THE RUSSIAN CLERGY AND THEIR HABITS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 5249, 22 July 1885, Page 4

THE RUSSIAN CLERGY AND THEIR HABITS.

The writer of an interesting article in the Melbourne Argus on "Life in Moscow" says : — Speaking of drunkenness naturally suggests the . mention of the Russian clergy. What is told of the clergy here is true generally, and not only for Moscow. No description of — I should say, rather, no allusion to—Russian drinking would be complete without a description of those who specially distinguish themselves in this viee — that is the Popes (priests). Here the priests are, as a rule —even this rule has exceptions — the chief exponents, and not the opponents of drunkeness.. In order to avoid recurring to this unpleasant subject it will be better at once to finish all I have to say about the Clergy ; , and, as lam sorry to repeat, a paragraph dealing with them could not come in a more suitable place than close to one deal ing with insobriety. The Russian clergy are divided into the Black and White clergy— so.called because of their dress. The Black Clergy consists of monks, who of course, are unmarried. They are the aristocratic branch of the profession. The bishops are chosen from them, and they are considerably wealthy. The White clergy consists of the popes. They are the priests who mix most with tha people, and whom the traveller most frequently meets, and it is of them I more particularly speak. The Popes form the parochial and territorial priesthood. In their case Western ideas are reversed. Not only can they marry, but they must marry before they can be ordained. This point is certain. But in Russia we are told on erood authority that when a priest becomes a widower he must marry again, or he ceases te be a priest. I have not been able to find out whether this is the law of the church, for all these points are matters of discipline and not of doctrine. Though the Popes belong to the White Clergy, it must not be supposed they dress in white. Even though like most of the Russian lower classes, they take a bath once a week (on Saturday), they are too dirty for their robes to present that color. They dress in a grey or brown alpaca silk soutane or priest's smock. They are not in any way a class apart from or above the people. They are peasants among peasants. A young man becomes a pope just as he would become a blacksmith ov cattleherd. The popes have their own piece of land allowed tbem by the village community, and till it themselves like the ordinary moujik. The salary consists of an allowance from Government, and from the village commune, the Mir. The only disadvantage to the enjoyment of this salary is that hardly a penny of it is ever paid, either by. Government or commune. But the priest must live, and the priest must drink, and he is thrown on his own resources to raise funds therefor. As a rule he manages pretty well. His "flock" is the most easily fleeced one in the world. The Russian peasant is more superstitious than any Pagan. He is always wanting to be. blessed by his priest, and he firmly believes in roussalkas (water-witches), evil spirits, witches with tails, and other uncanny individuals. The pope will exorcise these spirits from the isba (hut) ■whenever the moajik fancies they have taken possession of it. This service Reserves a few kopecks, or their worth in vodka, from the grateful and relieved moujik. Then a final benGdicHon, just to prevent the evil ones from coming back, is rewarded by another handful of coppers r glass number 2, and so on. I have seen a pope blessing a moujik. The operation consisted in a crooked stroke with the forefinger across the patient's forehead, and then four energetic prods on the chest with three coarse fingers of the priestly hand, holy words being mumbled the while. Besides these methods for withdrawing their coppers from the faithful, or rather the credulous, there is a regular tariff for sacred rites. A baptism costs about 60 kopecks (Is 4d), a reduction being made for twins, or if the priest has had former •employment in the family (a fact). Marriages cost two roubles (ss), or the present, of a pig ; burials about one rouble. The greater amount of tliis money is spent in drink. It is fortunate the pope is married. It is generally his peasant wife who keeps his house together. The pi'iest is oftener drunk than any other man in the place. - Russians take all this as a matter of course. They laugh when a stranger is shocked or surprised at the reeling pope. They have become hardened to the sight because of its frequency. I am not speaking from hearsay as to clerical drunkenness, and give two instances out of scores seen. At Orel (pronounced Aryol) I have seen three or four popes staggering up the road, embracing each other for mutual support, trying their utmost to prevent their officiating vestments — knotted up in a handkerchief — from swinging out of their hands. They were evidently going to perform some function in a neighboring town. They generally make any journey the occasion of an unusually severe drinking bout. Accordingly, at the railway buffets on tha great lines you constantly see them at their worst. At Kursk Station I saw two of them. On their way along the long platform they revolved round eich other in wide and eccentric orbits till they reached the second-class refreshment room, where 1 followed them. In their greasy light-grey smocks, with their colorless eyps bleared and watery with drink, their fat bloated cheeks on the usual Russian large cheek-bones, their thick lips turning a little upwards under the short straight nose, their matted hair and uncombed 'dirty beards, and their variegated blotched complexion, red with

wine and blue with cold, they were, indeed types to remember of the Russian Pope in his lowest moments. On Sundays, as there is usually more sacred work to be done, the priest has a chance of being more drunk than the rest of the week. He avails himself of the chance. It is only too frequent in country places for the officiating priest to have a stagger with uneasy steps to the altar. There, the hands which have half an hour before been too unsteady to grasp the hoe or press the spade fumble among the holy vessels used in performing the rites of the church. I have now done with this unpleasant trait of Russian character, lay and clerical. Anyone who knows the country will admit the disgusting and deplorable extent to which it exists. I know that as the seductive emissary and reformer Gosposcha Kirieff has told us, much has been achieved already by the temperance movement in Russia. But there is an immensity still to be done. Till sobriety has become more general it is idle to expect a moral regeneration among the people, or an increase in the respect shown to, and the influence exercised by the parochial* clergy who work among the people — the Popes.