The Stundists/Chapter 6
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 distant provinces of the empire. All his little belongings he had to get rid of at a great sacrifice, and when he at last arrived at his destination he was a ruined man.
Hard upon Titchenko's case followed that of Trofim Babienko. Babienko was not a very wise man; he was more zealous than discreet. His neighbours highly resented his references to their "idolatry" and "stupidity," and, taking the law into their own hands, they beat him severely. To complain of their treatment, he arrived before the governor of Kief. This potentate, without troubling himself to inquire into the merits of the case, ordered Babienko's immediate arrest and transportation to Ciscaucasia. His wife and family were not permitted to see him before his departure, and, deprived suddenly of their breadwinner, they were ruined.
Ivan Solovev's case is interesting, as it displays another method of breaking a man's heart and ruining his worldly prospects. He also was one of the Kief leaders, a young man of bright intelligence and ardent temperament. Accused before the governor of spreading heretical tenets, he received notice that within fourteen days he was to clear out of the bounds of the province of Kief. He had five children and a wife, and worked a flourishing little farm. Everything had to be sold at a ruinous loss. But in good heart he left all, and settled in the province of Kherson, where he resolutely began to repair his broken fortunes. His seed was hardly in the ground when he was informed by the local authority that the governor had ordered him to "move on." He was in debt for his seed and his cattle, so the Jews came in, seized everything, and one morning he and his family began a long tramp of 150 miles to Bessarabia. One old horse that they were able to save helped to relieve them on their march, for they all took turns at riding. They arrived, after a month's march, in Bessarabia, but two of the children had died on the road. He had hardly settled down in a little village near Kishenev, when again that dread order to "move on" was received, and again the weary Solovev began his wanderings. Another child had died in Bessarabia, and the reduced family now made their way to the Taurida, where he hoped that the brethren would succour him in his necessity. About half-way on his journey, as he was passing through a small town, he was informed by the police that he was not to continue his present route, but to proceed to Ciscaucasia, where orders had been already sent to prepare the authorities for his arrival. The wretched, harassed man, with his sick wife and two remaining children, arrived at last in Stavropol, famished and emaciated, with his hope and his passion of spirit gone for ever.
Solovev's case is a type of numerous others. One of the noblest of the Kief preachers, Ivan Lisotski, was treated in the same way. Two of his children also succumbed to the hardships of travel, his means of livelihood were also taken from him, and for over ten years he was harried about from province to province, but, unlike Solovev, he never lost hope, he always remained sanguine and buoyant, and now from his place of exile in distant Transcaucasia he maintains a correspondence with his friends in Russia which heartens them in their troubles, and does much to bind together in bonds of brotherly sympathy the sorrowing villagers whose lot is becoming so terrible with those who have gone from them into banishment and exile.
All through the five years between 1882 and 1887 the police were active in the service of the Inquisition. The local prisons in the provinces of Kief, Kharkov, Bessarabia, and Kherson always contained numbers of Stundists, men and women who had either been tried and found guilty of tampering with the Orthodox, or else were there on suspicion of having done so. Every gang of criminals which left the central gaols in these provinces counted among its numbers some who were noble servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, who walked in chains with heads shaven, and clad in the ignominious prison garb, for no other offence than that they sought to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their consciences. There was no distinction drawn between such "criminals" and the worst desperadoes of the country. They walked in the same étape, they herded in the same vile dens at night, they were obliged to listen to the filthy conversation of their companions, they were treated with the same contumely by their soldier guards. Of course, many a Stundist rejoiced in the opportunities thus afforded him of doing noble evangelistic work. One man, a noble character, cast into the gaol at Tiflis amongst a crew of vile scoundrels, has recorded his joy at having had such an opportunity of preaching the Gospel.[1] He describes how he was obliged to put on a filthy prison costume, swarming with vermin, and stained with every abomination. He describes the fetid atmosphere of the den in which he and twenty others passed the hours of the tropical nights. But the other prisoners grew to respect his gentle character; and he relates how some of them, unable otherwise to show him kindness, rolled up their prison shoes in a bag, and put this bundle under his head at night to serve him as a pillow. This man's sole offence was alleged disrespectful words against the Orthodox Church. He was not tried, there was no evidence against him save the suspicion of a priest, but his punishment was four years' banishment to a remote province of the empire, and the loss of most of his personal rights and privileges.
It is impossible in a sketch like this to give a hundredth part of the cases of atrocious persecution which have been brought to our knowledge during the past ten years. We can only pick out examples here and there from all parts of the South of Russia, and present these to our readers as cases representing hundreds of others. Yegor Ivanov was a sergeant in the army reserve, who, when serving as a soldier, had been converted to Protestantism. He had been promoted to the gendarmerie, and had been indiscreet enough to be present once at a gathering of Stundists, where an icon was smashed with a hatchet. He himself had taken no part in the iconoclasm; but he was a sympathiser. A jury found him guilty of being accessory to the act, and he was banished for life, with the forfeiture of all personal rights and privileges. His journey to the remote part of Transcaucasia, appointed as his abode, was a terrible one. In chains he tramped across the snows of the Caucasian passes, and the scenes at night in the ill-ventilated étape houses were awful. The stifling atmosphere, the indecency, the loathsome vermin, the brutality of the guard, he will never forget. He wonders that he did not become insane.
Let us next take the case of Ivan Golovtchenko, a Stundist preacher in the province of Ekaterinoslav. He was taken before the Court on a charge of propagating Stundist doctrines. The evidence against him was of the flimsiest character, but it was sufficient, nevertheless, to convince an Orthodox jury of peasants of his guilt. He was sentenced to three years in gaol. As soon as his term of imprisonment had expired, the authorities made inquiry in his native village if he was a safe person to permit to return to his home. The priest to whom this inquiry was addressed held up his hands in holy horror at the idea. "Certainly not," he replied, "he is an arch heretic, and would only lead my flock astray." So an administrative order was made out, banishing poor Golovtchenko to Siberia for life. During his term in prison his wretched family were literally starving, and their experiences on the long and desolate road to Siberia were terrible.
- ↑ We dare not give the name of this man. His term of imprisonment has expired, and he is again at liberty; but should public mention be made of him and of his work, it would do much to reawaken the suspicion of the Russian authorities.