PAM, 
 
 EUK0PIT 
 
• * 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF A PRIEST. 
 
 2 
 
 .THE EXPERIENCES OF A PRIEST- 
 
 (The following is a close translation of 
 a communication which has been published 
 in four successive nurabersof the Weekly 
 Zornitza in July, 1888. It was voluntarily 
 sent me by a priest with whom we in the 
 office are personally acquainted. The in¬ 
 terest which, it appears to roe, belongs to 
 the communication is derived, of course, al¬ 
 most exclusively from the fact that the ex¬ 
 periences it relates have their scene in a 
 purely Orthodox (Eastern Church) commu¬ 
 nity. Regarded in that light, I think they 
 are very encouraging, as showing what the- 
 influence of the Evangelical work may ac¬ 
 complish within the Eastern Church, and 
 as exhibiting a type of piety in that Church 
 for which there is great reason to be thank¬ 
 ful. The publication of the communication 
 in the Zornitza may also serve, by the ex¬ 
 ample of this priest to stimulate others to 
 similar effort. Some additional interest at¬ 
 taches. to the work of this priest from the 
 fact that he values the work of our Mis¬ 
 sion, and cordially attributes to it the im¬ 
 pulse that started him in the present line 
 of labour. He is the person mentioned in 
 our Missionary News No. 16, (Dec. 1887), 
 page 4, as having been a teacher and be¬ 
 come a priest. He writes from the little town 
 of Malko Tirnovo, situated (within Turkish 
 territory) 35 miles directly south of Bourgas. 
 In offering the communication for publica¬ 
 tion he wrote: u If you like, conceal my 
 name ; if you like, publish it; for I have 
 learned not to be afraid when I speak the 
 truth.” In the Zornitza I published no 
 names of persons or places; but I may here 
 say that the priest’s name is Stephen P. 
 Tohernookoff.— R. T.), 
 
 When I came to Malko Tirnovo, 1 
 found P. as the principal priest, the pres¬ 
 ident of the community, and the con¬ 
 fessor of all the inhabitants. He is a 
 white-headed old man of seventy years. 
 1 do not wish to slander him, but let 
 me say that he knows almost nothing 
 
 of the Scriptures; and, as it seems, in 
 the thirty-six years since he was ordain¬ 
 ed, he has not troubled himself much 
 to read the Scriptures for his own or 
 his people’s edification. Besid&s this, fa¬ 
 ther P. is unusually given to strong drink. 
 If he delays his drink in the morning, 
 his hands begin to tremble violently. 
 This weakness passes only with drinking 
 raid. Not being able to resist the first 
 cup he very soon swallows others till 
 he. drinks himself stupid. Just like him. 
 are also the priests A. and B.. I am 
 surprised that our ecclesiastical authori¬ 
 ty has borne with them and bears with 
 them yet. 1 suppose it is owing to the in¬ 
 fluence of the rich public-house-keepers. 
 
 The population here is as a rule simple- 
 minded, and religious,—with a few 
 exceptions, of course.. Almost every one 
 is interested in the salvation of his soul. 
 But in this place repentance for sin is 
 not preached as it ought to be. Father 
 P. teaches every one to believe that he is 
 forgiven his sins when he performs 
 some church-rites, purely external; but 
 the internal, i. e., the going with the nec¬ 
 essary faith to Christ, the daily examin¬ 
 ing onesself whether one is In the failh, 
 the giving up sin lo the best of ; one’s 
 ability, the sorrowing after a godly sort 
 tor every unintentional sin, the seeking 
 of God's all-sufficient mercy for salva¬ 
 tion,— it never crossed father P.’s mind 
 that he ought to teach this also to those 
 whom he confesses. A mistaken belief 
 has taken root amongst the population 
 in regard to the forgiveness of sin. Ev¬ 
 ery one is persuaded that, in order to 
 be cleared of any sin whatsoever, the 
 mere verbal confession of it is sufficient, 
 without the accompaniment of heart- 
 repentance. Many even say proverbial¬ 
 ly : “Sin confessed is forgiven.,, In my 
 opinion, not every confessed sin is for¬ 
 given. Only that confessed sin is for¬ 
 given which is confessed with the in¬ 
 tention that the one confessing will not 
 
THE EXPERIENCES OF A PRIEST. 
 
