THE PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS IN RUSSIA

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 40, 24 January 1890, Page 11

THE PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS IN RUSSIA

■■ w (Condensed by the Catholic Review from the Month.) Wl mast say a few words about the treatment of Catholic Uniats in Russia, and the measures which are being taken to force them to abjure their faith and join the Russian Church. The word Uniat is of Polish origin, derived from the Latin unitat, unity. Ihe origin of Uniats dateß from the separation of the Ctauicn of Constantinople from the Church of Borne, when great numbers remained in ttatu quo, without joining the Russian Greek ■chiam. In the sixteenth century they formally united themselves to the Latin Churcn, the Pope authorising certain privileges to these Uniat*, tbe priucipal of which is that their Liturgy is in Slavonian instead of Latin. Since 1833 the Russian Government has used all the means in its power to force the Uaiats to embrace what they call the " orthodox " faith ; but they have offered a moßt heroic resistance. Lest anyone should suppose we are exaggerating tbe present state of things we will quote extracts from official sources— from a Blue Book pu lished in 1877 and presented to the House of Commons, which contains letters fiom Lieu tenant-General Mansfield, our Consul-General at Warsaw, and from the Vice-Consul, Mr. Webster, describing the way in which those so-called " conversions " ware effected. After alluding to the report that fifty-two thousand Uniats had been received into the Russian National Church in the Government of Beidlice, Colonel Mamfteld writes to Lord Derby : " This fact has been brought about by various means, in Which physical maltreatment has formed a not inconsiderable element. . , , In • village near here, the peasants were awembled and bsaten

