Resurrection

The service began.

It consisted of the following. The priest, having dressed in a

strange and very inconvenient garb, made of gold cloth, cut and

arranged little bits of bread on a saucer, and then put them into

a cup with wine, repeating at the same time different names and

prayers. Meanwhile the deacon first read Slavonic prayers,

difficult to understand in themselves, and rendered still more

incomprehensible by being read very fast, and then sang them turn

and turn about with the convicts. The contents of the prayers

were chiefly the desire for the welfare of the Emperor and his

family. These petitions were repeated many times, separately and

together with other prayers, the people kneeling. Besides this,

several verses from the Acts of the Apostles were read by the

deacon in a peculiarly strained voice, which made it impossible

to understand what he read, and then the priest read very

distinctly a part of the Gospel according to St. Mark, in which

it said that Christ, having risen from the dead before flying up

to heaven to sit down at His Father's right hand, first showed

Himself to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had driven seven

devils, and then to eleven of His disciples, and ordered them to

preach the Gospel to the whole creation, and the priest added

that if any one did not believe this he would perish, but he that

believed it and was baptised should be saved, and should besides

drive out devils and cure people by laying his hands on them,

should talk in strange tongues, should take up serpents, and if

he drank poison should not die, but remain well.

The essence of the service consisted in the supposition that the

bits cut up by the priest and put by him into the wine, when

manipulated and prayed over in a certain way, turned into the

flesh and blood of God.

These manipulations consisted in the priest's regularly lifting

and holding up his arms, though hampered by the gold cloth sack

he had on, then, sinking on to his knees and kissing the table

and all that was on it, but chiefly in his taking a cloth by two

of its corners and waving it regularly and softly over the silver

saucer and golden cup. It was supposed that, at this point, the

bread and the wine turned into flesh and blood; therefore, this

part of the service was performed with the greatest solemnity.

"Now, to the blessed, most pure, and most holy Mother of God,"

the priest cried from the golden partition which divided part of

the church from the rest, and the choir began solemnly to sing

that it was very right to glorify the Virgin Mary, who had borne

Christ without losing her virginity, and was therefore worthy of

greater honour than some kind of cherubim, and greater glory than

some kind of seraphim. After this the transformation was

considered accomplished, and the priest having taken the napkin

off the saucer, cut the middle bit of bread in four, and put it

into the wine, and then into his mouth. He was supposed to have

eaten a bit of God's flesh and swallowed a little of His blood.

Then the priest drew a curtain, opened the middle door in the

partition, and, taking the gold cup in his hands, came out of the

door, inviting those who wished to do so also to come and eat

some of God's flesh and blood that was contained in the cup. A

few children appeared to wish to do so.