Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/205

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THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND RUSSIAN DISSENT.

the body, the other the soul; the grave was the cares of life, the resurrection of Lazaras the conversion of the soul. Christ's entrance into Jerusalem was not an incident in his career, but was a typical description of the entrance of the Holy Spirit into the heart of man. From this freedom of interpretation, indulged m by a superstitious, ignorant, and imaginative people, has arisen division into innumerable sects, with almost infinite variations of belief, as extraordinary and fantastic as they are numerous.

The strength and sacredness of family ties, together with the respect for ancient usages, at all times characteristic of the Muscovite race, have intensified their attachment to parental teachings and to doctrines inherited from their ancestors. "This was the religion of our fathers," they replied to remonstrances and menaces; "punish us, exile us, if you will, but leave us free to worship as our fathers did."

Nikon's changes attacked directly this reverential regard for what they deemed the past; the child remembered its mother's teachings, and refused to surrender the belief she relied upon; the peasant knew nothing of alterations or corruptions introduced centuries ago. Ancient usages, for him, were the usages of his forefathers, and the traditions of the village elders; he had heard vaguely of Romanism as an impious heresy, of his brethren in Poland seduced and forced by Catholic influence to a mongrel belief, hateful in his eyes, and he clung the closer to his father's creed. Both people and clergy were suspicious of every importation from abroad, whether it came from Western Europe, from the shores of the Bosphorus, or even from ancient Kiev, where priests studied "that thrice-accursed language, Latin;" they held it a mortal sin to call God "Deus," or the Father "Pater;" his only name was their own Slavonic "Bogh." A