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History of the Church of Russia

A. N. Mouravieff, tr. Blackmore, 1842

11. Nikon, Sixth Patriarch, A.D. 1653

The six years of the patriarchal rule of Nikon formed the most brilliant period of the reign of Alexis; the genius and enterprising character of that prelate inspired the councils of the Tsar, and were reflected in the glory of his victories over the neighbouring powers; but the years which he had passed in the exercises of the monastic cell and in the chair of Novogorod were the best time of his life; in the cares of civil government he lost his own inward peace of mind. One thing only was there to console Nikon, and that was the true mutual affection subsisting between himself and his sovereign, which possessed them both to such a degree, that they appeared as one and the same person in all acts of government, passing all their days together in the church, in the council chamber, and at the friendly board. To unite themselves still closer by the bonds of spiritual relationship, the patriarch became the godfather of all the children of his sovereign, and they both made a mutual vow never to desert each other on this side the grave. And indeed this was the most affecting circumstance of all in the fortunes of both of them, that even in the time of those long-continued troubles which were raised between them by the envy of men who wished them ill, they preserved in their hearts to the very last moment this tender friendship; and there was nothing which the courtiers so much dreaded as the chance of a personal meeting between them.

The correction of the Church books was the first and permanent object of the patriarch’s attention. This work had been proposed as early as the time of John the Terrible, in the Hundred Chapter Council, but had been laid aside, together with many other useful undertakings, in the dark years of his mental malady; it was afterwards returned to under Theodore, when the Church books were printed, though very imperfectly, and was again interrupted by the troubles of the pretenders. The Tsar Michael Theodorovich and the patriarch his father shewed an equal sense of the indispensable necessity of this, when they gradually corrected the Directories and the Office-books, after having detected the errors which had crept into them from transcribers and printers. But to put the last hand to the work required men more learned and better minded than had been those priests and deacons who had been employed to print the books under Joseph. When the Patriarch Nikon, under whom the Kormchay or Nomocanon which they had printed was published, perceived, although too late to correct them, all the gross artifices of its unprincipled editors, especially respecting the position of the fingers in making the sign of the Cross, he inflicted on them a severe punishment, and so increased the number of his enemies.

The correction of the books by a synod was thus effected. Soon after his appointment, Nikon, in examining the confirmatory letters of the Patriarch Jeremiah and the Greek Council on the appointment of the first Patriarch Job, read in them with alarm what a condemnation was incurred by every innovation in Church matters contrary to the canons of the Holy Fathers. He also read on an ancient Sakkos or Vestment which had belonged to Photius, sometime metropolitan of all Russia, and which had been brought from Greece two hundred and fifty years before, a copy of the Creed worked in pearls, and on examining the same Creed as it then stood in the printed books as well as the order of the Liturgy, he was shocked to discover that there were discrepancies between them and the earliest copies. He then entreated the Tsar to convoke a council in his palace, to consult definitively for the correction of the books; and there assembled the Metropolitans Macarius of Novogorod, Cornelius of Kazan, Jonah of Rostoff, Silvester of the Steeps, Michael of Servia, and the Archbishops Marcellus of Vologda, Sophronius of Souzdal, Michael of Riazan, and the Bishop Paul of Kolomna, who in the end became the head of the schism, and the cause of the condemnation of Nikon himself.

The patriarch made the following proposition to the synod: “Whereas in the new books printed at Moscow there are found many discrepancies from the ancient Greek and Slavonian copies, and these errors have come from the ignorance of transcribers and printers; ought we therefore to prefer the new books to the old ones, which the great divines and teachers of the East and of the whole Church followed, and following them pleased God, which were used by Athanasius and Basil, Gregory, Chrysostom, and Damascene, and by the Russian saints and workers of miracles Peter, Alexis, Jonah, and Philip?” The monarch and the council unanimously replied, “It is meet and right to correct the new books by the old Slavonic and Greek manuscripts, that we may in all things follow the primitive rule of the Church.”

Then the Tsar, in conjunction with the patriarch, gave orders to collect together to Moscow the ancient manuscript books which had been translated eight hundred years or more before from the Greek, from the Trinity Lavra and the convents of Novogorod, from the monastery of Joseph of Volokolampsk, and from other places; and in order that not only their own will and pleasure but also the judgment of the Œcumenical patriarchs might have a share in the undertaking, they despatched to Constantinople with letters of enquiry a Greek of ability and learning named Manuel. In accordance with their commendable wishes, Paisius, patriarch of Constantinople, convoked the Greek bishops, and confirmed by a synodal act the decision of the council of Moscow, to follow in all things the orthodox text of the Eastern doctors as it was preserved in the ancient Greek and Slavonic books, and sent a copy of the Nicene Creed to serve as an immutable model to which not one word should be added, and from which not one word should be taken away.

The brotherly epistle of the patriarch to Nikon respecting the order and mystical significancy of the Liturgy and many other subjects, was filled at once with deep knowledge, a great zeal for orthodoxy, and a fervent pastoral affection. Paisius entreated him not to depart in any respect from the rule of the great Church of Constantinople; that all the five patriarchal thrones, of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Moscow, forming together one Œcumenical Church, should be one not only in doctrines and discipline, but also in their very ceremonies; he proposed the Orthodox Confession of Peter Mogila, corrected by all the patriarchs, as an accurate expression of the doctrines of the Eastern Church. But while applauding the zeal of Nikon, he at the same time entreated him to be indulgent to those who had erred not in any essential doctrines of the faith but only in some unimportant external matters, that so he might retain them within the pale of the Church. And it would have been more prudent, had the mild counsel of Paisius been followed; but unfortunately the natural hastiness of Nikon’s temper, joined to his ardent zeal for eradicating all that was evil in the Church, carried him beyond the bounds which pastoral long-suffering might have observed.

The Tsar and the patriarch being gratified by the letter of Paisius, sent the Bursar Arsenius Souchanoff a second time with rich alms in quest of ancient manuscripts to the Holy Mountain of Athos, where he collected as many as five hundred Greek books, among which was a copy of the Gospels written 1050 years before. The Œcumenical patriarchs also emulated the monasteries of Athos, and sent by Arsenius two hundred similar manuscripts, which continue to the present day to form the greatest treasure of the Patriarchal Library at Moscow. For the sake of adding greater authority and circumspection to what he did the Patriarch Nikon took the opportunity of the arrival at Moscow of the Patriarchs Macarius of Antioch and Gabriel of Servia¹, and of the Metropolitans Gregory of Nice and Gideon of Moldavia and Wallachia, to convoke another council, which confirmed the acts of the first in the presence and with the concurrence of the Eastern hierarchs.

