Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/249

Rh and good works. They carry a staff in the form of a cross, on which they lean, which in the common language is called Possoch. The bishop of Novogorod wears a white pallium. The bishops confine their attention entirely to matters of divinity and to the pious promotion and advancement of religion itself, and intrust the management of both private and public affairs to their officials.

They have in their list certain Roman pontiffs whom they venerate among the saints, but they execrate others who followed that schism as seceders from the ordinances of the holy fathers and the seven councils, and call them heretics and schismatics, and hate them even more than the Mahometans. For they say, that it was decided at the seventh general council, that those things which had been settled and determined upon in the previous councils should be maintained unalterably for ever, and that it was not lawful for any body thereafter either to summon or to attend at any other council, on pain of anathema; and this decision they themselves most rigidly observe. There was one metropolitan of Russia who, at the instance of Pope Eugene, went to a synod, where the two Churches were met in unison, but on his return to his own country he was seized, all his goods were confiscated, and he thrown into prison, from which, however, he after some time escaped.

What difference exists between our creed and theirs may be learned from a letter addressed by John, metropolitan of Russia, to the Archbishop of Rome, as they call him, which is as follows:—

“I have loved thy glory, O lord and blessed father, most worthy of the apostolic seat and vocation, who from afar hast looked down upon our humility and poverty, and cherishest us with the wings of love, and salutest us as thine own in thy charity, and inquirest specially concerning our true and