GALICIA AND ITS CHURCHES.
THE Times of April 10th in the present year contained a letter from Count Vladimir Bobrinski, a member of the Russian Duma, giving particulars of a religious persecution alleged to be going on in Galicia. This charge was denied ten days later by M. Stepanowski, a Ruthenian, and this denial was repeated and emphasized five weeks afterwards by Prince Paul Sapicha. In all three letters a strong desire was expressed that some Englishman would come to Galicia and ascertain for himself what the facts really are. This wish has now been fulfilled. In the first instance it seemed hardly probable that an Englishman would be found who is sufficiently familiar with the religious question raised in these letters to make his judgment of much value. The ecclesiastical differences to which Count Bobrinski's charges relate are difficult to make intelligible to English readers. They are accustomed to hear of the persecution of Protestants by Catholics, or of Catholics by Protestants. But in Galicia persecutors and persecuted seem to strangers too much alike to leave room for that mutual dislike which is so easily fanned into active hostility. In appearance, at all events, both parties have very much in common. In Galicia there are two Churches, the Orthodox and the Uniate. Between them there is certainly one very, important distinction : the one rejects and the other recognizes the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff. But with this exception their beliefs are almost the same, and a good Protestant would regard them both as equally given over to superstition. Both Churches use the same Liturgy and the same ceremonial, so that until recently there was no visible difference between what went on in their churches. Latin was used in neither of the two services. The old Slavonic language was retained alike by the Orthodox and the Uniates. An Englishman beginning his inquiries in ignorance of what would seem to him so complete a practical identity would spend most of his visit in mastering the ecclesiastical alphabet. In this case, however, the English traveller, whose visit was so warmly invited by both parties to the controversy, happened to be an expert in these matters. Mr. W. J. Birkbeck knew the ground already. He speaks and understands Russian, he is familiar with the liturgy, and ceremonial of the Eastern Church, and in this way he is able to note any novelty, however slight, that may have been introduced into the services by Uniate priests. So far as language goes, he found no difficulty in understanding, or in being understood by, the peasants either of the West Carpathian part of Galicia or in the neighbourhood of Lemberg. " These two dialects differ from one another just about as much as do the local dialects of Norfolk and Yorkshire ; and they both differ from ordinary literary Russian as spoken in Moscow just about as much and as little as the Norfolk and Yorkshire dialects differ from ordinary literary English. The difficulties which I found in conversing with them were just of the same kind and extent which I have noticed foreigners, with a fair know- ledge of English, who have stayed with me in Norfolk for shooting or other purposes, to find in conversing with a Norfolk gamekeeper or gardener." Thus asregards previous knowledge of the matters in dispute, and ability to get at the facts as described by the witnesses, Mr. Birkbeck was exceptionally well equipped. Galicia is inhabited, chiefly in its eastern part, by three and a half million of Russians. They belong to the southern, or Little Russian, branch of the Russian people, though for the convenience of distinguishing them from the Russian subjects of the Tsar they have for about two generations been called Ruthenians. Originally they, too, formed part of the Russian Empire, and remained so until they were conquered by the Poles in 1340. Ecclesiastically they maintained communion with the Russian Church for two hundred years longer. At that time, however, the majority of their bishops were brought to acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope, and in return for this submission they were allowed to retain the Orthodox Eastern rite unchanged. The importance of this condition is plain. On the peasantry the change from the Orthodox to the Uniate Church made no impression. They said the old prayers, they saw the old ceremonial, and whether they were officially called Orthodox or Uniate was a matter that did not trouble them. The present difficulty appears to have arisen out of the efforts made by the authorities of the Uniate Church to Latinizo the service. That it is rightly attributed to this source Mr. Birkbeck is satisfied, both from his own observation and from his conversations with the peasants.
