RUSSIAN EXORGISM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1154, 4 October 1913, Page 4

RUSSIAN EXORGISM.

DEGRADING SUPERSTITIONS,

Another St. Paraskeva day has come and gone (writes Reuter’s St- Petersburg correspondent), and the usual fanatical scenes have been enacted in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. Special trains have again been run to enable thousands of the lower classes to witness a degrading spectacle.

To St. Paraskeva is attributed the power of driving out devils and curing epileptics, etc. The day is also made a popular holiday, with games and amusements of all sorts, booths and lotteries, refreshment stalls, and drinking bars. One reads of women clad in a single undergarment, with bare arms, being hoisted up by stalwart peasants to the level of the image (on the church dedicated to the saint) in order to kiss it, and then having impure water and unclarified oil forced down their throats. The treatment of the first sick woman is typical of the rest. One young peasant- lifted her in the air, two others held her arms fully extended, while a fourth seized her loosened hair and, dragging head from side to side and up and down shouted “Kiss, kiss St. Paraskeva!” The woman’s garment was soon in tatters. She began groaning. One of the men exclaimed ; “ Get out, Satan ! say where thou art lodged !” The woman’s head was pulled back by the hair, her mouth was forced open, and mudcoloured water was poured into it. She spat the water out and was heard to moan : “ Oh, they are drowning me!” The young man exultantly exclaimed; So we’ve got you, devil, have we ? Eeave her at once or we will drown you !” He continued pouring water into the victim’s mouth, and, after that unclarified oil. Her lips were held closed, so that she was obliged to swallow it. The unfortunate woman was again raised and her face pressed against the image, “ Kiss it! Kiss it !” she was commanded, and she obeyed. She was asked who was the cause of her being “possessed.” “ Anna,” was the whispered reply. Who was Anna? What washer village } In which cottage did she live? A regular inquisition. The The physical and mental sufferings of the first victim lasted about an hour, at the end of which she was handed over to her relatives. Many other women were treated in the same fashion, the exorcising lasting a whole day and night. The men “ pilgrims ” would seem to have been less severely handled.