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Bludow, the Minister of Public Instruction, Tolstoy, and Gromeka, Governor of Siedlce, for having urged him to use the power of the empire in forcing conversions to Russo-Greek orthodoxy. That the heads of a semi-barbarous nation should so advise is not surprising. The Tsar, who is an absolute monarch, cannot be excused. There is every reason, besides, for holding him personally responsible.
These are the sine qua non for the due observance of Easter, but what relation they may have, if any, to the Jewish Feast of the Passover, it is difficult to see, although in many other respects there is a striking resemblance to the service of the Temple in Jerusalem in the ritual of the Russo-Greek Church.
Public business which led to our meeting; his characteristics; reasons for his course; his view of the relations of the Russo-Greek Church to the Empire; his frankness in speaking of the Church. His hostility to Western civilization. His discussion of revolutionary efforts in Russia. His theory of Russian public instruction. His ultra-reactionary views. His mingled feelings regarding Tolstoi.
Pius IX. was now at Rome, and invited around him all bishops who could travel to the Holy City. No fewer than one hundred and ninety-two from every country except Russia sought the presence of the Chief Pastor. The absence of the Russian bishops was all the more surprising, as the Russo-Greek church vies with Rome in the honor which it pays to the Blessed Mary.
The established religion is the Russo-Greek, or Græco-Russian, known officially as the Orthodox Catholic Faith. It maintains the relations of a sister church with the four patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria. The Emperor is the head of the church. With the exception of the Jewish, all religions are allowed to be professed.
In Russia I had the opportunity to study a religion of a very different sort the Russo-Greek Church. While this church no doubt contains many devoted Christian men and women, it is, on the whole, a fossilized system; the vast body of the people being brought up to rely mainly on fetishes of various sorts.
In regard to relations with the Russo-Greek Church on our own continent, he seemed to speak with great pleasure of the treatment that sundry Russian bishops had received among us. He read me letters from a member of the Russo-Greek hierarchy, full of the kindliest expressions toward Americans, and especially acknowledging their friendly reception of him and of his ministrations.
In the important diocese of Chelm, particularly, the most ingenious devices were had recourse to, in order to delude the Catholic people, and induce them to comply with the requirements of the Russo-Greek Church. All these failing, force was had recourse to, and it was used, assuredly, without stint or measure.
Everything that detracts from the established Russo-Greek Church detracts from the revenues of its clergy, and, as these are pitifully small, aids to keep the priests and their families in the low condition from which he is so earnestly endeavoring to raise them.
We must advert to the law according to which mixed marriages are not recognized as valid, until they have been blessed by a Russo-Greek Catholic priest; and also to the liberty which Catholics ought to possess of trying and judging their matrimonial causes, in eases of mixed marriages, by a Catholic ecclesiastical tribunal.
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