Nikon particularly enquired of them respecting the position of the fingers in making the sign of the Cross in the East, and learned from every one of them that “the Orthodox Greek Church from the very beginning down to the present time has always joined together and still joins together to make the sign of the Cross the three first large fingers, as is customary also in the Russian;” he enquired also respecting the differences between the new books printed at Moscow and the ancient Greek and Slavonian copies, differences which had crept in during that dark period, when, from the calamitous state of the East, the Church of Russia was for an hundred and twenty years unable to keep up regular communications with the throne of Constantinople, so as either to receive from thence learned prelates, or send thither her own for institution as before: and both the patriarchs together with the metropolitans approved of the correction of the books.

Upon this decided steps were taken to effect the necessary correction according to the ancient Greek and Slavonian copies; and first of all there was printed at Moscow the Sloujebnik, or Service-book; after which followed others, and a work entitled The Skreejál, that is, The Table, being a spiritual collection of many doctrinal matters compiled out of the writings of the Holy Fathers. But when all these prudent measures of precaution which had guided the council in the act itself of correcting and printing the books ceased, as was the case, to be observed in their introduction into all the churches and monasteries throughout the country, and they began with severity to take away from all the monasteries whatever copies they might possess of the old impression, there immediately arose a murmuring among the people which was taken advantage of by evil-disposed men, for they abusing the ignorance of the simple people called the books of Nikon “the new books,” as indeed they were at the time of their appearance, and fraudulently concealed their perfect agreement with the most ancient copies in the Greek and Slavonic languages; from which on the contrary those which they called “the old books” printed since the erection of the patriarchate had departed. The most active disseminators of such notions were Nikon’s personal enemies, the Directory-keepers of the Patriarch Joseph, who had been punished for their corrupted edition of the Nomocanon, the popes Habbakuk, Lazarus, Nicetas, and Stephen, and the two Neronoffs named Gregory and Theodore, deacons, who became the sowers of schisms. Thus did a most excellent and useful undertaking become the cause of unexpected disturbances.

The same energy, which suddenly began to shew itself from the time of the elevation of Nikon to the patriarchal throne in the government of the Church, manifested itself also simultaneously in the affairs of the State, and its first brilliant effect was the reunion of Little Russia. This had long before been ardently desired by the Hetman Kmelnitsky, but the cautious policy of the court of Moscow had kept Russia still confined within those limits to which she had been reduced by the wars of the pretenders and the weakness of the new government under Michael. In the mean time the pride of Poland had proportionally increased, and was mortifying to our Tsars, whom she barely recognised, and that too without giving them their proper title. The miseries of the Ukraine increased, and it was subjected to every kind of persecution, on account of its orthodoxy and spirit of nationality. But in the mean time, without reckoning the force of the horde beyond the Falls, numerous villages of the Cossacks, who were divided into regiments under the command of their chiefs and their hetman, could send into the field a body of 60,000 of the best cavalry. Bogdan Kmelitsky was the soul of all the Ukraine. Never vanquished himself in any of his numerous engagements, he surrounded the camp of the King John Casimir himself, under Sboroff, and dictated to him conditions, tending to the independence of Little Russia, and the free exercise of her religion. The fixing of the army of the Cossacks at 40,000, the grant of a seat in the Polish Senate to the metropolitan of Kieff, the removal of the schools of the Jesuits from Kieff, and of the Jews from the villages of the Ukraine, were the most important articles of this treaty: for to such a point had the persecutions caused by the Unia proceeded, that the office of supplying wine and oblations for the Liturgies of the Orthodox was actually let out by contract to the Jews. But the hetman in his turn was betrayed by his allies of the Crimea, and left at the mercy of the king, from whom he was compelled to accept very hard conditions near the town of Bielay-Tserkoff or Whitechurch; and so seeing that there was no longer any security to be looked for on the side of Poland, he began to draw closer to Russia.

He began by obtaining permission for the Cossacks to settle on the left bank of the Dnieper, within the Russian frontiers, and he organized there five new regiments with all the privileges of the other fifteen regiments of the Ukraine. At length, on the Polish commanders making a movement as if to attack him, he took refuge with the whole strength of the Horde beyond the Falls under the powerful protection of the Tsar; and in a letter to the Patriarch Nikon, in which he proposed certain terms of subjection, he petitioned him to unite the Ukraine to Russia. A council of the spiritual and secular orders was assembled in the palace of the Kremlin. The sovereign determined before he took up arms, to demand satisfaction once more from the king of Poland: he offered his mediation for the protection of Orthodoxy; but the peaceful propositions of the ambassadors of the Tsar, were haughtily rejected by the Polish government, and war was declared, while the Ukraine was received for ever into subjection to Russia.

The Voivode Boutourlin was sent to the hetman for the completion of this important affair, which did not cost Russia so much as one single drop of blood. Kmelnitsky, who was at the summit of his glory and respected both by the Khan of the Crimea and by the Sultan, having compelled the hospodar of Moldavia to give his daughter in marriage to his son, asked the army of Little Russia in Pereyaslavla, to whom they would wish to belong; “to the unbelieving Khan or Sultan, to the Latin King or to the Orthodox Tsar?” and having heard them answer with a shout as one man, “We wish to be under the Orthodox Tsar;” he took the oath of allegiance together with the whole of the Ukraine. The free election of their hetman by the Cossacks, with the privilege of having their own separate courts among themselves, and the fixing their army at 60,000 men, were the principal conditions. But in Kieff, the Metropolitan Silvester Kossoff, and the archimandrite of the Pechersky Innocentius Gizel, did not readily bring themselves to exchange their ancient dependence which was merely nominal upon the See of Constantinople for a real subjection to the patriarch of Moscow; however, after a short time, the same archimandrite was sent by the metropolitan to Moscow to obtain the recognition and confirmation of the rights of the clergy of Little Russia: by the prudent policy of Nikon he was received in a flattering manner and dismissed with presents; the complete union and amalgamation however of the metropolitan see of Kieff did not take place till thirty years afterwards.