 *> 
 
 O 
 
 repeat it, and on account of which sin 
 bitter tears of repentance are shed before 
 God. 
 
 As a result of this mistaken belief in 
 regard to the forgivness of sins, in Malko 
 Tirnovo there is always repentance, al¬ 
 ways confession, always partaking of the 
 communion, etc., but never purging from 
 the sins; and so, some walk in the path 
 pointed out by our Lord Jesus Christ; 
 others again undermine their convictions 
 concering the faith; and so we find the 
 evil result that the world grows infidel. 
 So it is here in our little town, but not 
 here only, but also in many places 
 throughout our district. It is always 
 the same,—they do not believe as they 
 ought. And “how shall they believe in 
 Him of whom they have not heard? and 
 how shall they hear without a preacher? 
 and how shall they preach exept they 
 be sent? w (Rom. 10: 14, 15). 
 
 Our priests here and in the neighbour¬ 
 hood are careful only not to omit anything 
 from the church’s directions in the perform¬ 
 ance of divine service; but for the word 
 of God they do not care in the least. Is 
 the,preaching of the word of God not one 
 of the chief duties of the priest? Then 
 why is the word not preached? Is it on 
 account of the untutoredness of the priests? 
 No; for every priest, however untutored, 
 is always able to prepare himself to 
 read once on the Sabbath some printed 
 sermon or a chapter from the Scriptures. 
 Then why is there no preaching in our 
 churches here ? As far as I have under¬ 
 stood the case, the reason is that preach¬ 
 ing of God’s word is not reckoned as a 
 necessary thing, on a level with the nec¬ 
 essary parts of the church service in 
 the performance of worship. A priest, 
 for example, may be suspended, may e- 
 ven be expelled from holy orders, if 
 through neglect he omit some of the nec¬ 
 essary matters in the performance of 
 divine service. Examples of the sort 
 
 have happened. That is so. hut has it 
 ever been heard of that any priest was 
 suspended because lie omited the word 
 of God? No. Consequently the preach¬ 
 ing of God’s word is neglected for the 
 above-ment oned reason ; and it will yet 
 for a long time be neglected until our 
 priests either themselves become more 
 conscientious, or are obliged to preach ; 
 for “how shall they preach exepi they 
 he sent ? (Rom. 10: 15). 
 
 But to return to my subject. Our fa¬ 
 ther P. and tiie other two priests, in¬ 
 stead of sowing the seeds of virtue, 
 though their terrible drinking scatter 
 offence. I was horrified as I heard it 
 related how father P.’s hat once went 
 rolling along the street, while he him¬ 
 self rolled dead drunk in the mire. The 
 other two priests are no loss the slaves 
 of drink than he, but I have no relish 
 to describe their drunken words and 
 deeds. Almost every year the Episcopal 
 representatives from Kirk Kilisee, who 
 come here, have tried in every way to 
 correct the weakness of the drunken 
 priests ; but all attempts have gone for 
 nothing. As a result of this, our town- 
 people are becoming desperate, and are 
 strongly protesting against the incurable 
 conduct of these priests, and expressing 
 a desire that they should be removed 
 from serving in Malko Tirnovo. His 
 reverence Father C., the present Epis¬ 
 copal representative in Kirk Killisee who 
 visited our town for the first time last 
 November, took into consideration the 
 righteous complaints of our people, in¬ 
 flicting the following chastisements on 
 the guilty priests, and destroying their 
 drunken nest. The two priests he station¬ 
 ed in villages; but the third, father P., 
 on account of his old age he did nst 
 send out of the town, but, with the con¬ 
 sent of the community, deposed him from 
 the presidency, and replaced him with 
 myself. 
 
4 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF A PRIEST. 
 
