CHAPTER XLI.

Return to Petersburg with one of the Sergiefsky

Monks.

N Monday, September 30th [o.s.], I returned to

ΟΝ

Petersburg, one of the Fathers accompanying me. I said that it was desirable that the monasteries should be again endowed with property, and so rendered more independent of secular influence. "Ah!" he replied, "what we want is a Patriarch. As it is now, Pratasoff is our Patriarch, though a soldier, as he represents the Emperor. He goes to balls and theatres, dances well, and is 'un très galant homme-mais-" I began to qualify this, as if he were only the Great Logothete (ô μéyas Aoyoléтns), &c., &c. "Yes, yes," he said, "if (ὁ μέγας Λογοθέτης), all the bishops opposed any dangerous innovation, it could not be effected, except through the Synod; but if the Synod (through the influence of the Crown) were to do anything bad, why, we should have to submit there would only be so many more Raskolniks (dissenters)." Speaking of the present composition of the Synod, he admitted that it was bad to have two priests placed

on a footing of perfect equality with bishops to govern the Church. "The best excuse that can be made is to say, that they may be useful to represent the married clergy, and to explain all matters.connected with their state, all the other members of the Synod being monks. Philaret of Moscow was made Archbishop at the age of thirty; the earliest age at which a monk under Peter the Great's rules can become a priest. He is so subtle (fin) and versatile, that he can turn the Synod round his finger, and make them believe black to be white. Whatever he takes up will be done, that is, if the Count Pratasoff approves. He, Philaret, is very well in his present place, as second; but Heaven preserve us from having him as Metropolitan at Petersburg! He is ambitious; and I should fear if the Count wished to make any bad innovation, he would bring his mind to it, and together with himself he would bring over all the rest. However, he is quite orthodox. The old Metropolitan Seraphim is a cypher. The Metropolitan Philaret of Kieff is a friend of the monks, an excellent and orthodox man, but retiring, and of no eloquence. Mouravieff lives a 'regular life, different from the rest, and he is in a manner near to becoming a monk. It is better to be Unter-Prokuror than to be Archimandrite, or même évêque, or même archevêque, or metropoli

1 [Monastic ?]

tain" (laughing); &c., &c. All read and admire his books. He brought (continued the Father) the French Ambassador, M. de Barante, to be present at our liturgy, one day in Lent (i. e. in 1840), and he dined with us afterwards, as you did the other day on the festival of St. Sergius. He said openly that he saw that in many respects we are more primitive in our liturgy than are the Latins. Some time afterwards the Archimandrite met Madame de Barante at Petersburg, and talked with her about some ascetic book, and pleased her so much, that she insisted on his coming to their house. This he did, and dined there, and I (said my companion) was with him. This was afterwards reported to the Emperor (though he had first consulted Pratasoff, who thought it well that he should go) by some one who was jealous of him for having access to the Emperor and being in his favour. And the Emperor said: "Qu'il reste dans son couvent!" And this order has only so far been relaxed since, through the intercession of the Metropolitan, that he may now go on business of his convent to the city. "In old time," he said, our princes of the line of Ruric were often monks, and even saints. Now they are all soldiers; and nothing is worshipped but what is military."

I said perhaps Russia is preparing for her great mission-the deliverance of the Eastern Churches and

the overthrow of the Turkish Empire. It is for the interest of true Catholicism that the Eastern Churches should recover themselves, and that their life and power should tell upon the enslaved and corrupted Churches of the West.

He went on and said: "The present military mania is necessarily very unfavourable to the strict morality and simplicity of early times. Now the Emperor, instead of wearing a beard and a kaftan, as of old, is always surrounded by soldiers, and he goes to the theatre." He said that "there are some families living in this neighbourhood to whom the monks sometimes, when invited, go out. They find that they need to eat more of their fish diet, and that they get weak in Lent, when they do not eat fish except on Sabbaths and Sundays. Now the clergy are a caste, and all the higher classes of this world, not to mention princes, set their political expediency and worldly fashions above religion and the Church. A true type and beau idéal of the due relations of Church and State was once exhibited in Russia by the Patriarch Philaret and the Tzar Michael; when the secular power was with the son, but honour, reverence, and the obedience of affection was due to the father, and was given to him."

N

CHAPTER XLII.

Conversation with M. Mouravieff.

EXT day, October 1 [o.s.], I saw M. Mouravieff,

and was led to ask him, "Could you not make two or three of your Monasteries into learned Societies, like those of the Benedictines?" M. Mouravieff said, “Much cannot be done at present. If forced celibacy is the trouble of the Latin Church, forced marriage is that of ours. And this is contrary to the spirit of the Canons, contrary to the directions of St. Paul. It rests merely on local custom. Nearly all our clergy, black as well as white, are sons of clerks. So they are a complete caste. Nobles, merchants, soldiers, and princes are free to become priests, but they never do. But what is to be done? We do not live now in the age of the Councils, when such things could be changed."

Again, he said, "Our monks, with few exceptions, are all peasants. The ritual offices of the monks of the Thebaid were imported into Russia entire; and if they