It makes one shudder to relate the cruelties that have been perpetrated in recent years on these poor Russian peasants for no other reason than that they seek to follow Christ in this world.
In April, 1891, a stone-mason, named Grebenyovk, of the village of Slodbodka, in Kherson, and a comrade of his were fined 37 pounds each for allowing prayer meetings to be held in their rooms. For a similar offence, in the month of June, the former and his wife were condemned to pay 12 pounds and 37 pounds respectively. The involvency of the offenders was followed by imprisonment, and Grebenyovk, on his release, forfeited his passport, a measure which deprives him for a term of two years of the right to leave the town in which he resides.
Urgent business requiring his presence in a neighboring town, he subsequently petitioned Admiral Zelony, the governor of Odessa, for leave to absent himself for a short time. The admiral glanced scornfully at his petitioner, and shouted out in a voice of thunder: “Ah, you are a Stundist, are you? you rascal! How dare you leave the Orthodox church, you scoundrel? I’ll pack you off to Siberia, you son of a ― “As God wills,” the stone mason answered simply.
“As God wills, is it, you ruffian! You presumed to leave the Orthodox church, did you? Well, by ― I’ll make it hot enough for you outside the church, you’ll find. Leave my presence this moment; begone! son of a ―.” And the stone mason, a really fine specimen of a puritan, left the presence of the governor with the simple dignity with which he would doubtless have gone to execution.
It is said that every jail in southern Russia contained some of these Christian men and women, and the filth of many of the cells in which they were confined is past description. The walls and ceilings literally swarmed with vermin, and the hardships they had to endure were infinitely greater than anything inflicted on ordinary criminals.
Imprisonment generally ended in banishment; and besides this, with no warning at all, many of them were dragged off from their homes at night in irons and fetters, and sent for long terms of penal servitude to the mines of Siberia. From the year 1888 and onwards, it was seldom that a gang of prisoners tramped across the icy snows of the Caucasian passes without a Stundist leader being chained in the midst, not to speak of lesser members of their community. And when at length they reached their journey’s end, worn out and shattered in health, the authorities were careful to separate them one from the other as far as possible, lest their united influence should be pernicious to those around them. The most arid and rocky deserts were selected for their domicile, such as Gerusi, Terter and Yevlach, and here they had to camp out in the open, until the Tartars took pity on them and gave them something to do. So poverty-stricken were they, that they would work a whole day gathering stones from the mountains for the paltry sum of twopence divided between twenty of them, and this after a weary journey of nearly 300 miles on foot.
Words cannot describe the horrors and brutalities to which they were subjected on these journeys laden with chains which would catch the snow at every step, and thus impede their progress, their feet swollen and covered with sores, forced to carry the soldiers’ baggage, and if they remonstrated, thrust at with bayonets, lashed at with the driver’s whip, and stormed at with curses such was the treatment they received by day, and at night their sufferings were, if possible, intensified.
Crowded into a filthy wooden hut called a forwarding prison, often only meant to accommodate a third of their number, they were yet forced to take refuge in it to escape the biting cold and perchance a blinding snow storm. Here they were locked in for the night, so that no matter how thick and polluted the atmosphere might become, they could only sigh and groan for the morning, and try to close their ears to the foul language around them. Is it to be wondered at that the weakly ones succumbed even on the journey, and that if they managed to reach the end, they died when they found themselves starved out in a barren land of exile? Sad to say, there were not a few cases of insanity brought on by sorrow, suffering and hardship.
The names of these poor sufferers are too numerous to mention here, but I will quote the case of “Felix Pavilkovski, once a preacher in the province of Kherson. The priest of his village enticed him into a theological discussion.
This was towards the end of 1891. Pavilkovski was indiscreet enough to let fall some expressions hostile to the church. He was arrested at the priest’s request, and sent to jail. Disgusting work was here thrust upon him, and petty larcenies committed on his food. The warders demanded money, and when he could not gratify them, they prepared a cagelike structure, in which a man could stand upright, but could neither sit nor lie down. Fastened into the cage, Pavilkovski was carried off to the prison privy, and remained in this fetid and horrible place for three days and three nights, the butt and laughing-stock of the jailbirds around him. When at last he was taken out he was a huddled-up lifeless heap. His joints had lost their use. Each day his jailers brought him seven ounces of black bread and a mug of bad water. It will be noticed that they did not starve him.”
At last the authorities decided to try Pavilkovski, and he and six others were sentenced to be banished for life to Eastern Siberia. After four months more in jail the seven Stundists began their awful journey. Their wives and children were allowed to accompany them. The Stundists had their heads shaved, and iron anklets riveted on. Each Protestant was chained to a convict bound for the mines. It would take up too much space if we narrated in any detail the sufferings of these seven families, but it is worth mentioning that before their long journey had drawn to a close, Pavilkovski’s wife and two of the other women had died from fatigue and exposure, and that of the thirteen children who left their homes in Russia, only five remained alive. We have heard from these martyrs since their arrival in Siberia, and they are full of a magnificent hope that even in their distant homes they will be shown a way to spread the light of the coming kingdom.
ILLUSTRATION
“The Stundists had their heads shaved, and iron anklets riveted on. Each Protestant was chained to a convict bound for the mines.”
“It is no rare thing for every Stundist in one village to be taken up and sent off to jail, later on to be banished to the Caucasus. Now that it is admitted to be no crime, but on the contrary the highest policy to persecute these Christians, they are subjected not only to the brutalities of the police and priests but also of the Orthodox peasants so-called. Anything short of murder is permitted, as that might bring the authorities into trouble if it got known to their Western neighbors. In several villages of the province of Kherson, the peasants, not content with taunting and jeering at the Stundists, have been known to flog and imprison them. One poor man had his arms turned and twisted until the blood spurted out, another had nails driven into his feet. Their houses searched at any moment, burst into at night, the windows broken, their goods smashed, their books and papers seized, their wives and children ill-treated, the old and sick turned out of doors, and for all these atrocities there is no possible redress.”
“Reduced to beggary by a system of fines which have been raised to as much as 87 pounds a head, in terror for their lives, and in constant dread of imprisonment or transportation, we are not surprised to hear that many of them have sold their belongings and emigrated to Roumania or the provinces contiguous to Siberia, hoping there to be out of reach of their tormentors, and to be able to bring up their children as the Bible has taught them. For, sad to say, the kidnapping of Stundist children is an ordinary occurrence. A Stundist being an outlaw, his children are not his own; indeed, a law has been passed to the effect that all children of Stundists are to be placed under clerical guardianship and to be baptized in the Orthodox church, and this is carried out to the letter.”