Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/247

Rh the metropolitan was very displeased, and laid the matter before the prince. When the deputy was summoned to the prince, he replied, that “according to the ancient custom of the country a thief who was not a priest was hanged”; and so he was sent away unblamed. If a priest complain before a lay judge that he has been struck by a layman (for all kinds of assaults and injuries apply to the secular law), then the judge, if he happen to learn that the layman was provoked by the priest, or previously injured in any way by him, punishes the priest.

Priests are generally maintained from the contribution of people connected with the court, and have some small tenements allotted to them with fields and meadows, whence they derive their support by their own and their families’ industry, like their neighbours. They have very slender offerings. Sometimes the church money is put out at interest at ten per cent., and they give the interest to the priest from fear of being compelled to maintain him at their own expense. There are some also who live by the liberality of the princes. Certainly, not many parishes are found endowed with estates and possessions, except the bishoprics and some monasteries. No parish or priesthood is conferred on any one but a priest. In every church there is only one altar, and they do not think it right that the service should be performed more than once a day. A church is very seldom found without a priest, who is bound only to perform the services three times a week.

They wear nearly the same dress as the laity, with the addition of a small round skull cap to cover the tonsure, and a broad hat to keep off the heat and rain, or they use an oblong beaver hat of a grey colour. They all carry staves to lean upon, called Possoch.

Abbots and priors, as we have said, preside over monasteries,—the latter are called Igumens, the former Archimandrites. Their laws and regulations are very severe, but