This series consists of records mainly created, received and accumulated by the members of the Christian Community and Brotherhood of Reformed Doukhobors (CCBRD). The documents in this series relate to operations of the CCBRD and to the matters concerning the Doukhobor community from 1899 until 2011, predominantly from 1950s until 1980s. This series relate also to the relationship between the CCBRD, the Sons of Freedom and the USCC. In 1949, Stephan Sorokin arrived in British Columbia became spiritual leader of the Sons of Freedom replacing John Lebedoff. Under his leadership, the organization formally became the CCBRD in 1956. This series contains documents illustrating administration of the organization, managing community and land, relationships and conflicts between parts of the community, leadership problems, Stephan Sorokin’s leadership, conflicts between Doukhobor community and the government of British Columbia and Canada, interest in immigrating out of Canada, and protests and imprisonment of the Sons of Freedom. The records also contain decisions, manifestos, legal and doctrinal arguments, memberships, land “claims” etc. The records include: administrative documents, forms, applications, individual and organizational correspondence, writings, petitions, statements, messages, declarations, protocols, lists, legal documents, songs texts, essays, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs, and publications. The records are in Russian and/or English; some are printed and some are handwritten, some have accompanying transcriptions and/or translations; some are original documents and some are photocopies.
This series is divided in to ten sub-series: 1: Administration; 2: Membership; 3: Key people; 4: Stephan Sorokin correspondence and documents; 5: Sons of Freedom related documents; 6: Land documents; 7: Writings; 8: Publications and clippings; 9: General documents; 10: Photographs.