_THE SIBERIAN CHURCH (continued)._
Parochial clergy.--Their emoluments.--Duties.--Official
registers.--Discipline.--Morality.--Status.--Our
clerical visits.--Monastic clergy.--The Metropolitan
Macarius.--Fasting.--General view of Russian Church.--Compared
with Roman.--Teaching respecting Holy Scripture and salvation by
faith.--Needs of Russian Church.
The Russian clergy are of two orders--the parochial and the monastic;
or, as they are sometimes called, the white and the black--the
secular and the regular clergy. Such was the plethora of them in
the time of Peter the Great that they had to restrict the number of
ordinations and of those who should serve.[1] Now, however, there is no
superabundance.[2] Speaking generally, every parish church is under the
control of _prikhod_ or corporation, consisting of the priest, deacon,
and two _dïechoks_, or bell-ringer and reader, and also a widow-woman
to prepare the sacramental bread.
The parish priest may rise to be a protopope or head priest of an
Episcopal Church, or one who holds a position in which there are other
priests under him; but so long as his wife is living he can go no
higher. Should he become a widower, and take the monk’s habit, he is
then eligible to be made a bishop.[3]
The pay of the town clergy in Russia is better than of those in the
country, where it is very little. The salaries of the Siberian clergy,
to judge from the district of the Amur, vary from £125 to £180 a
year.[4] Hence those who have families are miserably poor. It is not
uncommon to hear them spoken of as exacting, avaricious, and grasping
(such charges are easily made, all the world over); but due allowance
is not always made for the dire needs of poverty; and they sometimes
are obliged almost, if not quite, to beg their bread.[5]
It must not be supposed, however, that, because the pay of the priests
is so small, their duties are light. Of their three daily services, the
first often begins between four and five in the morning (fancy that
with a thermometer below zero!), vespers at sunset, and the liturgy
before mid-day. To these must be added occasional services in district
churches or chapels, as well as in houses; at every birth, every death
in the parish; when a building is begun, after it has been repaired,
and when it is supposed to be haunted; together with the blessing of
school-houses and children before they begin work after the holidays;
to say nothing of processions through the streets with miraculous
pictures in times of harvest, pestilence, and danger. In Siberia we saw
one of these processions, with a picture, lanterns, and flags, leaving
a village church at four o’clock in the morning.
But this is not all. There are the church registers to be kept--all the
more important because in Russia no one can stir hand or foot without
a character paper, which sets forth, with the minutest details, the
particulars of his birth, baptism, marriage, etc. These papers have to
be signed and countersigned by the priest and deacon, and then to be
sent to the bishop’s registry, which, in Siberia, may be 1,000 miles
away--and all this with an expenditure of stamps, and red tape, and
filling up of blank forms that is simply appalling.[6] Again, every
priest has to keep a clerical journal of his official acts as to what
he and his fellows do daily. This is for the bishop’s assistant; and,
should the journal be suddenly found not written up to date, the
priest is liable to be punished. “How would you be punished?” said
I to a protopope. “With a good talking to, perhaps, for the first
offence, and for the second a fine, or, it may be, have the delinquency
inscribed on my character paper”; in other words, to carry a blot on
his escutcheon perhaps for life!
Verily, ecclesiastical discipline, whether in great things or small, is
not a dead letter in Russia. Perhaps it is not altogether uncalled for.
By it priests are forbidden to find their amusements at the theatre, or
in cards, buffoonery, or dancing; and mention is made of another evil
greater than these, in which we shall recognize an old foe, too well
known in England. It is drink![7]
It is not matter for surprise, then, that the status of the Russian
clergy is low, as it was in England when Christianity had existed
no longer here than it now has in Russia--say in the fourteenth
century, when Chaucer wrote his “Canterbury Tales.” We have no room
for boasting; nor are these remarks made with any idea of drawing
unfavourable comparisons, but only to give a true picture of a
large class of the Russian ecclesiastics. I called upon some few of
the priests in Siberia, who, like the peasants, seemed decidedly
superior to, and better off than, those in Russia. On arriving at a
post-station, I not unfrequently sent for or called upon the priest,
gave him tracts to circulate in his parish, and offered to sell him, at
a reduced rate, portions of Scripture for distribution, which offer was
almost always accepted.
