GREEK CHURCH. 



black, or the clergy of the cloisters, to whom 

 belong all the dignitaries, and by far the larger 

 portion of the teachers in the clerical schools ; 

 the white, or secular clergy, the members of 

 which form an hereditary caste and are 

 obliged to marry, but on the death of the wife 

 leave the clerical rank, or enter the cloister; 

 and the servile clergy, likewise an hereditary 

 rank, to whom belong the deacons, sacristans, 

 choir-singers, and the church-scholars who 

 have not been able to pass examination. All 

 nominations are in the hands of the bishops, 

 who, with their court-circle of monks, exer- 

 cise an almost unlimited authority. It appears 

 from the statistical reports that from 1841 to 

 1857 a total of 1,569 women and 4,147" men 

 entered the Russian cloisters, of whom more 

 than two-thirds were descendants of the cleri- 

 cal order, and only 33 noble. A prejudice 

 prevails among the higher classes of Russian 

 society against the Greek cloister-life; Russians 

 of rank, who wish to become monks, frequently 

 go abroad, become Roman Catholics, and gen- 

 erally enter the order of Jesuits. Since the 

 emancipation of the serfs the peasants are also 

 less inclined to enter the cloisters, but prefer 

 to unite with the secret societies of monks of 

 the sect of old believers. According to the Rus- 

 sian law, no one, who has not gone through 

 the course of the seminaries, can go into a 

 cloister before his thirtieth year. But favor 

 is shown the sons of priests who cannot pass 

 examination, and their novitiate, instead of 

 three years, is allowed to endure from twelve 

 to fifteen years. Thus every cloister has a 

 number of indolent and stupid youth, whose 

 time is divided between menial employments 

 and idleness. Besides these people, there are 

 connected with the cloisters those monks who 

 have mastered the seminary course with honor, 

 or have obtained learned degrees at the Acad- 

 emy, for the monastic clergy possess all the 

 higher offices, and the directors of the clerical 

 institutions take especial care to gain their 

 most gifted pupils for the tonsure. The bishops 

 are the overseers of the clerical institutions in 

 their districts, and give the monastic clergy, to 

 which they belong themselves, the preference. 

 In this control by the monks of the educa- 

 tional institutions lies the guarantee of their 

 continued increase. In it also is the foundation 

 of the hostility between the " black " and the 

 "white" clergy. This hostility forms the 

 characteristic peculiarity of the Russian clergy, 

 and the standing mark for the assaults of the 

 reform press. 



The Russian monks have been very richly 

 recompensed by the Government for the con- 

 fiscation of their lands and the curtailment of 

 their prerogatives, and have received large 

 rewards from the public for the exercise of 

 clerical offices, so that the receipts of the 

 most prominent monasteries amount to half a 

 million silver rubles. The Alexander Newsky 

 Monastery in St. Petersburg has been paid for 

 burial-places within its walls from 1,500 to 



3,00 rubles. The monasteries send out monks 

 with registry-books, in which laymen subscribe 

 certain sums of money for particular prayers. 

 A monk of Athos collected in this manner 

 20,000 rubles. At the coronation of the pres- 

 ent Czar there were 800 of these collectors in 

 Moscow, and the Czar was obliged to restrain 

 them. The Sergius Cloister at Moscow receives 

 from the collector's books, which it has placed 

 all along the railway from Moscow to St. 

 Petersburg, 200,000 rubles annually. In time 

 of epidemics, a holy image, which is taken to 

 the sick by two, four, or six horses, according 

 to rank or condition, has brought in 2V, 000 

 rubles. The monasteries have also the privi- 

 lege of baking the sacramental wafers, from 

 which a monastery at Kiev realizes about 

 50,000 rubles. There are no begging or bare- 

 footed monks in Russia, and the monasteries 

 are richer than even in Roman Catholic coun- 

 tries. The so-called cloisters with particular 

 lines are held in especial regard, in which only 

 simple wants of the monks are cared for on the 

 side of the cloister, and the surplus is divided 

 among the members without taking account of 

 it. The Episcopal houses, with their many 

 monks, have monastic rights and privileges; 

 among them, the incense and the catechism 

 in each diocese are the monopoly of the bishop. 



In contrast with this wealth, the poverty of 

 the secular clergy is pitiable ; the entire real 

 property brings to nearly 190,000 priests not 

 more than 36,000 rubles rent, the members 

 receive from the state at most 300 rubles, and 

 the rest of their support is drawn from fees, 

 which in the large cities are not inconsider- 

 able, but in the rural districts are exceedingly 

 small. In some cases they may amount to 

 from 4,000 to 5,000 rubles, but do not average 

 more than from 150 to 200 rubles. An an- 

 nual circuit, which the priest makes at Epi- 

 phany, at the head of his dependants, from 

 house to house, is the chief source of revenue. 

 But it frequently happens that the servant 

 meets the priest in the hall, and offers him a 

 gift, but forbids his blessing the house which 

 is the essential point. Not much more pleasur- 

 able is the duty laid upon the poor priests of 

 seeing that each Russian partakes of the sacra- 

 ment once in every year. They depend largely 

 upon the communion-offerings for support. 



The classical authors of Russian literature 

 are forbidden in most of the seminaries, as are 

 also the possession of newspapers, and a resort 

 to the libraries, which had increased very 

 much in the last ten years. Whence it comes 

 that such scholars, who have completed the 

 course of the clerical schools, and will not be- 

 come priests, often cannot pass even the re- 

 ception examination for the university, and 

 that, although 5,000 graduates in theology have 

 gone out from the clerical academies since 

 1859, not more than a dozen and a half of 

 theological works have appeared. And the 

 pupils, forbidden wholesome lectures, turn to 

 the revolutionary and atheistical works of the 