The Polish war began at the commencement of the year 1654; the Tsar himself accompanied his army, having left both his own family and the kingdom itself in the charge of the patriarch; the Boyars of the Council were permitted to do nothing without his advice. Never before had the Russian arms been covered with so much glory as they were in this short and brilliant campaign. The Cossacks co-operated with the Tsar in the capture of Smolensk, his ancient patrimony, and after it thirty of the most important towns of White Russia surrendered themselves to him one after the other. Polotsk, at the persuasion of her eloquent Hegumen Ignatius, opened her gates to a sovereign of the same religion with her own. But in the midst of these splendid victories, the Tsar was afflicted by the arrival of intelligence that a dreadful pestilence had broken out and was raging in Moscow and its neighbourhood, which filled the capital with dead bodies, so that there were not hands to bury them. The patriarch calmed in some degree the agitation of the people by a pastoral letter, and recommending them to take certain measures of precaution against the plague, occupied himself with the care of the royal family, which had been entrusted to his charge. He moved with them from one monastery to another, and satisfied himself personally that the places where they were to stop were free from danger, and at length had the satisfaction of restoring in safety to his sovereign at Viasma all that was dearest to his heart. The grateful Alexis in the affectionate emotion of his joy bestowed on Nikon the appellation of Great Lord, as his own grandfather the Patriarch Philaret had formerly been styled; and notwithstanding Nikon’s opposition ordered this title to be written in all the Acts of the kingdom, which was afterwards turned against him as a matter of accusation, although he himself would never allow that exalted title to be given him in the Church.

During the short stay of the Tsar, the patriarchs of Antioch and Servia visited the capital for the correction of the books, as did also ambassadors with proposals of friendship from Charles X. the new king of Sweden, who was himself at war with Poland. But the court of Moscow through the artful persuasions of Austria alienated itself from Sweden, and thus committed a capital error in policy. This false step was partly caused by the unfortunate advice of Nikon, who being still at that time metropolitan of Novogorod, ardently desired to recover from Sweden our ancient provinces of Ingria and Carelia, with all their numerous churches and monasteries, which had been wrested away from Russia during the calamitous period of the vacancy of the throne. Dazzled by the rapid course of success which had united Little and White Russia, he thought the day was come for recovering all our losses; and in truth, this was the most brilliant moment of the reign of Alexis, a moment which might well recall to mind the best times of Russia before the pretenders.

At the same time the adventurous Ataman Kabaroff fought with the Daours on the banks of the Amoor, and descended its course to the Eastern ocean, subjecting the remotest bounds of Siberia to the Russian Tsar; and our first embassy penetrated to Pekin to the court of Bogdi-Khan, the emperor of China, who was equally astonished at the existence and power of Russia. The hordes of the Kalmouks who wandered over the boundless Steppes of Astrachan became subject to Russia; and Stephen, the hospodar of Moldavia, like the hetman of the Ukraine, asked the Tsar to receive him under his high protection, while all the neighbouring powers sought for his alliance. Alexis’ second Polish campaign covered him with fresh glory. Grodno and Kovno fell before the Russian arms, which extended our empire almost to its present limits; and Wilna itself, the capital of Lithuania, which had from of old been so hostile to us, witnessed the triumphant entry of the victorious Tsar. Poland was struck with terror to find herself deprived of all her capitals, for Warsaw and Cracow had fallen before the warlike king of Sweden; the unfortunate John Kasimir fled for protection to the Roman empire.

Then it was that the crafty influence of the Austrian envoy, the Jesuit Allegretti, had its effect, and a truce was concluded with Poland, which ceded all the conquered places till a lasting peace should be concluded, solely for the purpose of turning our arms against our Swedish allies. To draw the Tsar still further into this ruinous war, they offered him the crown of Poland, and he was even solemnly proclaimed in the Diet, as the heir to John Kasimir. Seduced by this artful policy, the Tsar suddenly directed his army upon Swedish Livonia, and that movement was the turning point of his military fortune. Dinabourg and some other fortresses were taken by storm, but when he assaulted the strong town of Riga, the Tsar met with a repulse which cooled his love for martial exploits. He returned to Polotsk, and thence to the capital. There he met again his family a second time preserved safe by the care of Nikon from the infection of the plague, which had raged without intermission during the whole period of the campaign, breaking out afresh in a dreadful manner at different places. In the mean time the useless war with Sweden was continued for two years with varying fortune on the part of our leaders, and it was only by the prudence of Ordin Naschokin, deputy of Livonia, that this conquered province was preserved to Russia. In the mean time died the brave General Boutourlin, who, together with the son of the hetman, had ravaged the southern frontiers of Poland. Bogdan Kmelnitsky also, the great author of the deliverance of Little Russia, died almost immediately after Silvester Kossoff metropolitan of Kieff, and in consequence of this loss the whole of the Ukraine was for many years exposed to anarchy, treason, and bloodshed.

At the same time that the external affairs of the kingdom had taken such an unfavourable turn, there arose within its bosom a disturbance injurious to the interests of the Church, with reference to the Patriarch Nikon. During the two years’ absence of the Tsar, he had been a strict governor, and had regulated the affairs of the kingdom authoritatively not as the chief prelate but as the friend of his sovereign, whose unlimited confidence he enjoyed. This had roused the hatred and envy of the boyars of the first rank who were related to the crown, the Morozoffs, Miloslafskys, and Streshneffs, and of the Princes Troubetskoy, Dolgorouky, Odoefsky, and Romodanofsky. The Tsaritsa herself was secretly ill-disposed towards him, either from her relationship to the Miloslafskys, or from jealousy of his influence over her husband. Those nobles who were kept down and thrown into the shade by the splendour of Nikon’s genius, could not endure with patience to see him exercise the sole authority in the Assembly of the Boyars, and in the Tsar’s Council. Nikon, on the other side, from the natural stiffness of his character, was ever deepening the offence which they took by the roughness and arbitrariness with which he acted, and by making them feel too much his superiority. Macarius the patriarch of Antioch, who in his two visits² to Russia was witness both of the prosperity and of the fall of this illustrious man, has written an account of his life and administration during the absence of the Tsar Alexis.