 Since' my arrival in Malko Tirnovo 
 up till now, if 1 mistake not, I have regu¬ 
 larly preached in the church. I select 
 just a verse from the gospel that has 
 been read for comment, and examine its 
 subject-matter as far as I can on every 
 side, with the aim of deducing edifying 
 lessons for ourselves. Almost all my de¬ 
 livered sermons are derived from Russian 
 handbooks, and I have always endeav¬ 
 oured to be simple, plain, and brief; 
 but I may say that in no one case I 
 have been able to please all the Malko 
 Tirnovites,— there were always some dis¬ 
 satisfied. My sermons work in two 
 ways upon my hearers. Some of them 
 acknowledge themselves as sinners, and 
 with burning heart hear the word of 
 God in order the better to understand 
 their sinful danger, and to flee from it. 
 Others, thinking themselves just and in 
 need of no teaching, do not receive the 
 word, because it shakes their convictions 
 about their supposed righteousness. Every 
 hearer of this sort thinks that the sermon 
 preached brings to light his false piety; 
 this sets his conscience to prick him, but 
 he does not, listen to it, but takes a 
 stand as a pronounced opponent of the 
 word of God and of him who preaches 
 it. in a word the sermons which I 
 preach here seem to some as sharp as 
 gall, and to some as pleasant as oil. 
 Thanks be to God that the latter are 
 the majority. 
 
 The chief opponents of the preaching 
 in the church are found amongst la¬ 
 ther P.’s friends and relatives, who were 
 and are against his exclusion from his 
 loved presidential career. The majority 
 however, was not and is not against me 
 nor against the preaching It; shows a 
 thirst for the word like a parched land. 
 I, without regarding my opponents, have 
 continued my work. At the desire of some 
 of the young men of the trades’ guilds, 
 I on one occasion delivered a sermon on 
 
 the holy keeping of the Sabbath Day. 
 Later on, nearly all the young men of 
 several of the guilds here, led also by 
 the foremost men of the guilds and most 
 of the members of the community, began 
 to show anxiety for the holy keeping of 
 the Lord’s Day. Accordingly, on the 1st 
 January, this year, they assembled and 
 decided to close their shops every Sab¬ 
 bath, and to gather in the communal 
 room for self-improvement with various 
 moral Looks, amongst which the Bible 
 was to be the principal. The meeting 
 at once proceeded to the drawing up of 
 a constitution, and p re paired a petition to 
 Mio eommunitj, in which it requested it 
 to inform the local government of its 
 decision, and to ask its sanction. The 
 community as in duty bound fulfilled 
 the desire of the young men. I perso¬ 
 nally appeared before the Kaimakam 
 here, and, after handing him the com¬ 
 munity’s report, had a long conversation 
 with him about the matter. The Kaima¬ 
 kam received me very politely, and 
 agreed to Ml the propositions of the com¬ 
 munity, saying that in this way drunk¬ 
 enness, which is the root of many «vils, 
 would be greatly diminished. On the 
 first Sabbath after this, I again spoke 
 about sanctifying the Day of Rest, and 
 announced that the Kaimakam also ap¬ 
 proved. the decision of the meeting of the 
 guilds. Thereupon the greater part of 
 the population was very thankful. The 
 women, the husbands of most of whom 
 are shepherds, were very greatly delight¬ 
 ed. “Our husbands," said they, "every 
 time they came here from the mountains 
 spent most of their time on the Sabbath 
 in the public-houses. We are thankful," 
 said they, " to see them sober any holi¬ 
 day." And so, still more members were 
 gathered into that meeting, of which D., 
 — one of the rather cultured young men, 
 was chosen as president. 
 
