Some built chapels for worship, kept sacraments, and revered saints and icons, while others (like the Ikonobortsy, "icon-wrestlers") discarded these practices in the pursuit of individual approaches to scripture.

In general, they rejected the institutionalized formalism of Orthodoxy and denominations with similar doctrines in favor of more emphasis on "Original Christianity" as they understood it.

Similar to Presbyterians among Protestants, and considered heretical by the Orthodox Church, they elect a council of dominant elders who preserve a sort of apostolic succession in their view.

As such, the Molokans have been compared to certain kinds of Protestants (such as Anabaptists and Baptists) because they have multiple similar aspects since they reject the Orthodox priesthood and icons, have their own presbyters, hold the Bible as their main guide and interpret the sacraments "spiritually".

The Keraite resided upon the Orkhon Steppes, south of Lake Baikal and north of the Gobi Desert, also referred to as the Altai-Sayan region.

[12] Arriving in the Rus' lands with the 13th century Tatar (Mongolian) invasion[13] of Batu and Möngke, the practice was adopted by other Christian groups, who had pastoral communities on the Eurasian plains.

King David the IV assimilated these northern Turkic tribes because he was at war with the Muslim Seljuk Turks to the South and desired to reform his army.

100 families of the original Molokan Karaits were settled in Halychyna (specifically Lviv) by hostage arrangement between Daniel of Galicia and Batu Khan in 1246 CE.

Their leader Matvei Semyonovich Dalmatov (Матвей Семёнович Далматов) was tortured to death in a monastery prison by breaking wheel.

In 1428 Crimea became independent and supported the original Molokan-Subbotniks, the Crimean Karaites (Qara-Tatars / Karaylar), who had always played an important role in Mongol politics.

The founder of the Molokans, Semyon Matveevich Uklein (1733-1809), was a son-in-law of the Doukhobor leader Ilarion Poberokhin (1720-1792) as explained by O. Beznosova: "Soon (approximately in 1779-1780) a group broke away from Pobirohin's disciples.

It was led by his son-in-law Semyon Uklein, who did not share the mystical spirit and self-deification of the former leader and defended the need for reliance on the Gospel texts in the organization of church life (Margaritov, 1914).

This group (called "Molokans") became a "rational" direction of Spiritual Christianity, as opposed to the "mystics" - "christoverchestvo" adherents, "Doukhobors" and "skoptsy"."

From the intervention of Count Nikolay Zubov in 1795, Molokans (бесшапочники) were tolerated under Catherine the Great but constrained by strict rules imposed upon them intended to curb community growth.

The government's policy was to send the Molokans away from the center of Russia into the Caucasus (1833), and other outlying areas to prevent their having influence on other peasants; they were sent to Armenia, Azerbaijan (1834), Ukraine (1830s), central Asia, and Siberia, where many communities have survived into the present.

In 1912, there were only 133,935 Molokane and 4,844 Pryguny counted in Russia (census of the Department of Spiritual Affairs; see Glenn Dynner: "Holy Dissent: Jewish and Christian Mystics in Eastern Europe", 2011).

[22] Being prohibited from winning converts under the laws of the Russian Empire, they adopted endogamy and were classified as an ethnic group under the Bolsheviks.

In 1899, when about a third of all Dukhobortsty left the Caucasus to central Canada, the Canadian government also gave permission for "Molokans" to migrate and get the same privileges (land, communal, non-military).

To take advantage of this generous privilege, many different faith tribes of spiritual Christians in the Caucasus all claimed to be "Molokan" while leaving Russia for Canada.

By original Molokans who either refused to be evangelized by Protestant denominations or insisted that they will retain their faith unchanged by the "Jumper" revivalist movement in the 1830s.

[24][25] A portion of the Molokans during this time began to experience a charismatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit,[26] similar to later Pentecostal faiths.

Some of these Molokan Jumpers called themselves "New Israelites", when one Prygun leader Maxim Rudomyotkin in Nikitino, Erivan Guberniya was announced to be the "King of the Spirits" in 1853.

The group, also known as Maximists", considered Efim Gerasimovich Klubnikin (1842-1915) in Romanovka, Kars oblast, a divinely inspired 12-year-old boy prophet.

Most seeking rural isolation moved to Baja Mexico, then Arizona, Central California, and some other parts of the West Coast and Canada.

Roughly 3,500 Molokans left Russia between 1901 and 1911 in search of religious freedom, escaping the persecution inflicted upon them by the Russian Orthodox Church and state.

They do however work to preserve the uniqueness of their own traditions and culture, such as through the usage of Russian in their church services, community dinners (referred to as 'obed'), and a shared adherence to diet based upon their religious beliefs.

Thirty-three other Molokans were arrested for creating a disturbance outside of the jail house; women struck police with their umbrellas and a knife-wielding man had to be overpowered.

After the 35 men were sentenced, the Molokans in the courtroom broke out into ecstatic singing and dancing and some participants were slightly injured while being subdued.

When Molokans arrived in the United States, some family names were horribly misspelled by immigration officials who could not read Cyrillic—for example, "Сусоев" became "Sessoyeff," which is unpronounceable in English.