The Discovery of Muscovy

by Richard Hakluyt

Of their Religion.

They maintain the opinions of the Greek Church; they suffer no graven images of saints in their churches, but their pictures painted in tables they have in great abundance, which they do adore, and offer unto and burn wax candles before them, and cast holy water upon them, without other honour. They say that our images, which are set up in churches, and carved, have no divinity in them. In their private houses they have images for their household saints, and, for the most part, they are put in the darkest place of the house; he that comes into his neighbour’s house doth first salute his saints, although he see them not. If any form or stool stand in his way, he oftentimes beateth his brow upon the same, and often, ducking down with his head and body, worshippeth the chief image. The habit and attire of the priests and of the laymen doth nothing at all differ; as for marriage, it is forbidden to no man: only this is received, and held amongst them for a rule and custom, that if a priest’s wife do die, he may not marry again nor take a second wife; and, therefore, they of secular priests, as they call them, are made monks, to whom then chastity for ever is commanded. Their divine service is all done and said in their own language, that every man may understand it; they receive the Lord’s Supper with leavened bread, and after the consecration they carry it about the church in a saucer, and prohibit no man from receiving and taking of it that is willing so to do. They use both the Old and the New Testament, and read both in their own language, but so confusedly that they themselves that do read understand not what they themselves do say; and while any part of either Testament is read there is liberty given by custom to prattle, talk, and make a noise; but in the time of the rest of the service they use very great silence and reverence, and behave themselves very modestly and in good sort. As touching the Lord’s Prayer, the tenth man amongst them knows it not; and for the Articles of our Faith and the Ten Commandments, no man, or, at the least, very few of them, do either know them or can say them: their opinion is that such secret and holy things as they are should not rashly and imprudently be communicated with the common people. They hold for a maxim amongst them that the old Law, and the Commandments also, are all abolished by the death and blood of Christ; all studies and letters of humanity they utterly refuse; concerning the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, they are altogether ignorant in them.

Every year they celebrate four several fasts, which they call according to the names of the saints: the first begins with them at the time that our Lent begins; the second is called amongst them the Fast of St. Peter; the third is taken from the Day of the Virgin Mary; and the fourth, and last, begins upon St. Philip’s Day. But as we begin our Lent upon Wednesday, so they begin theirs upon the Sunday. Upon the Saturday they eat flesh. Whensoever any of those fasting feasts do draw near, look what week doth immediately go before them; the same week they live altogether upon white meats, and in their common language they call those weeks the fast of butter.

In the time of their fasts the neighbours everywhere go from one to another, and visit one another, and kiss one another with kisses of peace, in token of their mutual love and Christian concord; and then also they do more often than at any other time go to the Holy Communion. When seven days are past, from the beginning of the fast, then they often do either go to their churches or keep themselves at home and use often prayer; and for that seven nights they eat nothing but herbs; but after that seven night fast is once past, then they return to their old intemperance of drinking, for they are notable toss-pots. As for the keeping of their fasting days, they do it very straitly, neither do they eat anything besides herbs and salt fish as long as those fasting days do endure; but upon every Wednesday and Friday, in every week throughout the year, they fast.

There are very many monasteries of the order of Saint Benedict amongst them, to which many great livings, for their maintenance, do belong; for the friars and the monks do at the least possess the third part of the livings throughout the whole Muscovite Empire. To those monks that are of this order there is amongst them a perpetual prohibition that they may eat no flesh; and, therefore, their meat is only salt fish, milk, and butter; neither is it permitted them by the laws and customs of their religion to eat any fresh fish at all, and at those four fasting times whereof we spake before they eat no fish at all: only they live with herbs, and cucumbers, which they do continually for that purpose cause, and take order, to grow and spring for their use and diet.

As for their drink, it is very weak and small. For the discharge of their office they do every day say service, and that early in the mornings, before day; and they do in such sort and with such observation begin their service, that they will be sure to make an end of it before day; and about nine of the clock in the morning they celebrate the Communion. When they have so done they go to dinner, and after dinner they go again to service, and the like also after supper; and in the meantime, while they are at dinner, there is some exposition or interpretation of the Gospel used.

Whensoever any abbot of any monastery dieth, the Emperor taketh all his household stuff, beasts, flocks of sheep, gold, silver, and all that he hath, or else he that is to succeed him in his place and dignity doth redeem all those things, and buyeth them of the Emperor for money.

Their churches are built of timber, and the towers of their churches for the most part are covered with shingle boards. At the doors of their churches they usually build some entrance or porch, as we do, and in their churchyards they erect a certain house of wood, wherein they set up their bells—wherein sometimes they have but one, in some two, and in some also three.

There is one use and custom amongst them which is strange and rare, yet it is very ridiculous, and that is this: when any man dieth amongst them they take the dead body and put it in a coffin or chest, and in the hand of the corpse they put a little scroll, and in the same there are these words written, that the same man died a Russian of Russia, having received the faith and died in the same. This writing or letter they say they send to St. Peter, who, receiving it (as they affirm), reads it, and by-and-by admits him into heaven, and that his glory and place is higher and greater than the glory of the Christians of the Latin Church, reputing themselves to be followers of a more sincere faith and religion than they; they hold opinion that we are but half Christians, and themselves only to be the true and perfect Church—these are the foolish and childish dotages of such ignorant barbarians.