cising its spiritual superintendence over the members of the Church of Rome resident in countries which do not acknowledge the ecclesiastical supremacy of that See.

Russia has not as yet been noticed, as it does not come under the category of those states which have been hitherto considered. But Russia is a state which must not be left unnoticed in this inquiry, inasmuch as it holds no religious communion with the See of Rome, whilst it possesses a considerable Roman Catholic population in its western provinces, and it has local. Bishops of the Latin, as well as the Greek Rite. The Bullarium* exhibits a Brief issued by Pope Pius VI., under the Fisherman's Ring (15th April, 1783), and addressed to the Archbishop of Chalcedon, the Papal Nuncio at the Court of Stanislaus Augustus of Poland, and at that time on a diplomatic mission to the Court of St. Petersburg. By this Brief, the Pope erects the city of Mohilow, and the chief church therein, into the See of an Archbishop, and directs the Nuncio to place a suitable person over the newlyerected Metropolitan Church, and to consecrate him; or if he should already possess the episcopal character, to deliver to him the pallium, and administer the usual oath of fidelity to the Holy See, which is to be found in the Roman Pontifical. The Brief further instructs the Nuncio to consecrate a titular Bishop of Gadara, as coadjutor to the Archbishop. It might be supposed, from the official tenor of this document, that this proceeding of the Holy See was an act on its part, substantially as well formally, as derogatory to the sovereignty of the Crown of Russia, as the Brief of Pope Pius IX is derogatory to the sovereignty of the Crown

*Bullarii Continuatio, tom. viii. p. 122.

of England. "Every official document," writes Dr. Wiseman, "has its proper forms, and had those who blame the tenor of this taken any pains to examine those of Papal documents, they would have found nothing new or unusual in this." His Eminence is perfectly justified in this observation; but he has omitted to take into consideration the form of procedure, as well as the form of the document itself. It is not by reason of the document issued under the Fisherman's Ring being in an unusual form of words that the English nation complains, and the Prime Minister of the Crown protests, but it is precisely because it is conceived in the usual form under circumstances of most unusual procedure. Thus, in regard to the Brief of Pope Pius VI., an ukase of the Empress Catherine II. had been previously published on the 17th January, 1782, erecting the city of Mohilow into the See of an Archbishop, and nominating a Russian subject to the newly erected archiepiscopal See, who was already exercising episcopal functions in Russia, as a Bishop in partibus, with the direct permission of the Empress herself, granted to him in 1773. By the same Ukase, the Empress had nominated a Canon of the archiepiscopal Church of Mohilow to aid the Archbishop as his Coadjutor, and announced that she had given orders for suitable measures to be taken to to procure his elevation to the Episcopacy. It was further, by the same Ukase, specially ordained, in accordance with the established law of Russia, that no Papal Bull or other writing should be made public in the Empire without having been previously submitted to, and sanctioned by, the Senate.

The Empress accordingly directed a diplomatic communication to be made on the part of the Russian Crown to the Holy See, of the measures which the

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Crown had adopted; and in reply, Pope Pius VI. instructed his Nuncio in Poland to proceed on a special mission to St. Petersburg, and to complete the arrangements of the Empress, by delivering the pallium to the Archbishop, and consecrating his Coadjutor. So different altogether was the procedure observed on that occasion from that which has been practised by Pope Pius IX.

It is worthy of remark, that the Brief of Pope Pius VI. directed the usual Pontifical oath to be administered to the Archbishop and his coadjutor, but the Empress objected to its being taken by her subjects. The Pope accordingly "condescended to substitute," to use the language of Cardinal Antonelli, in the place of the ancient form of oath, a new form, which was satisfactory to the Court of St. Petersburg, to be publicly repeated by the Archbishop and his Coadjutor in the presence of the Empress. This circumstance is worthy of note, not merely because it is an instance of the Holy See cancelling or dispensing with a most important provision in a Brief which was at variance with the law of the country, within which its provisions were to take effect, but because it was the same form of oath which was allowed by Pope Pius VI. to be substituted, in 1791, for the ordinary Pontifical oath theretofore taken by the Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland at their consecration, and by the Archbishops on receiving the pallium. The Pontifical oath had caused much political scandal in Ireland by the words "hæreticos persequar et impugnabo," and it was represented to the

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Recepto tamen prius nostro, et Romanæ Sedis nomine juramento, quod tam in electi consecratione quam in pallii traditione ab omnibus noviter electis Archiepiscopis hæc Apostolica Sedes recipere consuevit."

Pope that the maintenance of it might probably stand in the way of the Roman Catholic body obtaining religious toleration, which was granted to them in the course of that year by 31 Geo. 3. c. 32. The Pope accordingly assented to the prayer of the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops, and sanctioned an accommodation of the oath to the peculiar circumstances under which they were placed as British subjects, upon the precedent furnished in the case of the Muscovite Archbishop of Mohilow.

The Holy See has thus clearly and unequivocally been a party to the establishment of a precedent, in regard to the form of procedure to be observed in the erection of the See of a Roman Catholic Bishop within the territory of a sovereign not in ecclesiastical communion with Rome, from which the Crown of England may justly claim, that it shall not depart.* The Sovereign of Russia further nominates to all vacant Bishoprics within his dominions, and the Pope sends letters of institution.

Poland is somewhat differently circumstanced from the other provinces of the Russian Empire. There were Concordats of early date between the kings of Poland and the Holy See; and in like manner as Prussia has more or less observed the provisions of the German Concordats in regard to Silesia, and of the Polish Concordats in regard to the duchy of Posen, as the basis of its existing relations with the See of Rome in reference to those provinces under the Bull of Circumscription of July 16. 1821, so the Empress Catharine, in taking possession of that portion of the Polish provinces which devolved to

* The erection of the See of a Roman Catholic Bishop at Cherson, within a very recent period, is a further confirmation of the same principle.

Russia, conformed to the usage of Poland, without, however, renewing formally its treaty-engagements with the Holy See.

But the usage of Poland had been remarkably independent; so that the Emperor continues to nominate the Roman Catholic Bishops, as was the custom of the kings of Poland, and the Pope used, through his Nuncio at Warsaw, to send them institution. But the kingdom of Poland, as at present constituted, is not a Roman Catholic country, although the majority of its population are Roman Catholics. By the charter of 15th Nov. 1815, all forms of religious worship, without excepting even that of the Mahommedan Tatars established in Poland from time immemorial, were allowed to be fully and publicly followed and practised, without any difference resulting therefrom in regard to civil and political rights; and the ministers of all religions were declared to be under the protection and superintendence of the laws, and of the government.

Poland thus comes under the class of states where the Roman Catholic religion is protected, and so far resembles Belgium and France; with this notable difference, however, that it is likewise superintended by the State. "Les ministres de toutes les cultes sont sous la protection et la surveillance des lois et du gouvernement." (Article XIII. de la Charte Constitutionelle du Royaume de Pologne, a 1815.) Of course the State does not interfere in matters which are in their strict and proper sense spiritual; as, for instance, in cases of conscience, which are reserved and submitted by the Bishops, under the Sacramental Seal, to the Apostolic Penitentiary at Rome; but all other communications between the Bishops and the See of Rome are required to be transmitted through the hands of the Minister of Public Worship