Nikon, although weighed down with the whole burden of the civil affairs of the empire, still continued to be the strict monk on the patriarchal throne, observing all the services of the Church, and that too with so much zeal for the instruction of the clergy, that during the Liturgy he always had by him some one or other of the oldest copies of the Office-Book, with which he compared the ceremonies and the prayers. He shewed himself to the people only in the church, and in the short passage from his apartments to the cathedral of the Assumption he was used to receive petitions, which he either decided on the spot, or the next day. In the morning at a fixed hour on the ringing of a bell the boyars charged with the administration of the government assembled in the Cross-Room³ in the palace. The patriarch came out to them and decided on the business submitted to him standing; but if any one came too late for this audience he had to wait for some hours in his antichamber. On one occasion when certain of the boyars returning from the Polish campaign, had brought with them some Icons of Latin device, and put up organs in their houses, the patriarch ordered both the one and the other to be taken away from them and to be committed to the flames, as things inconsistent with Orthodoxy; and he himself rebuked them aloud in the cathedral in the presence of the sovereign, calling each one by his name.

The patriarch was not less hard upon the clergy. Having himself passed through all its ranks and conditions, having been a novice in a monastery, parish priest for two years in a country village and in the capital, then again for a long time monk and recluse in a wild solitude, hegumen in a poor and lone convent, archimandrite of a rich monastery, metropolitan of the first diocese, and last of all patriarch, he had experienced all that a spiritual person can experience, and having shewn in every station a strict pattern of good conduct he exacted the same with equal strictness from all who were under his authority. He severely punished intemperance, according to the custom of those times with stripes and imprisonment, not sparing even his own confessor. Nikon required also, as far as it was possible, that those who came to him to be ordained either as Deacons or Priests, should have received some degree of education, at the least that they should be able to read and write, and he never ordained in his own patriarchal diocese any one whom he had not first personally examined in reading; and this too appeared at that time a very oppressive measure. But above all, he was remarkable for his severity in punishing every violation of ecclesiastical order; he was not content with bringing to punishment those evil-minded men Habbakuk, Lazarus, Nicetas, and the Neronoffs, but pursued with his anger also Paul of Kolomna, as soon as he observed that this bishop after having given his assent to the vote of the Synod for the correction of the books, was openly doing all he could to prevent its being carried into effect. The patriarch deprived him by his own authority of his bishopric, and confined him in a monastery, without any trial by other bishops, and thus exposed himself to the accusation of having violated the Canons of the Councils, which order that every bishop should have a regular trial. The superior clergy were irritated by this conduct, and endured it only for the time; they had already long ago been mortified at the extraordinary grandeur of Nikon, a grandeur which seemed only proper for Philaret, as the father of the Tsar, but which excited the envy of his equals against a man of obscure extraction. Those who were nearest to the person of the patriarch, were at the same time also his bitterest enemies, Pitirim, metropolitan of Sarai, the vicar of his ecclesiastical province, and Paul, archimandrite of the Choudoff monastery, who eventually succeeded to the place of Pitirim, when the latter was translated to the metropolitan see of Novogorod; also Hilarion archbishop of Riazan, and others, although they had all been ordained by the patriarch himself.

There was only one man who sincerely loved Nikon, from the recollection of his services and his unchangeable affection, and that man was the mild Tsar Alexis, and to him alone was the patriarch devoted with all his soul, and was zealous even to excess for his glory. He could not see with patience the influence which the boyars about his person exercised over him, and they at length by their intrigues attained the end they wished for, in estranging the monarch from him. The Tsar’s two years’ absence taught him to do without the constant advice of the patriarch; the unsuccessful Swedish campaign, after the brilliant successes in Lithuania, inspired an involuntary feeling against the untoward counsel which had prompted that war, and on his return, the general outcry of the boyars and clergy against the self-willed absolutism of Nikon contributed still more to cool the affections of the Tsar. The patriarch soon remarked this. Their daily friendly intercourse at table and their frequent private consultations were discontinued. Some ecclesiastical dispositions made by Nikon were set aside by the Tsar. Thus by an oukáz, the monastery of the Epiphany at Polotsk which the patriarch had declared a Stauropegia, that is, to depend from henceforth immediately on himself alone, was suddenly taken away from him and placed under the jurisdiction of Callistus, who had been consecrated bishop of the diocese of Polotsk.

In the mean time, the Monastery-Court, which had remained inoperative during the powerful administration of Nikon, began already gradually to judge in causes affecting spiritual persons, and their landed properties, and sometimes questions were raised about the properties themselves when they had been acquired contrary to the edicts of John, and the Council of the Boyars began to act with more decision, grounding themselves upon that constitution. Nikon was not of a character to yield to men with whom he had not been accustomed even to divide the confidence of the Tsar. He expressed himself in terms of indignation at the new state of affairs, and still hoped and expected to regain the attention of his sovereign; but the nobles, knowing the sensitiveness of his disposition, fed it with repeated personal insults. Every thing was prepared for a complete rupture, they only waited for a convenient opportunity.

Perceiving the loss of his former influence in the affairs of the State and even in those of the Church, Nikon could no longer endure to occupy himself with them under the control of others, and began to meditate his own retirement. With this view he diligently employed himself in building three convents, the Krestnoy, Iversky, and Voskresensky, which he founded in memory of the three most remarkable epochs of his life,—his having been a hermit at Solovetsky, metropolitan of Novogorod, and patriarch of all the Russias. He seemed to feel ashamed of his own degradation in the capital, and passed his time at a distance from it in monastic labours, while his enemies took advantage of his absence to procure his entire removal. Still however the affectionate heart of the Tsar drew him even in spite of himself into the company of the man who had once been his only friend, and their mutual feelings were touchingly displayed, for the last time, at the consecration of the wooden church of the new convent of Voskresensk, that is, of the Resurrection. The Tsar, looking down from the hill now called the Mount of Olives⁴ on the picturesque view which surrounded him, remarked to the patriarch, that God seemed from the beginning to have prepared this as a site for a monastery, “for,” said he, “it is as beautiful as Jerusalem itself.” Nikon, whose heart was moved at that name, gratified the Tsar by calling the whole convent New Jerusalem, and charged the bursar, Arsenius Souchanoff, who was then travelling in the East for the collection of manuscripts, to bring him a model⁵ of the Holy Sepulchre, after the pattern of which he immediately laid the foundations of a large stone church.

