 In the last quarter of the fifteenth century, when a schism arose in the Russian Orthodox Church and many new sects sprang up, Aleksei became a convert to Judaism.Some of the new sects had shown a decided tendency to revert to the old Mosaic law.This probably suggested to the influential Jew Skhariyah (Zechariah), of Kiev, the idea of spreading Judaism among the Russians of Pskov and Novgorod.