nor importance, are dependent solely upon their own resources; by far the greater number, including the more celebrated, receive an allowance from the government as an indemnity for their sequestered estates.
First among these are the great lavra—the Petcherski at Kiev, the Troïtsa at Moscow, Alexander Nevski at St. Petersburg, and to these three there has recently been added Potchaïef, in Volhymnia, the chief monastery of the Uniates. Their appellation "lavra " is derived from the Greek "laura," a street or open place, which designation was applied in the East to communities of anchorites who lived in union, but occupied single and detached cells, in contradistinction to cœnobia, in which the inmates lived together under a common roof.[1] Each of these establishments depends upon the neighboring metropolitan, who makes it his official residence.
Next in rank are the "stavropigia,"[2] seven or eight in number, comprising several of the large monasteries in and around Moscow; they are exempted from the jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese in which they are situated; formerly, they depended immediately upon the patriarch, who, at their foundation, took them under his special charge, and, at their consecration, sent the large double cross which surmounts them; from this circumstance is derived their name. Now they depend directly upon the Holy Synod, as succeeding- to the rights of the patriarch. The remainder of the monasteries are divided into three classes, according to their importance.
The number of monks or nuns in each is fixed by statute; the lavra have about a hundred in full standing, and as many more lay brethren and novices; the Stav-
