ered consciousness, tlian he appeared again in their midst, exhorting them to submission. He prevented the betrayal of Novgorod to the Swedes, and hurled the anathemas of the Church against the traitors to the tsar; his firmness and courage gave time for succor to arrive and preserved the city to the empire, while his subsequent mild and judicious measures effectually quelled the rebellion.
His energy in civil matters was equalled only by his zeal in affairs of the Church. He insisted, among the clergy, upon cleanliness of person and apparel, decency of life, and purity of morals; he encouraged the decoration of churches, chapels, and altars, and surrounded the ritual with extraordinary ceremony and pomp; he regulated anew the order of divine service, and introduced harmonious chants from Greece and the East, with well-drilled choirs of soft Cossack voices; he condemned the idolatrous worship of the sacred pictures and their meretricious adornment by foreign art; gifted, himself, with fluent eloquence, he supplemented, by preaching, the monotonous reading of the lessons.
His imperious, domineering disposition had created many enemies, and the changes he introduced into the service, although they were a return to the original practices of the Greek Church, had aroused a feeling of strong antagonism on the part of the people and of many of the clergy, who were fanatically attached to their own, and, in their opinion, the ancient, forms, but this hostility dared not manifest itself by open opposition, and found vent only in secret murmurings. Nikon, strong in the affection and support of the tsar, distinguished for the purity and austerity of his life and for untiring zeal, was, notwithstanding latent discontent, called by unanimous desire to the patriarchal throne. Aware of the enmity
