p. 12 | RELIGION IN RUSSIA

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 25, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 33.

RELIGION IN RUSSIA.

The Greek church is a very dead form of faith, and the worship of saints of every degree of power "amounts to a fetishism almost as bad as any to be found in Africa." I myself am the happy possessor of a little rude wooden bas-relief, framed and glazed, of two saints whose names I have ungratefully forgotten, to whom if you pray as you go out to commit a crime, however heinous, you take your pardon with you—a refinement upon the whipping of the saints in Calabria, and Spanish hagiolatry. The icons, the sacred images, are hung in the chief corner, called "the beautiful," of a Russian isba. A lamp is always lit before them, and some food spread "for the ghosts to come and eat."

The well-to-do peasant is still "strict about his fasts and festivals, and never neglects to prepare for Lent. During the whole year his forethought never wearies; the children pick up a number of fungi which the English kick away as toad-stools; these are dried in the sun or the oven, and packed in casks with a mixture of hot water and dry meal, in which they ferment. The staple diet of the peasant consists of buckwheat, rye meal, sauerkraut, and coarse cured fish" (little, however, but black bread, often moldy, and sauerkraut, nearly putrid, is found in the generality of Russian peasant homes).

No milk, butter, cheese, or eggs are allowed in Lent, all of which are permitted to the Roman Catholic, and the oil the peasant uses for his cooking is linseed instead of olive oil, which last he religiously sets aside for the lamps burning before the holy images. "To neglect fasting would cause a man to be shunned as a traitor, not only to his religion, but to his class and country."

In the little church (generally built of wood) there are no seats, the worshipers prostrate themselves and knock their heads two or three times on the ground, and must stand or kneel through the whole service.

The roof consists of a number of bulbous-shaped cupolas; four, round the central dome, in the form of a cross, are the complete ideal, with a separate minaret for the Virgin. These are covered with tiles of the brightest blue, green, and red, and gilt metal. The priest is a picturesque figure, with his long, unclipped hair, tall felt hat largest at the top, and a flowing robe. He must be married when appointed to a cure, but is not allowed a second venture if his wife dies.

The drunkenness in all classes strikes Russian statesmen with dismay, and the priests, the popes, are among the worst delinquents. They are fast losing the authority which they once had over the serfs, when they formed part of the great political system of which the Czar was the religious and political head. A Russian official report says that "the churches are now mostly attended by women and children, while the men are spending their last kopeck, or getting deeper into debt, at the village dram-shop."

Church festivals, marriages, christenings, burials, and fairs, leave only two hundred days in the year for the Russian laborer. The climate is so severe as to prevent out-of-door work for months, and the enforced idleness increases the natural disposition to do nothing. "We are a lethargic people," says Gogol, "and require a stimulus from without, either that of an officer, a master, a driver, the rod, or vodka (a white spirit distilled from corn); and this," he adds in another place, "whether the man be peasant, soldier, clerk, sailor, priest, merchant, seignior, or prince." At the time of the Crimean War it was always believed that the Russian soldier could only be driven up to an attack, such as that of Inkerman, under the influence of intoxication.

The Russian peasant is indeed a barbarian at a very low stage of civilization. In the Crimean hospitals every nationality was to be found among the patients, and the Russian soldier was considered far the lowest of all. Stolid, stupid, hard, he never showed any gratitude for any amount of care and attention, or seemed, indeed, to understand them; and there was no doubt that during the war he continually put the wounded to death in order to possess himself of their clothes.—Living Age.