 But the evil one does not sleep. He 
 
THE EXPERIENCES OF A PRIEST 
 
 o 
 
 found a chance to inrtodme himself into 
 the hearts of the interested parties. And 
 so, Mr. E. publicly declared that, if the 
 public-house keepers do not open their 
 places on the Sabbath Hay, they will 
 come to poverty, because, said he. the 
 Sabbath is the day on which the public- 
 house-keepers have their chief custom. 
 Seeing that the shepherds aud agricultu¬ 
 rists, who form the greater part of the 
 population, frequent the public-houses 
 only on the Sabbath, on which day ter¬ 
 rible scenes of drunkenness take place, 
 Mr. E. is right if he takes only the pres¬ 
 ent into consideration. But any one 
 who is a Christian, not in name, but in 
 reality, thinks very differently about the 
 matter. So Mr. E. continued to open his 
 public house on the Sabbath. The other 
 members of the guild, without being affected 
 by that, persevered in supporting the work 
 that had been begun. In view of that, 
 1 again spoke,in favour of sanctifying the 
 Sabbath Day ; but this time my words 
 were addressed rather to the labouring 
 population, whom I advised not to visit 
 the open public-houses on the Sabbath. 
 In consequence of this, Mr, E’s public- 
 house remained empty, although it was 
 open. 
 
 Enraged at this, Mr. E. touk up a po¬ 
 sition of terrible hostility to me. By 
 means of various revolting slanders a- 
 gainst me, and other arguments, he very 
 gradually began to ensnare the faithless 
 shepherds and agriculturists into his pub¬ 
 lic-house. This began to have a weaken¬ 
 ing effect on the perseverance o,f the other 
 public-house-keepers: and so, step by 
 step, one by one, they began to open cn 
 the Sabbath. At ['resent there are 
 still a few who apparantly Persevere 
 firmly ; but who knows whether they wiil 
 persevere against such temptations! 
 
 The opponents of the holy keeping of 
 the Sabbath day became the avowed op¬ 
 ponents also of the preaching of the 
 
 word of Cod in the church. Every Sab¬ 
 bath, after church was over, Mr, E’s 
 public-house served as a rendezvous for 
 the prejudiced critics of that which I said 
 in the church. There priests, notables, and 
 commoner folks conversed for hours, al¬ 
 ways against my sermon, Mr. E. mean¬ 
 whilebeing hardly able to overtake the task 
 of filling the several times emptied glasses 
 of his customers with wine, spirits, and 
 so on. What epithets did not I hear, 
 what accusations and ridicule were not 
 spread abroad against me through the 
 town! But l was not shaken in the least: 
 I still continued the preaching, in the 
 hope that God is able to overrule ali for 
 good- Sometimes 1 was in great despair, 
 and determined to give up ; reaching. 
 In my daily private prayers 1 have wept 
 like a little child, and have besought 
 God to enlighten my mind -that I might 
 be acceptable to all in my sermons. But 
 it was all in vain. The opponents, al¬ 
 though only a few in number, became 
 still more enraged, as though God had 
 removed his hand from me. To tell the 
 truth. 1 had determined to give up preach¬ 
 ing, and would have done so were it not 
 that I was an ordained priest; but what 
 could 1 do, seeing I was a priest, and 
 specially ordained, too, to preach, and 
 not merely to chant the service in the 
 church? 
 
 1 would have been thankfnl if my op¬ 
 ponents had stopped here, for things 
 went from bad to worse. . But they, see¬ 
 ing that I still persevered and performed 
 my sacred priestly duty of preaching, 
 used other means. They began to spread 
 abroad rumours specially intended for 
 my hearing, in the hope that I would be 
 alarmed. Thus, one person said to me 
 that he had heard it said that they would 
 drive me out with indignity if I con¬ 
 tinued preaching; another advised me 
 to keep quiet, so as not to lose my bread' 
 and so as to live many years in Malko 
 
6 
 
 THE] EXPERIENCES OF A PRIEST. 
 