by the Cossacks until the military surgeon declared that more would endanger life. They were then driven through a half-frozen river, np to their waists, into the parish ohuroh through flies of soldiers, where their names were entered in petitions desiring to be reoeived into the Russian Ohurch, and than passed out at an opposite door, the peasants all the time crying out : " Ton may oall us orthodox, bat we remain in the faith of our fathers." In another letter be writes : " Tbe peasants bury their dead in the churchyards without funeral service and by night, and have ceased to baptise or marry ; but I am told that they get the assistance in secret of the Catholic clergy in some cases, often going immense distances, such as sixty or seventy miles, to avoid detection." Again he states : " In the district of Minciewicz, the peasints surrounded the church and defied the military to introduce the Bus* sian pope, as their priests are called. They were, however, with their wives and children finally mastered and surrounded, and were given the option of signing a declaration accepting; the schismatic priest. On tbeir refusal, fifty lashes with the nagaika (Cossack whip) were given to every adult man, twenty-five to every woman, and ten to every child, irrespective of age or sex. One woman, who was more vehement tban the rest, received one hundred I " There are many accounts of farther barbarities, but 1 have confined myself to what I have been able to authenticate. *' The prisons at Seidlice are full of these confessors for the faith, and large numbers are confined in yards and sheds for want of room —a most severe measure at this season and in this climate (Jan, 29). ... In one village a peasant suffocated himself and his whole family with charcoal rather than have his child baptised by the Government (a Russian) pope. . . . " The position of the proprietors is a very difficult one, for if they advance corn or potatoes to their peasants, or give them charitable assistance, they are immediately placed under police supervision as 1 aiding and abetting tbe Uniats." Mr. Webster writes a little later f mm Kherson : " There now remain about 60 000. Uniats in Seidlice and Lublin, all of them small land owners; and as they will not change their religioo, the Government persecutes them by putting them in prison, by flogging them, and by billeting Cossack troops (who commit every license) in their villages. Numbers of them were confined in fortresses, and last winter 300 of the most earnest, who had previously been in prison, were exiled to the Government of Kherson, and 300 to Ekateriooslav. All these 600 possessed small farms, which they were forced to abandon. They were torn ruthlessly from their wives and children, who remained behind at the mercy of the Cossacks who were quartered on them. These exiles have been placed, one man in each village and are forbidden to have any communication with their families or friends, or to, receive letters or money. . . . On Easter Day of the present year one man ran away to hear Macs at Kherson, where there is a Catholic churcb ; but at the door of the church was unhappily recognised by the police and im me iiat el y arrested. "The Catholic priests by a despatch from the Minister of the Interior 'are forbdden to perform any religions ceienonies for the Un ate, which excite thsm to fanaticism, and resistance to the reestablishment of purity in the rites of the worship of God.' " tk> runs the Ministerial Edict. Nevertheless, as Mr Webster adds in the conclusion of his despatch : " All these persecutions do not shake the faith of the U jiats. On tbe contrary, they consider themselves martyrs and would die rather than chauge their religion. 1 ' Now we have quoted these despatches because they are not newspaper stories, but grare official documents written with extreme caution and reserve to the heads of tha English Government. With what face then can Madame NovikoS assert in tbe Contemporary, " that Russia tolerates all religions and prosecutes only those who propagate immoral or criminal doc rines? " Or bow can we beiieve tha extraordinary statement of Mr. Gladstone, " that the actioo of the Russian Government towards the Catholic Church in Poland is not prompted solely, or even at all, by a spirit of religions persecution ? " He means to say that it is political and not religious, but how tben does be account for the like persecution of the Uniat, Russians, Rutbenians, Bohemians, and Lithuanians, who have no sympathy with the Poles ? In 1885, tbe Uniat Ruthenians addressed a toucbing petition to the " Holy Synod," protesting their devotion and loyalty to tbe Czar, bnt stating tbat, as Catholics, they could not belong to the Russian Orthodox church— tt>at to foroe them to do so, the lash, and violence of every sort, with material ruin, had been resorted to— that for ten years they had lived in exile, separatsdfrom their wives and children, far from their homes, yet devoted to the Emperor/" No answer was vouchsafed to this touching petition, and those who survive are still bravely undergoing tbeir sad fate, unshaken in faitb, and as loyal to tbe head of tteir Church as they are to tbeCzir. About sixty thousand Bohemian colonists had settled some yeard ago in Volhynia, all of them, of course, Ca > olics. To force them to give up their faith tbe Government, in 1883, decreed that no Bohemian should be able to hold land unless provided with a certificate of belonging to the Russian schism. Tbe vast majority remaiued faithful and were either heavily fined or deported to Kherson or Orenburg, while tbeir property was sold for a song to some " Orthodox " believer. Yet Mr. Stead, in his " Truth about Russia," has no sympathy for this persecution of the Catholics, simply dismissing tbe subject with the lie, which we hoped was long since exploded, that they are suffering (as our Bng ish martyrs did under Queen Elizabeth), not as Catholics, but as traitors I How large is the number of victims to these cruel penal laws may be gathered from the fact tbat in two or three years no less than two thousand three hundred and sixty-five " Cracow marriages " had been performed ; that is, to get married according to the Catholic rite, which is forbidden on Russian territory, tbe poor people a eal over the border to Cracow, which is in Austrian Poland. If detected they are condemned to perpetual imprisonment in tbe northernmost Government of Russia, or to the banks of the Yenisei in Siberia. Bnt our readers will ask how is it tbat such a state of things can be allowed to go in this nineteenth century f We must remember, in tha first place, that there is no such thing in Russia at Liberty of the

Pjesi,.. T^he Catholics have.no organ. They cannot write letters to the papers ; »yen the Bishops dare not bear witness to the sufferings of their flocks. Nor can Catholics hold meetings to protest or petition against cruelties as io other countries. It is even with danger and difficulty that a stray letter, descriptive of the persecution, finds its way into a foreign newspaper. Very few people, therefore, know of the sufferings of these seventy or eighty thousand souls ; and even among good Catholics there is a fear of giving offence to tbe Russian Gpvernment, and thereby hindering the negotiation s going on with the Holy See. So that it was truly said by a Catholic paper in the spring " that we hear far less of the Catholics of Russia than we do of those in China or the Oorea."