[a. Russ. штунднстъ štundist, f. G. stunde hour, said to be used by the German settlers as the name for their religious meetings: see -IST.] A member of a large Evangelical sect (called штунда štunda) that arose among the peasantry of South Russia about 1860, as a result of contact with German Protestant settlers, and in opposition to the doctrine and authority of the Orthodox Church.
1878. D. M. Wallace, Russia, xix. 301. Some of them are simply evangelical Protestants, like the ‘Stundisti,’ who have adopted the religious conceptions of their neighbours, the German colonists.
1888. Stead, Truth about Russia, 363. Deputations came to St. Petersburg from the Stundists, the Molokani, and the Baptists.
attrib. 1893. The Stundists, 35. Ivan Golovtchenko, a Stundist preacher…. He was taken before the Court on a charge of propagating Stundist doctrines.
