Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-03-14

become Bolshevist fortress.
From the 9th to the 18th of No
vember, 1917. for more than seven
days under a hurricane of fire, the
city was stormed and finally carried
by the Bolsheviki in terrible fratri-
cidal war. Since then the sacred
citadel has been playing a new and
ignominious role in the history of
Russia.
From the time of the building of
the Church of the Beheading of st.
John Baptist and of the Little Church
of Our Savior in the Forest, bespeaIi-
ing the days when the acropolis was
still a wooded hill, a multitude of
churches and palaces. witnesses of
Russia's glory. have written here
national document'in stone. The his
tory of Russia is the history of the
monuments of the Kremlin..
During the bombardment a Chinese
workman. looking on, was heard to
say, The Russian is not good; bad
man; he shoots on his God"
A Blood Stained Sanctuary
Once within the walls of the Krem-
lin one faces piles of ammunition,
barbed wire and ugly miscellaneous
heaps of rubbish. Austrian, German
and Lettish soldiers, some frankly
in their. enemy uniforms, are loung-
ing about or standing guard. Army
motor lorries and cars carrying dark,
sallow, un- Russian faced government
officials tear up through the gates,
shricking curse, so it seems, as
they enter upon all hated Christian
Russia.
The farther one walks about and
sees the outraged fabric on all sides.
the stronger becomes the feeling of
grief. With indescribable emotion,
one enters the resounding stone in
closure near the Cathedral of the
Falling Asleep of the Mother of God.
Here are still to be traced the stains
of enorm Gus pools of blood in which
f1oated human fragments, tracked
about by daring feet.
Window glass is everywhere smash
ed or shot through. Within the
cathedral there are strewn about
splinters of a 6-inch shell, which ex-
ploded there, and fragments of white
stone, brick and rubble. The gold
and silver candelabra those constel-
lations among which all within the
church seems to float through space,
are bent as by storm; the altar and
the sanctuary are strewn with brok-
en- glass; brick and dirt; the shrine
of the holy martyr, Patriarch Her
mogen, is covered with fragments of
stone and rubbish.
Book of the Gospels Torn
This is the church built by Flora
venti of Bologna, .in which the Cars
were crowned and in which the earl
ier patriarchs were laid to rest. 1t
is the precious reliquary of Russia's
stF.la Il npt to- L,
the ancient Eastern Church.
In the Church of st. Nicholas, in
the belfry of the Tower of Ivan the
Great, a she'll crashed through
window and destroyed the east wall
of the interior of the sanctuary. The
large, magnificent old Book of the
| Gospels, which was placed against
the ruined wall. was thrown to the
floor near the altar. The front cover
was torn off, and the precious ikons
of the Resurrection of Christ and the
| evangelists adorning the book were
broken and thrown about; many
leaves were torn and crushed.
The altar of oblation was broken
and the service books torn. All over
the sanctuary bricks We're scattered
about, with splinters of shells and
various ecclesiastical objects, heaped
| up between the dlIdr ana the ROYAL
Gates, but the altar itself, in spite
of it's nearness to the ruin, was un-
injured.
| Theft md sacrilege
In the Church of st. Nicholas lies a
part of the holy relics of the Prelate
| Nicholas, a saint honored by all
Christians and even by the heathen.
The walls of the entrans to this
church are written over with the
most filthy and sacrilegious inscrip-
| tions and invectives. not only in Rus
| sian. but (more significant of the
| leadership in all this despoliation) in
German. The entrance of the church
where the relics lie, was used as an
| outhouse.
After the Bolsheviks had assumed
protection of the treasury and locked
! themselves into the Kremlin. the
rooms of the Patriarchal Sacristy
were broken open and ruthlessly
looted by some of their own company.
| In their haste to rife the cases
and in their indifference to the ma
tional significance of the treasury.
these robbers wantonly ruined ec-