On Trinity Sunday not only are the churches strewn with newly cut herbage and decorated with budding branches, but all houses “sport greenery”—it is a combination of the old time customs of May-Day and Yuletide in the west. The sacred ikons figure in all ceremonies, and private individuals in times of distress requisition them. They are conveyed with considerable pomp to the bedside of the dying, or to the homes of the fortunate, pious in their rejoicing. The church is all inclusive and makes no distinction; is as ready to comfort the most notorious sinner as it is the devout communicant of irreproachable rectitude and honour.
The ikon most desired is that known as the Iberian Mother of God, whose chapel stands before the Vosskresenski Gate. Close by a carriage and six remains in attendance, and usually towards evening it starts forth on long journeys across the town, its round often unfinished when morning dawns. Its place on the ikonostas is filled by a copy, but the original is at once restored on its return. Men uncover as the carriage passes by; those near, when it is carried to or from a house, prostrate themselves or attempt to kiss it, some endeavour so to arrange that the picture must be carried over them. Another ikon in request is that kept at the Vladimirski Vorot; all have great homage paid them. Priests, drivers, attendants, are uncovered, even in the depth of winter; and to be appointed to any post in connection with it is counted a great honour. It is said that the offerings of the thankful in return for the privileges conferred by “visiting” have amounted to as much as £10,000 in a single year in respect of one picture alone. This money is part of the church revenue—the servants attending with the ikon receiving presents in addition.
Originally the private ikon was a picture of the patron saint of its owner. As every day in the year is a saint’s day, the saint of the day on which a person happened to be born was considered his patron; often he took that saint’s name, if some other were chosen then the recipient must be christened on the day assigned to that saint, and thus the “name” day is distinct from the birthday and is observed, whilst the anniversary of one’s birth may or may not be celebrated. Often, indeed usually, an ikon of the Virgin now occupies the “sacred corner.” It is so placed that it must be visible on entering the room and receive the obeisance of the orthodox; it is also, as it were, to be a witness of all that takes place before it. To do anything wrong in the presence of an ikon makes the fault the greater; persistent evil-doers screen the ikon before wilfully transgressing. It was even made one of the charges in the indictment of the false Tsar Dmitri that he neglected to veil the ikon the day of his marriage. To western minds such an attitude is as incomprehensible as the action related in one of Tolstoi’s stories, of the pious peasants who, about to murder their offspring, knelt reverently by the hole they had made in the ice and prayed to God that He would protect and bless them. But the Russian understands.
The private ikon, or some other sacred picture, always precedes the corpse at the funerals of the orthodox. The obsequies of the wealthy are still conducted with great pomp; the modern practice of hiding the coffin beneath wreaths and crosses being combined with the more austere solemnities of a statelier age. The church of St Sophia, on the south side of the Moskva, opposite the Kremlin, is much used in connection with military funerals and those of a public character. The peasant’s coffin is simply covered with a pall, and the bier carried through the streets shoulder-high, with no other pomp than the ikon reverently borne some paces ahead of the cortege. The hands of the dead one are closed over a paper on which is printed a prayer for the repose of his soul, the deceased’s baptismal name being written in, and this is the only justification for the assertions of the early writers that “the Russ when he dies hath his passport to Saint Nicholas buried with him.”
If it is the practice to decorate the ikon with presented jewels, it was not only counted a sin but a crime to take any back again. Collins says that the punishment for so doing was the loss of a hand, as befell a woman “who thought she had but lent to the image” she favoured. With the private ikon “they do as they will, decorating the ikon one day and with the same tawdry themselves the next,” an indication that the ignorant peasant may treat his ikon much as the West African negroes treat their fetiches.
A common object in Moscow of to-day is the watch-tower or chastok, where night and day sentinels patrol on the look out for fires, not nowadays so frequent or so disastrous as formerly, since the erection of wooden houses within the town limits has been forbidden. In summer, when the signal is run up on the staff, numerous one horse drays, each with a small barrel of water, hurry to the scene and in somewhat primitive fashion attempt to quench the conflagration. If a wooden house the fire usually subsides when the roof with its thick layer of earth between rafters and plates collapses. Dearly paid for experience has taught the Muscovite how the spread of fires may best be stopped where water is scarce and hydrants far distant. Primitive and mediæval in many things, Moscow reveals how the people of long past ages overcame the difficulties incidental to life in large cities, and a great fire will bring together such an array of water carts as will convince the beholder of the very thorough organisation of a department charged with the duty of safeguarding public safety.