects - later defined as a religious philosophy, ethnic group, social movement, or simply a "way of life" - known generically as Spiritual Christianity. The origin of the Doukhobors is...

, the Molokan

Molokan

Molokans are sectarian Christians who evolved from "Spiritual Christian" Russian peasants that refused to obey the Russian Orthodox Church, beginning in the 17th century...

y, the Skoptsy, the Popovtsy

Popovtsy

The Popovtsy, or Popovschina , were one of the two principal movements of the Old Believers, which was formed by the end of the 17th century in Russia.-Historical backgrounds:As none of the bishops joined the Old Believers The Popovtsy, or Popovschina (Поповцы, Поповщина in Russian; this name...

and the Bezpopovtsy.

The Inochentists were monarchists: specifically, they supported the Romanov dynasty, even after the Russian Revolution and the union of Bessarabia to Romania, believing that Mikhail Fyodorovich

Michael of Russia

Mikhail I Fyodorovich Romanov Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was the first Russian Tsar of the house of Romanov. He was the son of Feodor Nikitich Romanov and Xenia...

, founder of the dynasty, was really Archangel Michael; the cult of Michael was merged by them with that of the Romanovs. In the 1940s, one preacher, named Ivan Georgitsa (Ion Gheorghiţă) was alleged to have spread rumors that Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...

 was still alive and that he would soon come to power again. Another incident happened in 1945 or 1946. One sect member, named Romanenko, allegedly posed as the Tsarevich Aleksei and another as the Grand Duchess Anastasia

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna....

, wearing Imperial garments, as members of the sect fell on their knees in front of them and kissed their hands and feet.

Paradoxically, Inochentism had most impact among Romanian-speaking peasants, as noted by Popovschi: "Even in cases where a village was inhabited by Romanians and foreigners [...], only the Romanians would adhere to Inochentism. In those Bessarabian counties were the population was of a different nationality, Inochentism found no adherents." The replacement of Slavonic

Old Church Slavonic

Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...

 sermons with vernacular speeches gave the movement a boost and formed part of its culture. Ethnographer Dorin Lozovanu assessed that Inochentism itself was a grassroots form of Romanian cultural emancipation, offering a venue for Romanian speakers throughout southwestern Russian and Soviet lands. Lozovanu interviewed old Inochentists in Balta, who spoke the Moldavian dialect

Moldavian subdialect of Romanian

The Moldavian subdialect is one of the several subdialects of the Romanian language...

 and refused to apply for Ukrainian citizenship.

Controversial beliefs

Millenarianism

Millenarianism

Millenarianism is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed, based on a one-thousand-year cycle. The term is more generically used to refer to any belief centered around 1000 year intervals...

 (or apocalypticism

Apocalypticism

Apocalypticism is the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God's will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end time very soon, even within one's own lifetime...

) is among the better known aspects of Inochentist teaching: as noted in 1926 by Nicolae Popovschi, Inochenţie preached an impending arrival of the Antichrist

Antichrist

The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to a leader who fulfills Biblical prophecies concerning an adversary of Christ, while resembling him in a deceptive manner...

. In 1912, while staying in Murom

Murom

Murom is a historic city in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, which sprawls along the left bank of Oka River. Population: -History:In the 9th century CE, the city marked the easternmost settlement of the Eastern Slavs in the land of the Finno-Ugric people called Muromians. The Russian Primary Chronicle...

, the hieromonk allegedly stated that the world would end on April 12, 1913, demanding a ban on marriages and speaking in praise of free love

Free love

The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...

. At Balta, Levizor allegedly kept several mistresses, danced with naked virgins, and invented a ritual for spreading chrism

Chrism

Chrism , also called "Myrrh" , Holy anointing oil, or "Consecrated Oil", is a consecrated oil used in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Rite Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, in the Assyrian Church of the East, and in Old-Catholic churches, as well as Anglican churches in the administration...

 over the genitalia of women disciples.

Alongside spontaneous dancing, Inochentist meetings involved direct revelation

Direct revelation

Direct revelation is a term used by some Christian churches to express their belief in a communication from God to a person, by words, impression, visions, dreams or actual appearance. Direct revelation is believed to be an open communication between God and man, or the Holy Spirit and man, without...

 and glossolalia

Glossolalia

Glossolalia or speaking in tongues is the fluid vocalizing of speech-like syllables, often as part of religious practice. The significance of glossolalia has varied with time and place, with some considering it a part of a sacred language...

. In Balta, the pilgrims trembled uncontrollably, shaked their limbs, groaned, hiccuped, beat themselves and spoke in tongues. Sometimes, this happened even after they returned home and they even spread out to others. Many considered that these were signs sent by God, so that their innocent suffering would redeem the rest of the sinful world and prepare the world for the Kingdom of God

Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven is a foundational concept in the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.The term "Kingdom of God" is found in all four canonical gospels and in the Pauline epistles...

. Those affected by them were called "martyr

Martyr

A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

s" and thought to have supernatural powers, such as clairvoyance

Clairvoyance

The term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...

 and the power to predict the future

Prophecy

Prophecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...

. The recourse to mortification

Mortification of the flesh

Mortification of the flesh literally means "putting the flesh to death". The term is primarily used in religious and spiritual contexts. The institutional and traditional terminology of this practice in Catholicism is corporal mortification....

 is said to have originated during one of Inochenţie's addresses, when an anonymous believer deliberately injured his own skull—the blackened bruise was hailed by the church founder as a sign that a "New Man" with colored skin was about to emerge in the world.

These habits, alongside suspicions that Inochenţie was a confidence artist

Confidence trick

A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...

, escalated the conflict between Inochentists and the Orthodox Church: various Orthodox missionaries and scholars issued strong warnings against Inochenţie's dogma. Some grave concerns about Inochentist teachings were raised by the Romanian press in and around 1930. Dimineaţa spoke at length about the movement's approval of mortification and selective castration

Castration

Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...

, Christian communism

Christian communism

Christian communism is a form of religious communism based on Christianity. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of Jesus Christ compel Christians to support communism as the ideal social system...

, nudism, sacred prostitution, group sex

Group sex

Group sex is sexual behavior involving more than two participants. Group sex can occur amongst people of all sexual orientations and genders...

 and alcohol abuse. The newspaper also reports that Barbă Roşie's promotion to the rank of Patriarch was based on his claim to have been visited by the ghost of Inochenţie, back in 1928. The Inochentists held special prayer meeting

Prayer meeting

A prayer meeting is, as its name describes, a meeting of people for the purpose of prayer as a group. Prayer meetings are normally conducted by one or more members of the clergy....

s during which they venerated the photograph of Inochenţie, believing that they would experience miraculous visits of the Holy Spirit.

Sanielevici, who credited these reports, noted a resemblance between the Inochentists and earlier sectarian movements in Russia, as depicted by writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky

Dmitry Merezhkovsky

Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky, , 1865, St Petersburg – December 9, 1941, Paris) was a Russian novelist, poet, religious thinker, and literary critic. A seminal figure of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry, regarded as a co-founder of the Symbolist movement, Merezhkovsky – with his poet wife Zinaida...

; following up on his own global theory, Sanielevici concluded that all such phenomena originated with an underground "Semitic

Semitic

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...

" and "Dionysian

Apollonian and Dionysian

The Apollonian and Dionysian is a philosophical and literary concept, or dichotomy, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology. Several Western philosophical and literary figures have invoked this dichotomy in critical and creative works....

" culture.