Official (Received Feb. 16).
Warsaw, January 29, 1874.
My Lord,
It is with, regret that I have to report to your Lordship a renewal of disturbances in the districts inhabited by the United Greeks in the Governments of Siedlce and Lublin, resulting in bloodshed, loss of life, and the MOST BARBAROUS TREATMENT inflicted on the peasants.
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Several months since various of the United Greek priests represented to M. Popiel, the Administrator of the Diocese of Chelm, that the measures of assimilation had been but partially carried out; and that those priests who had done so were exposed to the gravest difficulties, amounting almost to persecution, at the hands of the peasants.
M. Popiel applied to Count Tolstoi, who forwarded from St. Petersburg, within the last few weeks, a Circular, enjoining the strictest uniformity in the abolition of organs and benches, the disuse of the rosary, the bell at the mass, chants in Polish, and many other details, too numerous to be worth relation.
Such of the priests as had not, or were not prepared to execute the recommendations of the Circular, have been ejected from their cures. The number, however, is insignificant, as almost all had previously acquiesced in the views of the Government, and the Nonconformists had been eliminated.
As may be supposed, the peasants care nothing about the Synod of Zamosc, or about the purity and usages of the Primitive Church, Oriental or otherwise; but they have a deep-rooted veneration for the usages in which they and their fathers have been brought up.
The operation of Count Tolstoi's Circular has been most disastrous; in some few villages the peasants have entirely abstained from frequenting the churches; but in many the priests have been ill-treated, one having been stoned to death.