lytes from the Russian Church. If they did, they would be expelled the country: and any member of the Russian Church joining another communion incurs the penalty of civil death. On the other hand, members of the tolerated communions may, if they comply with certain forms, be received as proselytes from one to another; and the Russian Church may receive proselytes from them all. The children, too, of all mixed marriages must be bred up as members of the dominant Church. Nevertheless, in spite of this severity of the laws, there are millions of native Russian schismatics called Raskolniki.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Kazan Church.

N the side opposite to these tolerated churches

ON

one finds the Kazanski Sobor, so called from an icon (picture) of the B. Virgin brought from Kazan. At present this is the chief church of Petersburg; but the Isaaski Sobor, when finished, will supplant it. The Russian name Sobor, often mistranslated cathedral, means rather a collegiate church (the catholicon of the Greeks, or church of the general assemblies) than a cathedral properly so-called; and even the chief Sobor is not necessarily connected with the residence of a bishop, who always lives in a monastery. The name Sobor in Russ, besides the chief churches in monasteries, designates also all such churches as have a number of priests attached to them.

The Kazanski Sobor, which I visited about a quarter past five p.m., where the vespers were already over, has a semicircle colonnade, said to have been suggested by that before St. Peter's at Rome, fronting towards the Nefsky

Prospekt, and attached at its centre to the north transept, through which is the chief entrance. The church itself extends lengthways behind this colonnade, parallel with the street. It is always open, which the lesser churches are not; and the hours, at least at this time of the year, for the vespers, the matins, and the liturgy (i.e. the mass services) are said to be four p.m., four a.m., and ten a.m.

Before great festivals and Sundays (and at other times the same may be done for convenience) the Great Vespers and Matins are usually sung together overnight, and the whole is then called 'Aypurvía, i. e. the vigil service. This is the custom in summer, when the days are long.

This church is 204 feet long, 156 wide, and inside to the top of the central cupola 156 high; but outside its height is nearly 200. It has been compared to that built by Justinian at Bethlehem, since, like it, it is in the form of the Latin Cross; and has outside double rows of splendid granite columns, between fifty and sixty in all, and about thirty feet high, with bronze Corinthian capitals. The eye, however, misses over them that upper wall, pierced with round-topped windows, which ought to support the flat roof of a basilica; and the roof, lying immediately upon the columns, looks

ill.

There was a square, carpeted platform, rising by one

or two steps under the dome towards the nave, where the bishop vests and sits in the midst of the people when he is officiating and when he is not within the altar. The Oltár or sanctuary is separated from the body of the church by a great screen, running across the apse, and called the iconostasis or stand for icons, in the middle of which are three doors. In front before the screen there is a narrow space,

step or two

In

higher than the pavement of the church, and on a level with that of the sanctuary within. On this the people were going up to kiss the icons, with which, and with gilding, the whole face of the screen was covered. front there was a balustrade of solid silver, taken by the French from Moscow in 1812, and recovered by the Kozaks during their retreat. There are steps of Siberian malachite. The doors into the sanctuary are also of solid silver; the large lamps, too, which are before the large icons, are all of silver.

The special icon of this church is our Lady of Kazan, sheathed, like the rest, in drapery of silver gilt, and covered with jewels distinguished from those of the other icons by their greater number, size, and value. The iconostasis extends across the whole of the east of the church; and has in it, on either side of the great sanctuary, two other sets of three doors, opening into two side apses or lesser sanctuaries. This arrangement allows of additional liturgies (masses) in the

same church on the same day, the rule being that on the same altar, and on the same day not more than one liturgy can be celebrated.

The part of the church west of the great cupola had comparatively little ornament, though there were in it some icons. But from the roof, from the columns, and in the aisles, from the side walls, there hung many bunches of keys, keys of captured towns and fortresses, beginning with those of Azoff, taken in 1696, and many torn and faded flags taken in different wars from the Swedes, the Persians, the Turks, and the French, and from other enemies. Above, round the dome, there were bas-reliefs, as also on the outer door of the church. On the west wall I saw a flat tablet, recording the foundation of the church by the Emperor Alexander; the design, however, of founding it originated with his father the Emperor Paul.

There was no benitier of holy water at the entrance, such as there is in Roman Catholic churches, nor any seats whatever, nor was there that appearance of the church being used for recollection and meditation, or for reading devotional books, or for private prayer, or for visiting and adoring the Blessed Sacrament, which strikes one in the West of Europe. At the same time the separation of the sanctuary, its richly ornamented screen, and the severe supernatural expression of the older icons, made on one an impression of