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History of the Church of Russia

A. N. Mouravieff, tr. Blackmore, 1842

14. Joachim, Ninth Patriarch, A.D. 1673

Alexis lightened the original severity of Nikon’s confinement, and ordered the iron bars and fastenings to be taken from the windows and doors of his apartments, so that he enjoyed complete liberty in the monastery, and had his own chapel to himself, where he continued to serve as a bishop¹ with those monks who shared his confinement. The Tsar continually sent him rich alms, food, and vessels for the service of the Church, as if he had forgotten his having been degraded by the Council; and what was more than all this, in his last will he called him his “Father,” “Great Lord,” “Most Holy Pontiff,” and “Most Blessed Pastor.” Nikon for his part also became by degrees reconciled to the Tsar; at first he refused every kind of present, but at length he began to accept them, and wrote affectionate letters to his sovereign, hoping to be allowed to return to the monastery at Voskresensk, which was the constant object of his solicitude, and in which he had prepared for himself a tomb under the Calvary. He refused to accept any presents of money for commemorations of the Tsaritsa Maria, reckoning it as his duty without any special request to pray for the repose of her soul. He rejoiced at the new marriage of the Tsar and the birth of Peter, and wept bitterly at the intelligence of his sovereign’s death.

Nikon learned this melancholy news in the depths of his solitude, and exclaimed with a groan, “The will of God be done. What though he never saw me to take leave² of me here, we shall meet and be judged together at the terrible coming of Christ.” A messenger was sent to ask him to give a letter of absolution to the deceased; Nikon gave a verbal absolution, but no letter, lest it should seem to have been extorted from a prisoner. Soon new trials came upon him, for his former enemies taking advantage of the weakness of the youthful Tsar Theodore, and the dislike borne against him by the patriarch Joachim, brought calumnious accusations against his life in the monastery where he was confined. They were not ashamed to accuse him of having taken part with the traitor Razin, and even to impute moral impurities to an old man, whose monastic life had been spotless even from the earliest days of his youth. He was transferred from the Therapontoff monastery, which had become in a manner his own, to the fortified monastery of St. Cyrill³, and was placed under the strictest inspection; and for the space of three years more he lingered on there confined in close apartments, and forgotten alike by the patriarch and the Tsar.

There were, however, still some individuals at the Tsar’s court who wished Nikon well: among these was Theodore’s preceptor, the monk Simeon Polotsky, who had received his education in the schools of the West, and together with profound learning, had imbibed in them some of the opinions of the Romish Church. He exercised a powerful influence over the mild disposition of the Tsar, and did all he could to favour the early education of Peter, whom the Miloslafskys endeavoured without success to separate from his royal brother, though they had already succeeded in procuring the imprisonment of the virtuous Boyar Matfeëff. The Patriarch Joachim was displeased to find in Simeon Polotsky a powerful opponent about the person of the monarch, and only agreed with him in their common wish and endeavour to promote an improvement of education and learning among the clergy, the indispensible necessity for which became the more sensible, the more the schisms which had been engendered by ignorance increased.

The school for the Greek and Latin languages which had been first founded at Moscow, as early as the time of the Patriarch Philaret, and enlarged and remodelled by Nikon, appeared to Simeon inadequate for the end proposed. He therefore persuaded the Tsar, who was well inclined to patronise learning, to establish at Moscow in the Zäikonospassky monastery a spiritual Academy after the model of that at Kieff, and the Tsar applied to the Œcumenical patriarchs by a letter begging them to send him Orthodox teachers for this his new Academy. Two brothers of distinguished abilities and learning from Cefalonia, the priest-monks Joannicius and Sophronius Lichoudi, were accordingly sent with the benediction of the patriarch to Russia, but neither the Tsar nor Simeon Polotsky lived to witness their arrival, and so the establishment of the Academy which followed was the fruit of the labours of the Most Holy Joachim alone.

