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200 The Bezpopovtsi, on the contrary, with no stable foundation on which to stay their belief, no guiding authority to direct their steps, have wandered from Christian truth and ordinary morality, ramifying in every conceivable direction, following out, with inexorable logic, to their most extravagant and absurd conclusions the vagaries and eccentricities of individual opinion.

Renouncing the priesthood, they have abandoned all recognized forms of Orthodox or Christian worship; of the seven channels of divine grace, they have rejected all save baptism, which may be administered by lay brethren; the others are closed forever. Most extraordinary and conflicting ideas prevail among them, and each one is free to adopt and to follow such as may seem good in his own eyes. The more timid and superstitious among them, reluctant to accept as final their utter deprivation of all Christian ordinances, and their complete severance from all Church organization, have ransacked their imaginations to devise substitutes for the one and the other wherewith to appease their spiritual cravings. Without priests to hear confession and grant absolution, some confess to elders, some to sisters, as partaking by their sex of the blessing pronounced on Mary, "blessed among women," whom "all generations shall call blessed," and are fain to be content with promises of pardon. Without communion, these famished souls, hungering for holy food, resort to divers ceremonies which are, according to their moods and disposition, either fanciful and touching, or cruel and revolting: dried fruits, distributed by young girls, or flesh cut from a virgin's breast, are partaken of for spiritual refreshment. Amid their extravagances the ludicrous blends with the lugubrious. During the service of Holy Thursday certain of them, known as "gapers" or "yawners," sit for hours