Eschatology and Peasant Visions in Moldovan Folk Religion

This chapter explores the relationship between folk eschatology and the formation of new religious movements and their sacred texts. In twentieth-century Moldova, folk beliefs and vernacular texts about the end of days played an important role in the formation of two related millenarian religious movements, Inochentism and Archangelism. Folk legend and apocryphal apocalypses informed the way that time and historical events were experienced during the Russian revolutionary period and the subsequent incorporation of Moldova (formerly called “Bessarabia”) into Romania. Through an exploration of the texts published by the Moldovan peasant visionaries Alexandru and Grigore Culiac, this chapter illustrates how new sacred texts were crafted drawing on oral legends and vernacular manuscript traditions in order to animate the events of an unfolding eschaton. Archangelism continued its underground existence throughout the Soviet era, which illustrates the enduring significance of eschatological folk legend for understanding the roots of contemporary new religious movements.