Among other strange projects that floated in the visionary mind of Simeon, which still preserved the impressions of the West, was one of erecting in Russia twelve new metropolitan sees, and four patriarchates in lieu of the former metropolitan sees of Novogorod, Kazan, Rostoff, and Sarai or the Steeps, after the likeness of the four Œcumenical thrones, and then, in imitation of the hierarchy of Rome, to appoint one Pope over them all; and his Pope he intended should be Nikon, in order to humble Joachim, who was his enemy. These strange ideas of Simeon were mingled with astrological divinations, which were the favourite object of his studies, according to the spirit of that time. However he was destined to be the means of disposing the good-natured Theodore to alleviate the lot of his godfather. His prudent aunt the Tsarevna Tatiana Michaelovna, who had ever been Nikon’s friend, persuaded the Tsar to visit his neglected monastery of the New Jerusalem, and to receive from the brethren who remained there a petition for the return of their founder. Struck with the magnificent scale of the buildings which had been commenced after the model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the monarch ordered them to be continued, and, moved with compassion, laid before the Synod a proposition to allow the aged Nikon to die in the monastery which he had founded. The patriarch remained for a long time inflexible, till at length the news coming that Nikon had put on the Schema, and was altogether broken and enfeebled, his heart was touched, and he consented.

On the very same day on which the gracious permission of the Tsar and the patriarch arrived at the monastery of St. Cyrill, Nikon, while it was yet very early, from a secret presentiment had prepared himself for the journey, and to the astonishment of every body, ordered the religious who were in personal attendance upon himself to hold themselves in readiness. With difficulty they placed the old man, now worn out with sickness and infirmity, in the sledge which took him by land to a barge on the river Sheksna, by which he descended to the Volga. Here he was met by brethren from the Voskresensky monastery, that is, the monastery of the Resurrection or New Jerusalem, who had been sent for that purpose. Nikon gave orders to drop down the Volga as far as Yaroslavla, and having put in to shore at the Tolskoy monastery, he received the Communion of the Sick, for he began to be exceedingly feeble. The hegumen with all the brotherhood went out to meet him accompanied by a former enemy of Nikon, the Archimandrite Sergius, the same that during his trial kept him under guard, and covered him with reproaches, but had since been sent to this monastery in disgrace to perform penance. This Sergius, having fallen asleep in the Trapeza or Refectory⁴ at the very hour of the arrival of Nikon, saw in a dream the patriarch appearing to him, and saying, “Brother Sergius, arise; let us forgive and take leave of each other!”—when suddenly at that moment he was awakened and told that the patriarch was actually approaching by the Volga, and that the brotherhood had already gone out to the bank to meet him. Sergius followed immediately, and when he saw Nikon dying, he fell at his feet, and shedding tears of repentance asked and obtained his forgiveness. Death had already begun to come upon the patriarch, by the time that the barge was again moving down the stream. The citizens of Yaroslavla hearing of his arrival crowded to the river, and seeing the old man lying on his couch all but dead, threw themselves down before him with tears, kissing his hands and his garments, and begging his blessing; some towed the barge along the shore, others threw themselves into the water to assist them, and thus they drew it in and moored it against the monastery of the All-merciful Saviour.

The sufferer was already so exhausted that he could not speak, but only gave his hand to them all. The Tsar’s Secretary ordered them to tow the barge to the other side of the river to avoid the crowds of the people. Just then the bells were struck for evening prayers. Nikon was on the point of death: suddenly he turned and looked about as if some one had come to call him, and then arranged his hair, beard, and dress for himself, as if in preparation for his last and longest journey. His confessor, together with all the brethren standing round, read the Commendatory prayers for the dying; and the patriarch, stretching himself out to his full length on the couch, and laying his arms cross-wise upon his breast, gave one sigh, and departed from this world in peace. In the mean time the pious Tsar Theodore, not knowing that he was dead, had sent his own carriage to meet him with a number of horses. When he was informed of it he shed tears, and asked what Nikon had desired respecting his last will? and when he learned that the departed prelate had chosen him as his godson to be his executor, and had confided every thing to him, the good-hearted Tsar replied with emotion, “If it be so, and the Most Holy Patriarch Nikon has reposed all his confidence in me, the will of the Lord be done. I will not forget him.” He gave orders for conveying the body to the New Jerusalem.

