Ynglism

Ynglism (Russian: Инглии́зм; Ynglist runes: ), institutionally the Ancient Russian Ynglist Church of the Orthodox Old Believers–Ynglings (Древнерусская Инглиистическая Церковь Православных Староверов–Инглингов, Drevnerusskaya Ingliisticheskaya Tserkov' Pravoslavnykh Staroverov–Inglingov), is a white nationalist branch of Slavic paganism formally established in 1992 by Aleksandr Yuryevich Khinevich (b. 1961) in Omsk, Russia, and legally recognised by the Russian state in 1998, although the movement was already in existence in unorganised forms since the 1980s. The adherents of Ynglism call themselves "Orthodox", "Old Believers", "Ynglings" or "Ynglists".

The Ynglist Church was described by some scholars as having a complex and well-defined doctrine and liturgy, an authoritative leading hierarchy, and as focusing on esoteric teachings. The Ynglists regard themselves as preserving the true, orthodox (i.e. in accordance with the universal order, right), religious tradition of the Russians, of all Slavs, and of all white European "Aryans". Other Rodnover groups in Russia are strongly critical of Ynglism; at a veche of Russian Rodnover organisations Ynglist doctrines were formally rejected. In the mid 2000s the church faced judicial prosecutions for ethnic hatred and Khinevich himself was convicted with probation between 2009 and 2011. After the central organisation in Omsk was dissolved, the movement proliferated into multiple groups in all the regions of Russia, and also in various countries of Europe and North America. The holy writings of Ynglism are the four Slavo-Aryan Vedas.

The term "Ynglism" refers to the Ynglings, one of the early Germanic royal families, whom Ynglists believe to be descendants of the Aryan race who originated from the Omsk region of Western Siberia, Russia. This narrative runs contrary to the leading scholarly consensus of the homeland of the historical Proto-Indo-Europeans. According to the Ynglists, the term has cosmological significance, referring to the order of the universe carried by the primordial fiery radiance — the Ynglia, personified as Yngly — emanated by the supreme God, Ra-M-Kha. They also call their religion "Orthodoxy" and "Old Belief".

According to Ynglist history and terminology, the Slavic term for "Orthodoxy", Pravoslavie (Православие, that like the Greek counterpart precisely means "right honouring", or "honouring" [slavit'] the "truth, order" [Prav]), is older than Christianity. The term, which means the right way of living in accordance with the law of the universe, was appropriated by Eastern Orthodox Christianity among the Slavs only by the 17th century, through the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, in order to wholly absorb the indigenous religion which was then still prevalent among the population. Prior to the reform, Christianity used the Greek-based loanword Ortodoksalnost (Ортодоксальность). The term "Russian" and related ones would derive instead from the Aryan root ros (рос), referring to "brightness" and "holiness".

The definition "Old Believers" (Староверы, Starovery), which today is employed to refer to Christians who preserved pre-Nikonian rituals, who are more correctly called the "Old Ritualists" (Старообрядцы, Staroobryadtsy), was imposed on the latter during the same Nikonian reform. Their previous name was "Righteous Christians" (Праведные Христиане, Pravednye Khristiane), and "Old Believers" referred instead to indigenous Slavic religion. According to the Ynglists, these theories would be proven by 13th-century documents preserved by a sect of the Christian Old Believers.

Aleksandr Y. Khinevich (b. 1961) is a native of Omsk and graduated from the Omsk State Technical University. He began to give an organisation to Ynglism between the 1980s and the early 1990, starting from the community Dzhiva-Astra (Джива-Астра) which practised exorcism and traditional medicine, and formally founded the Ynglist Church in 1992, in Omsk. In the same year he published a book entitled Ynglism, Short Course, in which he put forward the backbone of his doctrine, and he visited the United States where he claimed to have established branch groups of the Ynglist Church. Later in the 1990s he published the Slavo-Aryan Vedas, the fundamental books of Ynglism. As the head of the Ynglist Church he is known by his followers as Pater Diy (Патер Дий, meaning "Divine Father" or "Shining Father"), or volkhv Kolovrat. He does not qualify Ynglism either as a "paganism" or as a "religion", but rather as a "cosmic wisdom" brought by the Aryans, and preserved since ancient times in the region of Western Siberia. The scholar Elena Golovneva argued that it is accurate to classify Ynglism a "new religious movement", or an "invented tradition", which nonetheless contains elements drawn from very old sources. Scholars have identified influences from Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Helena Blavatsky's Theosophy, and German Ariosophy within Ynglism. The scholars Alexey V. Gaidukov and Kaarina Aitamurto described Ynglism as a movement focused on esotericism, with an authoritative leading hierarchy and a well-defined doctrine and liturgy.

In the 1990s Khinevich had in all likelihood an acquaintance with Viktor Bezverkhy (1930–2000), the founder and major ideologist of Peterburgian Vedism. Khinevich would have been granted the title of "honorary Wend" by the Union of Wends, the Rodnover organisation founded by Bezverkhy in 1990. Although there was not a full-fledged cooperation with the Peterburgian Vedists, and they never accepted the Slavo-Aryan Vedas of Ynglism, Khinevich reportedly took inspiration from Peterburgian Vedism and reprinted many materials of the Union of Wends. In the 2000s, Nikolay Viktorovich Levashov (1961–2012), after having elaborated his own teachings widely based upon Ynglism, established another organised Rodnover current, Levashovism, which recognises the Slavo-Aryan Vedas as its fundamental sources.

The scholar Polina P. Kocheganova noted that the "cosmic religion" proposed by Ynglism may be regarded as a "modernist" approach to Rodnovery, different from other currents which represent a "traditionalist" approach. Similarly, Gaidukov defined Ynglism as an eclectic or "polysyncratic" (i.e. mixing together elements from different sources) form of Rodnovery. For its characteristics, Ynglism is not regarded as genuine Rodnovery by some other Rodnover groups; in 2009, two of the largest Russian Rodnover organisations, the Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities and the Circle of Pagan Tradition, issued a joint statement against Ynglism, Levashovism, and the doctrines of other authors, deeming them "pseudo-Pagan teachings, pseudo-linguistics, pseudo-science and outright speculation." Kocheganova observed that, however, also the teachings of those Rodnover groups which criticised Ynglism are based on hypotheses about ancient Slavic religion.