CEMETERY OF THE TRANSFIGURATION.
Four or five miles from the Holy Gate, beyond the walls of Moscow, in
a populous suburb, near the edge of a pool of water, lies a field
containing multitudes of graves--the graves of people who were long
ago struck down by plague. This field is fenced with stakes, and part
of the inclosure guarded by a wall. Within this wall stand a hospital
and a convent; hospital on your left, convent on your right. A huge
gateway, built of stones from older piles, and quaintly colored in
Tartar panels, opens in your front. Driving up to this gate, we send
in our cards--a councillor of state, an English friend, and
myself--and are instantly admitted by the chief.
"This cemetery," says our friendly guide, "is called Preobrajenski
(Transfiguration), from the village close by. In the plague time
(1770) it was steppe, and people threw out their dead upon it, laying
them in trenches, hardly covered with a pinch of dust. The plague
growing worse and worse, the village elder got permission from Empress
Catharine to build a house on the spot, to keep the peace and fumigate
the dead. That house was built among the trenches. Ten years later
(1781), Elia Kovielin, a brickmaker in Moscow, built among these
graves a church, a cloister, and a hospital. This Kovielin was a
clever man; rich in money and in friends; living in a fine house, and
having the master of police, with governors, generals, princes, always
at his board. Catharine was not aware of his being an Old Believer;
but her ministers and courtiers knew him well enough. His house was a
church; the pictures in his private chapel cost him fifty thousand
rubles. Kovielin _was_ a rich man. The monks were afraid of him,
because he had friends at court; the priests, because he had the
streets and suburbs at his back. Besides, what monk or priest could
rail against a man for building a cemetery for the dead? A very clever
man! You have heard the story of his magic loaf? You have not! Then
you shall hear it. Paul the First, becoming aware that this edifice of
the Transfiguration was an Old Believer's church, resolved to have it
taken down. Kovielin drove to St. Petersburg, and found the Emperor
deaf to his pleas. Voiékof, master of police in Moscow, having the
Emperor's orders to pull down tower and wall, rode out to the
cemetery, where he was received by Kovielin, and on going away was
honored by the present of a convent loaf. A loaf! A magic loaf!
Voiékof liked that lump of bread so well, that he went home and forgot
to pull the cemetery about our ears. Folk say that loaf contained a
purse--five thousand rubles coined in gold. Who knows? Elia Kovielin
was a clever man."
Our guide through the courts and chapels is not an Old Believer, but
an officer of state. In 1852, Nicolas seized the cemetery, sequestered
the funds, and threw the management into official hands. The hospital
he left to the Old Believers; for this great hospital is maintained in
funds by the gifts of pious men; and the Emperor saw that if his
officers seized the hospital, either his budget must be charged with a
new burden, or the sick and aged people must be thrown into the
streets. He seized their church, and left them their sick and aged
poor.
"Kovielin's magic loaf was not the best," says the officer in charge;
"these Old Believers are always rogues. When Bonaparte was lodging at
the Kremlin, they went to him with gift and speech--the gift, a dish
of golden rubles; saying, they came to greet him, and acknowledge him
as Tsar."
"They thought he would deliver them from the tyranny of monks and
priests?"
"Yes; that was what they dreamt. Napoleon humored them like fools, and
even rode down hither to see them in their village. Kovielin was dead;
_he_ would not have done such things. Napoleon rode round their
graves, and ate of their bread and porridge; but he could not make
them out. They wanted a White Tsar; not a soldier in uniform and
spurs. He went away puzzled; and when he was gone the rascals took to
forging government notes."
"Odd trade to conduct in a cemetery!"
"You doubt me! Ask the police; ask any friend in Moscow; ask the
councillor."
"They were suspected," says the councillor of state, "and their chapel
was suppressed; but these events occurred in a former reign."
"What became of their chapel? Was it pulled down?"
"No; there it stands. The chapel is a rich one; Kovielin transferred
to it all those pictures from his private house which had cost him
fifty thousand rubles; and many rich merchants of Moscow graced it
with works of art. It has been purified since, and turned into an
Orthodox Church."
"An Orthodox Church?"
"Well, yes; in a sort of way. You see, the people here about are Old
Believers; warm in their faith; attached to their ancient rites. In
numbers only they are strong: ten millions--fifteen millions--twenty
millions; no one knows how many. Long oppressed, they have lost alike
their love of country and their loyalty to the Tsar; some looking
wistfully for help to the Austrian Kaiser; others again dreaming of a
king of France. It is of vast political moment to recover their lost
allegiance; and the ministers of Nicolas conceived a plan which has
been steadily carried out. The Old Believers are to be reconciled to
the empire by--what shall we say?"
"A trick?"
"Well, this is the plan. The chapel is to be declared orthodox; it is
to be opened by thirty monks and a dozen priests; but the monks are to
be dressed in homely calico, and the ritual to be used is that
employed before Nikon's time."
"You mean me to understand that the Official Church is willing to
adopt the Ancient Rites, if she may do so with her present priests?"
"Yes; the object of the Government is to prove that custom, not
belief, divides the Ancient from the Orthodox Church."
