Doukhobor

Member of a Christian sect of Russian origin, now mainly found in Canada, also known as ‘Christians of the Universal Brotherhood’.

They were long persecuted, mainly for refusing military service – the writer Tolstoy organized a relief fund for them – but in 1898 were permitted to emigrate and settled in Canada, where they number about 13,000, mainly in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. An extremist group, ‘the Sons of Freedom’, staged demonstrations and guerrilla acts in the 1960s, leading to the imprisonment of about 100 of them. Some of the Doukhobor teachings resemble those of the Quakers.