 Russian police and Cossacks were used to force the parishioners to accept the new rules; parishioners were sometimes beaten or shot.The struggle over ritual has been described as being comparable to that of the Old Believer schism, and one case of self-immolation was recorded.The purification having been completed by the end of 1874, from January 1875 until May of that year all of the parishes proclaimed their union with the Orthodox Church.