Strigolnichestvo

The strigolniki appeared in Pskov in the middle of the fourteenth century and spread to Novgorod and Tver. They denied that the Orthodox clergy held a lawful priesthood, attacked the ignorance of the priests and the fees charged for baptism, penance and communion, and demanded that laymen be allowed to preach.

The bishops of Novgorod opposed them, and in 1375 a crowd threw three of them, among them the teachers Karp and Nikita, off the bridge into the Volkhov. Persecution and quarrels brought the movement to an end in the early fifteenth century; the last mention of it dates from 1487.