Old Israel (Staroizrail) was a 19th-century sect founded in the 1830s by Perfil Katasonov, a disciple of Abbakum Kopylov, the founder of the Postniki (Fasters) sect, as the result of a schism. Its adherents considered themselves to be the Chosen People establishing the Kingdom of God on earth. The sect disintegrated into various spin-off sects, among them New Israel, at the death of its founder.
The Druze, who call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn, are an Arab esoteric religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and syncretic religion whose main tenets assert the unity of God, reincarnation, and the eternity of the soul.
Hasidism or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most of those affiliated with the movement, known as hassidim, reside in Israel and in the United States.
A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, typically emerging as an offshoot of a larger organization. Originally, the term referred specifically to religious groups that had separated from a main body, but it can now apply to any group that diverges from a larger organization to follow a distinct set of beliefs and practices. Sects often form when there is a perception of heresy either within the subgroup or from the larger group.
The Khlysts or Khlysty were an underground Spiritual Christian sect which emerged in Russia in the 17th century.
The Sadducees were a sect of Jews active in Judea during the Second Temple period, from the second century BCE to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Sadducees are described in contemporary literary sources in contrast to the two other major sects at the time, the Pharisees and the Essenes.
The Skoptsy were a cult within the larger Spiritual Christianity movement in the Russian Empire. They were best known for practising emasculation of men, the mastectomy and female genital mutilation of women in accordance with their teachings against sexual lust. The descriptive term "Skoptsy" was coined by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Jewish religious movements, sometimes called "denominations", include diverse groups within Judaism which have developed among Jews from ancient times. Samaritans are also considered ethnic Jews by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, although they are frequently classified by experts as a sister Hebrew people, who practice a separate branch of Israelite religion. Today in the west, the most prominent divisions are between traditionalist Orthodox movements and modernist movements such as Reform Judaism originating in late 18th century Europe, Conservative originating in 19th century Europe, and other smaller ones, including the Reconstructionist and Renewal movements which emerged later in the 20th century in the United States.
Alawites are an Arab ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism. A sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ghulat branch during the ninth century, Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, the "first Imam" in the Twelver school, as a manifestation of the divine essence. The group was founded by Ibn Nusayr during the 9th century, who was a disciple of the tenth Twelver Imam, Ali al-Hadi, and of the eleventh Twelver Imam, Hasan al-Askari. For this reason, Alawites are also called Nusayris.
Karaism is a non-Rabbinical Jewish sect characterized by the recognition of the written Tanakh alone as its supreme authority in halakha and theology. Karaites believe that all of the divine commandments which were handed down to Moses by God were recorded in the written Torah without any additional Oral Law or explanation. Unlike mainstream Rabbinic Judaism, which regards the Oral Torah, codified in the Talmud and subsequent works, as authoritative interpretations of the Torah, Karaite Jews do not treat the written collections of the oral tradition in the Midrash or the Talmud as binding.
The strigolniki were followers of a Russian religious sect which appeared in the mid-14th century, known as strigolnichestvo. They first appeared in Pskov before spreading to Novgorod and Tver. By the early 15th century, they had disappeared. Along with the Judaizers, they were one of the major sects in medieval Russia.
Cult is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "A relatively small group of people having beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister, or as exercising excessive control over members." The term is often applied to new religious movements and other social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term has different, and often divergent or pejorative, definitions both in popular culture and academia, and has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.
Black Hebrew Israelites are a new religious movement claiming that African Americans are descendants of the ancient Israelites. Some sub-groups believe that Native and Latin Americans are descendants of the Israelites as well. Black Hebrew Israelites combine elements to their teaching from a wide range of sources to varying degrees. Black Hebrew Israelites incorporate certain aspects of the religious beliefs and practices of both Christianity and Judaism, though they have created their own interpretation of the Bible, and other influences include Freemasonry and New Thought, for example. Many choose to identify as Hebrew Israelites or Black Hebrews rather than Jews in order to indicate their claimed historic connections.
Spiritual Christianity is the group of belief systems held by so-called folk Protestants, including non-Eastern Orthodox indigenous faith tribes and new religious movements that emerged in the Russian Empire. Their origins are varied: some come from Protestant movements imported from Europe to Russia by missionaries, travelers and workers; others from disgust at the behavior of Orthodox priests, still others from the Bezpopovtsy Raskolniks. Those influences, mixed with folk traditions, resulted in communities that are collectively called sektanty (sectarians). Such communities were typically documented by Russian Orthodox clergy with a label that described their heresy such as not fasting, meeting on Saturday (sabbatarians), rejecting the spirit, body mutilation (castigators), self-flagellation, or suicide.
New Israel was one of the Sektanstvo (sectarian) new religious movements that grew and expanded in the Russian Empire in the late 19th to early 20th century, a branch of the Postniki (fasters). The movement was the result of the schisms that split the "Old Israel" (Staroizrail) sect after the death of Perfil Katasonov. Its founder was a peasant named Mokshin, but it rose to notability only under Mokshin's successor, Vasiliy Semionovitch Lubkov.
Vesty was an Israeli Russian-language daily newspaper. Based in Tel Aviv, the paper was Israel's most widely read Russian-language paper and the last remaining daily paper in Russian. The paper was started in 1992 by Yedioth Ahronoth Group, which remains its owner. It was very widely read in the 1990s. However, its sales had slumped, and in 2017 it was turned into a weekly newspaper, with a Russian-language website built, based on Ynet. In December 2018, the newspaper went out of print. The paper was edited by the refusenik Eduard Kuznetsov from 1992 to 1999.
The Jews, or the Jewish people, are an ethno-religious group and nation originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah and traditionally adhering to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is their ethnic religion, though it is not practiced by all ethnic Jews. Despite this, religious Jews regard converts to Judaism as members of the Jewish nation, pursuant to the long-standing conversion process.
Non-denominational Muslims are Muslims who do not belong to, do not self-identify with, or cannot be readily classified under one of the identifiable Islamic schools and branches. Such Muslims do not think of themselves as belonging to a denomination but rather as "just Muslims" or "non-denominational Muslims." Muslims who do not adhere to a sect are also known as non-sectarian Muslims.
The Biblists, also known as the Bibleitzy and the Spiritual-Bible Brotherhood were a sect of Jewish religious reformers in late 19th-century Russia. The group advocated for radical reform of Jewish economic life, a rejection of the Talmud and other post-Biblical authorities, and the abolition of ritual observances in Judaism.