The religious sect called in Russian - Skopcy is not the most important for this Site, because the very essence of their doctrine makes it not very interesting for genealogists. On other hand, the sect was active also in the region of Latvia, though it did not become numerous at all. Some information on it could be interesting also for those who are wishing to know more about religious creativity and persecutions of religions in the Russia Empire.

The Skopcy followed the idea that the very root of human sinfulness is sex. To liquidate the very possibility of living in sin, they convinced their followers to be castrated. Of course, they thought they had found in the Holy Bible some foundation for this doctrine, and their religious system comprised also other less essential ideas.

Technically there were two steps in reaching the proper religious status. The first, called "the small seal", was the amputation of testicles together with scrotum. The libido and the possibility of copulation was not always annihilated by this operation, so the second stage, called "the king's seal", was practiced, which consisted in the additional amputation of penis. In this case, they put a lead or tin cork into the orifice of the urethra to avoid accretion. There were also some similar mutilations of female followers of Skopcy, but in this case they could not reach desired results - the women could still have sexual desire, technical possibility to make love and even could give birth to a child.

The main ideas of Skopcy were old enough, but the sect began to develop only in the sixties of the 18th century. The officials of the Empire could not accept the activities of this sect, and it was criminally persecuted from the beginning. The main leader of the renewed sect Kondratij Selivanov was exiled to Siberia in 1775.

The second important person in the sect of that time was Alexander Šilov, who was punished at the end of 1780s. He was exiled for forced labor to Riga. Here he met his followers he already knew personally. They also were exiled for forced labor and were engaged in the construction of fortification buildings. A.Šilov together with his followers organized prayers in the house of a petty-bourgeois Degterev, and they began religious propaganda as well. Soon they castrated about 12 converts. It seems, however, that the new ideas were limited only to the soldiers and Riga inhabitants of Russian ethnicity. In fact, nothing is known that this sect was active in the region of Latvia after this initial period.

The officials could not allow further activities of A.Šilov, and he was punished by sticks and imprisoned in Daugavpils [Duenaburg] fortress (1789). He continued to have contacts with sect members, however. Later (1797) he was imprisoned in the fortress of Schlisserburg (near St.Petersbourg), and he died in 1799 or 1800. Skopcy considered him as a saint after his death.

I gathered the information about Skopcy and A.Šilov in the encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron printed at the end of the 19th century. The author of the article about Skopcy expressed surprise that this sect was very viable and could recruit new followers during all the 19th century, in spite of serious persecutions by the officials. At that time Skopcy were exiled to Siberia or to hard labor. The viability of the sect was explained mainly by the existence of closed community of Skopcy and by the fact that these communities had rather good success in business (many of them were active and prosperous merchants) and in general had better living conditions than other people.

The end of the sect was in 1920s, when Soviets solved all problems with Skopcy by special Bolshevik type methods already developed to that time.