What is the “Skoptsi” mentioned in “Vanity Fair?
The Skoptsy (Skopzi, Skoptsi) were a sect that broke away from the official Russian Orthodox church in the 18th century. Famous for their self-castration, they believed that after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Adam & Eve had the halves of the forbidden fruit grafted onto their bodies forming testicles & breasts, and that the removal of these organs restored the Skoptsy to a pristine prelapsarian state.
