CHAPTER VI.
PERSECUTION OF THE LEADERS.
When the government decided to strike at Stundism through its leaders it took a step which, from its own point of view, was most effective. To continue fining and imprisoning the insignificant Stundists in the villages—men whose work in no way affected the general movement, and allow the organisers and preachers to go scot-free, was not a wise system of persecution. The police soon discovered this, and at once steps were taken to obtain a list of those who were most prominent in their advocacy of the Protestant cause. These lists were forwarded to the provincial governors, and immediately afterwards blow upon blow began to fall on the Apostles of Stundism. One of the first who suffered was Titchenko, a peasant of the province of Kief. He was charged with the crime of endeavouring to wean his fellow villagers from the Orthodox Church, and, further, with blasphemous utterances against the sanctity of the icons. He is even alleged to have compared icons to idols. The court found him guilty, and he was sentenced to be fined, and to imprisonment for six weeks. But the priest who was his accuser, dissatisfied with the comparative clemency of the court, made a bitter complaint to the Archbishop of Kief, and the provincial governor was asked to supersede the decision of the court. So the unfortunate Titchenko, as soon as his six weeks in gaol were over, was "administrated," and, with his family, obliged to settle in one of the
