p. 10 | Away from Rome

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 28, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 13.

"Away from Rome"

The movement in Austria known as the "Away from Rome," has a counterpart among the Roman Catholic Poles in the western provinces of Russia. Some 600,000 adherents are reported, and the movement is favored by the Russian government. A German correspondent of the Christian World writes as follows of the movement:

"While retaining some of the peculiar doctrines of the Romish Church, for example, the belief in purgatory and in the power of the Virgin Mary, they have thrown overboard everything which gives the priests any sacrificial or sacerdotal authority. The belief in the real presence they regard as idolatrous, and equally explicit is their negation of the dogma of papal infallibility. In a recent pastoral by their bishop, Johann Kovalski, the following remarkable passage occurs: 'The kingdom of Christ is a kingdom of light, of love and of peace, a kingdom which gives all men liberty and equality in Christ.' Another significant passage gives the attitude which the new church assumes toward the Bible. 'One of our principal duties,' says the bishop in another letter to his clergy, 'is the proclamation of the Gospel. Our lives shall be as a mirror to Christ's Gospel. The Gospel is our highest law, our light on the road of life. In every house the Gospel must find a place, and every member of the family must be versed in its contents. For it must always be remembered that our entire Christian life centers in Christ.'"

— Present Truth (London).