the skoptsy & god & transgender & galli

04/29/2023

Yet again I find myself interested in an obscure cult with intense rituals surrounding castration and very few academic sources to satiate my curiosity.

The Skoptsy (an old Russian word meaning "castrated") were an underground offshoot of the Russian Orthodox Church that began in the 18th century. They were apart of the Old Believers, which is a Russian Orthodox group that resisted Patriarch Nikon's liturgical changes to the Church from 1652 to 1666.

I've attached a few links in the bibliography that describe the historical context surrounding the Skoptsy in greater detail than I could manage, but to summarize: their main belief, beside the asceticism typical of many cults, was that humanity could be purified by means of castration (or mastectomy, in the case of women). Men could undergo a "greater seal" which involved the removal of the penis.

In Skoptsy teachings, the testicles and breasts, shaped like the forbidden fruit, were believed to be the physical manifestation of original sin. This has a certain Biblical basis, if you squint.

”For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and 
there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by 
others—and there are those who choose to live 
like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. 
The one who can accept this should accept it.”

(Matthew 19:12). NIV.

The Skoptsy were the eunuchs who became such to enter the kingdom of heaven; to do so would guarantee their entry into paradise. Moreover, the Skoptsy had an apocolyptic slant (as many religions do): if 144,000 Skoptsy were to perform the seal, the end times would come.

This never came.

Although the Skoptsy movement became widespread through the travels of its founder Kondratii Selivanov, the religion was nevertheless persecuted by the Russian state. In 1792, Selivanov was put in an asylum by the tsar. Members of the sect were often humiliated for the seal. Jumping much further in time, the movement was eventually crushed by the Soviets as apart of their anti-religious persecution. The Skoptsy's numbers dwindled to a couple thousand in the '70s and the sect is probably dead now.

You've probably noticed that I've glossed over a lot of history. Partially, this is because there are historians who can do a far better job at this than I can (again, see bibliography), but also because I'm far more interested on what Skoptsyism means.

The Skoptsy remind me a bit of the Galli, the priests of Cybele. I'll write a post about them in the future, since they're one of my areas of study, but the central unifying factor remains: bodily mutilation for the sake of pleasing a divinity.

The Galli were met with extreme social prejudice, despite Cybele's status as one of the most important goddesses in Rome. In literature, they were often mocked and sexually debased. Unlike the Skoptsy, who were a domestic threat to the Czar's (and later the Soviets') authority, the Galli were considered a foreign threat; they were also a source of disgust for their subversion of gender expectations.

I find the commonalities between the Galli and the Skoptsy interesting: the way in which they defy social norms surrounding the untouchability of the body and the authority of the state for the purpose of serving the divine.

It's beautiful, isn't it? I mean, fully: the act of ridding oneself of flesh, the loyalty to the divine thereof, and the implications that has regarding one's social status. The devotion in spite of everything.

There's also something very transsexual about this, which is probably why the stories of the Skoptsy and the Galli appeal to me thusly. The act of mutilating one's genitals is really trans -- that is what you do if you get The Surgery -- but the intentionality of doing it, the intentionality of doing it for God. That is the closest humans can get to perfection.

I don't want to say the Skoptsy were right. For one thing, I'm not a Christian and I'm definitely not well versed enough in Old Belief to fully align my own understanding of God with theirs. But I do feel like there is something beautiful and important about their expression of devotion. Is there an elegant way to say "it's good to castrate oneself for the Divine?"

Probably not. That's fine; I'm at peace with it.

thyne, lazaruskittyaugustsquirrel

Works Cited

The Castrati ("Skoptsy") Sect in Russia: History, Teaching and Religious Practice by Irina A. Tulpe and Evgeny A. Torchinov

"Strange faith" and the blood libel by Aleksandr Panchenko

From Heresy to Harm: Self-Castrators in the Civic Discourse of Late Tsarist Russia by Laura Engelstein