Every government of a province in Russia was at liberty to transport to the Caucasus or to Siberia, any person whom he considered troublesome or in any way detrimental to the peace of the province. No trial at law is necessary. Therefore, in the year 1884, the Holy Synod and the Government decided, if possible, to inflict a death-wound on Stundism through its leaders. For this purpose lists were obtained of those who were most prominent amongst them, and one after another in quick succession they were imprisoned, or transported to some distant part of the Empire.
It would take too long to enumerate each case, but I may mention that of Ivan Solovev, as being typical of many others. “He was one of the Kief leaders, a young man of bright intelligence and ardent temperament. Accused before the governor of spreading heretical tenets, he received notice that within fourteen days he was to clear out of the bounds of the province of Kief. He had five children and a wife, and worked a flourishing little farm. Everything had to be sold at a ruinous loss. But in good heart he left all, and settled in the province of Kherson, where he resolutely began to repair his broken fortunes. His seed was hardly in the ground when he was informed by the local authority that the governor had ordered him to ‘move on.’ He was in debt for his seed and his cattle, so the Jews came in, seized everything; and one morning he and his family began a long tramp of 150 miles to Bessarabia. One old horse that they were able to save helped to relieve them on their march, for they all took turns at riding. They arrived after a month’s march in Bessarabia, but two of the children had died on the road.
He had hardly settled down in a little village near Kishenev, when again that dread order to `move on’ was received, and again the weary Solovev began his wanderings. Another child had died in Bessarabia, and the reduced family now made their way to the Taurida, where he hoped that the brethren would succor him in his necessity. About halfway on his journey, as he was passing through a small town, he was informed by the police that he was not to continue his present route, but to proceed to Ciscaucasia, where orders had been already sent to prepare the authorities for his arrival. The wretched, harassed man, with his sick wife and two remaining children, arrived at last in Stavropol, famished and emaciated, with his hope and his passion of spirit gone forever.
ILLUSTRATION
“The governor ordered them to ‘move on’.”
“One of the noblest of the Kief preachers, Ivan Lisotski, was treated in the same way. Two of his children also succumbed to the hardships of travel, his means of livelihood were also taken from him, and for over ten years he was harried about from province to province. But, unlike Solovev, he never lost hope, he always remained sanguine and buoyant, and now from his place of exile in distant Trans-caucasia, he maintains a correspondence with his friends in Russia, which heartens them in their troubles, and does much to bind together in bonds of brotherly sympathy the sorrowing villagers, whose lot is becoming so terrible, and those who have gone from them into banishment and exile.
“All through the five years between 1882 and 1887 the police were active in the service of the Inquisition. The local prisons in the provinces of Kief, Kharkov, Bessarabia, and Kherson always contained numbers of Stundists: men and women who had either been tried and found guilty of tampering with the Orthodox, or else were there on suspicion of having done so.
“Every gang of criminals which left the central jails in these provinces counted among its numbers some who were noble servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, who walked in chains with heads shaven, and clad in the ignominious prison garb, for no other offence than that they sought to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their consciences. There was no distinction drawn between such ‘criminals’ and the worst desperadoes of the country. They walked in the same etape, they herded in the same vile dens at night, they were obliged to listen to the filthy conversation of their companions, they were treated with the same contumely by their soldier guards.
“Of course many a Stundist rejoiced in the opportunities thus afforded him of doing noble evangelistic work. One man, a noble character, cast into the jail at Tiflis amongst a crew of vile scoundrels, has recorded his joy at having had such an opportunity of preaching the gospel. He describes how he was obliged to put on a filthy prison costume, swarming with vermin and stained with every abomination. He describes the fetid atmosphere of the den in which he and twenty others passed the hours of the tropical nights. But the other prisoners grew to respect his gentle character; and he relates how some of them, unable otherwise to show him kindness, rolled up their prison shoes in a bag, and put this bundle under his head at night to serve him as a pillow. This man’s sole offence was alleged disrespectful words against the orthodox church.’ He was not tried; there was no evidence against him save the suspicion of a priest, but his punishment was four years banishment to a remote province of the empire, and the loss of most of his personal rights and privileges.
“Let us next take the case of Ivan Golovtchenko, a Stundist preacher in the province of Ekaterinoslav. He was taken before the Court on a charge of propagating Stundist doctrines. The evidence against him was of the flimsiest character, but it was sufficient, nevertheless, to convince an orthodox jury of peasants of his guilt. He was sentenced to three years in jail. As soon as his term of imprisonment had expired, the authorities made enquiry in his native village if he was a safe person to permit to return to his home. The priest to whom this enquiry was addressed, held up his hands in holy horror at the idea. ‘Certainly not,’ he replied, ‘he is an arch heretic, and would only lead my flock astray.’ So an administrative order was made out, banishing poor Golovtchenko to Siberia for life. During his term in prison, his wretched family were literally starving, and their experiences on the long and desolate road to Siberia were terrible.”
These suffering Christians may well be compared with those in Heb. 11, who were said to be “destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.” Their faith is an encouragement to us to “run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” (Heb. 12:1-21Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1‑2).)
“In the dungeons and in the deserts
Have Thy saints, by the world despised,
With joy untold and unmeasured,
Looked on the face of Christ.
In the torture or in the fire,
`Midst the scorn and the hate of men,
They have seen but the light of His presence
Around them then.”
ILLUSTRATION
Crossing the steppes