-696
An Imperial decree appeared on April 30th in St. Petersburg which, though it does not concede religious equality to all Christians, does liberate the Christian sects outside the Greek Church from many irksome or cruel forms of persecution. Greek Christians, for one thing, may be converted to other Christian faiths without suffering penal consequences. "The Old Believers," that is, Orthodox Dissenters, may hold real and personal property, as may also Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and, indeed, all Christians except the wild sects, such as the Skoptsi for instance, who are still liable to criminal proceedings. The Christians may open schools of their own, found monasteries, circulate religions books, and generally perform the rites of their Churches without inter- ference from the police ; Mussulmans are allowed to open denominational schools ; and Buddhists and Lamaists are no longer to be stigmatised in official documents as " idolaters." We have commented elsewhere upon the effects of this decree, but may remark here that it marks a definite advance in the administration of Russia, where, besides occasional instances of violent religious oppression, the bureaucracy often made of sectarian differences instruments of extortion. It is greatly to be regretted that the decree contains nothing to make the lot of Russian Jews less terrible ; but we fancy the Government were afraid of stirring up that deep cesspool of prejudice, the Russian feeling against all of that ancient faith.
