hite Clergy-The Parish Priest and the Protestant Pastor-In What Sense the Russian People are Religious-Icons-The Clergy and Popula

readily pardon one-half of my ignorance, but he may naturally expect that I should know the name of a man with whom I profess to be acquainted, and with whom I daily held long conversations during a period of several months. Strange as it may seem, I do not. During all the time of my sojourn in Ivanofka I never heard him addre

can communicate two curious facts concerning it: he had not poss

y generations all his paternal and maternal ancestors, male and female, had belonged to the priestly caste. He was thus a Levite of the purest water, and thoroughly Levitical in his character. Though he knew by experience something about the weakness of the flesh, he had never committed any sins of the heroic kind, and had no reason to conceal his origin. The curious facts above stated were simply the result of a peculiar custom which exists among the Russian clergy. According to this custom, when a boy enters the seminary he receives from the Bishop a new family name. The name may be Bogoslafski, from a

estigations. His life had been an uneventful one. At an early age he had been sent to the seminary in the chief town of the province, and had made for himself the reputation of a good average scholar. "The seminary of that time," he used to say to me, referring to that part of his life, "was not what it is now. Nowadays the teachers talk about humanitarianism, and the boys would think that a crime had been committed again

ed her father, who was then an old man. In that way I became a priest of Ivanofka, and have remained here ever since. It is a hard life

or you," I remarked. "I suppose, therefo

the seminarists who wish to be ordained: it

ng the system of paternal government a little too far. Why sh

dows and orphans, especially among the clergy of his own diocese. Wh

last remarks, I ventured to suggest that priests o

proverb has it, 'but a thing is not soon done.' How are we to economise? Ev

aughters might work a

a reply. Seeing that I had none to offer him, he continued, "Ev

author would make the new priest fall in love with and marry one of the daughters, and

ing he cannot leave things to chance. Besides this, he must arrange the matter before the young man takes orders, because, by the rules of the Church, the marriage cannot take place

alogy. The novelist can make two people fall in love with each other, and make them live happily together with

s the happiest ones; and as to the mother-in-law, there are-or at least there were until the emanci

enerally reign in p

himself "a man of the right sort"; but I did not attribute much importance to it, for I have occasionally heard henpecked husbands talk in this grandiloquent way when their wives were out of hearing. Altogether I was by

ve up to the door in his cart with a message that an old peasant was dying in a neighbouring village, and desired the last consolations of religion. Batushka was thus obliged to leave us, and his friend and I agreed to stroll leisurely in the direction of the village to which he was going, so as to m

subject," I said, "and I should very much

ppy mortals who are intended by Nature to take a pessimistic view of all things, and to point out to their fellows the deep sha

er, but I was desirous of knowing on what that opinion was founded-more especially as I s

I have always been placed at a disadvantage, not being ab

perience. A mother-in-law living in the house does not conduce to domesti

im that this was not a

n-law lived with me for some years, and I was obliged

" I said to myself, and then added audibly, "I hope

not enough, and she made a complaint to the Bishop. Last week I went to him to defend myself, but as I had not money enough for all the officials in the Consistoriu

he effect of a

is really very unjust," he added, assuming an indignant tone, "and very an

old mother-in-law, I could not but sympathise with my new acquaintance's indignation. My sympathy was, however, somewhat cooled wh

harvest, and can give of their abundance. There are merry-makings and marriages, besides the o

view-for I was old enough to know that clerical human nature is not altogether insensible to pecuniary considerations-but by the fact that he should thus undisguisedly express his opinions to a stranger without in the least suspecting that there was anything unseemly in his way of speaking. The incident appeared to me v

publicity. We full-grown men are treated like children, and watched like conspirators. If I wish to preach a sermon-not that I oft

don, who is the

ack Clergy-that is to say, they are all monks-and consequently cannot understand our wants. How can they, on whom celibacy is imposed by the rules of the Church, understand the position of a parish priest who has to bring up a family and to struggle with domestic cares of every kind? What they do is to take all the comfortable places for themselves, and leave us all the hard work. The monasteries are rich enough, and you see how poor we are. Perhaps you have heard that the parish priests extort money from the peasants-refusing to perform the rites of baptism or burial until a considerable sum has been paid. It is

