The incomes of the Russian clergy are exceedingly small ; the convents, with few exceptions, are very poor since Peter the Great deprived them of their lands and their serfs, and reduced all monks and nuns to ridiculously small pensions of the state. A Metropolitan receives, as such, four thousand rubles banco (about 1300 Russian dollars, or less than 200/.) ; an archbishop has three thousand, and a bishop something less. In this proportion the incomes decrease, till in tlie lowest ranks, their incomes often do not exceed the wages of a maidservant with us. The poor nuns, when they offer their little works to travellers, often complain of their poverty with melancholy faces ; they receive onlv twentyfive rubles yearly (about twenty-six sliillings English), and what more they want they must work for or beg.
It is not to be su|)posed that either nun or metropolitan could exist on such incomes as those. All nmst therefore be in the receipt of some extra revenue. The three metropolitans have each cue of tlic greater
Lavras, or monasteries of the first rank. These convents serve them as residences, and the incomes annexed in Heu of benefices. When the metropohtans officiate at funerals, baptisms, Jtc., among the nobility, very considerable presents are made them, amounting often to 500 or 1000 rubles. Taken at the utmost, however, the income of a metropolitan never can amount to more than 30,000 or 35,000 rubles a year : the simple income of the prince bishop of Olmiitz is more than twelve times that of a Russian metropolitan.
The bishops, all additional sources of revenue included, have seldom more than twelve thousand rubles a year. Each bishop has a monastir (convent of the second class) whose income belongs to him, and it must also be observed that all the superior clergy have residences found them, in tlieir convents or within the city, and are maintauied and furnished with every thing necessary, from servants and horses, down to dogs, cats, spoons and plates, at the cost of the crown. The greater number are also provided with a country residence, with arable land, domestic animals, and furniture.
The lower classes of priests have, it is true, none of these things, but neither do they starve. Every Russian, even the most miserly, seems to take a pleasure in filling them with good things. I knew a very rich, but very avaricious nobleman who begrudged himself every thing, but who, when a priest came to dine with him, produced all his best wines ; a pope rarely came quite sober out of his house, and the holy man's carriage would be packed with all sorts of dainties in addition.
The poor nuns seem to be in the worst condition, because they come so little in contact with the world, which might else bestow somewhat more on them. They must literally live by the labour of their hands ; they may sometimes even be seen sowing and digging in the few poor fields which a convent here and there still possesses. They sometimes repair their own walls, and there is a church in Nishnej Novgorod, said to have been built by the hands of nuns, probably mider the direction of an architect, from the ground to the summit of the tower. They usually knit and ■weave stockings, silk and woollen girdles, purses and other articles of clothing, and embroider priestly robes and draperies for wealthier churches and convents.
Poor as the Russian clergy appear to be with respect to revenue (a bishop of Durham or Canterbury has perhaps alone as much as half the Dukhovenstvo or hierarchy of Russia), they are rich enough in titles, which are sometimes a yard or two long. If a person enter the apartm.ent of a metropolitan, and address him, the title runs thus : — " Vuissokopreosswdshtshenna'ishi Vladiko, or if he write to him; — ^^ Yewo Vuissoknpreosswdshtshenstvo Milostivaishu Gossudariu i Archipastuiru. The principal word may be translated — His most high holiness. The ■whole address is something like — His most high hoUness the most dear and gracious lord, the Lord Archpastor.
All these titles are most rigidly obsei^ved in addressing a letter ; m adilressijig them personally a Httle less strictness is permitted. Yet these very persons, who so load them wdth verbal honour, are not thereby deterred from sometimes laying aside all respect for the most high hohnesses in a veiy unceremonious manner. So long as he is engaged in the performance of his functions the priest is treated witli extreme reverence. Not only the laity kiss the hand of the cliief priests after the service, but the inferior