New difficulties were raised by the Patriarch Joachim with regard to the funeral of Nikon, to whom he would not consent to render episcopal honours, objecting that he had been degraded by the sentence of the Œcumenical patriarchs. However, the Tsar persuaded Cornelius, the metropolitan of Novogorod, to officiate at his interment without any permission from Joachim; and he himself in person took a part in that affecting ceremony, and helped to bear the body on his shoulders from the cross on the Mount of Olives, the spot where formerly the deceased had stood with his royal father when he gave the name of New Jerusalem to his monastery, to the tomb under Calvary which he had himself prepared for his everlasting rest. Not more than eight months were to intervene before the amiable prince who had thus assisted at the funeral of Nikon was to be himself peacefully removed from a temporal to an eternal kingdom; he however made use of this short space to obtain letters of absolution for the deceased from the four Œcumenical patriarchs, who unanimously received him again into their pontifical assembly.

Thus did this illustrious prelate finish his strange and troubled course; a prelate who had exercised so powerful an influence on the destinies of the Russian Church, and upon whose personal lot the attention of the whole kingdom had been fixed for the space of about forty years, the last fifteen of which he spent in confinement. During the course of his seventy years’ life on earth, Nikon was more or less contemporary with all the Russian patriarchs. He was born while the patriarchate was still held by Job; he was a boy in the time of Hermogenes, a monk under the great Philaret, superior of a convent under Joasaph I., metropolitan of Novogorod in the time of Joseph, and a prisoner in bonds during the rule of the three patriarchs who came after himself, Joasaph II., Pitirim, and Joachim; he died when the last patriarch, Adrian, was already archimandrite of the Choudoff, while the last guardian of the patriarchal chair, Stephen Yavorsky, had become distinguished by his virtues throughout the south of Russia, and was preparing himself for his high calling. Thus the colossal character of Nikon took up to itself almost the whole age of the patriarchs in our annals.

Every thing began to assume a settled character during the six years of the peaceful reign of Theodore. Little Russia was brought into a state of tranquillity, and a peace was concluded with the Porte, while that which already existed with our neighbours of Sweden and Poland gave every promise of continuance. At one word from the Tsar in a mixed council of all the spiritual and temporal authorities of the state, after an exhortation from the patriarch, those destructive disputes concerning the local antiquity and precedence of families, which had caused so many evils to Russia, were terminated for ever; and the Books of Pedigrees were solemnly committed to the flames. The Church also prospered: for with the co-operation of the Tsar the vigilant Pastor Joachim stopped the spread of schisms, did much to promote the spread of learning in the spiritual schools, and, for the better superintendence of the clergy and their flocks, proposed further to institute as many as fifty new episcopal sees either local or vicarial. But this project fell to the ground upon the death of Theodore, and the kingdom was for a time plunged into a state of faction, disorder, and agitation, from which it was rescued only by the powerful arm of Peter, when he began to grow up to manhood.

The commencement of these evils was a furious mutiny of the Streltsi which broke out upon the proclamation of Peter, then a vigorous boy of ten years old, to be Tsar, in preference to his elder brother John. This was done by the patriarch in concert with the most loyal and well-disposed of the nobles, on the ground that John was incapacitated by his imbecility for reigning; and they placed Peter under the regency of his mother the Tsaritsa Natalia, and the virtuous Boyar Matfeëff. The ambitious sister of the young princes, the Tsarevna Sophia, acting secretly in concert with her relations the Miloslafskys, instigated the Streltsi to a mutiny, to which in the space of three days Matfeëff, the Narishkins, and all those who had been the chief supporters of the thrones of Alexis and Theodore, fell victims. The patriarch himself narrowly escaped with his life from the fury of the mob, when he attempted to address a crowd of the insurgents from the Krasnoy stairs. The compulsory proclamation of John to reign jointly with Peter, and the invitation of Sophia to govern the kingdom together with her younger brothers were the effects of this first revolt of the Streltsi, which cost the state so many valuable lives.

