AND TRANSLATOR OF MOURAVIEFF'S History of THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. ABERDEEN, A. BROWN AND CO.; EDINBURGH, R. GRANT AND SON: LONDON, J. G. AND F. RIVINGTON: NEW YORK, APPLETONS: ST. PETERSBURGH, KIRTON. M DCCC XLV. TO THE MOST REVEREND, THE PRIMUS AND THE OTHER BISHOPS OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH IN SCOTLAND, THIS VOLUME IS BY THEIR PERMISSION DEDICATED, AS TO THE ONLY REMAINING SUCCESSORS AND REPRESENTATIVES OF THOSE BRITISH BISHOPS, WHO IN THE REIGN OF PETER THE FIRST HELD A CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE RUSSIAN SYNOD; A CORRESPONDENCE, WHICH WAS DROPPED ON THE DEATH OF PETER WITH AN ASSURANCE FROM THE IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT, THAT IT SHOULD BE RENEWED AT SOME FUTURE AND MORE CONVENIENT OPPORTUNITY. PREFACE. THE purpose of this volume is to set before the reader the Doctrine of the Russian Church, in that form in which it is actually inculcated upon children, lay people, and clergy, from Baptism to Ordination. As regards the Documents themselves, which it contains, nothing more is needed by way of introduction than to state briefly what they are; and what is the nature and extent of their authority. I. The Primer for Children, which stands first, and the other Primer mentioned in the note at p. 14, for grown people, are in fact but two slightly differing forms of one and the same book, which had long been in use in Russia before the introduction of the modern-Russ or Civil Alphabet in the time of Peter the First. Since that time those editions, which have been issued by the Synod, have naturally taken more or less notice of the Civil Alphabet and idiom; though the book itself, as being the Primer of the Church, and designed to convey the rudiments of religious and Ecclesiastical learning, has preserved in the main its Slavonic character. Besides this, other Primers have from time to time been published either by the Civil Government, or by private persons, which take little or no notice of the Ecclesiastical idiom, beyond giving the Alphabet: but these have no claim to be compared, in point of authority, with the original Primer of the Church; though it is true that they are always submitted to the Spiritual Censorship, and are in their contents very much the same as the Slavono-Russian Primer published by the Synod. The most ancient of these Civil or modern |