The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

-•>THE CHURCH—THE ARMY. 477"white," or secular, to join the " black," or regular clergy, and from amongst thisclass the Czar now usually chooses the higher Church dignitaries.The ecclesiasticalbody numbers at present about 254,000, of whom 70,000 officiate in the 625cathedrals, the 39,400 churches, and the 13,600 chapels of the empire. Ofmonasteries there are 480, and of nunneries 70 only—a proportion characteristicof the Greek as compared with the Latin Church.The Government has imposed on other religions the administrative and bureaucraticforms of the dominant creed. Thus the Latin Catholics are directed by acollege independent of the Vatican, seated in St. Petersburg, under the presidencyof the Primate and Archbishop of Mogilov-Gubernskiy, and under the control of alay representative of the imperial authority.So also the Lutherans, Calvinists, andFig. 256.— The Mejlboj Lines.Scale 1 : 25O.C00.E.ofP-- Bui -&T^ GoloekovoKUsojorka. ' LefitcWovjT,/Armenians are controlled by an outward organization more or less analogous tothat of the State Church, and superior to the individual hierarchy of each. TheMussulman communities of the Tatars and Kirghiz as well as the BuddhistKalmuks have also been obliged to conform their worship to the hierarchical formsimposed on them by St. Petersburg. Each of these confessions has its centralauthority ; each of them has been subjected to the pleasure of procurators orsecretaries representing the imperial power ; each of them has its consistoriesintrusted with functions analogous to the Orthodox consistories.All these religionsare tolerated, but are not allowed to proselytize, while the Raskolniks, regardedas apostates from the National Church, have not even the right of public worship.The Pussian army has been completely reorganized since the Franco-German