The clergy of a fully supplied parish consists of a priest, a deacon, and two clerics, who perform the duties of lector, sacristan, beadle, bell-ringer, etc. The deacon has little to do, except to share on Sunday in the recitation of the liturgy, which, being inordinately long, is sometimes divided into sections and read or chanted by several persons concurrently, each going at the top of his speed. The clerks of the lower ranks, however, may pursue a trade, but they are all enrolled in the same caste, out of which they must not marry. The number of parish priests in Russia is about 36,000; of deacons, 12,444; of inferior clerics, 63,421. One-half the revenue of the parish belongs to the priest, one-quarter to the deacon, and one-eighth to each of the two clerics. The prizes of the profession are the chaplaincies to schools, colleges, prisons, hospitals, in the army, in the navy, about the court, etc., most of which are liberally paid. The parochial clergy are supported by: 1. Property belonging to the parish, chiefly in the towns, yielding about $500,000 per annum; 2. A government allowance of $3,000,000 per annum; 3. About $20,000,000 per annum contributed by parishioners; 4. Perpetual foundations, with obligation to pray for the departed, invested in government funds at four per cent., say $1,075,000. The average income of a priest is thus about $341. In addition to this, however, each parish has a glebe, of which the usufruct belongs to the clergy. The minimum extent of this church domain is about eighty acres, and it is divided after the same rule as the revenues, namely, one-half to the priest, one-quarter to the deacon, and the remainder to the inferior clerks. When there is no deacon, the priest's share is, of course, proportionately larger. In many parishes, the glebe is much more extensive than eighty acres. In Central Russia, it amounts sometimes to 250, 500, even 2,500 acres; and, in those fertile provinces known as the Black Lands, the share of the priest alone is sometimes as much as 150 acres. At St. Petersburg, the church provides the parish priest a comfortable and elegant [pg 406] home. “The furniture is from the first shops in Petersburg. Rich carpets cover the floors of the drawing-room, study, and chamber; the windows display fine hangings; the walls, valuable pictures. Footmen in livery are not rarely seen in the anteroom. The dinners given by these curés are highly appreciated by the most delicate epicures. Occasionally their salons are open for a soirée or a ball; ordinarily it is on the occasion of a wedding, or the birthday of the curé, or on the patron saint's day. The apartments are then magnificently lighted up; the toilettes of the ladies dazzling; the dancing is to the music of an orchestra of from seven to ten musicians. At supper the table is spread with delicacies, and champagne flows in streams. A Petersburg curé, recently deceased, loved to relate that at his daughter's nuptials champagne was drunk to the value of 300 roubles (£48).”
Considering the education and social standing of a Russian priest, this is not bad. In the rural districts there is much less clerical luxury; there is even a great deal of poverty and hardship. But we must not forget that the rustic clergy is but a little higher in culture than the rudest of the peasantry, and a life which would seem intolerable to an American laborer is elysium to a Russian hind. Most, even of country priests, have comfortable houses, well furnished with mahogany and walnut; and, though they do not eat meat every day that the church allows it, they have their balls and dancing parties, at which their daughters dance with the young men from the neighboring theological seminaries. The wives and daughters of the reverend gentlemen, to be sure, have to labor sometimes in the fields; but “they are dressed by the milliner of the place; you will always see them attired with elegance; they do not discard crinoline, and never go out without a parasol”—except, of course, when they are going to hoe corn and dig potatoes.