Let me now pass to the monastic clergy, who alone fill all the higher
offices in the Russian Church. Among the monastic clergy are many
scholars. The present Metropolitan (Macarius) of Moscow, formerly a
professor at the Academy, may be selected as a bright example. He has
written extensively, and, from the very outset of his literary career,
is said to have resolved to devote all the money derived from his works
to the progress of knowledge. He has founded scholarships and-prizes
at Kieff, Petersburg, and Vilna, and as long ago as 1867 he possessed
a capital of £12,000, the interest of which is distributed yearly in
premiums for the best compositions in the Russian language. It was
this amiable dignitary, as related in my first chapter, whom I had the
honour of visiting when passing through Petersburg. Other things might
be said to the praise of many of the Russian clergy--notably their
simple manner of living. In none of their houses that I entered in
Siberia was there the least approach to luxury, and the library of one
of the best priests I met was all too scanty for the literary work he
had in hand. I remember, too, that I entered the sleeping-room of the
archimandrite (who is also the Metropolitan of Moscow) at the “Skit,”
near the Troitza monastery, and found a chamber that would be thought
not too well furnished for a guest in an average English rectory.
Further, in Russia, both orders of clergy fast at least 226 days in the
year; and the monastic clergy, which includes all the bishops, never
eat flesh at all. I met with a practical illustration of the strictness
with which the clergy abstain from forbidden food. At a post station
where we stopped, and where the priest had come to us, we invited him
to drink tea, and I cut for him a slice of white bread and buttered it.
This he declined, as it was a fast-day, and butter was forbidden. I
then offered him a slice of bread; but another difficulty arose, for,
having to lay in a large stock of white bread at the previous town, we
had requested the baker to put in a little butter to keep it moist. The
good man’s conscience therefore, he felt, would be denied even by this,
and so I was obliged to call for black bread wherewith to entertain our
fasting guest.[8]
Something must be said of the Russian monasteries for women and men.
They are of three sorts: Lavra, of which there are only three, namely,
at Kieff, Petersburg, and Troitza, near Moscow; next are those called
“Cœnobia”; and, lastly, others called “Stauropegia.” Their general
characteristics are Egyptian rather than Roman.[9]
[Illustration: A RUSSIAN NUN.]
One of the monks of the Yuryef Monastery, near Novgorod, gave me the
following outline of their daily life: They rise at half-past two (one
o’clock on festivals), go to church till six, and from six till nine
they sleep. Then they go to church again for an hour and a half, and
afterwards breakfast. This over, they are free to sleep or do as they
please till five in the afternoon, when evening service brings them
together for an hour and a half, after which they sup and go to bed.
They have but two meals a day, never eat flesh, and, when observing the
fasts, eat vegetables only.
To sum up, then, all that need here be said of the Russian Church--very
different thoughts arise according as one looks at the every-day
religion of the people, or their formularies and theology. The former
may cause pain and grief, the latter excite sympathy and hope; and it
will be my object in the remainder of this chapter to expand these
thoughts in a fair and honest way, without sparing blame or withholding
praise.
Most persons, who have had the opportunity of observing, allow that the
Russians are a religious people. One sees this not only in the large
numbers both of men and women who attend the churches, but also in the
tens of thousands who yearly go on pilgrimage to sacred places. The
monks of Troitza sometimes have in summer, on a feast day, a thousand
guests. Some, of course, are idle wanderers, going from place to place
to get food; but many walk hundreds--nay, thousands--of miles to
redeem a vow or offer a prayer for something specially desired. Much
of this, no doubt, is eminently unspiritual and superstitious. Much
of their worship is perilously like, if not altogether, idolatry; yet
it should be remembered that the average Russian knows no better; and
what can be expected of the peasant, if the highest authorities of the
land, on arriving at a city, make it their first object to pay their
devotions, if not, as at Ephesus, before “the image which fell down
from Jupiter,” yet before a picture to which is attributed miraculous
powers? We can at least admire, however, the intention in these things;
and if the Russian peasant can only be kept sober, he displays a number
of virtues, some of which are not found so abundantly in other and
more advanced countries. They are a kind, a generous, and a hospitable
people, by no means unmindful of philanthropic effort, and at least, we
may add, intensely ecclesiastical.