this long tirade; "I have always heard that the Russians

he sacraments, and observe rigorously the fasts, which comprise nearly a half of the year;

y how you propose to rem

nown. In some provinces there have been attempts to do this by means of provincial assemblies of the clergy, but these efforts have always been s

in order to get publicity, and publicity was necessary in order to get freedom; and the practical result would be that the clergy would enjoy bigger salaries and more popular respect. We had only got thus

is wife, or his labourer is held up to ridicule, and in all the proverbs and popular sayings where the clergy are mentioned it is always with derision. The people shun the clergy, and have recourse to them not from the inner impulse of conscience, but from necessity. . . . And why do the people not respect the clergy? Because it forms a class apart; because, having received a false kind of education, it does not introduce into the life of the people the teaching of the Spirit, but remains in the mere dead forms of outward ceremonial, at the same time despising these forms even to blasphemy; because the clergy itself continually present

inistering the sacraments? Is it possible for the people to respect the clergy when they see that truth has disappeared from it, and that the Consistories, guided in their decisions not by rules, but by personal friendship and bribery, destroy in it the last remains of truthfulness? If we add to all this the false certificates which th

ble amount of truth. The reader must not, however, imagine that all Russian priests are of the kind above referred to. Many of them are honest, respectable, well-intentioned men, who conscientiously fulfil their humble duties, and strive hard to procure a g

a "secret" Report

ine Niko

d at the present time can be easily explained by its past hi

iests, with or without the consent of the parishioners; and their choice generally fell on the sons of the clergy as the men best fitted to take orders. The creation of Bishops' schools, afterwards called seminaries, in which the sons of the clergy were educated, naturally led, in the course of time, to the total exclusion of the other classes. The policy of the civil Government led to the same end. Peter the Great laid down the principle that every subject should in some way serve the State-the nobles as officers in the army or navy, or as officials in the civil service; the clergy as ministers of

e, and treated as vagrants and runaways those who disregarded the prohibition; in vain successive sovereigns endeavoured to diminish the number of these supernumeraries by drafting them wholesale into the army. In Moscow, St. Petersburg, and all the larger towns the cry was, "Still they come!" Every morning, in the Kremlin of Moscow, a large crowd of them assembled for the purpose of being hired to officiate in the private chapels of the rich nobles, and a great deal of hard bargaining took place between the priests and the lackeys sent to hire them-conducted in the same spirit, and in nearly the same forms, as that which simultaneously took place in the bazaar close by between extortionate traders and thrifty housewives. "Listen to

ll less from the nobles. When the church was situated not on the State Domains, but on a private estate, they were practically under the power of the proprietor-almost as completely as his serfs; and sometimes that power was exercised in a most humiliating and shameful way. I have heard, for instance, of one pri

priest without much danger of being called to account for his conduct. Of course such conduct was an offence in the eyes of the criminal law; but the criminal law of that time was very shortsighted, and strongly disposed to close its eyes completely when the offender was an influential proprietor. Had the incidents reached the ears of the Emperor Nicholas he would probably have ordered the culprit to be summarily and

ate officials in the public offices, where they commonly eked out their scanty salaries by unblushing extortion and pilfering. Those who did not succeed in ga

evil in this world and securing felicity in the next. To this general rule the Russian peasantry are no exception, and the Russian Church has not done all it might have done to eradicate this conception and to bring religion into closer association with ordinary morality. Hence such incidents as the following are still possible: A robber kills and rifles a traveller, but he refrains from eating a piece of cooked meat which he finds in the cart, because it happens to be a fast-day; a peasant prepares to rob a young attache of the

religion as a mass of ceremonies which have a magical rather than a spiritual significance. The poor woman who kneels at a religious procession in order that the Icon

f priests, like the great majority of men in general, content themselves with simply striving to perform what is expected of them, and their character is consequently det

