Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/143

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DEATH OF THE ROMANOVS
127

the clergy, dreaming himself of a monk's habit, but the constant object of mockery in Court circles. The Minister of the Interior, Nicholas Maklakov, had chosen him for the special butt of his wit. And Maklakov's anecdotes, jokes, and funny stories were really responsible for their author's career, and for his appointment as Minister of the Interior during the dangerous period of general unrest.

Prince John was inscribed in the "black list" of the Court, kept diligently by the all-powerful Commander of the Tsarskoye Selo, and the alter ego of Count Frederics General Woyeykov. He was always absent from Court receptions, but frequented with pleasure the drawing-rooms of the liberally or mystically minded members of the educated classes. It is an interesting fact that when the Orthodox Church contemplated the establishment of a Patriarchate for the defence and strengthening of the Eastern Greek ritual, and for combating Catholicism, the young Prince John was first mentioned as the candidate for the patriarchal see. The revolution frustrated all these plans, and Prince John was murdered by the Bolsheviks at Alapayevsk.

The Bishop Yevdokim was an equally interesting and a much more prominent personality. Of peasant origin, he was a man of great education and tremendous will-power, an ascetic resembling the sacerdotal giants of the first centuries of Christendom, but with narrow, sectarian ideas. Yevdokim enjoyed an