If you think that a procession of Shiite flagellants or Filipino volunteers hanging on crosses is the pinnacle of religious masochism, then meet the scopceas, valesians and priests of Cybele. For they were ready to sacrifice much more than just their souls for the sake of religion.
According to Aesop's fairy tale, there was a miracle cure for loneliness, and its ingredient was beaver testicles. That is why hosts of hunters went to the rivers and scoured the rushes in search of a valuable component. When they saw God the guilty spirit of the rodent, they chased after him. This one, wanting to survive at all costs, bit off his own testicles, and no ballast he ran away as quickly as possible.
The whole story was supposed to be a great affirmation of the will to live, but for many centuries it was believed that beavers actually move to such drastic steps. Hence, from the Latin name of this animal ( castor ) the term castrate came from .
Blood votive offerings for the goddess
It is not known whether the Phrygian fairy tale writer was inspired by the customs of his compatriots. It is true, however, that the cult of the goddess Cybele popular among the Phrygians forced future priests to get rid of their testicles . According to one version of the myth, the caretaker of the land, spring and harvest fell in love with a young man named Attis. He swore allegiance to her, but was not indifferent to the charms of a certain river nymph.
The priests of the goddess Cybele had to undergo castration (photo:ChrisO; lic. CC BY-SA 3.0).
When the goddess found out about this, she possessed the young man with a madness in which Attis cut off his testicles. Since then, the bar for the priests of the mighty goddess has been set very high (well, at waist level). During the ceremony in honor of Cybele, candidates for priests in a rush of rhythmic and loud music combined with probably a large dose of intoxicants they were doing an ecstatic dance.
When the tide of religious frenzy reached its zenith, they self-mutilated and the testicles on the ground fertilized blood on the soil . This cult moved from Asia Minor to Ancient Greece, and then to Rome. In the Empire, the practice of this ritual was limited to priests only, due to too much loss among the ecstatic male public.
Dangerous couchsurfing
Just as Aesopian language is not understood literally, biblical language must be approached with great caution. Origen (185–254) realized this, in the impulse of youthful exegesis autocastered when he was just over twenty years old.
It is not known exactly which passage of Scripture prompted him to do so . One may suspect that it was about Jesus' words about the thinners (castrats - author's note) who condemned themselves to it for the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 19:12 according to the Vulgate). The problem was, it might not have been eunuchs at all, but spouses. Such a translation is proposed in the Millennium Bible. It might as well have been another passage from the Gospel of St. Mateusz:
And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go to Hell (Matthew 5:30).
Origen self-castrated when he was just over 20 years old. To this day, it is not known which of the Scriptures made him take such a drastic step (source:public domain).
This passage must have been taken to heart by the Valesian sect, active in Philadelphia (present-day Western Turkey) in the third century after Christ, about which Epiphanius of Salamis (315-403) wrote in the book Panarion .
Members of this group recognized that the sin of fornication stands in the way of the salvation of the soul and they eagerly set about self-castration. According to their beliefs only the mutilated could reach the Kingdom of Heaven. Killing the testicles also opened the way for meat consumption - they adhered to strict fasting against self-mutilation.
It was only the First Council of Nicaea that banned castration as a religious practice (source:public domain).
Of course, as befits a religious movement, the conversion of sinners was also not forgotten. They most often faced a fait accompli. Weary and ignorant wanderers enjoyed the hospitality of the walesians, and those - under the cover of the night - were getting their testicles . Ultimately, the Council of Nicaea banned castration as a religious practice in AD 325, which was a poor and belated consolation for male converts.
Kernels are not enough
The breakdown into sects and denominations was also no stranger to the Orthodox Church. The idea of moral renewal was promoted by, among others, the boys. This Orthodox sect founded in 1645 was quite numerous in the Russian Empire and was recognized even by high-ranking tsarist officials. The doctrine, in a nutshell, was based on the new twelve commandments, established by Danila Filipowicz and the belief in the constant appearance of steersmen (prophets) on Earth.