 Tirnovo. And many other threats were 
 sent me to make me keep silence. At 
 this point I pondered a good deal. Just 
 then there arrived in our town a faith¬ 
 ful friend of mine,* to whom I told the 
 whole, as well as my determination to 
 stop preaching. A thousand thanks to 
 God that He sent this man at the time 
 of my greatest need! With his daily 
 conversations on the benefits of preach¬ 
 ing, and on the sweetness of suffering 
 persecution for the love of Christ, he en¬ 
 couraged me and made me less ready to 
 be alarmed than formerly. Thus I did 
 not cease my sermonizing. In one of 
 my sermons I besought my hemers not 
 to oppose themselves to me on account 
 of my preaching, and not to persecute me, 
 because whoever should do so would be 
 percecuting Christ Himself. In that ser¬ 
 mon, amongst other things, I declared 
 that no persecutions would terrify me in¬ 
 to giving up the Word of Cod; and at 
 the same time I referred to the 
 verses Romans 8: 35 to the end. 
 
 I again began my regular preaching; 
 the opponents, however, went still further. 
 The more they saw that I was warming 
 to preaching, the more they became en¬ 
 raged. So for a long time I did not 
 give way, and they grew enraged, until 
 at length the fire of their wrath burst 
 forth. That was ,on Sunday the 22nd 
 April. On that day my sermon was on 
 the advantage of love united with humil¬ 
 ity, and the harm that comes from the 
 lack of it. The opponents took it very 
 bitterly when I said that, if we have the 
 requisite love for every man, we shall 
 not harm him either in his interests, or 
 in anything else; and in this way there 
 would be no brigandage, or thefts, our 
 accounts would be accurate, there would 
 be confidence in everything, &c., and 
 
 This was Baron Harotenn, the vener¬ 
 able colporteur of the American Bible 
 Society in that district. 
 
 the world would then be turned into par¬ 
 adise. Afterwards I perceived why it 
 had been so bitter to them ; bnt that is 
 past now. This sermon was bitter to 
 them because, being conscious of their 
 fraudulent transactions in business, they 
 took my words to themselves, as though 
 spoken specially about them. My sermon 
 being so bitter to them. Grandfather F. 
 interrupted me with these words, “That’s 
 enough, that’s enough ; once there was 
 an Archimandrite who like you talked 
 nid talked, until at last he turned Turk.” 
 
 1 kept quiet for a little. A sound of dis 
 s ffisfaction arose in the church ; but I 
 prevented the disorder that would have 
 arisen by continuing my sermon. 
 
 After church was over, Grandfather F., 
 Mr. G., and their companions assembled 
 in the coffe-house of Priest B.’s son, Mr. 
 H.. There in the presence of Father P. 
 the head teacher drew up a complaint 
 against me, full of baseless slanders, to 
 the Kaimakam here. In it the chief point 
 was that my sermons gave rise to parties 
 amongst the people. For two days this 
 complaint was carried from public-house 
 to public-house for signature; but no 
 more than ten names could be collected. 
 In some houses there were great diseu- 
 sions between husband and wife, for 
 the women would not permit their hus¬ 
 bands to sign the said complaint. Mean¬ 
 while, the woman of the four wards ga¬ 
 thered together and prepared a petition 
 to the Exarch in my favour, with about 
 two hundred signatures. When finished 
 a woman brought it to me, that 1 should 
 send it on to the Exarchate. I wept with 
 joy as I read the contents ot this peti¬ 
 tion, for in it they represent me as of 
 some use in Malko Tirnovo,— of more 
 use than I really am. 
 
 The complaint against me was carried 
 to the Kaimakam. God grant him long 
 life! He clearly shewed in this ease his 
 love of justice. He listened with special 
 
I 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OP A PRIEST. 
 
 attention as I defended myself. “Your 
 ■sermons,” said he, “give rise to parties 
 amongst the people.” “Yes,,, Isaid, “they do; 
 for it cannot be otherwise. Those men, 
 in whose hearts the devil is installed, 
 are fleshly-minded ; and- to be fleshly- 
 minded is enmity against God. But 
 through preaching and the operation of 
 the Holy Spirit,” I said, “this opposing 
 party will soon be brought fo nought.” 
 After long and full explanations, finally 
 the Kaimakam. the kadi, the procurator, 
 and the recorder gave me an approving 
 decision with the words : “God (jive yon 
 success in your preaching.„ 
 
