The Origins of Autocracy

The Muscovite sovereigns did not have to defend their authority against the claims of a universal hierarchy. After the Union of Flor­ence in 1439, when the Patriarchate of Constantinople, seeking a last refuge from the Turkish onslaught, agreed in desperation to the pope's suzerainty, Greek Orthodoxy became in the eyes of Muscovites a dubious and almost seditious thing. Thus, from the middle of the fifteenth century onward, the state and the church stood opposite each other in Muscovy on the same national ground. But did this make the task of secularization easier? From the point of view of the current stereotypes, it unquestionably did. But, as we shall see shortly, the church was by no means defenseless in the face of the "total­itarian" (to use Toynbee's word) power of the omnipotent "service" state. The fact that the national ecclesiastical leadership could not be presented in Russia as the agents of a foreign hierarchy, as happened in Denmark, Sweden, or England, greatly complicated the state's dis­pute with the church. And the authority and ideological power of the state and the church were not equal in Russia. The church, contrary to the Toynbeean theory, was much stronger.

When Moscow was still only dreaming of the unification of Rus' and supremacy over it, the Russian church was already unified and rigidly centralized, and had achieved privileges and immunities more extensive perhaps than were enjoyed by any other church in Europe. It owed all of this not to Constantinople or Moscow, but to the Tatars, who were responsible for both its material might and its spiritual worthlessness. If we seek the roots of Tatar influence on Muscovy, then, paradoxical as it may seem, they should be sought primarily in the Orthodox Church. It was no accident that in defending their feu­dal perquisites as late as the sixteenth century, many years after the yoke had been thrown off, the Muscovite prelates still shamelessly re­ferred to the Tatar yarlyfo,

or decrees issued by the khans of the Golden Horde. The yarlyks

were, in fact, unbelievably generous. From the church—runs one document of the khans, which had the force of law—"no tribute, or turnover taxes, or tillage taxes, or land and water transport duties, or war taxes, or maintenance of officials are to be exacted; and no royal tax whatever is to be taken." And not only the church but all those under its protection are to be exempt from such impositions: "and the church's people, craftsmen, falcon­ers ... or men and women servants and any of their people—who­ever are hired either for work or as guards." In addition to the guarantee of church property and exemption from all taxes, duties, obligations, and charges, and in general from all the burdens of the "yoke," the church was also granted the supreme power over its peo­ple: "The Metropolitan is to give judgment and administer his people in all matters: in robbery and theft with material evidence the Metro­politan alone, or whoever he orders to do so, is to be the judge in all cases."" In a subjugated, plundered, and humiliated country, the church was an inviolate and untouched island, a fortress of prosperity.

But the Tatars were by no means philanthropists. They were pay­ing the church for its collaboration—for the spiritual sword which Orthodoxy placed at their feet. There is no need for us to explain here how relations between the Orthodox Church and its Muslim suzerains developed over the course of the centuries, and indeed there came a day when the church betrayed the Tatars. But for a long time they had no reason to regret their generosity to it. In any case, it was not the church which was obliged to Moscow for its power, but Moscow which was obliged to the church. In the fourteenth century, the church had helped the Horde to defeat an anti-Tatar uprising led by Tver'. Moscow was its favorite in the rivalry of the Russian prince­doms for leadership.

Ivan III, the first Russian sovereign to be aware of the danger of church landholdings, was nevertheless compelled to reckon with the "sacred old ways" which Orthodoxy embodied. There was also the need to split Lithuania by taking advantage of its Orthodox-Catholic antagonisms. Unlike Gustav Vasa in Sweden, or Henry VIII in En­gland, Ivan could not, therefore, simply confiscate the land of the monasteries. The confrontation with the church required deep strat­egy—and, moreover, in an area where he, as a pragmatist and profes­sional politician, had the least experience. For this confrontation called not so much for political as for ideological skills.