Thousands of their ancestors were expelled to the fringes of the Russian Empire almost two centuries ago for rejecting the Orthodox church and refusing to serve in Czar Nicholas I’s army. Today, only about 100 Doukhobors remain in the tight-knit Russian-speaking farming community in two remote mountainous villages. (AP Video / Oct. 6, 2024)
By Kostya Manenkov The Associated Press
GORELOVKA, Georgia (AP) — A 10-year-old boy proudly stands beside his father and listens to the monotone chanting of elderly women clad in embroidered headscarves and long colorful skirts. It is Ilya’s first time attending a night prayer meeting in Gorelovka, a tiny village in the South Caucasus nation of Georgia, and he is determined to follow the centuries-old hymns that have been passed down through the generations.
There is no priest and no iconography. It’s just men and women praying together, as the Doukhobors have done since the …