THE CHURCH AS SERVANT OF THE STATE
had fallen as punishment for heresy; Moscow has become the Third Rome; as such it would stand for all eternity because there shall be no Fourth. This idea, formulated some time in the first half of the sixteenth century by the monk Philotheus of Pskov, became an integral part of official Muscovite political theory. Related to it was the belief that Muscovy was the purest, most pious Christian kingdom in the world;
2. The imperial idea: the rulers of Moscow were heirs of an imperial line which extended all the way back to the Emperor Augustus: theirs was the most ancient and therefore the most prestigious dynasty in the world. A genealogy to fit this scheme was worked out by clerics working under the supervision of Metropolitan Macarius and given official sanction in the tsarist Book of Degrees (Stepennaia Kniga);
3. The rulers of Russia were universal Christian sovereigns: they were emperors of all the Orthodox people in the world, i.e. they had the right to rule and protect them and, by implication, to bring them under Russian suzerainty. One of the occasions at which this was asserted was at the church synod held in 1561 (above, p. 73). In some writings, claims were made on behalf of the Russian tsar as the ruler of all the Christians, not only of those professing the Orthodox faith;
4. Divine authority of kings: all authority was from God, and the Russian tsar, in the exercise of his office, was like God. His authority extended over the church in all but doctrinal matters; he was the church's temporal ruler and the clergy had to obey him. Introduced into Russia by Joseph of Volokolamsk, the theory was subsequently confirmed by several church synods, including that convened in 1666.
By throwing its weight so fully behind royal absolutism, the Russian church achieved its immediate objectives: it uprooted dangerous heresies and saved (for the time being, at any rate) its properties. But it bought these victories at a terrible price. The refusal to adopt the reforms advocated by the anti-property clergy had a doubly negative effect: it progressively ossified the church within and forced it into increased dependence on the state. In effect, in the first half of the sixteenth century the Russian church placed itself voluntarily under the tutelage of secular authority. It was an exceedingly short-sighted policy that the leaders of the Russian church adopted at this critical juncture in its history. The results were not slow in making themselves felt as the church administration rapidly slipped under control of state organs. In the course of the sixteenth century it became customary for tsars to make on their own appointments of bishops and metropolitans, to decide who would attend church synods, and to interfere with church justice. In 1521 Basil in removed a metropolitan; he also appropriated moneys belonging to the church. By the end of the sixteenth century there was precious little left of the Byzantine ideal
232
sixteenth century there was precious little left of the Byzantine ideal of'harmony'. Just how subservient the church had become during this time can be seen from its support of government measures aimed at limiting its right to make further land acquisitions. A synod convoked in 1551 approved tsarist orders forbidding monasteries to make new acquisitions without royal approval (p. 229 above), and another synod in 1584 reconfirmed them. These were the first steps towards ultimate expropriation of clerical land. In the end, the Russian church forfeited its autonomy without by this surrender salvaging its wealth. The Schism which in the 1660s split in two the Russian church was a religious crisis which only tangentially touched on the question of church-state relationship. Even so, it exerted a lasting effect on the political position of the Russian church. The reforms of Patriarch Nikon which led to the Schism alienated from the established church its most dedicated groups, draining it of most of its zeal which henceforth flowed into movements of religious dissent. The end result was the church's total dependence on the state. After the Schism, the Russian church required the full vigour of state support to prevent mass defections from its ranks; it could no longer survive on its own. Even one of its staunchest supporters conceded that if it were not for state prohibitions against the abandonment of Orthodoxy (a criminal offence in nineteenth-century Russia), half of the peasants would go over to the Schismatics, and half of educated society would be converted to Catholicism.8
The Schism resulted from reforms introduced into Russian religious practices to bring them closer in line with the Greek. Comparisons of Russian religious practices with their Greek models, begun in the sixteenth century but pursued with special vigour in the first half of the seventeenth, revealed beyond doubt that over time major deviations had occurred in Russian observances. Less apparent was the answer to the question whether such discrepancies were good or bad. Purists, headed by Nikon, maintained that all departures from Greek prototypes were corruptions and as such had to be eliminated. Under his guidance books were corrected and changes introduced into rituals. The conservatives and nationalists, a party which included the majority of the Russian clergy, argued that the Russian church as then constituted was purer and holier than the Greek, which had fallen from grace for agreeing at the Council of Florence in 1439 to merge with Rome. Since that act of apostasy, the centre of Orthodoxy had shifted to Moscow which had repudiated the Union. As Joseph of Volokolamsk had said a century earlier, Russia was the most pious land in the world; any tampering with its practices would bring on its head the wrath of heaven. The issue was a grave one. The problem dividing the two parties had profound
THE CHURCH AS SERVANT OF THE STATE
personal significance at a time when people universally believed in the immortality of the soul, and associated spiritual salvation with the punctilious observance of religious rites. Korb, an Austrian who visited Russia in 1699, was undoubtedly correct when at the head of a list of things Russians 'principally guarded against' he put 'lest the religion of their forefathers should be changed'.9
Nikon enjoyed the complete confidence of Tsar Alexis, an extremely pious man, whose natural inclination to do the proper thing was further encouraged by Greek prelates flattering him with visions of a revived Byzantine Empire under his rule. With his support, Nikon forced through many ritualistic changes, altering the manner of making the cross, pronouncing the Credo and painting ikons. He abolished mnogo-penie, the custom of concurrent singing of different parts of the liturgy. But he went further yet, attempting to create in Russia a true Christian community by regulating the daily life of ordinary people in some detail. He and his supporters enforced strict rules of conduct which forbade card playing, drinking, cursing and sexual licence, and required every Russian to spend some four or five hours a day in church. So intimate was Nikon's relationship with Tsar Alexis that when the latter left for campaigns he turned over to him the management of state affairs. Through his friendship with the tsar, Nikon succeeded in restoring temporarily the balance between church and state.