The Origins of Autocracy

Within the country, church landholding continued to spread. And there was now no question of an entente against the Orthodox estab­lishment between the state and the intelligentsia, such as had been taking shape at the beginning of the century. Left to itself, the Non- Acquirer movement exhausted itself in struggles against a "right wing" offensive which was taking on an increasingly clear nationalist and isolationist character. The monk Filofei of Pskov proposed the tempting theory of "the Third Rome" to the grand prince Vasilii— that is, of Muscovy as the guardian of the true faith, counterposed to the West and the East and destined to play a unique role in the pres­ervation of Christianity until the Second Coming of Christ ("thou art the only Christian king under Heaven"). Iosif, who had been de­feated in an open ideological skirmish with the Non-Acquirers, per­formed one more political maneuver. He no longer gave himself over to meditations on tsars and tyrants, but proposed the still more tempting idea of the theocratic power of the Orthodox sovereign, de­claring him "the ruler of all," and the viceroy of God on earth.[108](Though in so doing he did not abandon his fundamental thesis that "the church's acquisitions are God's acquisitions.")[109]

Thus, the Josephite hierarchy offered the state peace with the church, agreeing to recognize the Russian tsar as an autocrator

—the head of a new Byzantine empire and the supreme leader of Ortho­dox (i.e., true Christian) humanity. For this, Vasilii would have to pay not only with new lands but also with the heads of further heretics and Non-Acquirers. He would have to sacrifice not only the radicals, but also the liberals, liquidating the ideological limitations on power— the most precious heritage left to Russia by his father. Taken together, nationalism, isolationism, messianism, and the liquidation of the ideological struggle foretold the end of Russian absolutism even in the 1520s.

But the tradition of Ivan III was strong. If Vasilii lacked the capac­ity to continue the policy of his father, he also lacked the capacity to change it radically. He drifted with the current. True, he gave up to the Josephites two of their chief enemies—the two most brilliant fig­ures of the Muscovite intellectual world of that time. The assembly of 1525 condemned Maxim the Greek, and that of 1531 condemned Vassian Patrikeev.⁴

' They left the scene, and were exiled to Josephite monasteries for life. But this did not mean that an end was put to the Non-Acquirer movement as a current of thought. It was beheaded but not yet destroyed. The aristocracy was still firmly in the saddle, and as long as the social limitations on power had not been done away with, the economic limitations prospered under their protection. The law remained the law, although the political life of the country stag­nated. Consequently, the proto-bourgeoisie became more numerous, the cities grew, and the obligations of the peasants were increasingly rendered in money. (Half a century later, the "Government of Com­promise" would convert the obligations to the state of whole regions into money terms, modernizing the system of taxation.) It seemed that Russian absolutism was destined to survive the rule of Vasilii.

No one yet knew which of the two tendencies would be victori­ous—feudal or peasant differentiation, corvee or money, the service landholders or the proto-bourgeoisie.

The fourth generation of the Non-Acquirers was still to come. The elder Artemii, from whom the tsar would respectfully take counsel, was to be elevated to the post of abbot of the Troitsa, like his ideologi­cal forebear Paisii. Still other bishops and abbots would emerge, de­spite the Josephite Metropolitan Daniil's intrigues, from the school of Nil Sorskii and Maxim the Greek. The assembly of 1551, with its fa­mous royal questions, was also still to come.

But this assembly would not be a victory for the Non-Acquirers. It would be turned into their ultimate defeat. True, it would adopt im­portant anti-Josephite decisions to return the land confiscated by churchmen for debt to the original owners, and to take away the ser­vice estates and regions given to churchmen during the sovereign's nonage. However, a terrible price would be exacted by the Josephites for these purely tactical concessions. Whereas Ivan III turned over the heretics to the Josephites in order to save the Non-Acquirers, Ivan the Terrible turned the Non-Acquirers over to them in order to de­stroy both victors and vanquished.