To the conservatives, known subsequently as Old Ritualists or Old Believers, this marked the beginning of the reign of Antichrist (was not 666 the number of the Beast?); but they continued the struggle, conservative opposition to the Westernizing policy of the tsars, which was held responsible for the introduction of Polish luxury and Latin heresy, giving it a political as well as a religious character.
The last false prophet was M'hammad or Ahmat bar Bisbat (Mahomet), but Anosh, who remained close beside him and his immediate successors, prevented hostilities against the true believers, who claim to have had in Babylonia, under the Abbasids, four hundred places of worship. Subsequent persecutions compelled their withdrawal to `Ammara in the neighbourhood of Wasit, and ultimately to Khuzistan.
The Moguls, though baptized, are in fact believers in fetishism as much as the unconverted Samoyedes.
Closely akin to these, though not derived from the Old Believers, are certain mystic sects which deny the efficacy of the sacraments altogether.
It is the duty of all believers to strive to become one or other of these by subduing the flesh, which is the product of Evil, and all motions of the will.