), Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire – April 2, 1930, Moscow, USSR) was a religious figure, creator, and leader of the sect United Temple, which operated in the 1920s.

He graduated from the Nizhny Novgorod Count Arakcheev Cadet Corps and studied at the Moscow Commercial Institute, where he attended lectures by the theologian Sergei Bulgakov.

Over time, elements of sadism, masochism, and sexual perversion began to emerge within this community, which eventually transformed into a totalitarian religious sect with openly anti-Soviet views.

In March 1930, following a trial widely covered by the central press, Dmitry Shultz was sentenced to capital punishment under Article 58-10 of the RSFSR Criminal Code ("for propaganda calling for the undermining or weakening of Soviet power, using religious prejudices") and was executed by firing squad.

[5][8] She was fond of mysticism, read the works of Russian philosophers Vladimir Solovyov, Sergei Bulgakov, and writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky, and participated in spiritual séances.

[9][11] Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich reported that when it was Shultz's turn to serve in the army during World War I, he persuaded his fiancée to cut off his finger to avoid being sent to the front.

[14][9] The helper spirits on behalf of whom Schultz prophesied, taking turns acting, were: Marquisette (patroness of children), Matryona Filippievna of Krivoy Zoul (patroness of sect members), Tomás de Torquemada (the Grand Inquisitor who assisted in the exorcisms and consolation of sectarians subjected to corporal punishment), Marguerite Gastner, Casibius, Ulrich von Hutten, Germenochka, Olechka, El-El, Jevanda, and Demeter.

[16] An Izvestia correspondent and Ilya Braude claimed that Dmitry Shultz headed the sect in Moscow, while his brother Heinrich "expanded and strengthened its Nizhny Novgorod branch".

Prophet Agathit Abdullah revealed during a new séance that Metochka was patronized by the ancient Greek goddess Demeter, who gave the community her portrait and a sculpted bust.

[27] While the preliminary process was underway, the prosecutor's office received an anonymous message written with blood, demanding the release of Dmitry Shultz and threatening to reprisal those who would try him.

[34][8] Yevgeny Krasnushkin, MD, professor at Moscow State University, devoted his speech at the trial to the reasons for the blind obedience of an entire group of people to the will of Dmitry Shultz.

Such persons who have received induced insanity under the influence of hypnosis, having been placed in other conditions, when all the lies, falsehoods, and games of their hypnotist have been revealed to them, have recovered from their mental disorder, have recovered.At the trial, Margot Shultz was sentenced to five years in camps.

[40] Nikolai Kitaev, a candidate of law, honorary employee of the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, and honored lawyer of the Russian Federation, pointed out that although Shultz was convicted under Article 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (for propaganda containing a call to undermine or weaken Soviet power, using religious prejudices — a crime against the state) his actions fell under Article 123 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (committing deceptive acts with the aim of arousing superstition in the masses of the population, to derive any benefits by this means).

[1][7] Nikolai Kitaev, a candidate of law, described Schultz, based on the testimony of Ilya Braude who knew him closely, as "a representative of an old noble family, a teacher by profession, a man with a higher education who spoke foreign languages and was quite widely erudite".

[46][8] Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich noted the "original, juicy, and peculiar" language of Dmitry Schultz's writings,[47] and characterized him as "a sybarite who likes to drink and eat, especially at other people's expense".

This was further influenced by Dmitry Merezhkovsky's ideas of Christ and Antichrist, Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor, Vasily Rozanov's philosophy of eros, and Vladimir Solovyov's concept of the great androgyne.

[48] In his teachings, Schultz claimed to be a prophet and reformer (in the text he refers to himself as Daughter of the Earth[54] and Illustrious Vestryman)[55] who had replaced the dilapidated Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Islam, and who could unite these three religious movements (he gave special preference, however, to Christianity in its earliest form as presented in the Gospels).

[47] Fyodor Putintsev referred to members of the sect as students of music, theater, and art technical schools, attributing this to the prevalence of individuals from class-alien strata in these educational institutions.

[20][42] The girl rewarded obedient students but, according to Olga Khoroshilova, a candidate of art history, "was a psychopath and a sadist": she flogged the guilty with birch rods, beat them with sticks, burned them with hot iron, and tore pieces of meat from their bodies with pliers.

The reasons for punishment could include spilled soup, an unfriendly look, a mistake in quoting a fragment from Consolation, Metochka's bad mood,[24][60] poorly washed laundry, stepping on the cat's tail, the appearance of flies in Schultz's room (five strokes of the stick for each fly),[23] visiting a movie theater, club, theater, appearing at the military commissariat, or participating in public demonstrations.

Dmitry was fond of applying bandages... [iron scorched on the body] crosses, while he scrubbed the ulcers from burns with such force that we writhed and screamed in agony, and he took pleasure in our suffering.Schultz himself claimed that the punishments were introduced to strengthen willpower in anticipation of the coming of the kingdom of God.

[49] During "special celebrations," the members of the sect "indulged in unrestrained debauchery," a practice justified in a separate work by Dmitry Schultz, Word on the Flesh.

[63] According to sect member Nikolai Makarov, the spirits during spiritualistic séances attempted to turn him away from the female sex and awaken in him a sexual interest in the girl Metochka.

The sect's khorugv featured colored stripes: yellow symbolized God the Father, blue represented Christ, white denoted purity, and green stood for the earth and Schultz himself.

[65][66] A brief section on the sect was included by Fyodor Putintsev, a researcher of sectarianism and a member of the Central Council of the Union of Militant Godless People of the USSR, in his 1930 book Kulak Light-Prevention (Cases of Insanity and Mass Religious Psychosis Based on Kulak-Provocative Rumors about the 'End of the World').

[67] Soviet atheist organizer Alexander Lukachevsky, in his 1933 book Marxism-Leninism as Militant Atheism, cited the Schultz sect as an example of brutality and open counter-revolutionary activity.

[72] In 2020, the magazine Rodina published a comprehensive article by Olga Khoroshilova, candidate of art history and associate professor at Saint Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design, about Dmitry Schultz.

[73] A year later, in a significantly revised and expanded form, this article was included in Khoroshilova's monograph Russian Travesties in History, Culture, and Everyday Life.

According to Alexei Kuznetsov, Braude was "a brilliant lawyer, an excellent orator, and a man who graduated from the law faculty of a major university before the revolution," but remained loyal to the Soviet authorities.

Kuznetsov disagreed with the qualification of Schultz's crime, arguing that it was more consistent with Articles 123 ("Committing deceptive acts to arouse superstition in the masses for personal gain"), 155 ("Compulsion to engage in prostitution or maintenance of brothels"), or 58.14 ("Use of religious prejudices to overthrow workers' and peasants' power or incite resistance to its laws and regulations").