The leader and chief ideologist of the conservatives was Joseph, abbot of the Volokolamsk monastery. His was a very unusual monastic estab-
THE CHURCH A SERVANT OF THE STATE
lishment, quite different from any then in existence in Russia. Volokolamsk operated on communabrinciples, which permitted the monks no private property: all the posessions of the abbey were institutionally owned. Its brethren were remired to reside in the monastery, where they were subject to strict diciplinary codes drawn up by its abbot. Volokolamsk had property aid yet it was not corrupt. Joseph's innovations showed that it was possible to combine ownership of land with the ascetic habits demanded by tie church, that wealth did not necessarily lead to the abdication of mord responsibilities, as the Transvolga Elders were charging. It was for th" reason that the clergy, shaken by Nil's speech, turned to Joseph to ead the counterattack. In upholding the principle of monastic landhoiing, Joseph had a powerful argument in his favour. Orthodox canon Lw requires the parish priests to marry but the bishops to remain celibat - a rule which forces the church to draw its bishops from the ranks of tie monastic clergy. Referring to this rule, Joseph argued that it was uireasonable to expect Orthodox monks to spend all their time supporting themselves; for if they did so, they would have no time left to acquire tie knowledge and the experience that they would need when called up"n to administer a diocese. Further harm resulting from this practice vould be the likelihood that the better sort of people, namely boyars, OL whom the church heavily depended to manage its abbeys and bisruprics, would stay away from monasteries should they be required to prform menial labour. The argument was practical, almost bureaucrat;, in nature. Joseph did not stop here but went on to question the moives of the Transvolga Elders. He was a rabid foe of the Judaizers, pEaching that they be rooted out by sword and fire, without even being panted the opportunity to recant. Nil and his followers, while in no wis sympathetic to heresy, preferred excommunication to the death penilty. Exploiting the more tolerant attitude of the 'anti-property' group Joseph assailed their orthodoxy. In his principal work, a collection c essays gathered by his pupils in book form and inappropriately titled lie Enlightener [ProsvetiteV), he piled citation upon citation from the scriptires and patristic writings to prove his points, intermingling arguments wit diatribes against the Judaizers and anyone who had for them the least tcerance. In his opinion, the Russian church as it then stood was the puret and most perfect in the world: 'In piety, the Russian land now surpases all the others.'8 The implication of this view was that any reform wald debase the country's religious standing and diminish its inhabitants'issurance of eternal salvation.
Joseph reinforced his argiments with ruthless intrigues at the court designed to turn the tsar ajainst the reformers and their supporters among the courtiers and boars. An advocate of the 'church militant', during his early career he hd occasionally run foul of the crown; but
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now that church properties were in danger, he became an extravagant apologist of royal absolutism. In arguing the divinity of tsars - an idea he was the first to introduce into Russia -Joseph relied on the authority of Agapetus, a sixth-century Byzantine writer. From him he borrowed the central thesis of his political theory: 'Although an Emperor in his physical being is like other men, yet in his authority [or office] he is like God.'7 To curry favour with the crown, in 1505 or 1506 he took a step for which there was no precedent in Russian history: he withdrew his abbey from the patronage of its local appanage prince (and incidentally, its generous benefactor) a younger brother of Ivan in, and placed it under the personal protection of the tsar. Thus, skilfully combining censure of heresy with eulogies of absolutism, and all the time reminding the crown of the church's utility to it, Joseph managed to turn the tables on the Transvolga Elders. The small band of hermits which strove for a spiritual church was no match for the conniving abbot. After Joseph's death (1515), the most important ecclesiastical positions went to members of his party, and many Russian monasteries were reorganized on the model of Volokolamsk. A decisive event in the conflict occurred in 1525 when Metropolitan Danil, one of his disciples, in contravention of canon law, authorized Basil in to divorce his childless wife and remarry, offering to assume the sin, if such it was, on his own conscience. Henceforth, the grateful tsar completely backed the Josephites, to the extent of allowing them to imprison their opponents, among them Maxim the Greek. The Josephite party attained the apogee of its influence under Metropolitan Macarius. It was this ecclesiastic who planted in the mind of Ivan iv the idea of crowning himself tsar.
Fear for its properties, of course, was not the only motive behind the Russian church's drive to build up a powerful and unlimited monarchy. There were also other considerations; the need for state assistance in extirpating heresy, protecting Orthodox Christians living under Muslim and Catholic rule, and reconquering those parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which had once formed part of'Holy Rus''. The threat of secularization was only the most pressing factor, the one which made collaboration with secular powers especially urgent. Traditionally partial to strong imperial authority, in the first half of the sixteenth century, under threat of expropriation, the Russian Orthodox Church placed its entire authority behind the Muscovite monarchy, filling its mind with ambitions which on its own it was incapable of conceiving. The entire ideology of royal absolutism in Russia was worked out by clergymen who felt that the interests of religion and church were best served by a monarchy with no limits to its power. This ideology consisted of the following principal ingredients: 1. The idea of the Third Rome: the Romes of Peter and Constantine