Evening star., 1903-07-25

idea of what goes on here in Moscow. I
went the other day into the walled part of
this city. and was stopped by the throng at
one of the shrines.
The police had formed two long lines
like those you see outside a theater waiting
to get to the box office on opening night
The lines were made up Of old and young,
poor and rich, peasants and those of the
middle classes and numerous children.
walked along outside to see what the
attraction might be. 1t was pic
ture of the Virgin looking out Of
gold clothes in a gold frame so propped up
on table that it stood upright The pic
ture was about four feet square. The
clothes were carved out of gold plate, only
the face. hands and feet being painted. On
each side of the picture was a policeman,
priests, in long black gowns and high black
caps. There was contribution box in
front of it.
The worshipers were admitted to the
painting one at a time and they came
each took off his hat and bowed low lie
then knelt upon the cobblestone street and
crossed himself then kissed the hands of
the picture again and again and went on
his way making the sign of the cross. Many
were women and some had babies in
their arms. The women would kiss the
hands of the Virgin and then have
their children kiss them. There were
old men. who barred their heads and
knelt. and young boys and girls who did
the same. All We're terribly in earnest and
the scene was too serious a one to cause
smile.
After kissing each dropped A coin in the
contribution box and passed on to the
priest to buy candle to be burned before
the picture in the church later on. and each
took a drink of holy water from a cup
handed by the priest, giving contribution
q he did so.
| stood some time and watched the scene
The driver of every cart that passed raised
his hat and in the finest of the carriages
the occupants took off their hats and cross
ed themselves and prayed. The poorest and
the meanest here are not ashamed to pray
In public. They show more respect to their
religion than we do to ours, and whether
1t be true or not it is worthy of respect
for the respect they pay to 1t.
One-Fifth Christianity.
We Americans are so far away from the
Greek church that we have little idea of
| its numbers 1t is one of the great church
es of the world. surpa ssing any other in
ChristendOm, outside the Roman Catholic.
| If all the Christians on earth were
gathered together, one in every five would
| belong to this church. There are 9S 600 OOC
| Greek Christians in the world, and alto
| gether less than IA 900 600 Protestants
| The Roman Catholics number 10000, 900,
| the MOhammedans, 1I1,OOoOn. the HindOOS,
| 1870 900 900 and the Confucionists, 2J6 900 :
| coo. There are about 14S,OO,OO Buddhists
| AZ 900 OOO Taosts chiefly Chinese, and
| SlnntOOlSlS. all japanese.
| The bulk of the Greek Church is Russian
| 1t has in this country alone more than ST.
| 900 900 members out of its $4,000. 900; In
| other words, four-ffths of all the people OF
| European Russia belong to 1t.
| The Priests and Their Customs.
| The Greek Catholic Church differs from
| the Roman Catholic Church in that 1t de-
| MES the supremacy of the pope and allows
| all it's members to read and study the Scrip
| lures in the native tongue, and also in al
| lowing the priests to marry. In the Roman
| Catholic Church a .~-est must be single; in
| the Greek Catholic Church every candidate
| Tor the priesthood must be married, but if
| he becomes priest and his wife dies he
cannot marry again. He is then expected
| to go into monastery for the rest of his
life.
| There are two classes of the clergy, the
blacks and the whites; the blacks are the
monks and the whites are the priests. The
bishops are always selected from the black
clergy, and they have a higher social stand