These civil disturbances soon had ill consequences for the Church. Taking advantage of the weakness of the government, the Priest Nicetas, a hypocritical pretender to sanctity, after having once been reconciled and then a second time fallen into schism, began to get about him on the other side of the Yaouza, and in the public square, the grosser sort of the populace, in defence as he pretended of the Orthodox religion against ravening wolves, by which name he called the whole body of the clergy. His insolence reached to such a height that he made his way into the Kremlin with a crowd of his adherents, set himself a lectern with Icons upon it in the cathedral of the Archangel, and demanded that the patriarch himself, who was then performing the Liturgy in the cathedral of the Assumption, should come and dispute with him. A priest who was sent to him scarcely got back with his life. At that crisis, in order to pacify the populace, the two Tsars conjointly issued an order that all the bishops should assemble in their palace, and the rioters were called to appear before the patriarch, assisted by seven metropolitans, five archbishops, and two bishops, one of whom was Metrophanes, the recently ordained bishop of Voronege. The sham-saint, finding himself exposed and powerfully refuted in all his sophistries by the eloquent Athanasius, archbishop of Kholmogori, in an outbreak of rage rushed at him and attempted to seize him by the throat, but was prevented by those who were about him; while the young Tsar, the boy Peter, rose up from his throne with such an air of command as made itself felt in the midst of the general confusion, and with one sternly-pronounced word drove the mutinous populace out of the hall. The band was broken up in consequence of the disaffected being put to shame by the evident madness or possession of their false teacher, who was seized with a violent fit of epilepsy on the public square where he was capitally punished. His secret adherents, however, did not cease to promulgate their pernicious doctrines, especially among the Streltsi and in the neighbourhood of the capital.

Two priests of their number, named Kosma and Stephen, terrified at the fate of the arch-hypocrite their master, took to flight, and went in the first instance to Little Russia, to the location of the Starodoubofsky Cossack regiment or polk, and afterwards into the neighbouring districts of Poland, where they formed a second settlement upon the river Vetka. Their successor, whose name was Theodosius, built a church there which became the root and head quarters of Popoftshinism, that is, in the literal sense of the word, of Presbyterianism, or of those schismatics who acknowledge the priesthood, but so as to have no other priests themselves than such as have been expelled or have run away from the Church. Another and much more pernicious form of schism was that of Bez-popoftschinism, or Absque-Presbyterianism, which asserted that from the time of Nikon the grace of the priesthood was lost, and that the period of Antichrist had commenced. This had rooted itself in the North under the denomination of Pomorians, that is, people of the sea coast, and in Siberia under various denominations after one or other of their false teachers: for according to their individual peculiarities of opinion they were divided into a number of sects, mutually hostile to each other. Their ignorance and superstition led them to the highest pitch of fanaticism. The followers of the Priest Habbakuk and the Monk Joseph the Armenian, in Olonetz, Nijgorod, and Siberia, to which last region the two leaders themselves had been banished in the time of Nikon, solemnly burned themselves alive by whole families in hopes of a reward in heaven, fancying themselves to be thus voluntary martyrs. Not far from the Paleostroff monastery, where Paul ex-bishop of Kolomna had been confined and died, many nests were formed of the Pomorians, who were reinforced by such of the rebels of the Solovetsky as had escaped in time from the siege; and two brothers, Andrew and Simeon Denisoff of the ancient family of the Princes Mnishetsky, settled a colony of schismatics at Vigoretz in the government of Olonetz, and collected by all the means in their power ancient manuscripts and books for the purpose of deceiving the ignorant.

