never saw me, to make our farewell peace here, we shall meet and be judged together at the terrible coming of Christ."[1]
Under Alexis's son, Feodor III., the malignity of Nikon's enemies revived, and the full rigor of his sentence was enforced. The young tsar was Nikon's godson; but, weak and sickly, he was easily swayed by his spiritual advisers, and left the unhappy prelate, broken by suffering and disappointment, to languish in solitary confinement. A revulsion of feeling was, however, aroused in the prince's breast by the contemplation of the great Church establishments projected and commenced by Nikon, but now abandoned and falling to decay. A few friends who still remembered him ventured to raise their voices in his behalf. Among them was Simon Polotsky, in Feodor's youth his preceptor, in after-life his friend and counsellor. Polotsky was a wise and erudite monk, of liberal and advanced ideas, without sympathy with the harsh and bigoted patriarch Joachim. He was filled with admiration for the genius of the great reformer, and shared his aspirations for the glory of the Church. He appreciated the power which unity and centralization gave the Roman Church, and conceived the plan of a similar consolidation in the Russian establishment by raising the four metropolitan sees to patriarchates, and placing Nikon over all as supreme pontiff.
The scheme was too visionary, and too much at variance with the spirit of the Greek Church, for realization, but Polotsky's efforts for Nikon's restoration to favor were happily timed, and found quick response in the tsar's reawakened affection for his godfather.
Nikon, conscious of failing strength, had long and
- ↑ Mouravief, p. 243.
