"moujik"[1] wishes to avoid the vexation of official supervision; petty employees seek to curry favor with their superiors, and the law affords an opportunity for them to display their alacrity. Religious duties, thus degraded to the level of police regulations, are performed in the same spirit as that in which the latter are obeyed.
Another explanation is found in the poverty of the clergy, and the inadequate provision by the State for their maintenaince. They depend, for their support, upon the contributions they can levy upon their parishioners, and expect payment for the duties they discharge. Every sacrament—confession and communion, as well as baptism, marriage, and burying—is a matter of bargain; no recognized tariff exists, but a gift is exacted, of which only the amount is voluntary. The sinner compounds with the Church, and his penance is in inverse proportion to his liberality. The authority and influence of the priesthood suffer; the sacred office, and he who holds it, are degraded by this chaffering over a price for the highest privileges of the Christian faith.
The position of a Russian pope towards his flock differs greatly from that of the Catholic priest. Not celibacy, but marriage, is obligatory for him; the common existence of family ties draws him and his parishioners more nearly together, and makes their interests analogous. They create, as with the Protestant clergy, a stronger feeling of mutual sympathy, a greater community of ideas and sentiments; while they also tend to diminish pastoral authority, and to check the reverential respect involuntarily shown to those who, from noble and lofty motives, make the sacrifice of the purest joys
- ↑ Moujik is the diminutive of the Russian word "mouje," man, the Latin vir, and designates the peasant or serf.
