By Karl Hardt, Assistant Editor

There is no greater principal for the Doukhobor people than that of peace.
This Sunday, Doukhobors will celebrate the 109th anniversary of the historic occasion when they burned their weapons and devoted themselves as a people to that principal. "It's a big part of the Doukhobor heritage," said Larry Ewashen, curator of the Doukhobor Village Museum.

"The idea of pacifism is probably the strongest for Doukhobors. I think they reaffirm themselves by doing this every year. I think it transcends all the different Doukhobors."

Known as Peter's Day in honour of Peter Lordly Verigin, the event will begin at 10 a.m. with prayers and songs at Verigin's Tomb, and will continue with a potluck luncheon at the Doukhobor Village Museum, to be followed by a program of song, speech and congregational sharing. Ewashen said he plans to read the only eulogy read at Lordly Verigin's funeral. The public is invited to participate.

"This and our grand opening is probably the biggest thing we do. There will be between one and two hundred people I think", Ewashen said.

Here is a brief timeline for the Doukhobor arms burning: 1894: Tsar Nicholas II demands that all citizens take the oath of allegiance. Peter Verigin, from his home in exile, advises his followers to refuse to take the oath and also stop the use of alcohol and tobacco and to become vegetarians. He also advises that they take a definitive stand against militarism. Through couriers, Vasil Obedkov, Vasil Verigin and Vasil Vereschagin, tells the Doukhobors to make secret plans to burn their weapons and for all Doukhobor men in the army to refuse further drill.

1895: Easter - A soldier, Matvey Lebedev throws down his gun while training in the Yelizavetopol reserve battalion, he states that war and Christianity are incompatible. Ten colleagues join him. They are sent to a disciplinary battalion and exile along with sixty other young Doukhobor men in active service who followed their example.

1895: midnight of June 28-29, on St. Peter and Paul Day, Peter Verigin's Saint's name day, the secret preparations result in simultaneous fires as some 7,000 Doukhobors burn all of their weapons in three districts of the Caucuses.

This is the defining moment of the Doukhobors' statement of pacifism and rejection of state sanctioned murder, and a support by the civilian population for the young men who were being beaten and tortured in the battalions for refusing the gun.

It was the extreme persecution following this event that aroused the sympathy and interest of Leo Tolstoy and friends, who began a campaign to find the Doukhobors a place of refuge, and which resulted in their immigration to Canada in 1899. Ever since that day, Doukhobors in every settlement area, remember this heroic struggle of their forefathers, and reaffirm their own faith and pacifistic understanding through commemorating this day in ceremonies of remembrance, prayers, and communal food sharing.