Persecution of holy fools and soothsayers in Russia from 1636 to Catherine the Great

Soothsayers, Blessed Ones and Holy Fools were not always revered in Russia, in fact. State persecution of them began in 1636, when first the Patriarch and then Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich pondered the harm they did to simple God-fearing folk, the latter issuing decrees expelling these enigmatic wanderers from Moscow in 16449 and in 1655. Idle persons who troubled the people were also liable to persecution under the decisions of the church councils of 1666 and 1681. But with little success: the itinerant prophets seemed indestructible in the fatherland. In 1690 a decree was issued ordering the flogging with the knout and exile to Siberia of the people's saints, and from 1694 they began to be sent to the Streltsy Office. In the eighteenth century repressive measures against the Blessed Ones and other mystics eased noticeably, and their culture flourished again in Rus', until towards the close of the century Catherine the Great put a stop to the spread of popular mysticism by wandering soothsayers: for the most part, they were sent to the madhouse.