Rudomyotkin, Maxim Gavrilovich

Maxim Rudomyotkin was born in the village of Algasovo of the Morshansky district of the Tambov province in an Orthodox family who switched to jumping. In 1826, he and his family moved to the Caucasus and lived in the village of Nikitino, Alexandropol County, Erivan Province . Engaged in peasant and carpentry labor; He was married and had three sons. In the 1830s, he jumped into the jumper sense of jumping, founded by Lukyan Sokolov . In 1842, "for seduction from Orthodoxy to jumping" was convicted and exiled to the Siberian Line Battalion No. 62, where he served as a private from 1845 to 1848.

In September 1848, Rudomyotkin fled from service and, under false documents, arrived in the village of Andreevka in the Lenkoran district of the Shamakhi province . Here he began to preach the near end of the world and the onset of the millennial Kingdom of God on earth . In 1852, during a sermon, a special shaking of the body happened to him, which he explained as the convergence of the grace of the Holy Spirit. After this event, he declared himself a prophet and went to preach a new doctrine in Erivan province. His sermons were a great success, and soon more than half of all the jumper of the Erivan province became his followers. In 1855, Rudomyotkin was arrested and sentenced by the court to 8 years of arresting companies and twice driven through a system of 500 people with whips. However, somehow he managed to escape punishment, and he continued his activities.

The influence of the preacher grew rapidly. According to legend, in one of the mystical visions, God the Father and God the Son instructed him to rule “God's people” in the coming millennium. Guided by divine revelation , Maxim declared himself the embodiment of the Third Person of the Trinity and demanded divine honors. In 1857, with a large gathering of people at the foot of Mount Ararat, he was crowned as “king of spirits” and “leader of the people of Zion” and put on self-made royal robes bearing the letters Ts and D. He took upon himself the power to remit sins and curse the eternal curse of those who opposed him. As one of the innovations, Maxim introduced polygamy and himself introduced seven “spiritual wives”.

Soon, secular authorities drew attention to the events. In 1858, Rudomyotkin was again arrested, put on trial, and imprisoned in the Solovetsky Monastery . He walked to the place of detention on foot in shackles and handcuffs. In Solovki, Rudomyotkin sat in a “stone bag” for about 9 years, after which in 1869 he was transferred to the prison of the Suzdal Spaso-Evfimievskogo monastery . Here he got the opportunity to write and compiled 14 prophetic books that were delivered to his associates in the Caucasus. In his writings, Maxim predicted the near death of the Russian Empire and described the structure of the future Kingdom of God on earth under his control. Subsequently, the Book of the Sun was compiled from these books, which became the holy book of jumpers. The book, along with other jumping scriptures, was published in 1915 in Los Angeles in the collection Spirit and Life. Rudomyotkin himself died in 1877 in a Suzdal prison, although jumpers claimed that another person was buried under his name.

Maxim Rudomyotkin was the founder of a special kind of jumping, the followers of which are called "maximists". Maximists believe that through Rudomyotkin God gave mankind a new, more perfect revelation than the revelation of the Bible . This revelation is set forth in the book “Spirit and Life,” the bulk of which is composed by the works of Rudomyotkin himself. A special place in the teachings of maximists is given to the personality of the “king of spirits,” who is revered as the Third Person of the Trinity and the future ruler of the millennial Kingdom of God on earth. According to their faith, in the millennial Kingdom Maxim will rule with Jesus Christ , and his opponents will be put to eternal perdition.

• Spirit and life. Book of the Sun: Divine sayings of mentors and sufferers for the word of God, the faith of Jesus and the spirit of the holy religion of spiritual Christians, jumpers. - 2nd ed. - Los Angeles: [b. and.], 1928. - 758 p.
• Efseev P.A. Labor of love. - Fresno, 1984. - 88 p.
• Agaev F. A. Relations between Molokans - “jumpers” and the tsarist administration in Northern Azerbaijan in the second half of the 19th century / Young scientist. - 2012. - No. 6. - S. 335—338.
• Grigorenko A. Yu. Eschatology, Millennialism, Adventism: History and Present . - SPb., 2003 .-- 127 p.

• Molokan.info. Materials on the history of Molokan jumpers. Russian-speaking materials on sect stories Molokans and Jumpers.
• Avraam Shmulevich. Russian religion: the king of spirits and the leader of the people of Zion.
• Classification of three spiritual Christian groups: Molokans, jumpers and spirit-and-life - books, fellowship, songs, holidays, prophets