Again, there is much to admire in the formularies of their Church,
although Dean Stanley brings against it, and justly, three weighty
charges--extravagant ritual, excessive dogmatism, and a fatal
division between religion and morality. When, however, the Russian
Church is compared with the Roman, and spoken of as like it, certain
considerations should be borne in mind which make the comparison result
in favour of the former. Russia did not receive the religion of Jesus
Christ in its purity. The merest tyro in Church history knows that when
the stream of Christianity had flowed down to the tenth century, it was
no longer pure as at its source. But follow the stream as it branches
east and west, and observe which of the two remains the purer.[10]
And if this be said to be _negative_, and much of it belonging to the
past, then other considerations may be adduced which seem to bring the
Greek Church nearer to the English than many suppose, and notably so
in two vital points, namely, the attitude of the Russian Church to the
Holy Scriptures,[11] and her doctrine respecting salvation through
Christ alone.[12] She does not forbid or hide the Scriptures from the
people, even if she neglects them, nor has she stereotyped her errors
by the claim to infallibility. There is room, therefore, to hope for a
change for the better, which in my humble opinion should be attempted
from within, by a wider circulation and more general study of the
Scriptures; next, by a vastly increased amount of good and Scriptural
preaching; and, once more, by a powerful attack on the prevailing sin
of intemperance. Would the priests only endeavour to instil into their
people, respecting drink, half the abstemiousness and self-denial that
they teach them to observe concerning forbidden food, they would render
Russia such a service as I have no words to express.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In an Episcopal Church, for instance, there were not to be more
than one protopope, two treasurers, five priests, four deacons, two
readers, and two sacristans, besides thirty-three choristers. In
parishes of large extent there were to be two priests, two deacons, two
choristers, and two sacristans, reckoning one priest for every hundred
houses.
[2] On the Amur I heard of merchants and, in exceptional cases, even
yemstchiks, being ordained; also of students, for lack of a sufficiency
of priests, being ordered deacons at the age of 20 (instead of 22), and
sometimes made priests seven days after.
[3] There are, or were, several curious customs and regulations among
the Russian clergy with respect to matrimony. A man cannot join the
ranks of the white clergy unless he be “the husband of one wife.”
Formerly he was obliged, or expected, to marry a priest’s daughter;
and as a priest’s daughter sometimes received her father’s living for
her dowry, a young priest not infrequently found himself, in this
way, settled for life; though, if the father-in-law were old and
merely retired, then the son-in-law was expected to keep him. In these
arrangements the bishop played a part, for knowing, on one hand, the
young men coming forward for ordination, and being kept informed, on
the other, regarding the marriageable daughters of his clergy, he could
frequently make suggestions for the benefit of all parties concerned.
There prevailed, too, in former times in Russia, a pernicious custom,
that every clergyman’s son was obliged to follow the profession of
his father. This is no longer compulsory: and the sons of the clergy,
finding themselves free, choose other callings to such an extent that
there is now a lack of candidates for the priesthood. Candidates,
however, are still drawn for the most part from the homes of the
clergy, and from the lower class of merchants. Quite recently, I am
informed, a few of the Russian nobility have taken Holy Orders.
[4] Dr. Neale, in his learned work on the Eastern Church, says, “The
Russian clergy never possessed tithes. Their income arises from
Easter offerings, fees, and glebe, the minimum of the glebe being
181½ acres, to be divided between four clergy.” I have heard that the
usual remuneration for a country priest in Russia is from £22 to £25 a
year, and his share of the glebe. To these must be added, I suppose,
his fees. The town priests receive no regular stipend from Government,
but in Petersburg and Moscow the income from some of the parishes
amounts to £600, or more, to be apportioned amongst several clergy. At
a cathedral I attended, I was informed that the protopope, from all
sources, received about £500 a year and a house; two priests from £220
to £250 each; the deacon about £180; and the psalmist or dïechok from
£90 to £150; the whole available sum for all the parish clergy in this
cathedral being from £1,500 to £1,800 a year. At another cathedral,
in the provinces, I was told that the bishop received £110 from the
Government, and £75 from the monastery, with monks as servants free.