The first week of his stay in Galicia was spent in Cracow and Lemberg, and as this week included two feasts held in special honour, one in the Latin rite and one in the Eastern rite, besides a Sunday and the Emperor of Austria's birthday, he had good opportunities of seeing for himself what went on in the churches. The identity of the Orthodox and Uniate uses has largely disappeared. Everywhere "the greatest variety was apparent. No two services were quite alike." The Latiniz- ing process has made great progress since Mr. Birkbeck saw the Uniate rite in Austria twenty years ago. Such specially Roman devotions as the Cultus of the Sacred Heart and of St. Joseph, and Benedictions given with the reserved sacrament, have been added to those to which the congregation are accustomed, and he " sought in vain for any layman taking part in these services who had a good word for the changes which are being introduced." It is an instance of the stupidity which often characterizes the forcing of religious novelties on a simple people that these very devotions are among those which are specially popular in Roman Catholic countries, and are probably disliked even by the Galician peasants rather from the methods which have been employed to recommend them than from anything in their own nature. What these methods were Mr. Birkbeck saw for himself when he left the towns for the country districts. In the village of Grab, for example, he found that many had left the Uniate Church in consequence of changes in the ser- vice, the latest being that the priest had omitted the word " Orthodox " from the Liturgy, though it is printed in the service books which he is bound to use at the altar. " We have left the Unia for ever," they told Mr. Birkbeck, " and they may fine us and rob us of our cattle, or even hang us and cut us up, but we will never go back to it." The Austrian Constitution secures complete religious liberty to all the subjects of the Emperor, but the local authorities have refused these peasants leave to build a church for them- selves, they have interfered with their services when held in a private house, and on Easter Day last they arrested the Orthodox priest, for whom the peasants had provided at their own cost a house and maintenance, and put him in prison at Lemberg, where, at the time of Mr. Birkbeck's visit, he still was. When the people were asked whether it was true that they had been bribed to change their religion by Russian emissaries, " the effect of this question was indescribable. The men clenched their fists, the women burst into tears. It's a lie,' they said. No one from independent Russia has ever been here, nor did we ever see a single rouble in our lives. We get no money for being Orthodox ; the Poles take our money, and our cattle, and our goods, and the gendarmes tell us that they will go on doing so until we go back to the Uniate Church. But we will starve to death first.' " This is merely one example out of many which Mr. Birkbeck saw or heard narrated. The secessions from the Uniate Church have been in no wise checked by these severities. On the contrary, all over the country one village after another is following the example of Grab. Mr. Birkbeck attended an outdoor meeting of nearly a thousand peasants, and heard the same story from all those with whom he talked. The excitement has even spread to the United States. Over 40,000 Galician emigrants have left the Uniate for the Orthodox Church, and submitted themselves to the Russian Archbishop at New York. A man who had been in Canada got to the bottom of the business when he asked Mr. Birkbeck, " Why does not our Government treat us as the English Government treat the French out there ? "
It is not the Imperial Government that is responsible for these antiquated methods of enforcing religious conformity. Galicia enjoys a Home Rule very much like that it is now proposed to give Ireland, with the result that in the Galician Parliament the Polish Catholics have a large permanent majority. It is in no way to the interest of Austria, with her immense Slavonic population, to persecute the Church to which these millions belong, and wherever he went Mr. Birkbeck found that the Emperor was greatly beloved. " If our Tzisar knew what was going on," he was more than once told, " he would soon put matters right." It is greatly to be desired that the Imperial Government should find some way of moderating the zeal—at once ecclesiastical and political—of the Polish Catholics, since the continuance of their present policy constitutes a standing obstacle to the main- tenance of good relations—not between the Austrian and Russian Governments, but between the people of the two Empires. These Ruthenians in Galicia are Russian in blood and religion, and anything that can irritate Russian feeling is in its degree an additional obstacle—slight, no doubt, but still real—to the maintenance of the peace which so nearly concerns the two Empires and indeed Europe at large. What precise powers of interference are reserved to the Imperial Government we do not know. But the local authorities are probably not indifferent to Court favour, and a word from the Emperor might go a long way towards checking a religious propaganda which may, in unexpected ways, have inconvenient political consequences.
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