Under such difficult circumstances both in Church and State, the prudent Patriarch Joachim was continually on the alert; he assisted in repressing the Streltsi who had been infected with the same spirit of insubordination, because their principal commanders, the Princes Khovansky, favoured, certainly not from religious motives, the schism, as offering a powerful means for the excitement of insurrections. He also refuted the heretics by synodical instructions. His book entitled “A Spiritual Exhortation,” and his numerous letters, remain as memorials of those distressing times. Before long the patriarch was compelled to arm himself against a new doctrine introduced from the West concerning the time of the transubstantiation⁵ of the Holy Gifts. Silvester Medvedeff, a pupil of Simeon Polotsky, and superior of the Zaikonospassky monastery, incorrectly taught, according to the Romish traditions, that it is not through the invocation of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of the Gifts, but through the words themselves of our Saviour, “Take and eat this &c.,” and “Drink ye all of this &c.,” that the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. The two distinguished brethren, natives of the Ionian islands, Sophronius and Joannicius Lichoudi, who had been sent to Russia by the Œcumenical patriarchs, were the first to expose this error, and entered into a controversy in writing with Silvester, in which a considerable number of persons took part.

Under the protection of this enlightened prelate, they fixed themselves at first in the monastery of the Theophany, where their school, composed of a small number of the nobility and clergy, in a short time attained an extraordinary degree of prosperity; and afterwards, in a building erected on purpose for them at the Zaiconospassky, their unwearied activity produced the Slaveno-Greeko-Russian Academy. But the zeal of the Lichoudi for learning and Orthodoxy, which was duly appreciated under the Patriarch Joachim, subjected them to a long imprisonment under his successor. Although Silvester, upon the refutation of his error by their writings had been degraded by Joachim, who convoked a Synod against him, and even for greater security addressed enquiries to the bishops of Little Russia concerning the doctrine in question, still many were offended at the zeal with which the learned brethren interested themselves about the purity of the Eastern doctrine.

The Church of Little Russia had now at this point become an integral part of our hierarchy, and this was one of the most important events of the patriarchate of Joachim. When both the Ukraines were restored to tranquillity under the dominion of the Hetman Samuelovich, and John Sobiesky, king of Poland, was inclined to conclude a lasting treaty of peace after ceding Kieff and Smolensk, the occasion which presented itself was made use of to re-establish the metropolitan chair of Kieff, which had now remained vacant for twenty-eight years without any regular pastor, the primate’s chair having been filled during that period only by guardians. The one who occupied it the longest time of all was Lazarus, archbishop of Chernigoff. This venerable prelate, now much enfeebled by age, together with the learned archimandrite of the Lavra, Barlaam Yasinsky, the worthy successor of Innocentius Gisel, were among the candidates thought of for the chair of Kieff. But the choice fell on Gideon, bishop of Loutsk and prince of Chetvertinsk, who had retired from his own diocese in consequence of the persecution of the Uniates and the encroachments of Joseph bishop of Lvoff, who had intrigued to obtain that diocese for his own brother. The hetman being devoted to Russia, and desirous of the firmest union with her, decided that the new metropolitan of Kieff should go for consecration to the patriarch of Moscow, and should be in full dependence upon him, which neither Lazarus nor Barlaam would consent to, but did all they could to maintain the rights of the see of Constantinople. But when Gideon, who was received with extraordinary honours at Moscow, had been instituted by Joachim as metropolitan of Kieff, Galicia, and all Little Russia, with jurisdiction also over the archbishopric of Chernigoff, the Pecherskay Lavra, and the dioceses of Southern Russia, the same individuals again opposed this arrangement, and the Patriarch Joachim was obliged to acknowledge the Lavra as a Stauropegia, and to allow Chernigoff an honorary precedence over all the other Russian archbishoprics, without being dependent upon Kieff.

On this the hetman and both the Tsars, to set at rest the clergy of the Ukraine, sent ambassadors to Constantinople with letters of request to the patriarchs that they would confirm the dependence of Kieff on the patriarchate of Moscow, in order to its better defence and more distinct separation from the Unia; and two patriarchs, Dionysius of Constantinople and the learned Dositheus of Jerusalem, acknowledged by letters patent in due form the final union of the hierarchy of Kieff and all the South with that of Great Russia. In this way was terminated the long separation of these two Churches, both of which had ever held one and the same doctrine, a division which had lasted for more than two centuries and a half, from the period when Vitoft, by the compulsory appointment of Gregory Simblak as metropolitan of Kieff, rent off Southern Russia from her spiritual union with Moscow.

