MONKS IN RUSSIA

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 15, 5 October 1929, Page 8

MONKS IN RUSSIA

SENTENCED TO DEATH TEN.. OTHERS IMPRISONED Six monks have 'been sentenced to death at Samara, in Russia, for practising mystic rites, in which a poor girl named Neschadina was killed, and with maintaining at Vavilova Dola an anti-Soviet commune. Ten others wore sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. ' r I In 1909 several monks went into the Samara steppe and far from other human inhabitations, dug several cells. The fame of alleged cures spread vapidly, and many peasants walked to the nionastry from distant villages to hear the peal of mysterious bolls and to see flaming “tongues of heaven,” which were simply rockets. Witnesses testified that a favourite cure with the monks was to stretch the patient across a threshold and lash him with rods to drive out the devil of disease. They were also accused of practising vice under the guise of confession and counsel to young women. One of (hose sentenced to death was said to have preached that “the present Government emanates from tlu> devil and the heavenly signs prediet its hasty end. Believers should not heed its laws.”