The article provides a critical interpretation of what we know about one of the founders of the Khlysty sect, Ivan Timofeevich Suslov. Reliable historical evidences about Suslov are scarse. The author analyses he Khlysty’s narrative about Ivan Suslov and makes a conclusion that the narrative is an hagiographic legend to which the methods of critical hagiography can be applied. The substrate for the legend refers to the gospels. The legend refers to key religious places of the Khlysty sect at the beginning of the nineteenth century – the village Staraja, Kostroma Province, and the Sukharev Tower in Moscow.

The article studies beliefs and practices of a Moscow community of khristovery in the first half of the eighteenth century. The study draws upon the archival materials from the First and Second inquiry commissions about schismatics, dealing with the cases of the sect’s particular members such as Nastasia Karpova (1733) or Daria Khavanskaia (1745). The beliefs and practices of the khristovery are analyzed in the context of the Russian Orthodox culture and vernacular religiosity.

This publication introduces an so far unpublished source from the history of the Russian religious movements, in particular the so called community of “fasting” (those who follow the fast, postniki). The source is a relatively small hand-written archive with a collection of spiritual songs (rospevtsy) as well as a few notes made by the followers of the movement. The texts add a new light to our knowledge of the prayers, ritual practices and moral attitudes of the postniki.

The article deals with eschatological views of the Russian Subbotniks (Judaizers). The research comes to a conclusion that these views have been influenced by a few different sources: the prophetic and apocalyptic texts of the Old Testament, on which the Subbotniks drew the basics of their mythology; the Jewish eschatology that was transferred through teachers and religious literature; the beliefs of the Molokans; the New Testament apocalyptic; and Christian cultural environment in general.

The article records the history of an ancient monastery, now non-existent, in the outskirts of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius. The author uses archeological sources to identify the location of the monastery.

The article presents a biography of the monk Parthenii Ageev, the hegumen (prior) of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky monastery in Guslitsy, outside Moscow. The biography includes historical and legendary elements about the hegumen and monastery itself. The chronological focus is mid-nineteenth century. Most of the sources come from the Central Moscow City Archive.

The article explores the shaping of tradition of processions of the cross that included the wonder-working icon called “Jerusalem Theotocos,” in the Bogorodsk region outside Moscow city. The tradition was a typical form of local religious practices in Russian Orthodoxy. The materials from the Central State Moscow Archive show how the devotional practice around the icon emerged and developed.

This publication includes three letters found in the archives of the New Israel meetinghouse in San Javier, Uruguay and a short explanatory article. The letters were received in 1927 from the settlement just established by the New Israel members in the Russian North Caucasus. They belong to the period when the attitude of the Soviet authorities toward the “sectarian” collective farms was still benevolent. The letters cover both economic and religious aspects of life in the New Israel community.