But while Kieff was thus re-united to Russia, the other Orthodox sees in Lithuania and Poland, Lvoff⁶, Peremuishla, and Loutsk, were all within the space of a few years afterwards extinguished, with the single exception of Mogileff. The Polish government of that day, like Vitoft, dreaded the consequences of their Ecclesiastical dependence on Moscow, and fresh and more violent persecutions, notwithstanding the favourable conditions of the lately-concluded peace, extirpated the remains of Orthodoxy in the Polish provinces; while the Uniate archbishop of Polotsk, with the title of metropolitan of Kieff and all Russia, by degrees appointed bishops in the room of the Orthodox prelates, who either died or were expelled by his persecutions.

In the mean time an important change had taken place in the kingdom. Peter, tall and manly beyond his years, could not endure to lead an idle life in the palace of the Kremlin: thirsting after knowledge, he availed himself for his education of the services of a Genevese emigrant, named Lefort, and was himself his own master in military exercises, which he practised with a band of noble youths whom he had selected and formed into a company for his amusement: at the same time he openly shewed his dissatisfaction at his sister the Tsarevna Sophia’s retaining the government. Her favourite and lover the Prince Basil Galitsin, notwithstanding his two unsuccessful expeditions to the Crimea, was covered with honours, and succeeded in throwing the blame which belonged to himself upon the Hetman Samuelovich. The hetman was most unjustly banished to Siberia, and in his place they appointed a captain of Cossacks, the false and crafty Mazepa. In a state of no less disorder were the internal affairs also of the kingdom, while Peter now seventeen years old and already a giant both in mind and body, could not endure to remain under female rule, and demanded that his sister should yield up the honours of sovereignty. So determined was he on this point, that once on occasion of a religious procession he absolutely refused to walk with her side by side, and went off in anger to the village of Preobrajensk, the usual place of his royal studies and labours. A new mutiny of the Streltsi which was secretly excited by Sophia, and a conspiracy against the life of the young Tsar, were the consequences of this reckless conduct. But Peter had well-wishers who gave him timely notice of the danger, and succeeded in retiring in safety to the Trinity Lavra, where the members of the royal family and the patriarch himself gradually gathered themselves together around him. The Streltsi confounded at this new failure returned to their duty, and awaited the Tsar in the capital with a peace-offering of the heads of their ringleaders. The authoress of the rebellion was also discovered, whose confidence Shaklovity the prefect of the department for the Streltsi had enjoyed. It was to no purpose that the Tsarevna and the patriarch entreated Peter to pardon Sophia: they were all themselves too well convinced of her criminal designs: equally to no purpose was it that Sophia went in person to the monastery to beg for mercy; she was not admitted to see her brother. The conspirators were capitally punished; she herself was forced to receive the tonsure in the Novodäivichy convent, where the ambitious Sophia was transformed into the humble nun Susannah. Peter became the governor and autocrat of Russia, for the feeble and sickly John was Tsar only in name, and by remaining constantly in Moscow gave his enterprising brother an opportunity of travelling throughout Russia, of examining her capabilities and resources, and so adapting his own vast genius to that immense empire which at his powerful bidding was suddenly to burst forth and grow into the ninth part of the world.

The primates of Little and Great Russia both died about the same time. The place of the metropolitan of Kieff was filled by Barlaam the superior of the Pechersky, and he went like his predecessor to be consecrated at Moscow, but found the Patriarch Joachim no longer living. Having promoted Peter’s election at the first, and his actual succession afterwards, this true guardian of the kingdom during the minority of his two sovereigns, and zealous promoter of learning under the patronage of Theodore and Sophia, ruled the Church for only one year after the actual accession of the youthful Peter. With Peter’s mother the pious Tsaritsa Natalia he was grieved at the spirit of innovation and the partiality for foreign customs, which were already apparent in the royal youth. These feelings he poured forth in an eloquent testamentary exhortation, in which he implored the Tsar to adhere firmly to the national maxims which he had received from his ancestors, for the welfare and establishment of Russia.

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