About a year passed, and in the mean time calumnies and dissatisfactions increased; the Tsar, who was quite in the hands of the boyars, rarely had an interview with the patriarch, and even ceased to attend at the cathedral when he officiated; the courtiers insolently railed at him, and one of them, Streshneff, even dared to call his dog by the patriarch’s name. A free and ingenuous explanation between the Tsar and the prelate was the only thing which might still perhaps have extinguished the dissensions that had been kindled and blown into a flame; but when once a mutual misunderstanding is established between those who have before loved each other, the very recollection of their former friendship poisons the wounds of their hearts, because the change itself in their mutual relations is felt as a sort of wrong and offence by both.

At length the occasion arrived for a complete rupture. Teymouraz, Tsar of Georgia, harassed at once by the civil discords of his own people and by the invasions of the Persians and Turks, came in person to seek for protection from the powerful Tsar of Russia, and was received by Alexis with great pomp. The patriarch also quitted his retirement, in order to increase by his presence the splendour of the reception. When the meeting with Teymouraz took place, an attendant of the Tsar, named Khitroff, in clearing the way for him, struck one of the patriarch’s boyars, and repeated the blow with terms of abuse. Nikon, incensed at this, demanded satisfaction, but through the intrigues of the boyars was put off without receiving it; he reckoned on coming to a personal explanation with the Tsar in the church on the festival of the Robe of Christ; but contrary to his usual custom, the Tsar was withheld from leaving the palace, and the prince Romodanofsky, having gone to the cathedral to inform the patriarch of this circumstance, began to reproach him for his pride on account of the title of Great Lord.

At this Nikon lost all patience, and gave himself up to his indignation: when he had finished the Liturgy, he declared to all the people that his unworthiness was the cause of all the wars and pestilences, and of all the disorders of the kingdom: he then placed the staff of Peter the Thaumaturge on the Icon of the Blessed Virgin which had been brought from Vladimir, and declared with a loud voice that from thenceforth he was no longer patriarch of Moscow; he took off his episcopal robes, notwithstanding the entreaties of the clergy and the people, put on a common monk’s mantle, and having written in the vestry a letter to the Tsar advertising him of his abdication of the patriarchal throne, he sat down on the steps of the Ambon and awaited the answer. The monarch was troubled and sent the prince Troubetskoy, to exhort him to remain, but this prince also was in the number of his enemies. The people wept and kept the doors of the cathedral shut, but Nikon remained inflexible, and refusing to return any more into the patriarchal lodgings, went out of the Kremlin on foot to the town house of the Iversky monastery, and from thence without waiting for any permission from the Tsar he proceeded to the monastery of the Resurrection, and refused to make use of the carriage that had been sent for him. Prince Troubeskoy went again after him to that monastery, to enquire in the name of the Tsar the reason of his departure. Nikon answered, that he sought for quiet for the sake of his soul’s health, again renounced the patriarchate, and asked only to be permitted to retain his three monasteries the Voskresensky, Iversky and Krestnoy, gave his benediction to Pitirim the metropolitan of the Steeps, to direct the affairs of the Church, and lastly, in a touching letter humbly begged the Christian forgiveness of the Tsar for his sudden departure from the capital.

A report of an invasion of the Crimeans again turned upon the patriarch the thoughts of the Tsar, who was alarmed at the danger to which he was exposed in the undefended monastery of Voskresensk. He sent to him one of his own personal attendants with the proposition that he should retire while the invasion lasted to the fortified monastery of Macarius Koliazinsky. Nikon took this as an announcement that he was to be imprisoned, and replied to the messenger that there was another place in Moscow quite as well suited for the purpose, and where he would be even more secure, close to the monastery of the Conception, meaning the city prison. He went himself straight to the capital, where however it was three days before he could gain admission to an interview with the Tsar, and that only in the presence of the boyars or of the Tsaritsa, after which he returned back to his own monastery. But a return of peace and calm after the storm while Nikon was within so short a distance of the court, might have been dangerous to his enemies; they therefore adopted new measures for irritating him. His secret archives in the patriarchal palace were suddenly broken open, and Nikon bitterly complained in a letter to the Tsar of this violation not only of his own private secrets and those of the state which were in his keeping, but also of others which his spiritual children had entrusted to him as to their pastor, for the relief of their consciences. He ascribed this proceeding to a wish to get out of his possession all the letters he had received from the Tsar, in which he was styled Great Lord, and testifying at the same time that he had always refused this pompous and for him unsuitable title, he entreated that the Tsar’s wrath might be appeased. Some short time after this the presumption of the metropolitan Pitirim, who assumed all the rights of the Patriarch, and even personated him in performing the ceremonies of Palm Sunday, and in the customary procession on an ass round the city, again provoked Nikon; he was not yet able to divest himself of the idea that he was still patriarch, and had already discovered in his vicar a personal enemy. He removed farther from the capital to the White sea, to the Krestnoy monastery, where he passed more than a year in ascetic exercises.

In the mean time the affairs of the Church could not be left in such a state of disorder. Alexis convoked in the capital a council of the Russian bishops and of some Greek prelates who happened to be there, to come to some decision on the actions of the patriarch; and in the mean time, he sent an officer of the Table named Poushkin to him to the White sea to desire of him to give them a definitive permission to choose another patriarch. Nikon, though he confirmed his own former abdication, yet feared the power his enemy might have if he were to succeed him, and in consequence would give no permission to others to proceed to a new election or consecration, but reserved that right exclusively to himself. He well knew the men who were to be his judges, for in their Synod all the rancour which they had treasured up against him had abundantly displayed itself. The metropolitan of the Steeps endeavoured to prove by a number of witnesses that the patriarch had broken off without finishing the Liturgy, and had left his throne with an oath that he would never return to it, which was contradicted by the testimony of Michael, metropolitan of Servia, and of others who were present at the time but heard no such oath at all. Even the Greek strangers shewed themselves hostile to Nikon, and Cyrill archbishop of Cyprus maintained that for the fault he had committed he ought to be deprived of all the properties bestowed upon him by the sovereign, and that it was not fitting to entrust monasteries to the government of prelates who had retired from their episcopal duties for the sake of repose, although this practice is a regular custom in the Eastern Church. Another of the Greeks reproached Nikon with the insolence of Haman: all agreed unanimously not only to his deposition from the patriarchal throne, but even to his degradation from the episcopal dignity, because he had of his own will quitted his diocese, and they endeavoured to confirm this decision by extracts from the Canons of the Councils. Only two but they eloquent defenders took Nikon’s part in the council: the one Epiphanius Slavenetsky, a learned monk and priest of the Pechersky monastery, who had transcribed all the acts of the councils, and who declared that he had never found any canon of the Church to deprive a bishop who resigned his see of his orders; the other, who was Ignatius archimandrite of Polotsk, contended in opposition to the decision of the council for the election of a new patriarch, that the Russian bishops had not the right to judge their own primate without the concurrence of the Eastern patriarchs, and his voice reached the heart of the mild Tsar, who was unwilling to take upon himself the condemnation of Nikon.

