Religion: Hath Made Thee Whole

The Soviet Chief of Police reached for the code. He read—Article 120— that imprisonment is the punishment for "exploiting the religious prejudices of the masses against the Soviet government and fostering superstition among the masses." Summoning trusty agents of police, he directed them to the village of Pskoff, to search the doings of Priest Troitski, to bring him to justice. At Pskoff the police heard tales. Troitski had an ikon, a painted image of the Blessed Virgin whose tears, copiously shed, performed miracles. One teardrop, applied to a wound, healed it. By virtue of the tears, Lydia Belskaya was cured of scrofula, Nadya Kolkova of a chronic abscess, Natasha Arcipova of paralysis. Thousands of tears had been efficaciously shed. The police—themselves but humble Bolsheviks—trembled to lay hands upon the holy man who conducted so holy a shrine. But they feared Moscow more. They arrested Troitski, and Troitski confessed.

The priest confessed to knowledge of electricity, to having caused tears to flow from the Blessed Virgin's eyes by an electrical device, to having received 12,000 gold rubles during the "heavy years" of 1918-21.

He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. The sentence was commuted to two.

But (and this is the .point of the village tale which has just come out of Russia via Walter Duranty, famed correspondent) no one attempted to deny that many were cured of illnesses which doctors were unable to remedy.

British interest in faith-healing, as signified by the speech of His Grace the Archbishop of York, was noted in TIME, Aug. 4.