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and clerical vice-president (appointed by the czar), and of two clerical and two lay delegates serving for three years each. Administratively it is under the control of the minister of the interior, judicially it is subject in general to the senate. Until 1890 the consistories of Riga, Reval, and Oesel, each with a superintendent at the head, were retained side by side with those of Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia; but in the latter year they were merged in their provincial consistories. In 1794 the order for the training of children of mixed marriages was made applicable to Esthonia, and in 1857 all penal jurisdiction in provinces claimed by the State Church was extended to the Baltic provinces. This was of the utmost importance, in that, 1845-48, a tenth of the population of Livonia had been led to enter the Russian Church, and then a considerable number returned to their former faith. By an oral declar ration of Alexander II. the penalty was removed from receiving of such reconverts, and about 30,000 returned to the Lutheran Church. When, however, Pobiedonostzeff assumed control, the Russian Church claimed these members, and the resisting Lutheran clergy of Livonia were prosecuted and disciplined. It was not until the accession of Nicholas II. that affairs were at all ameliorated, and the first real assistance was afforded by the proclamation of religious toleration at Easter in 1905. The consistorial district of Courland had (1904) 129 parishes with 117 clergy, and an outlying diaspora of 19 churches, 42 chapels, and 23 clergy in the provostship of Vilna, and the governments of Kovno, Grodno, Vilna, Minsk, Mohileff, and Vitebsk. The district of Livonia has 154 parishes and 180 clergy; and that of Esthonia, 57 parishes and 69 clergy. In Livonia the Unity of the Brethren and Baptists are decreasing, but the latter gained a solid footing in Courland in 1857. In 1882 they numbered in these provinces, 5,884, with 10 churches and as many missionaries. The Lutherans in the interior of the Russian Empire are divided into two widely extended consistorial districts. The consistory of St. Petersburg stretches over eighteen governments from the Gulf of Finland and the White Sea to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. The consistory of St. Petersburg. reported in 1910 641,000 Lutherans, of whom 39(',000 were Germans, 133,000 Finns, 84,000 Esthonians, 26,800 Letts, 6,200 Swedes, and 1,000 belonged to other nationalities. The city of St. Petersburg lies at the heart of a district with 22 German colonies and many congregations in cities, besides 19 Finnish churches; and itself has 13 Lutheran congregations, with (1904) about 105,000 members. The number shows a marked diminution, due in great measure to the law that the children of mixed marriages must be brought up in the Orthodox Greek faith. In Kief the Lutheran community, founded in 1767, numbers about 5,500. The Lutheran colonies in the government of Kief are now mostly combined into the independent parish of Radomysl, with between 8,000 and 9,000 members in some 40 places. In the government of Volhynia, where the first colonies were formed in 1816, there were some 75,000 Evangelicals by 1885, scattered abroad among the dissident Methodist or Baptist propaganda. In the

governments of Bessarabia, Cherson, Taurien, Yekaterinodaf, and the southwest district of the Don Cossacks, many Lutherans are scattered in thirtyfour parishes. The community of Odessa, founded in 1804, had in 1905 about 7,000 members. Swabian colonies in this part of Russia are noteworthy for their spiritual zeal, and show tendencies that expose them to Baptist proselyting. A separate community was founded by immigrants from W arttemberg at Hoffnungathal in 1817, and in 1881 numbered 2,009. Far larger than the St. Petersburg consistory is that of Moscow, under a general superintendent, which embraces all eastern Russia in Europe, as well as the Caucasus, Transcaspia, and Siberia. In 1910 the consistory contained 459; 000 Lutherans, of whom 411,000 were Germans, 22,000 Letts, 3,000 Finns, 600 Swedes, 1,000 Armenians, and 400 others. In the diaspora covering the eighteen governments from Tver to Astrakhan, outside of Saratof and Samara, there is only the colonial community of Kharkof of 3,500 members; the isolated Lutherans almost inevitably give up their denomination, and even in the oldest Lutheran communities of the Empire no family remains Evangelical for more than a century in consequence of the law governing mixed marriages. A compact Lutheran population is found in the colonies of the governments of Saratof and Samara, which also includes the Unity of the Brethren community of Sarepta, founded in 1764. Over 25,000 colonists, mostly from central Germany, accepted the invitation of Catharine II. in 1763, and reached the Volga in 1767. Their privileges were annulled in 1872, and their schools were placed under state control. They now number 406,170, despite extensive emigration; and are divided into 32 parishes. Their interest in religion, however, is keen, and they possess five hospitals, four orphan asylums, and a deaf and dumb asylum. Three parishes are Reformed. A number of colonists migrated from the Volga to Stavropol and Piatigorak north of the Caucasus, where at Karas a Scotch mission has been active since about 1820. Chiliastic hopes and opposition to rationalism led many to emigrate from Wurttemberg to Georgia in 1817, where they were served for a time by missionaries from Basel. They have recently been included in the consistory of Moscow, and have ten congregations with twelve pastors. The congregation at Tifiis includes about 3,000 members. Transcaspia forms a single parish, with but one pastor. In Siberia, from the Ural to the Pacific, there were, in 1880, about 6,650 Lutherans, about 5,000 being in the colonies of exiles at Omsk and Yeniseisk, about 1,400 in the cities, and the remainder in penal institutions. They now possess eight parishes with eight pastors.

The grand duchy of Finfand had, in 1900, a population of 2,673,200, of whom 48,812 were Orthodox, 560 Roman Catholics, 2,620,891

2. Luther- Lutherans, 2,630 Baptists, and 317 an* in Fin- Methodists. The Lutheran clericals

land and number 758 in 512 parishes; and are Poland. controlled administratively by four bishops (the bishop of Abo being also archbishop of Finland) and by the cathedral chapter, while the legislative body is the general synod, two-fifths of the