Russia. A History

In the first half of the seventeenth century the Church had already split into opposing camps of reformers and conservatives, their position partly traceable to Ukrainian influences, but also to the practical problem of correcting liturgical books. With respect to the latter, the central question was whether to standardize texts on the basis of Greek originals presumed to be uncorrupted (the opinion of Patriarch Iosif), or concentrate on internal spiritual life (as demanded by a group of clergy under Vonifatev, the father-confessor of Tsar Alexis). The latter’s circle of ‘Friends of God’ (subsequently known as the ‘Zealots of Piety’ in the literature) included the future Patriarch Nikon, who served as metropolitan of Novgorod for three years before his elevation to the patriarchate in 1652. As patriarch he expanded the correction of texts into a fundamental reform of church ritual in 1653; the primary goal was to reverse the separate development of Russian Orthodoxy that had been in progress ever since the fall of Constantinople in the mid-fifteenth century. Moreover, by re-establishing ritual unity with the Kiev metropolitanate, such reform could also reinforce the political union with Ukraine.

These reforms, however, evoked fierce opposition from his former friends in the Zealots of Piety. Among them was the cathedral archpriest, Avvakum Petrovich, who became Nikon’s intransigent adversary and leader of the ‘old ritualists’ or ‘old believers’—that is, those who remained loyal to the old rites and defended the national religious idea against ‘re-Hellenization’. Nikon, however, enjoyed the support and friendship of the tsar; by 1653 Avvakum and his friends were already imprisoned, and two years later Avvakum himself was banished into exile, where he wrote his autobiography, the first in Russian history and justly famous for its literary and stylistic qualities. In 1667 a church council upheld Nikon’s reforms and excommunicated its opponents, thereby formalizing the schism (raskol

) in the Church.

Naturally, the causes of the schism went much deeper than a blind attachment to the old rites. Rather, the Old Belief represented a much broader social movement—a protest against enserfment, the centralizing activities of the government, and the intrusion of Western innovations. It also acquired apocalyptical expectations (especially in the north) and, after martyrdom of Bishop Pavel of Kolomna in 1657, claimed many more victims, Avvakum himself being burnt at the stake in 1682. The Old Believers also established a powerful centre at the Solovetskii Monastery on the White Sea, where the resistance of some 500 monks and fugitives from the Razin rebellion grew into an outright uprising. With a heavy heart Tsar Alexis used force to suppress the rebellion; the monastery, however, fiercely resisted and was finally taken only through betrayal.

The council of 1667 recognized the Nikonian reforms as valid, but also took measures against Nikon himself. At issue was his conception of the patriarch’s power: this peasant’s son stubbornly insisted that the tsar be subordinate to the patriarch—i.e. that they did not constitute a diarchy, the model that prevailed under Filaret and Michael. The tsar, favourably inclined towards Nikon, at first acquiesced and conferred the title ‘Great Sovereign’ on the patriarch in 1654, despite the absence of kinship (in contrast to Filaret’s case). But Nikon later far exceeded the Byzantine conception of a ‘symphony’ between the secular and sacred domains and exploited the fact that the status of the tsar in the Russian Church had never been precisely formulated. Alexis cautiously expressed a different opinion in 1657–8, and it soon came to a personal confrontation between the two men. Nikon withdrew, but refused to resign from his office; according to canon law, only the Eastern patriarchs could order his removal. At the end of 1666 the tsar convened such a council, but with only the less important patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria personally present. Not surprisingly, the latter—who were materially dependent upon Russian support—found Nikon guilty and even recommended expanding the tsar’s power in the Church. After a few Russian bishops protested, the council settled on a compromise that ascribed worldly matters to the tsar, spiritual matters to the patriarch. Although this formula nominally preserved the status of the Church, it could not conceal the fact that the Church emerged from the schism and the Nikon affair deeply weakened. Thus the devastation that the Time of Troubles had dealt to tradition (starina

) now extended to the Church, hitherto the sole spiritual power and a second pillar of autocracy. The reign of Alexis, so rich in rebellion, came to an end; the way was now free for a breakthrough to the modern era.

The Dawning of Modernity (1676–1689)

The Reign of Fedor (1676–1682)