 Up to the present time I still preach 
 the word: but yet I am not acceptable 
 to the well-known opponents. They seek 
 excuses for finding some fault with me. 
 But I, on the other hand, am careful 
 and try to do nothing without the ap¬ 
 proval of the community. I have even 
 begun to read my sermons every Friday be¬ 
 fore the meeting of the community, and 
 to cut out anything that is severe or 
 difficult of digestion by the spiritual 
 stomachs of the fleshly-minded. I try 
 to feed them with milk as children 
 young in the faith; but even that is 
 difficult of digestion. In this matter I 
 have to express publicly my gratitude to 
 the members of the community because 
 they have a great love for the word of 
 God, and because they earnestly urge— 
 urge in a very tender way —the whole 
 population in general to be reconciled 
 to God. But the enemies do not keep 
 still; they prompted father P. to resign 
 his priestly office for some reason, and 
 then to tell the population that I had 
 dismissed him. They supposed that the 
 population was strongly attached to the 
 old priest, and would prefer to drive me 
 out. For a long time this plan was 
 worked up without my knowing, until at 
 last on the evening of the 23rd May. for 
 some small fault that T found with him, 
 
 7 
 
 nz 
 
 telling him not to do things according to 
 his own ideas in the church, he retort¬ 
 ed very angrily; but 1 passed it all over 
 in silence. The result was that Father 
 P. gave in his resignation on Friday be¬ 
 fore the community ; and amongst they 
 population were spread hints that, if they 
 don’t drive me out, Father P. will no^ 
 perform his functions. Here also, how¬ 
 ever, Father P. was greatly deceived 
 for the matter did not turn out sa h; 
 had calculated. No one, except- those of 
 his own party, regrets, but rather every 
 one rejoices, that the church has g< c rid 
 of an enemy of preaching. 
 
 Still Father P.’s party do not despair- 
 Just these days they have sent (I hear), 
 a special envoy to Adrianople with a 
 petition to the bishop against me. 1 was 
 told that again only the signers of the 
 complaint to the Kaimakam had signed 
 the petition, and that there were also a 
 few false signatures. How the bishop 
 will regard this complaint, I don’t know. 
 Only one thing I know, that 1 have the 
 people with me, who will defend me 
 in whatever they may accuse me of. And 
 these people have been gained to my side 
 through preaching, on account of which 
 a few are persecuting me. in case the 
 bishop should forbid me to preach the 
 word of God, which is very probable, I 
 shall not obey him, for 1 was specially 
 ordained for that purpose. If he chooses 
 t:> remove me from here, I shall consent; 
 but 1 shall demand of the Exarchate an 
 impartial investigation, that 1 may not 
 go away branded with any other fault than 
 this, that 1 love Christ. I call the bish¬ 
 op’s attention to this, that in what¬ 
 ever other parish he may place me for 
 punishment, I shall again preach the 
 word of God till they drive me out from 
 there also. 
 
 There is a rumour that next Friday 
 the Episcopal representative, from Kirk 
 Killisee, Father C. will come to inves- 
 
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8 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF A PRIEST. 
 
 tigate the matter. I am personally ac¬ 
 quainted with him, but I don’t know him 
 out and out, i. e., I don’t know what 
 degree of spiritual enlightenment in evan¬ 
 gelical religion he has; yet, as often as 
 he has come to our town, he has never 
 left the church without delivering a ser¬ 
 mon. Revolving this in my mind, I be¬ 
 lieve that there is a hope that he also 
 will declare himself on the side of the 
 Lord’s work. 
 
 Further than this, let me say that, if I 
 have any hope of defence from men. it 
 
 is in His Blessedness the Exarch. He 
 knows me personally. He told me to my 
 own face that I must preach, and that 
 if I had not promised to preach, he would 
 not have given directions last year for 
 my ordination. For th rest, I leave e- 
 verything to Go^d; and as long as I have 
 the opportunity I shall not desert the 
 Lord’s work. What is in store for me 
 in the future I don’t know,, but it will 
 soon be clear.