RUSSIAN AFFAIRS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 195, 12 May 1908, Page 7

RUSSIAN AFFAIRS.

. « A " HUNGER STRIKE." •PRISONERS WHO WILL NOT EAT. HAVE FASTED FIVE DAYS. RT TELEGRAPH —PHES3 ASSOCIATION —COPIIUGHI (Rec. May 11, 10 p.m.) St. Petersburg, May 11. Political prisoners imprisoned at Samara, ill South-east Russia, to tho number of 12S, along with 500 other prisoners havo declared a hunger strike, in protest' against drastic prison! regulations. They havo already, fasted for five days.

FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE. THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OBJECTS. (Rec. May 11, 10 p.m.) St. Petersburg, May 11. The clergy at Kieff have petitioned tho Council of Ministers against tho project before the Duma establishing freedom of conscience, on the ground that it would bo inflicting unmerited wrong if the Orthodox Church .wero placcd on tho samo level as other sects and as Judaism, Paganism, and Freemasonry. The petitioners declaro that such a reduction of tho Orothodqx' Church may shako the foundations of tho State. | The established religion of the Russian Empire is tho Graeco-Russian, officially called-the Orthodox-Catholic Faith. It has its own independent Synod, but maintains the relations of a sister Church with tho four patriarchates of Constantinople, .Terusalom, Antioch, and Alexandria. The Holy Synod, the Board of Government of tho Church: was established with, the concurrence of the Russian clergy, and tho" four Eastern patriarchs. With the exception of tile restraints laid 'on the. Jews, air religions may .be/freely professed in the Empire. The dissenters havo been, and L are still, however, severely persecuted, though recently some liberty' has been extended to those of tho "United Church." It'is estimated that there are more than 12,000,000 dissonters in Great Russia alone.