REMARKABLE MONKS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 7330, 7 June 1913, Page 7

REMARKABLE MONKS.

At Solovetsk, in the Russian Government of Archangel, is the most remarkable monastery in the world. It is enclosed on every side by a wall of granite boulders which measures nearly a mile in circumference. It is very strongly fortified, being supported by round and square towers about thirty feet in height, with walls twenty feet in thickness. The monastery consists in reality of six churches, which are completely filled with statues and| precious atones. Upon the walls and towers surrounding these churches are mounted huge guns, which in the time Of the Crimean War were directed against the British White Sea Squadron. The monks who inhabited the monastery at that time marched in procession on the granite walls while the shells were flying over their heads, to prove, says the “Pictorial Magazine., ’’ how little they feared the attack of the British fleet. Ten thousand pilgrims come annually to Solovetsk from all parts of Russia to view the churches and relics. They arc conveyed in steamers manned and commanded solely by monks.