the Iversky Convent, from whence he renewed his resignation of the patriarchate, begged forgiveness for his unauthorized absence, and asked permission to retain charge of the monasteries which had been under his control.
The sacrifice thus made in anger he sorely repented, and would fain have recalled, but it was too late; the see was declared vacant, his enemy, Pitirim of Novgorod, appointed its guardian, and Nikon was left in solitude to brood over his disgrace.
Boyars and bishops, rejoicing in their liberation from his intolerable domineering, leagued together to complete his downfall. Fearing the influence of his personal intercession with the tsar, in whose heart there yet lurked some tenderness for his former friend, they prevented any interview, save in their presence; they baited and worried the hasty, impetuous priest to fresh bursts of violence and temper; his private papers were seized for proof of undue assumption of authority and dignity; he was accused of repeating the one hundred and ninth psalm in his daily convent service, and of directing its curses against the tsar; his indignant denials, his fierce invective, his vehement vindication of his acts and the recital of his wrongs, were made fresh pretexts for denunciation. For eight years Nikon maintained the contest, with unabated energy and independence; his spirit was not dismayed, nor his courage daunted; he anathematized his adversaries for his personal insults and injuries, but, more than all, for the scandal brought upon the Church; he loudly asserted his loyalty, and declared, "I have not cursed the tsar, but I have cursed you, ye noble prelates of the Church; and, if you care to hear it, I will have the same words sung over again in your ears." He could not forget that he had been, and, save
