Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/161

146 The Lord's Supper is administered by the Greek Church as it is among Protestants; the communicant partakes, with the clergy, of the consecrated bread and wine, and attaches vast importance to this privilege, as establishing his equality with the priesthood in the eye of God. Contrary to the custom of the Latin Church, it uses leavened, instead of unleavened, bread, as the true symbol of the Pascal feast; while it recognizes, like the Latin, the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, it does not pretend so precisely to designate the moment and manner of the transubstantiation, and claims, in consequence, a more spiritual interpretation of the mystery. A yearly confession and attendance at the holy table is made compulsory by law, and the great mass of the Russian people, although scrupulous to the extreme in the discharge of their religious duties, have come to consider an annual celebration of the festival as sufficient; the more piously inclined may, in the excess of their devotion, repeat it three or four times; but, even among the most devout, a monthly communion is more unusual than is its weekly observance among Catholics. So rare a participation in this most sacred of the sacraments, and the season of prayer and fasting enjoined as preparation for it, should, it would seem, invest it with peculiar solemnity; but the general habit of all flocking to the altar at the same period, together with its perfunctory nature, diminishes its effect upon the individual imagination, and has reduced it to the level of mere ceremonial routine. Being obligatory, and a pecuniary charge as well, the peasant, notwithstanding his devout and superstitious character, is inclined to shirk communion as often as he dares. Official reports show that frequently, in parishes of three or four thousand inhabitants, not more than two or three hundred partake of it. There is, moreover, in