author
Sergiei Nilus
1862–1930
A Russian religious writer and mystic, he is remembered both for his apocalyptic Orthodox writings and for helping spread one of the most notorious antisemitic forgeries of the modern era. His life sits at the uneasy crossroads of spirituality, conspiracy, and late-imperial Russian politics.
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About the author
Born in Moscow in 1862, Sergiei (more commonly Sergei) Nilus studied law and worked in public service before turning toward religious writing. He became known for works shaped by Russian Orthodox spirituality, mystical experience, and intense concern about moral decline and the end times.
Nilus is also historically significant for publishing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the early 1900s, presenting it as real when it was in fact a fabricated text. Because of that, his name remains tied not only to religious literature but also to the spread of a document that fueled modern antisemitism.
He died in 1929, though some library records list 1930, so dates can vary by source. Today he is remembered less as a spiritual guide than as a controversial figure whose writings reveal both the religious anxieties and the dangerous conspiracy thinking of his time.