CHURCH OF ROME IN RUSSIA.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 318, 3 October 1908, Page 12

CHURCH OF ROME IN RUSSIA.

MANY POLISH CONVERSIONS. Since tho promulgation of the Religious Toleranoe Edict of October 30, 1905, the'eonversion of Orthodox Russians to Roman Catholicism has been of quito an intensive character, and all the efforts of the Russian "popes" to arrest tho "perversions" have proved utterly' futile. ' ..Tho. "Standard's" correspondent states that in tho government of Vilna alone 30,000 of the Orthodox have gone over to tho Catholic confession, and a large number, of Orthodox! rectorships and curacies have been closed. In the governments of Siedlice and Liublin, in the diocese of Cholm, 200X100 Orthodox have been received into the Roiuau Catholic Church. In tho government of Minsk, 8(100 Uniates havo been inducted into the tfsame faith. Altogether 1700 Orthodox "popes" have lost their curacies owing to these wholesale defections. ; : It is to be remembered, however, that these "conversions" have all taken place in old Polish governments,. where in the last or previous' generation. the parents or grandparents of the converts had adopted tho Orthodox faith in. order to ensure their livelihoods or professional careers. It wag for this latter cause that so nmny Jews apostatised in, the southern ' and western governments. During the first year after the Tolerance Edict, 24,000 baptised Jews in the governments of Kieff, Podolia, and' Vol. hynia openly re-adopted Judaism.