A correspondent further informs me that metropolitans and archbishops
receive “large sums for the maintenance of their house, church,
singers, serving monks, and other comforts, of which they can take or
leave as much as they like”; the “large sums” quoted, with these not
insignificant expenses, being from £625 to £1,250 a year; and this for
men who rank ecclesiastically with English primates!
[5] The Russian priests labour under great social disadvantages. They
are less instructed than what are called the “educated classes” of
their countrymen, and so do not mingle with them on a social equality;
and in many of the towns of the interior, intellectual affairs are on
so low a level that the priest’s most intelligent companion is the
schoolmaster, lately arrived perhaps from the capital with a smattering
of neology. In one parish of which I know, the old priest said that the
new schoolmaster had been telling him, among other like things, that it
was not God who made the world, etc., etc., till the priest hardly knew
what was right or otherwise. He could not think what a lay person could
possibly find to preach about from a verse out of the Bible. This same
priest, when recommended pastorally to visit his flock, said, “I never
appear among my people except to ask for corn, milk, and eggs, and thus
they hate the sight of me.” He had not even a Bible, and said he never
possessed one.
[6] One of these blank forms, given me by a protopope, relates to each
of the clergy in a particular church. Here are the headings of some of
the columns:--
1. Name; place of birth; from what rank in society; where educated,
and in what subjects; when promoted to last appointment, by whom, and
to what office; whether holding any additional appointment; when and
how rewarded for service; whether having a family, and, if so, of what
number.
2. What he knows; of what capacity in reading and explaining the
catechism, Scriptures, etc.; whether he be a singer; and how many times
in the year he has composed his own sermons.
3. His children; their place of education; character; what they are
learning; and their behaviour at home.
4. His family relations.
5. Whether he has ever been accused before the court, and how punished;
or whether the trial is still pending.
[7] The excellent Russian book on the duty of parish priests, speaking
of drunkenness fifty years ago, says, “Yet though drunkenness is
a sin so grievous and deadly, there are very many in our time who
scarcely pass a day without indulging their sottish passion for drink.
Wherefore ... the councils forbid ... all clerks ... so much as to
enter a tavern, under pain of deprivation and excommunication.” This
is a painful and humiliating subject, though the more respectable
amongst the Russians regard the matter in various lights. Some, of
course, condemn such priests unmercifully. One man told me he had not
communicated for several years; “for,” said he, “how can I in the
morning receive the sacrament from the hands of my country priest
when I know that before night he will probably be inebriated?” To
which some, in effect, reply that he should look at the _light_ and
not only at the _lantern_; as a religious general said to me, “If my
priest supplies me properly with the ordinances of the Church, I am
not concerned with his private life--that lies between God and his
own soul.” Others, again, make allowance for their great temptations.
On five festivals in the year, at least, such as Christmas, New Year,
Easter, etc., the priest is supposed to go the round of his parish and
say a prayer in every house; and on these festive occasions refreshment
stands on the sideboard, and _vodka_, or spirits, is offered as
drink--the evil results of which, among clergy and laity, on one of the
festivals, I myself could not but observe.
[8] There are four great fasts in the year, during which are eaten
only bread, vegetables, and fish: 1. Lent; 2. St. Peter’s fast, from
Whit-Monday to the 29th June; 3. Fast of the Virgin Mary, from August
1st to 15th; and 4. St. Philip’s fast, from November 15th to December
26th. Wednesday and Friday also are fast-days.
[9] The Lavra of Egypt are supposed to have been collections of tents
in the deserts, where each provided for himself, but joined the rest in
common devotions. Cœnobia were institutions where all lived associated.
The discipline is the same in all three, but the Stauropegia are under
the direct jurisdiction, not of the bishops, but of the Synod. Dr.
