. In joyful Russia. y. They all—from necessity—are married men*No priest can receive a cure until he has first become ahusband. They usually intermarry with the daughtersof priests, but marry they must. Often at the last momenta young priest who has received notice that he has had aparish bestowed upon him, will rush to the nearest bishop,or to the superior of a neighbouring convent, to find awife. The former will tell him of some fair damsel—^thedaughter of one of his clergy—who is waiting to be wooed;the latter will produce such matrimonial wares as are inher keeping for his selection. It ne
. In joyful Russia. y. They all—from necessity—are married men*No priest can receive a cure until he has first become ahusband. They usually intermarry with the daughtersof priests, but marry they must. Often at the last momenta young priest who has received notice that he has had aparish bestowed upon him, will rush to the nearest bishop,or to the superior of a neighbouring convent, to find awife. The former will tell him of some fair damsel—^thedaughter of one of his clergy—who is waiting to be wooed;the latter will produce such matrimonial wares as are inher keeping for his selection. It need not take a priestlong to marry in Eussia. And then the trouble is a daily struggle with poverty—poverty, that prolificmother of selfishness and greed. It breeds its offspringin priests as in laymen; and so the Eussian priests areput before their people as avaricious and grasping, whenthey are simply intent upon providing bread for the mouthsdependent upon them. An unpaid priesthood, or an ill-. 0)ie of Mosooivs sixteen hundred churches. THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. 239 paid priesthood, is a shame and a blight upon any has proved a detriment to Eussia. The clergy sell theirprayers and haggle over the price of a priestly office, whilethe sick and the dying gasp in superstitions fear. The Eussian parochial clergy are withal very often anintelligent and kindly class of men. They are almost uni-versally good to their wives, and for the excellent reasonsthat they can not marry a second time, and that when theybecome widowers they lose their cures and must becomemonks. The intelligence of the parish priests need not begreat. In the past, indeed, they were often arbitrarilyselected by their masters from the untutored they are selected usually from the families of thepriests, educated and ordained under the direction of oneor other of the principal sees. They seldom preach. Thefunctions of the altar they discharge with fidelity. Theypray for the dead
Size: 1409px × 1774px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1897
