The Manchester Journal

RUSSIAN MARRIAGES.
The service at a marriage in Russia is conducted by two priests, each wearing a long robe extending to his feet, and with a chupian like a bell-crowned hat. These priests wear their hair very long, frequently below the shoulders, and parted in the middle. They do not shave the beard. Unlike their brethren in the Romish church, they marry and have houses and families, and engage in secular operations which do not interfere with their religious duties. They are called popes and an introduction to a pope's wife is calculated, at first, to startle one not familiar with the situation.
At a wedding the bride and groom and spectators gather in the centre of the church-the brides usually in white and grooms in holiday dress. There is much recitation by the priests, reading from the ritual of the church, swinging the censers, singing by the chorus, chanting and intonations, and responses by the couple. There are frequent signs of the cross, with bowing and kneeling. A ring is used, after which two crowns are held by the bridesmen over the heads of the couple, and, after a time, are placed on their heads. Wearing these crowns, and preceded by the priest the pair walk three times around the altar in memory of the Holy Trinity, while a portion of the service is chanted. Then the crowns are removed and are kissed by each of the married pair, the bridegroom tending off in the osculation. Then a cup of water is held by the priest, first to the man and then to the woman, each of whom drinks a small potion. The entire ceremony occupies from twenty to thirty minutes.
There is no divorce in Russia, so that a marriage is for life.
In some instances, after the ceremony is ended, the entire party returns to the house from whence it came, the children carrying figures of the virgin and saints and holding lighted candles before the man The employment of lamps and tapers is universal in Russian churches, the little flame being a representative of spiritual exercise and a symbol of the light life of the soul. The Russians have adopted this idea so completely that there is by marriage, betrothal, burial or consecration, in fact, to religious ceremony whatever, without the use of lamp or taper.
A writer on Russia mentions a curious but certainly inconvenient custom which prevails in Asiatic, although not in European, Russia. It is the selection of somebody outside the family to act as master of ceremonies. He is expected to take charge of the entire affair, and also to pay all of the expenses,