It cannot be denied that there is a very considerable amount of toleration of foreign religions in the Russian Empire. The Tsar does not emulate the Roman Pontiff, who, as long as he could prevent it, which was up to about 12 years ago, would not allow a Protestant place of worship to be built within the walls of his capital. On the contrary, at the fair of Nijni Novgorod, the Mohammedan mosque and the Armenian church stand side by side with the orthodox cathedral, and I am not sure that I did not see in the Chinese quarter a Buddhist temple. Notwithstanding all this, however, the religious toleration of the Tsar is of a somewhat one-sided character. A man is usually left in peace to practise the religion in which he was born, so long as he does not try to proselytize. Again, should an English Churchman, or any one else living in Russia, be convinced that the Greek Church is more scriptural and catholic than his own, the Greek Church will receive him into her communion. But not vice versâ. On the contrary, should a Russian Churchman living in Russia be convinced that the English Church is more scriptural and catholic than his own, and should he attempt to carry out his convictions, he would thereby render himself liable, I believe, to expatriation, confiscation of property, and other pains and penalties too dreadful to mention; and to receive the convert into the English Church would be more than the Chaplain at Petersburg or Moscow dare do. Again, in mixed marriages—that is, when either father or mother is “orthodox”—the children must be orthodox, and follow the religion of the State. Russians abroad sometimes change their religious profession, in which case they remain Russian subjects, but are not permitted to return to their country unless they recant.

The matter therefore stands thus, that whilst the Russian Church is ready to receive from all, she gives to none—that is, if she can help it. Consequently, what she will not give, there are some who choose to take. The rich, who are possessed of broad acres, be they ever so convinced that some of the doctrines of the Greek Church are unscriptural and uncatholic, naturally think twice before they render their estates liable to confiscation. But there are others, who have less to lose, for whom confiscation has no such terrors; or, if it has, dare to face them, and bid the law do its worst.

Persecution, however, such as we have known in England, has never been a characteristic of the Church of Russia. I do not mean that her repressive measures have never taken a form which can with difficulty be distinguished from persecution. But she has never had an Inquisition; neither Petersburg nor Moscow has a Smithfield; and the plains of Russia have never heard such cries as once resounded through the valleys of Piedmont. On the whole, I am disposed to think that, in religious matters at all events, the hug of the bear is not so bad as might be expected from his growl; and that the powers that be, when they see a religious point cannot be carried, meet the difficulty half-way.

I left Siberia in a Russian man-of-war, and heard a story that will illustrate this. Formerly the law obtained in the Russian navy that all the seamen should have shaven chins. Now, at the Council of Moscow in the seventeenth century, to shave the beard was pronounced “a sin which even the blood of martyrs could not expiate”; and some of the Russian dissenters still believe that to cut the hair or the beard is altogether unscriptural and unorthodox. Accordingly, one fine day two recruits appeared in the navy with flowing beards. They were ordered to cut them off, but they obstinately refused. Their insubordination was reported to higher quarters, and an order was returned that the men must shave or be shaved. The men still refused, and in consequence were shaved, to the saving of their consciences, but the loss of their beards. But nature gave them new ones, and the difficulty came up again, the men once more refusing to obey orders. Their obstinacy was again reported, this time to very high authorities—to one of the Grand Dukes, if not to the Emperor himself—when it occurred to one of them, in his wisdom, to ask why these men should be made to shave; and, no satisfactory answer being forthcoming, another question followed—why should any of the men be made to shave? and shortly there went forth a regulation that, throughout the whole of the navy, men should be left to do as they liked with their beards. So in many things respecting religion: when the Government of the present day cannot carry a point, they not unfrequently give it up, or cease what looks like active persecution.

The Russians have, however, certain fanatical sects to deal with, whose tenets are so outrageous that no enlightened Government could do otherwise than try to repress them. Some of their ideas are sufficiently ludicrous. “Cursed be the man,” said one of these people to an acquaintance of mine—“Cursed be the man who presumes to pray to God in a pair of trousers!” from which, I suppose, we are to infer that in public worship these individuals think it right to divest themselves of their nether garments. I am not aware, however, that persons such as these are persecuted. Among the fanatical sects also are the Scoptsi, some of whom are banished to a village on the Yenesei. There are certain sectarians also who have no settled home, but wander about as strangers and pilgrims. We met some of them in the Siberian wilds. The great mass, however, of the Raskolniks, or Russian dissenters, estimated at eight millions in number, are very different from those I have mentioned.

When, in the seventeenth century, the Patriarch Nikon began to have the Church books revised and corrected, he met with fierce opposition. He was charged with interpolating instead of correcting the books, and nothing would persuade many of the ignorant people to the contrary. Many thus became unsettled and broke away—not, they would say, because they were leaving the Church, but because the Church, with its new-fangled notions, was leaving them. Then when, in addition to Nikon’s changes, Peter the Great introduced others, things were looked upon as becoming worse than ever. There was, accordingly, a large section of the most ultra-Conservative Russians, both of priests and people, who clung to old books, old pictures, and old ways, under the impression that thus only could they worship God according to the customs of their forefathers; and it is from these secessionists that the great mass of the Staroveri, or Old Believers, are descended. We heard, at Tiumen, that some are very strict in their habits of living; that, for instance, they will not drink tea or wine, and will not drink out of the same vessel with one who is not of their sect. The Staroveri are split into two principal parties. They had a bishop with them at the time of their secession, and he ordained many priests; but as these priests died they asked, How shall we fill their places? They had no second bishop to ordain more. Some decided that they would do without priests, and these are called Bezpopoftschins, or priestless. The others for a time got priests from the Established Church as best they could, but eventually came to a compromise with the Government, and, by certain concessions made to them, saved their scruples and obtained their priests. These are called Popoftschins. The differences, however, between both parties on the one side, and the Established Church on the other, were not questions of doctrine, but such points as these: the Starovers gave the benediction holding up two fingers, the established clergy holding up three, which latter practice was regarded by the Old Believers as a mortal sin. The Starovers’ form of the cross had three transverse beams, instead of the Russian two or the Latin one. Again, to say the name of Jesus in two syllables instead of three (as in Greek) was condemned by the Starovers, as was also the repetition of the hallelujah in the service thrice instead of twice. It became also an alarming innovation to read or write, for ecclesiastical purposes, a word in modern Russ. I had a reminder of this in 1878 on the Dwina, where Old Believers exist, for I sometimes found my tracts objected to because not printed in Sclavonic.

But there are many among the Raskolniks of Russia who dissent from the Established Church on points less diminutive than those of the Starovers; as the Dukhobortsi, or “wrestlers with the Spirit,” who spiritualize to a high degree both doctrines and sacraments. Also they reject pictures, do not cross themselves, nor observe the appointed fasts. In their meetings they pray for one another, sing psalms, and explain the Word of God. They call themselves “Christians,” and their great dogma is to worship God in spirit and in truth. They have no magistrates, but govern their own society; they practise brotherly love, have all things common, and are remarkable for the orderly and cleanly manner in which they live. An officer whom I met last year in the Caucasus spoke to me in the highest terms of their blameless lives.

There are many other sects of the Russian Church, many followers of which are found in Siberia, either because banished or born there, or having migrated by their own choice for the sake of greater liberty. Not the least interesting among them are the Molokans, some of whom I found on the Amur, and others more recently in the Trans-Caucasus.