The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

386 RUSSIA IN EUROPE.stamped papers and passports became the "seal of Antichrist ;" the registrationbooks, " registers of the devil ;" the poll tax, the " price of the soul."The Raskolniksthus represent both the spirit of extreme conservatism and of reform, as wellas that of a relative political freedom.The Popovtzi, who continue the traditions of the old Church, are the trueadherents of the ancient rites {staro-obradtzi), the "true believers" (staro-vertzt)-Rejecting the changes introduced into the liturgy by the Patriarch Xikon withthe assistance of Greek and Little Russian ecclesiastics, the Old Believers haveperpetuated the practices of former times.But while denouncing the official rites,they have themselves unwittingly modified their own observances according tocircumstances and the persecutions to which they have been subjected. Peter I.,whose life had been endangered by the insurrection of the Stre/fzt, adherents of theold belief, hounded down like wild beasts all those who refused to conform. Butthe sects onlv became more numerous and more irreconcilable than ever. TheRaskolniks, recognising Antichrist in this friend of the foreigner, who divorced hiswife, tortured his son, and oppressed the people with his wars, buildings, canals,and merciless taxation, saw in him the abomination foretold in Holy "Writ, and,to their denunciations of a corrupt church, added anathemas against an emperorwho ordered his subjects to "shave their beards, to wear Latin garments, andsmoke the thrice-accursed weed."But persecution was not the hardest fate of the Popovtzi. First their priests,and then their only bishop died, so that no new priests could be ordained toadminister the sacraments. Hence, to still the voice of conscience, they hadrecourseto the most eccentric subterfuges, kneading their own communion breadwith a bit of the consecrated host, bribing the Orthodox clergy, attempting evento carry off the hand of a holy Metropolitan of Moscow wherewith to ordain theirpriests, and thus dispense with the hands of living bishops. Their hierarchy,however, was not duly re-established till 1844, when a Bulgarian bishop, consecratedin Constantinople, consented to reside with a Raskolnik colony settled inBukovina. They have now their own bishops, and openly hold their synods inMoscow, asking for nothing but complete freedom of worship. About a millionof them, the so-called Yedinovertzi, or " United Believers," have, moreover, becomeindirectly attached to the Orthodox Church, accepting their popes (priests) at itshands, on the condition of being allowed to retain their books and old images.But the more zealous of the old believers mostly escaped to the northernforests, where the convent of ^'ig, on the river of like name, was long their chiefcentre. These are the Bezpoportsi, or Priestless, the " fold that feeds itself."Some reject all the sacraments, and have no ministers except the "holy angels; "others remain during the service with open mouths, in expectation of the divinefood descending ready consecrated from heaven. The Bezpopovtzi becamenaturally more allied to western Protestantism, and developed far more varietiesthan the Popovtzi, every isolated refuge and every fresh prophet forming thecentre of a new group. The most numerous is that of the Theodosians, anoffshoot of the Vig community;but the best known are probably the Philippites