They are quite insignificant in comparison with the Bezpopovtsi, or those who do not have ordained priests, but are more powerful because united, whereas the bezpopovtsi number as many different brotherhoods as there are distinct dissenting sects in England. The best known among these are the _Dukhobortsi_, who deny the divinity of the Holy Ghost, strongly oppose civil authority, refuse to pray for their sovereign or the head of the orthodox church, and consider death by starvation or fire, so long as it is self-wrought, to be the highest duty. Nearly akin to them are the terrible _Skoptsi_ or mutilators, and the fanatic _Khlysti_, or Flagellants, and many others. To the orthodox church all who are not _slavopravni_ are alike. The civil government has always discriminated between the harmless and those whose tenets are opposed to the welfare of the individual and to the commonwealth. The orthodox regard the discussion as terminated: the Tsaritsa Sophia herself was present in the Granovitaia Palace, at the discussions of the Patriarch with the chief of the Ras Kolniks, a fanatic Nikita. There were stormy scenes; at the close each sect claimed to have the right, and for long afterwards there were frequent discussions between the supporters of both parties, around the porch of the Blagovieshchenski Sobor. [Illustration: CHURCH AND GATE OF MARY OF VLADIMIR] Of the churches of the orthodox, the number in Moscow is indeed great; add to these the cathedrals, the new Xram, chapels, monasteries and convents, and the claim of Moscow to its title of City of Churches will not be questioned. It is quite impossible even to enumerate those worth seeing. Instead take a typical street, say the Nikolskaya in the busiest part of the commercial Kitai-Gorod. It contains the Monastery of the Images, Za-ikono-spassky Monastyr--once, 1679, an academy; Church of the Virgin of Kazan, interesting as founded in 1630 by Prince Pojarski; the Nikolævski Monastyr, Greek, founded in 1556, and in 1669, with two churches; opposite it the old Monastery of the Epiphany, Bogoyavlenni, founded in 1396, with a church to Boris and Gleb and several others of lesser note--a large establishment with an extensive cemetery but the buildings of course modern. The Synodalia Typografiia; the printing house of the Synod, founded in 1645, the façade always painted a light blue, with the lion and unicorn, and other Byzantine decorations, in white. Then near the Vladimirski Vorot, the church to the Virgin, dating from the time of the boy-Tsars, Ivan and Peter, and opposite the second largest monastery, and most often used church in the Kitai gorod, that of the Trinity. In all eleven churches or chapels within less than 200 yards--and that is characteristic of Moscow. Among other tserkvi well worth seeing are:--