The voluntary contributions of the parishioners are collected, or enforced, in a variety of ways, and paid in a variety of forms. Towards the feast of S. Peter each house gives from three to five eggs and a little milk. After the harvest, each house gives a certain quantity of wheat. When a child is born, the priest is called in to say a few prayers over the mother, and give a name to the baby; the fee for this is a loaf and from 4 to 8 cents. Baptism brings from 8 to 24 cents more. For a second visitation and prayers at the end of six weeks there is a fee of a dozen eggs. At betrothals the priest gets a loaf, some brandy, and sometimes a goose or a sucking-pig. For a marriage he is paid from $1 60 to $3 20; for a burial, from 80 cents to $1 60; for a Mass for the dead, from 28 to 64 cents; for prayers for the dead, which are often repeated, 4 or 8 cents each time; for prayers read at the cemetery on certain days every year, some rice, a cake, or some pastry. The peasants often have a Te Deum chanted either on birthday or name-day, or to obtain some special favor; the fee for that is from 8 to 16 cents. The penitent always pays something when he receives absolution; but as confession is not frequent in the Russian Church, the income from this source must be small. In the towns the fee is often as high as $1, $2, $4, and even more. Among the peasantry it sometimes does not exceed a kopec (one cent); but if the penitent wishes to receive communion, he must renew his offering several times. At Easter, Christmas, the Epiphany, the beginning and end of Lent, and on the patron saint's [pg 407] day, which sometimes occurs two or three times a year, it is customary to have prayers chanted in every house in the parish, for which the charge varies in the rural districts from 4 cents to 60 cents each visit, according to the importance of the occasion. In the large cities the fees are much more considerable. Father Gagarin cites the case of a parishioner in St. Petersburg to whom the clergy presented themselves in this manner twenty-seven times in a single year, and at each call he had to give them something. This, however, was an exception. Generally the visits are only fifteen a year. “Sometimes it happens,” continues our author, “that the peasant cannot or will not give what the priest asks. Hence arise angry disputes. One priest—so runs the story—unable to overcome the obstinacy of a peasant refusing to pay for the prayers read in his house, declared that he would reverse them. He had just before chanted, ‘Benedictus Deus noster’; he now intoned, ‘Non Benedictus, non Deus, non noster’ thus intercalating a non before each word. The affrighted peasant, the chronicle says, instantly complied. Often enough, too, in spite of all the prohibitions of the synod, the wives and children of the priests, deacons, and clerks accompany their husbands and fathers, and stretch out their hands also. The worst of all this is that the Russian peasant, while long disputing merely about a few centimes, will think himself insulted unless the priest accept a glass of brandy. And when the circuit of all the houses in the village has to be made, though he stay only a few minutes in each, this last gift is not without its inconveniences.” It must be an edifying round certainly. But then the reverend gentleman has a wife to help him home.
The black clergy is not in a much better condition than the white. All the monasteries are supposed to be under the rule of S. Basil; but they are not united in congregations, each establishment being independent of all the rest. Most of them do not observe the great religious rule of poverty and community of goods, but each monk has own purse, and the superiors are often wealthy. One hundred years ago, the number of convents, not reckoning those in Little and White Russia, was 954. The ukase of Catharine II., which confiscated the property of the clergy, suppressed all but 400. Since then the number has increased.
The great increase in the number of monks between 1836 and 1838 is accounted for by the forcible incorporation of the United Greeks. This was not formally effected until 1839, but the United Greeks were reckoned as part of the Russian Church in 1838, and many of their monks were transferred from their own to the non-united monasteries earlier than that. It will be seen, however, that the increase thus obtained was not permanent.
The curious discrepancy between the number of monks and the number of nuns has an equally curious explanation. Women are forbidden, by a decree of Peter the Great, to [pg 408] take the vows under forty years of age. Hence the convents are crowded with postulants who must wait sometimes twenty years before they can take the veil. Some persevere, some return to the world, and many continue to live in the convent without becoming professed. If we reckon the whole population of the convents—monks, nuns, novices, and aspirants—we shall find the number of the two sexes more nearly agree.
It is interesting to see from which classes of society these monks and nuns are drawn. F. Gagarin distinguishes five classes: I. The clergy, including priests, deacons, and clerks, with their wives and children; II. The nobility, embracing not only the titled nobility, but government functionaries and members of the learned professions; III. The urban population, comprising merchants, artisans, citizens, etc.; IV. The rural population, consisting of peasants of all conditions; V. The military. The monks are recruited from these five classes in the following ratio:
Clergy: 54.3 per cent.
Urban population: 22.3 "
Rural population: 16.3 "