oks of
far-distant communes. Farther north and farther east, from forest
to _tundra_ and Steppe were they driven, spreading as they went
their Russian nationality over regions Asiatic; as exiles they
settled among Polish Romanists, Baltic Protestants, and Caucasian
Mussulmans, and with the heathen Lapp and Samoyede, and Ostiac, on
the Murman coast of Russian Lapland, in the bleak Northern _tundra_,
on the Petchora, and away beyond the Ural Spur, they found at last
the rest they sought.

Their most dangerous enemy was not, however, the persecution of the
dominant Church; they had placed themselves geographically beyond the
reach of that: far more dangerous was further Raskol--splitting--among
themselves, and it was not long before this overtook them. Cut off
by their own faith, as well by excommunication, from the Orthodox
Church, the supply of consecrated priests soon gave out; they had
lost their apostolic succession and could not renew it, for the one
Bishop--Paul of Kalomna--who had joined them, had died in prison,
without appointing a successor. Without an episcopate they were soon
without a priesthood; and the vital question, "How shall we get
priests and through them Sacraments?" was answered in two ways,
and according to the answer, so were the Old Believers divided into
two main sects. One sect declared that, as there were no longer
faithful priests, they were cut off from all the Sacraments except
Baptism, which could be administered by laymen. These "Bespopoftsi,"
or priestless people, were unable to marry; and to this--in a land
where the economic unit, is not man, but man and wife, where the
ties of family life are so strong--was due their further splitting.

In 1846, however, they persuaded an outcast bishop to join their
ranks, and founded a See at Bielokrinitzkaga, in Austrian Bukovina,
beyond the Russian Empire; from thence the succession was handed
down, and now after long decades of waiting, they have bishops
and priests of their own.

The practice of hiring a priest from the Orthodox Church, to conduct
a service for the Old Believers, is still very common in the far
North, where all villages have not the means to keep a "Pope" of
their own; and many an Orthodox clergyman thus adds considerably
to his precarious income by officiating for those whom his
great-grandfathers excommunicated as heretics; indeed, the Government
now encourages this practice, and has made some attempt to heal up
the schism