Neale gives the numbers of Russian monasteries for men at 435, and for
women, 113. My almanack mentions a gross total of 472. Greek monks
need not be ecclesiastics, and are all of the order of St. Basil. The
head of a large monastery is called an archimandrite (or abbot); of a
smaller monastery, a hegumen (or prior), whilst the lady superior of
a monastery for women is called a hegumena. There are monk priests,
and also monk deacons, and in the churches attached to the nunneries a
large part of the service is performed by the nuns. Among the Russian
monks, according to Dr. King, are three degrees: novices, who should
serve three years; the proficients, who wear the lesser habit; and
the perfect, who wear the greater or angelic habit, which last are
said to be uncommon in Russia. Men are not admitted to be monks till
30 years of age, and nuns do not receive the tonsure till 60, or at
least 50. Younger women may enter as probationers; but they take no
vow, and are at liberty to leave and be married. Probationers, whether
men or women, wear a black velvet hat without a brim, and the men a
black cassock. Proficients have a black veil attached to the hat (with
metropolitans this is white), and monastics of the third degree always
wear the veil or hood down, and never suffer their faces to be seen.
In the time of Peter the Great the monasteries had become homes for
the idle, and he issued many salutary rules concerning them. Monastics
were to confess and receive the communion four times a year, though
they were not compelled to confess to their own superior. They were to
avoid idleness; were not allowed (with the exception of the superior,
the aged, and infirm) to keep servants; were not to receive or pay
visits without permission; and in all monasteries the monks were to
be strictly kept to the study of the Bible, the most learned were to
explain it, and such only were to be promoted to offices and dignities.
[10] When clerical celibacy, for instance, was imposed in the West, it
was not followed in the East, nor was the cup denied to the Russian
laity when it was withheld from the Roman. The Russian Church never
fabricated a purgatory, and then sold indulgences to get people out
of it. The Eastern Church has never added uncatholic articles to the
Nicene Creed, as in that of Pope Pius the Fourth, and issued the whole
as binding upon all who would be saved. Again, the errors of the East
have at least the stamp of antiquity. They have not added to the
Christian faith novel articles, such as the Immaculate Conception of
the Virgin, or still less claimed a supremacy and infallibility which
in the early Christian councils would need only to have been mentioned
to have been scouted; but in a very real sense it maybe said that
Russia has kept the faith as she received it.
[11] It may surprise some, as I confess it at first surprised me, to
learn the place the Russian Church gives to the Bible in her “Treatise
on the Duty of Parish Priests,”--a book by two Russian bishops,
which has been adopted by the whole Sclavonian Church, and which all
candidates for orders are required to have read, and to show their
acquaintance with before being ordained. The book begins by saying that
“to teach the people is the priest’s very first duty,” and then (VII.)
that the priest is to teach the faith and the law; that (IX.) “all the
articles of faith are contained in the Word of God--that is, in the
books of the Old and New Testament”; and that (XI.) “none other books
are to be held by us as Divine Scriptures, or called the Word of God,
than the two volumes of the Old and New Testaments.” Again (XIII.),
that “the writings of the Holy Fathers are of great use.... But neither
the writings of the Holy Fathers, nor the traditions of the Church, are
to be confounded or equalled with the Word of God and His commandments;
for the Word of God is one thing, but the writings of the Holy Fathers
and traditions ecclesiastical are another.” And further (XXXII.), “So
great being this work of teaching, etc. ... we cannot fail to see how
needful it is for the priest to abound both in word and in wisdom, in
order to the well-fulfilling of this his vast duty; and the only way
hereto is that he be skilled and nourished up from a child in Holy
Scripture.”
[12] The “Treatise on the Duty of Parish Priests” reads (XXIX.): “Since
the sole beginner and perfecter of our holy faith and of everlasting
salvation is our Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. xii. 2), and there is none
other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, but
only His (Acts iv. 12), ... it is plain that in each of the above
kinds of teaching, the priest ought to instil the knowledge of Christ
Jesus, inculcate His doctrine, dwell on His exceeding compassion, and
possess the soul with this truth, that Christ _alone is made unto us
of God wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption_ (1 Cor.
i. 30).... In every case, I say, according to circumstances, he can
implant, and is in duty bound to implant, the knowledge of Christ
Jesus; and so all instruction, and every particular instruction, should
be grounded on Christ; for all that can be either written or said in
reference to the faith, and to everlasting happiness, if it be not
grounded on faith in Christ, is unfruitful, and can never save.”