In the midst of circumstances of so much difficulty and disorder, there came to the capital a Greek prelate named Paisius Ligarides, who had formerly been metropolitan of Gaza, and who had been long wandering about Italy and Greece without a diocese. This man the patriarch Nikon himself had three years before invited from Moldavia, little foreseeing that he was to find in him a bitter enemy. Paisius brought letters from Parthenius patriarch of Constantinople, recommending him as a person well versed in all that related to the discipline and offices of the Church, and qualified to examine the conduct of Nikon. Ligarides was favourably received by the Tsar and boyars, took the side of the enemies of Nikon, and was made president of the Synod, which continued to sit and govern the Church during the absence of the patriarch.

Nikon again returned from the Krestnoy monastery to Voskresensk, that he might be nearer at hand to watch the proceedings of the Synod. At first, he was well pleased at the arrival of Paisius, who had formerly been kindly treated by him, and wrote him a letter of complaint, stating all his grievances, but he soon found out his mistake. He then made application by means of a similar letter to Dionysius the new patriarch of Constantinople, relating to him as to a brother all that he had done from his very first accession to the patriarchate, and all the injuries and insults he had suffered; but this letter was intercepted, and served only as a fresh ground of accusation against him. The Boyar Streshneff, one of the most virulent enemies of the patriarch, laid before Paisius thirty questions artfully prepared on purpose with reference to Nikon’s conduct, and Ligarides wrote him answers condemnatory of it grounded upon the Canons. Nikon was provoked at this, and composed in his own defence a reply at length to the questions and answers of them both, in which, together with a deep knowledge of the sacred Scriptures, he freely manifested the indignation which swelled within his breast. In the mean time, Paisius, who was the instrument and channel of all relations between the Tsar and Synod and the Eastern patriarchs, sent them twenty-five similar questions, concerning the limits of the royal and patriarchal authorities, and the conduct, and trial of Nikon, not naming him, but only laying before them certain cases for their decision; and, agreeably to the spirit of these questions, the answers of the four patriarchs, procured through a secretary of the Tsar in Constantinople, were all in favour of the Synod. Nectarius of Jerusalem alone, though he had given his signature to the common document, wrote a separate letter on his own account, to entreat the Tsar to bear in mind the former services of Nikon, and graciously to restore him to the patriarchal throne, in order to put an end to all dissension and scandal.

Great, indeed, was the scandal in the Church of Russia, arising from this long dissension, and the enemies of Orthodoxy rejoiced at it. On the one side, Paisius and those members of the clergy who were hostile to Nikon, acting irresponsibly and doing many things to gratify the boyars in the election of bishops and in the affairs of the Church, were less anxious for the good of the Church herself than for the final downfall of Nikon, and heaped upon him all kinds of reproaches and mortifications, because they had already gone so far that they could not recede; while, in the mean time, those false teachers, Lazarus, Habbakuk, Nicetas, the monk Capito, and others, taking advantage of the opportunity afforded them by the fall of Nikon, spread abroad reports that the real ground of his trial was heresy, and his having corrupted the Church books. On the other side, Nikon himself, though he wasted his body with prayer and fasting in his solitary hermitage⁶, and worked like a common mason at the building of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, was not humbled in spirit. Such was the morbid and gloomy state of his soul, that he took to heart every affront, and continually overstepped the due limits of the episcopal character. He did not spare his enemies either in speech or in writing, but delivered them over to an anathema for the wrongs they had committed against the religious houses, especially in taking away their estates, so that he even exposed himself to an accusation, though that was indeed utterly unfounded, of having pronounced a curse against the Tsar. But against him alone Nikon entertained no enmity: knowing however the artifices of the nobles, he only complained to him by letter, or through trustworthy persons; and his generous sovereign, recollecting his former affection, alone strove with the numerous enemies of the patriarch, and would not deliver him up to their malice, but was constantly sending presents and offerings to the monastery at Voskresensk. At length for the sake of establishing peace in the Church, the Tsar was obliged to invite the Eastern patriarchs to form a court for his trial, and sent his letters to that effect to the four Œcumenical thrones.

There was however among all the courtiers hostile to Nikon one man who wished him well, and that was a boyar named Nicetas Ziuzin. Afflicted at the injurious consequences of these prolonged dissensions, and hearing continually from those who were most about the Tsar, how painful the obstinacy of the patriarch was to his affectionate heart, and how much he desired his return on account of their mutual vow of friendship, and his wish to consult him on the state of his affairs with Poland, the incautious boyar determined to act upon report alone. He wrote to Nikon desiring him to come unexpectedly to Moscow, on the festival of Peter the Wonder-worker, to Mattins in the cathedral of the Assumption, and from thence send to invite the Tsar to attend the prayers as was his former custom, just as if there had been no differences between them, and that so the past might be consigned to oblivion. The prelate received two such letters and still hesitated: but the favourable reception given to the archimandrite of Voskresensk who had been sent by him to the Sabbin monastery to the sovereign, shook Nikon’s resolution: at length a vision which he had himself as he slept in his solitary hermitage, in which it seemed to him as if the whole line of prelates his predecessors rose up from their tombs in the church of the Assumption at the call of the Wonder-worker Jonah, and gave him their hands to raise him a second time to his Chair, decided the patriarch.

He went secretly by night to the city, accompanied by the brethren of the monastery of Voskresensk, for the festival of the Metropolitan Peter, entered publicly into the church of the Assumption, and after having saluted the holy relics and Icons, took his stand in the patriarch’s place, with the staff of the Wonder-worker which he had before himself laid aside and left on the same spot. The good old man Jonah metropolitan of Rostoff, who had been guardian of the patriarchate since the removal of Pitirim to Novogorod, astounded at the sudden appearance of the patriarch himself went up to him to receive his blessing with all the clergy of the cathedral. The patriarch sent him to the palace with the intelligence of his own arrival, as if he had just returned after making a long progress about his ecclesiastical province, and invited the Tsar to the cathedral to receive his blessing and to assist at the prayers.