to counsel those who are harassed with doubts, and to admonish those who openly stray from the narrow path. Such is the ideal in the popular mind, and pastors generally seek to realise it, if not in very deed, at least in appearance. The Russian priest, on the contrary, has no such ideal set before him by his parishioners. He is expected merely to conform to certain observances, and to perform punctiliousl

find. In order to be a good Protestant it is necessary to "search the Scriptures," and to do this, one must be able at least to read. To be a good member of the Greek Orthodox Church, on the contrary, according to pop

ys, but also during Lent and the other long fasts-make occasional pilgrimages to holy shrines, and, in a word, fulfil punctiliously the ceremonial observances which they suppose necessary for salvation. But here their religiousness ends. They are generally profoundly ignorant of religious doctrine, and

emonial part of religion suffices, and he has the most unbounded, childlike confidence in the saving efficacy of the rites which he practises. If he has been baptised in infancy, has regularly observed the fasts, has annually partaken of the Holy Communion, and has just confessed and received extreme unction, he feels death approach with the most perfect tranquillity. He is tormented with no doubts

derstand the word. Let me explain then, briefly, what an Icon is-a very necessary explanati

size from a square inch to several square feet. Very often the whole picture, with the exception of the face and hands of the figure, is covered with a metal plaque, embossed so as to

ployed in this kind of work-and are to be found in every Russian house, from the hut of the peasant to the palace of the Emperor. They are generally placed high up in a corner facing the door, and good orthodox Christians on entering b

ough the district. Thousands flock to prostrate themselves before the heaven-sent picture, and some are healed of their diseases-a fact that plainly indicates its miracle-working power. The whole affair is then officially reported to the Most Holy Synod, the highest ecclesiastical authority in Russia, in order that the existence of the miracle-working power may be fully and regularly proved. The official recognition of the fact is by no means a mere matter of form, for the Synod is well aware that wonder-working Icons are alw

pular respect and veneration: that of being intimately associated with great events in the national history. The Vladimir Madonna, for example, once saved Moscow from the Tartars; the Smolensk Madonna accompanied the army in the glorious campaign against Napoleon in 1812;

ssity of bringing their theological beliefs into logical harmony with their scientific conceptions. A man may remain a good orthodox Christian long after he has adopted scientific opinions irreconcilable with Eastern Orthodoxy, or, indeed, with dogmatic Christianity of any kind. In the confessional the priest never seeks to ferret out heretical opinions; and I can recall no instance in Russian history of a man being burnt at the stake on the demand of the ecclesiastical authorities, as so often happened in the Roman Catholic world, for his scientific views. This t

rki ig istorii Russ

etersburg, 1

rfs and reforming the corrupt civil and judicial Administration. During the subsequent reactionary period, which culminated in the reign of the late Emperor, Alexander III., much more attention was devoted to Church matters, and it came to be recognised in official circles that something ought to be done for the parish clergy in the way of improving their material condition so as to increase their moral influence. With this object in view, M. Pobedonostsef, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, induced the Government in 1893 to make a State-grant of about 6,500,000 roubles, which should be increased every year, but the sum was very inadequate, and a large portion of it w

s rites, but very little consideration for the human beings who serve at the altar. In 14,564 parishes possessing such curatorships no less than 2,500,000 roubles were collected, but of this sum 2,000,000 were expended on the maintenance and embellishment of churches, an

ptoms of important changes. This may be illustrated by an entry in my note-book, writ

intellectual wants are very limited, and he devotes his attention chiefly to the practical affairs of everyday life, which he manages very successfully. He does not squeeze his parishioners unduly, but he considers that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and insists on his flock providing for his wants according t

he antiquated language of the Church Service rather than to modern parlance-and his armoury of terse popular proverbs which constitute such a characteristic trait of the peasantry, is less frequently drawn on. When I ask him about the present condition of the peasantry, his account does not differ substantially from that of his elder colleague, but he does not condemn their sins in the same forcible terms. He laments their shortcomings

village, and he uses his influence to induce the peasants to take advantage of the benefits it offers, both to those who are in need of a little ready money and to those who might inv

e increase, the clergy may come to exercise