"It is an object that compels the Government to meet the Old Believers
more than half-way; for to give up Nikon's ritual is to give up all
the principle at stake. Has the experiment of an Orthodox priest
performing the Ancient Rite succeeded in bringing people to the
purified church?"
"Old Believers say it has completely failed. The chapel is now divided
from the hospital by a moral barrier; and outside people scorn to pass
the door and fall into what they call a trap. Last year the chiefs of
the asylum prayed for leave to build a new wall across this courtyard,
cutting off all communication with what they call their desecrated
shrine. The home minister saw no harm in their request; but on sending
their petition to the Holy Governing Synod, he met a firm refusal of
the boon. The Popular Church has nothing to expect from these mitred
monks."
On passing into this "desecrated shrine," we find a sombre church, in
which vespers are being chanted by a dozen monks, without a single
soul to listen. Most of these monks are aged men, with long hair and
beards, attired in black calico robes, and wearing the ancient Russian
cowl. Each monk has a small black pillow, on which he kneels and
knocks his head. Church, costume, service, every point is so arranged
as to take the eye and ear as homely, old and weird, in fact, the
Ancient Rite.
"Do any of the Old Believers come to see you?"
"Yes, on Sundays, many," says the chief pope; "for on Sundays we allow
them to dispute in church, and they are fond of disputing with us,
phrase by phrase, and rite by rite. Five or six hundred come to
us--after service--to hear us questioned by their popes. We try to
show them that we all belong to one and the same Church; that the
difference between us lies in ceremony and not in faith."
"Have you made converts to that view?"
"In Moscow, no; in Vilna, Penza, and elsewhere, our work of
conciliation is said to have been more blessed."
"Those places are a long way off."
"Yes; bread that is scattered on the waters may be found in distant
parts."
When I ask in official quarters, on what pretense the Emperor Nicolas
seized the Popular Cemetery, the answer is--that under the guise of a
cemetery, the Old Believers were establishing a college of their
faith; from which they were sending forth missionaries, full of Bible
learning, into other provinces; and that these priests and elders were
attracting crowds of men from the Orthodox Church into dissent. It was
alleged that they were spreading far and fast; that the parish priests
were favoring them; and that every public trouble swelled their ranks.
To wit, the cholera is said to have changed a thousand Orthodox
persons into Old Believers every week. If it had raged two years, the
Orthodox faith would have died a natural death. For in cases of public
panic the Russian people have an irresistible longing to fall back
upon their ancient ways. It is the cry of Hebrews in dismay: "Your
tents! back to your tents!" All Eastern nations have this homely and
conservative passion in their blood.
"These were the actual reasons," says the councillor of state; "but
the cause assigned for interference was the scandal of the forged
bank-notes."
"Surely no one believes that scandal?"
"Every one believes it. Only last year this scandal led to the
perpetration of a curious crime."
"What sort of crime?"
"At dusk on a wintry day, when all the offices in the cemetery were
closed, a cavalcade dashed suddenly to the door. A colonel of
gendarmes leaped from a drojki, followed by a master of police. Four
gendarmes and four citizens of Moscow came with them. Pushing into the
chief office, they asked to see the strong-box, and to have it opened
in their presence. As the clerk looked shy, the colonel of gendarmes
was sharp and rude. They were accused, he said, of forging ruble
notes, and he had come by order of the Governor-general, Prince
Vladimir Dolgorouki, to open their strong-box under the eyes of four
eminent merchants and the master of police. He laid the prince's
mandate down; he showed his own commission; and then in an imperial
tone, demanded to have the keys! The keys could not be found; the
treasurer was gone to Moscow, and would not return that night. 'Then
seal your box,' said the colonel of gendarmes; 'the police will keep
it! Come to-morrow, with your keys, to Prince Dolgorouki's house in
the Tverskoi Place, at ten o'clock.' The box was sealed; the police
master hauled it into his drojki; in half an hour the cavalcade was
gone. Next day the treasurer, with his clerk and manager, drove into
Moscow with their keys, and on arriving in the Tverskoi Place were
smitten pale with news that no search for ruble notes had been ordered
by the prince."
"Who, then, was that colonel of gendarmes?"
"A thief; the master of police a thief; the four gendarmes were
thieves; the four eminent citizens thieves!"
"And what was done?"
"Prince Dolgorouki sent for Rebrof, head of the police (a very fine
head), and told him what these thieves had done. 'Superb!' laughed
Rebrof, as he heard the tale; and when the prince had come to an end
of his details, he again cried out, in genuine admiration, 'Ha!
superb! One man, and only one in Moscow, has the brain for such a
deed. The thief is Simonoff. Give me a little time, say nothing to the
world, and Simonoff shall be yours.' Rebrof kept his word; in three
months Simonoff was tried, found guilty on the clearest proof, and
sentenced to the mines for life. Rebrof traced him through the cabmen,
followed him to his haunts, learned what he had done with the scrip
and bonds, and then arrested him in a public bath. The money--two
hundred thousand rubles--he had shared and spent. 'Siberia,' cried the
brazen rogue, when the judge pronounced his doom, 'Siberia is a jolly
place; I have plenty of money, and shall have a merry time.' Had there
been no false reports about the cemetery, a theft like Simonoff's
could hardly have taken place."