The Tsar was no less astounded than the Metropolitan Jonah had been. He had already heard Matins in the chapel of the upper story of his own palace, only a few steps distant from the cathedral, and in perplexity he sent for the boyars of his privy council and the spiritual authorities. The moment was a critical one, for on it depended their own fall or the final deposition of Nikon. They persuaded the Tsar not to admit the patriarch to an interview, but only to receive from him a letter in which he had described his vision, and the princes Odoefsky and Dolgorouky with the Metropolitan Paul went to the cathedral, to notify to him the Tsar’s pleasure that he should return to the monastery of Voskresensk, and there wait till he should be tried by the Œcumenical Patriarchs.

Nikon was now in his turn surprised, for he had supposed that by his unexpected return he was gratifying the secret wishes of the monarch. The patriarch could scarcely believe what he heard, and suspected some underhand management of his enemies. He left the cathedral, but took with him the staff of the Wonder-worker as a proof that he had never left his throne with any vow of renouncing it. The monarch was informed of this, and sent after him to the village of Chernevo to take the staff away from him and to ask the reason of his having come to Moscow. Nikon would not deliver up the staff to Paul the metropolitan of the Steeps, or Joachim the archimandrite of the Choudoff, as they were his enemies; but he sent it by his own archimandrite direct to the Tsar, together with the letters of invitation he had received from the Boyar Ziuzin, who was banished to Kazan in consequence.

In the mean time, Nikon plainly perceiving that it was all over with him, and that there was no longer any hope of a reconciliation, declared by the same messenger his consent to the election of a new patriarch, with the stipulation that he should keep his three convents with their properties, in the regulation of which the diocesan prelates were not to interfere, nor in the appointment of the officiating clergy of those three monasteries or of the churches depending upon them; also that he should retain the title of patriarch, and the second place in Synods, and have free access to the Tsar and liberty of communicating with all who wished to visit him; and at the same time, he promised to absolve from his anathema the capital and all those whom in his anger he had subjected to it. But the Synod having considered his proposals, refused to recognise his independence of the new patriarch, or to allow him liberty to ordain in his own monasteries without interference of the diocesan; it demanded the restoration of those estates which he had transferred from other places to the new monastery of Voskresensk, deprived it further of the high-sounding name of New Jerusalem, and lastly, limited his visits to the capital. At the same time the Synod imposed a penance on Jonah metropolitan of Rostoff, for having dared to present himself to Nikon for his blessing in the church of the Assumption, and named Paul the metropolitan of the Steeps as guardian of the patriarchate. But when the news came that the Patriarchs Paisius of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch were coming into Russia, all the prelates who were assembled in the capital, together with the whole of the clergy, alarmed by the rumours which ill-intentioned men had spread among the people of the heterodoxy of these patriarchs who had been so long oppressed by the Turkish yoke, and of the incorrectness of the Greek books, unanimously took an oath that they acknowledged both the Greek prelates and their books to be orthodox.

The time now arrived when an end was to be put to the disturbances which had for eight years agitated the Russian Church, and the powerful individual Nikon, on whom the general attention had been fixed for the last twenty years, was to descend from that stage on which he had acted so lofty a part. The Œcumenical patriarchs arrived from the East, and were met and received with due honours at all the places through which they passed on their road. The Archbishop Joseph remained at Astrachan on purpose to receive them; but all the rest, together with the Greek bishops who either were in Moscow at the time or came with the patriarchs, and together with the archimandrites and hegumens of the first rank both of our own nation and of the Easterns, presented in the halls of the Kremlin the spectacle of a more imposing Synod than the Church of Russia had ever hitherto witnessed. Besides the two patriarchs, and a third, the new patriarch of Moscow, who was added in the sequel, there were present four Russian metropolitans, Pitirim of Novogorod, Laurentius of Kazan, Jonah of Rostoff, and Paul of the Steeps; six Greek metropolitans, of Nice, Amasia, Iconium, Trebizond, Varna, and Scio, one from Georgia, and one from Servia; Paisius of Gaza declined sitting for fear lest he himself should be called in question for deserting his own diocese in Palestine, and in fact he was so exposed, though somewhat later, in a letter which Nectarius the patriarch of Jerusalem wrote to the Tsar; the archbishop of Sinai and a Wallachian archbishop took their seats, together with six Russian archbishops, Simon of Vologda the meek friend of Nikon, Philaret of Smolensk, Stephen of Souzdal, Hilarion of Riazan, a fierce accuser of the patriarch, Joseph of Tver, and Arsenius of Pskoff; there were also present five bishops, Misael of Kolomna, the successor of Paul who had been degraded, Alexander of Viatka, Joachim from Slavano-Servia, and two from the dioceses recently reunited from Poland, Lazarus Baranovich the eloquent and virtuous pastor of Chernigoff, and Methodius of Mistislavla another of Nikon’s chief enemies; besides these there assisted at the Council more than fifty archimandrites, hegumens, and arch-priests, without counting monks and other spiritual persons.

Before this Council so composed Nikon was solemnly cited to appear from the monastery of Voskresensk, and went with the same sort of preparation as if he were going to his death, having received the Viaticum of the Holy Gifts and the Unction with oil⁷, for he had already a presentiment of the bitter fate which awaited him. He received the third summons in the village of Chernevo, and stopped in the Kitai at the lodge of his monastery, which was surrounded by a guard. He did not however present himself before the Council in the Tsar’s palace in any other character than that of patriarch, and with the form which denoted his rank, that is, with the cross borne before him: and when he saw that there was no place prepared for him on a level with those of the Eastern patriarchs, he would not seat himself but remained standing, and so heard his accusation from the lips of the monarch himself. It ran upon the disorders he had occasioned in the Church by his self-willed retirement and his capricious actions for the last eight years past. Tears fell from the eyes of the mild Tsar, at having thus harshly to accuse a man who had once been so near to his heart, and the Council also was moved to tears. He further blamed Nikon for the letter of complaint which he had written to the patriarch of Constantinople, and then testified before all that he entertained no personal ill-will against him.

