course was now clear for a complete organisation of the sect. Ambrose at once proceeded to create an entire hierarchy. But this was not accepted without demur by all the community. They stood for Russian isolation, Russia for the Russian. But here was a Greek living in Austria administering the affairs of the Old Believers. If there were war between Austria and Russia, what would happen? The position was most objectionable. Accordingly in the year 1868 a council of this branch of the Raskol was held at White Fountain; but it only led to an accentuation of the differences and left matters worse than before. The stiffer members of the priestly party refused to accept the newly imported priesthood, and preferred to go on as before relying on their chance to obtain deserters from among the priests of the orthodox Church in Russia. They could have no respect for priests of this character. Among the Old Believers the priests have a lower place even than that of the village popes in the orthodox Church. They are treated as mere hirelings, as men of no importance on their own account, only used to give efficacy to sacraments.
The Bef-popòftsy, the "no-priest" party, took very different lines. They organised a church without sacraments—excepting the sacrament of baptism, which could be administered by laymen. They met this anomalous situation in various ways. Some simply bowed to the inevitable, accepted the deprivation as a judgment of heaven, and waited for better times. They were like a Western people suffering from a papal interdict. This was the most obvious and sensible position to take up. It exactly agreed with the logic of the situation. But fanatics caricatured it ridiculously. Thus there were the "Gapers," who would stand on Holy Thursday with their months open waiting for the angels to feed them.
The most serious question which rose out of this anomalous situation was concerned with the sacrament of marriage. If all sacraments were now in abeyance owing to the absence of true priests to administer them, marriage was impossible, for this too was a sacrament. The recent
