16 MAY 1896, Page 3

All foreign action in Russia is now halting in view

of the Coronation, the ceremonials for which are immediately about to begin. Foreign Princes are arriving in Moscow literally by the dozen, and Asiatic Princes are as common in the -streets as policemen. The most remarkable guests are, how. ever, the representatives of the creeds, which include an in- credible variety of faiths, from Christianity, Mahommedanism, and Buddhism, down to Lamaism, and the faith of the Shamanist Pagans from the northern shores of Siberia. Even the Established Church of England is represented, the Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Creighton, having been deputed, with the cordial assent of the Czar, to represent it at the ceremonial. Dr. Creighton will have a new and most striking scene added to the many historic pictures which must be present to his mind, and we wish he would describe it. The special corre- spondents will do their work well enough, but they will not tell us what we want to know,—the real position of the Czar towards the Orthodox Church. How far is he really the Sovereign Patriarch that Peter L declared himself to be, as far as Henry VIII., or as far as Queen Elizabeth, or only as far as Queen Victoria ?