Though the hooligans rejected alcohol, smoking, and of course the sin of debauchery, in fact during ecstatic singing and dancing ( radienija ) figured out how much and where it was going to be. Disgusted with such actions, Kondratij Selivanov decided that only emasculation of his own organs will allow him to successfully overcome temptations. And this is how the sect of skopts (Russian:skopit '- to castrate) was created.
They immediately went to work and not only crushed the testicles with a hammer and burned wounds with hot iron (so-called baptism of fire or whitening). For a better effect, they also clipped the penis, nipples, triangular moles on the skin, and women had their breasts, labia or clitoris cut off.
Despite the rejection of the sin of debauchery, during their ecstatic dances and singing, the gliders found themselves where they could fall. Disgusted with this, a member of the sect, Kondratij Selivanov, decided that the only way to get rid of temptations would be not only to castrate, but also to completely deprive himself of his masculinity (source:public domain).
As they despised sexuality and sexuality, did not respect their mothers at all (and finally they came out of their womb into the world), nor the children they swept around like animals. However, they needed 144,000 members of their sect for the expected Last Judgment, during which only the mutilated would be saved. But how do you get so many followers when you can't count on passing the faith on to the next generation? Conversing, of course.
Although it is hard to believe, in the mid-nineteenth century the sect numbered 6,000 followers . Some were "baptized" using a truly Valesian method. In 1907, there was a known case of a peasant from the village of Chernoboye who, after expressing his reluctance to join the sect, was offered tea by the hostess. He woke up already without testicles.
The creator of the Skopcow sect, Kondratij Seliwanow (source:public domain)
Do your subjects have kernels?
No wonder that the tsarist authorities, and then the Soviet ones, started to exterminate these practices. Already on July 1, 1772, Catherine II ordered to investigate reports from the Orłów Governorate, according to which the men swimming in the lake did not have testicles. The investigation resulted in the arrest of over 240 cult members.
Of course, the key was capturing the helmsman of this mad crowd . In 1775, Selivanov was captured, badly bruised and sent to heavy labor in Nerczyn. However, he did not get there, he settled in Irkutsk, where, of course, he won more followers. After twenty years, he managed to return to Moscow, immediately as a Tsar Peter III . Officially, the emperor died in 1762 of an attack of hemorrhoidal colic .
In fact, however, he was murdered on the orders of Catherine II, which allowed her to sit on the throne. Therefore, it is no wonder that the appearance of the deceased Tsar must have caused quite a panic . The whole thing was spiced up by the fact that rumors circulated throughout the Empire that Peter III did not die at all, but settled in Siberia.
There have been cases where scopians have put their victims to sleep, which will wake up without their testicles the next day. Such was the fate of a peasant from the village of Chernoboye (source:public domain).
I am your father Paul
In Petersburg, Selivanov met his "son" Paul I. The real tsar asked the self-proclaimed father if he was really his father, he dared to answer: I am not the father of sin. Accept my teachings (ie get castrated - author's note) ¸ and I will consider you a son . It must have ended in an insane asylum.
The next ruler of the Russian Empire, Alexander I, however, was more forgiving and set Selivanov free. He swung from monastery to monastery, lived in wealthy merchant houses, preaching his teachings and gaining new followers.
The situation changed when two relatives of the St. Petersburg governor Milarodovich were under the influence of the mad prophet, who intervened to lock him up in the Spaso-Yevfimiejewski Monastery in Suzdal. Selivanov left the earthly valley in 1832. Needless to say, his faithful did not believe in any death.
Ordered by scoppers slaughter of penis, nipples and testicles and the growing concern of the Orthodox Church stirred up the penitentiary machine. Being a member of the sect was punished with exile to further governorates of Siberia, and persuading people to baptize fire ended with a sentence of four or five years of hard labor, a help in whitening it is even fifteen years in exile.
The Soviet authorities also spared no efforts to eradicate the skopts, which was ultimately successful. Currently, there are no official and documented sources of the existence of skopts in the Russian Federation. God forbid!