The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-09 00:00:00

niOntillft A 4 lit

LONIT)N, THURSDXY. OCTOBER 9. 1845.

.0 1 es just been published, in the Journal des
DJ/,:1,5, a case so horrible and so remarkable, that we
fel; oerseves justified in yesterday transferring it to
seer ce'umns, under the heading of " Religious Per-
sec miens in Russia." At the foot of our translation
we hsve acknowledged the highly respectable source
from whence the article is taken by quoting the journal
in question. Postponing the strong inclination of our
own feelings to give expression to all the int3ignation
its perusal has excited in us, we cannot help thfiling
that it involves matter which may well originate the
see erten of proceediegs, on the part of universal Chris-
essi.en, which religion and policy have alike in vain de-
e aided fur rightesn Ckntudes. From a date coeval with
"oundation of the Christian faith itself the zeal of
ect irien fanaticism has persecuted its opponents—of
eet.asever shade of opinions, under whatever condition of
eicseinstance—with all the barbarous rigours and all
the -.ltrip,itinary penalties that are most opposed to the ge-
n'.3 of Chistianity; to her precepts and her revelations.
le common with our Parisian Contemporary, we would
wish to see the spirit of toleration which has tri-
stesphed in civil sAi countries take the place of these
odi excesses." To go back to the period when Ca-
thelic armies.destroyed, by " fire and sword," the Albi-
geitses and the Vaur'ans, we also concur in thinking
would be but a sorry " means of preventing the perse-
cutions arising from Russian policy and orthodoxy."
Bet we certainly conceive that it might be very
eess,able for the great Powers of Europe to enter
~inte such engagements with one another as
might rescue the. great common faith of which, under
verious forms, all of the m profess the essential doc-
trines, front the disgrace—from the infamy of even by
ani?lLA,' it t...ttetiuriing the hideous atrocities that have
Lei perpetrated, in the name and fur the glory of the
•esloce seems like blasphemy, but it is not less the
etee„ that we thus write), upon the persons and the
epee it or defenceless, helpless, women, devoted to the
est vice of religion, end fulfiiling the most active and noble
Jeuties ot human cherity. The town of Witebesk has been
mede the theatre of a martyrdom, in its extent
end its elstails of refined barbarity, worthy of
fee mere ferecious extravagances of NERO, DOMITIAN,
or MAXIMCd. In a very ancient convent near the town
of Minsk, within the territory of Russian Poland, a
ei-terhood of forty-nine nuns of the rule of Saint Basil,
were iately discharging the truly Facred offices which in
_Yes i are ul filled by the wl-k
elnown "Sisters of Charity.'
They ministered to the e ants of the poor ; they sue-
r:me-kJ, aitendsd upon, and nursed the helpless or friend-
jese Ih:tiles of sudden and overwhelming calamities,
arises:se. wounds, accidents ; the s'ck, the wounded, the
They fed them, clothed them, prayed with
them. They soothed their last moments with encourag-
ing exitertaiien, or restored them to existence
wed a, Cuty for the most part as improved
in moral f,eling as renovated in physical health. These
men had for their chaplain a priest named NICHELE-
ic Z, who, en the Emperor Nicucieas issuing his
likes°, declaring that he would tolerate in his European
coseinions no other religion but his own—namely, that
of the Greek Church—was induced to apostatise from
the corainunien of Rome, to which he belonged, to that
of the 1_• mpERORI* election. Lis apostacy was re-
warded by valuable promotions. lie became bishop,
ant! tl An: desired to have the sisterhood follow the
example of his apostasy. AlI his persuasions and his
'menaces equally failing of their effect, he causes the
cent snt to be surrounded in the dead of night by Cos-
eho seized them " with the most revolting bru-
tahte, -hatted them with cords, and conducted them to
Witebesk, nearly twenty leagues from Minsk, coin-
pellieg them to walk the entire distance." At Minsk
they were confuted in a notorious convent under circum-
STO-7,CeS of degradation and infamy, for which we must
rate„ our readers to the narrative we have already
published, and where, every Friday, fifty lashes
were inflieted upon each of them 1. Scourged,
tumbled, starved," their bodies covered with wopnds,"
these risible nuns were proof against all external
cruelty, torture, and violence ; they remained steadfast
in their religious proksion. With this constancy on
theie part tree anger and ferocity cf the apostate bishop
insreastel in proportion. Re caused the devoted women to
be ironed and sent to the galleys, and slow starvation to
be reperadded to their other tortures. Tormented
by thirst, feint with hunger, agonised by bodily
sufforing, they were now compelled to serve as labourers
to the reasons employed in building the ecclesiastical
palace. Thirty of these martyrs to their devoted fidelity
to the church in whieh they had been reared perished
under various strange, and scarcely conceivable tortures.
Of the seventeerewl se survived the fate of those victims,
three only retained stelieient strength to effect their es-
cape from the " scliheliatic nuns " in whose dissolute
service they had Leen compelled to enter as do-
mestic slaves. After surmounting difficulties, perils,
and reverses, which would seem rather to be•
long to an historical romance of the Middle
Ages than to the real life of any portion of
European society in the nineteenth century, the, ac-
complished their escape into the Austrian dominions ;

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