Nikon replied that he had retired to avoid the royal anger: that he had indeed fixed his residence in a convent, but still that convent was within the limits of his own diocese, which he had never renounced with an oath as he was falsely accused of having done, but only sought to be out of the way of the factions and intrigues of the boyars; as for the letter to the Œcumenical patriarch he said that he had written it as a private letter from one brother to another, and never expected that it should be made public to cause any hurt or scandal. Then there rose up against him his malicious accusers, Paul metropolitan of the Steeps, Hilarion of Riazan, and Methodius of Mistislavla, with their charge of his having left his throne with an oath never to return, of his having arbitrarily degraded Paul of Kolomna, and of his general harsh conduct towards the clergy; while Nikon in his powerful replies gave full course to his indignation and did not spare his accusers.

On the second day after this, he was again summoned before the Council, and heard besides the old fresh accusations brought against him; that he had said the Russian Church was Latinizing, because of the presidency of Paisius Ligarides, who had run away out of Greece into Italy and always spoke in the Latin language, and that he had refused to acknowledge a copy of the Nomo-canon as orthodox, because it had been printed in the West. Both the patriarchs, in attestation of the genuineness of its canons, kissed the book in the midst of the Council. Then the Tsar Alexis turning round to his boyars and seeing they were all silent, asked them whether they had not some more charges to bring against the patriarch; but the prince Dolgorouky was the only one who stepped out from among them to prefer any accusation, for all the rest had only personal causes of enmity against Nikon, which they dared not make public. In the mean time, the patriarch taking advantage of the silence of the rest, contemptuously exclaimed, “That they might perhaps have a chance with stones, but that they would never put an end to him with words, even though they should spend nine years more in collecting them.” In the mean time Nikon’s letter to the patriarch was being read, and questions were put respecting the harsh expressions it contained. The affectionate heart of the Tsar however could not endure to see his former friend standing before him in so cruel a position, sometimes answering to his accusers and at others remaining speechless: he quietly left his throne and approaching Nikon took him by the hand and said, “Oh Most Holy Father, why hast thou put upon me such a reproach, preparing thyself for the Council as if thou wert going to be put to death? thinkest thou I have forgotten all thy services both to myself personally and to my family during the plague, and our former mutual friendship?”

He then mildly expostulated with him for his letter to the Patriarch Dionysius, with expressions of his desire for peace. The patriarch answered him with equal gentleness, exposing all the intrigues that had been formed against him: he excused himself for his private letter which had been intercepted through want of sufficient precaution, and notwithstanding the pacific assurances of the Tsar, feeling that it was impossible now to undo the past, he foretold his own severe sentence of condemnation. This was their first interview and their first unrestrained conversation after a separation of seven years; and by this little brief communication their hearts were mutually warmed again towards each other. It was the last time they were destined to meet during this mortal life.

A week was spent in the deliberations of the Council; extracts were made from the Nomo-canon corresponding with the different charges against Nikon; they also enumerated the precedents which had occurred in the Church of Constantinople, of patriarchs who had quitted their thrones of their own accord and never returned to them, of others who had returned, and lastly of those in whose places new patriarchs had been elected. Only one voice, that of the Bishop Lazarus, was given in opposition to the rest in favour of Nikon, who he thought should only be deprived of the patriarchal chair, but allowed to retain his dignity. The two Eastern patriarchs wrote letters to the Œcumenical patriarch and to the patriarch of Jerusalem, excusing themselves for having found themselves obliged, in consequence of not meeting them or their legates in the Muscovite capital, to proceed to the trial of Nikon without them. Lastly, Nikon himself was summoned for the third time before the Council, which was now no longer assembled in the palace, for the kind-hearted Alexis could not bear to be present at his condemnation, but in a small church over the gates of the Choudoff monastery. They read over his accusation to him: it was, that he had caused disorders in the kingdom of Russia by interfering in affairs that did not belong to the place and authority of the patriarch; that he had voluntarily deserted his chair with an oath never to return to it for no better reason than for an affront offered to one of his retinue; that after thus retiring from the patriarchate he had exercised an arbitrary authority in his three monasteries, and had given them the ambitious names of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Calvary, and the like; that he had plundered like a robber, and if he had been suffered to go on, would have gotten possession of the third part of the kingdom; that he had done all he could to hinder the election of a new patriarch, anathematizing numbers, while in consequence of his retirement all kinds of scandals and divisions were multiplied; that he had arbitrarily deposed Paul, bishop of Kolomna, and had been otherwise harsh and oppressive towards the clergy; that he had made complaints against the Tsar to the Eastern patriarchs; that he had said the Church was Latinizing, and had calumniated the Canons of the Councils and the patriarchs themselves in his pride. Immediately after his accusations they read to him his sentence, which was, that he should be degraded, and retain only the quality of a simple monk, to do penance for the rest of his life in a remote monastery.

Then the patriarchs, one of whom, the patriarch of Antioch, had seen Nikon in all his greatness, and had partaken of his bounty, approaching him in their mantles, ordered his Khlobouk⁸, which was embroidered with cherubims in pearls, to be taken from him; but Nikon refused to lay aside this mark of his monastic quality, and demanded of them “why they degraded him thus unjustly and privily without the presence of the Tsar, and in that small church? that they ought rather to do it publicly in the cathedral of the Assumption, in the place where they had formerly implored him to ascend the patriarchal throne.” But when they had taken away from him his Khlobouk, leaving him still his episcopal mantle and crozier for fear of the people, he again reproached the patriarchs for their mean subserviency and for wandering about the world as they did; and offered to present them with the pearls of his Khlobouk, as something towards their maintenance. Of all the Russian bishops Simon of Vologda and Lazarus of Chernigoff were the only two who refused to be present at this painful business. Nikon was led away under a guard to the court-house of the province, and was overwhelmed on his way with the reproaches of the commissioners who conducted him, especially of the Archimandrite Sergius; but he bore all with that extraordinary firmness which in some passages of his life amounted to obstinacy. All those who had adhered to him were scattered abroad.

On the next day the good-natured monarch moved with compassion towards him sent him money and sable furs for his long journey; but Nikon would accept of nothing, and was sent poorly clad and under strict guard, to Bielo-ozero, that is, to the White lake, to the monastery of Therapontoff, where apartments had been prepared for his confinement. Joseph archimandrite of the Pechersky, who accompanied him from Kliazma, gave him a winter cloak to protect him from the cold; on his arrival at the monastery his episcopal staff and mantle were taken from him, and for some months his confinement was exceedingly severe.

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