age; they sanctified by their authority the superstitious practices existing, which, thus approved, took deeper root among the people, while the errors in the books remaining unaltered acquired additional confirmation. The introduction of the printing-press at the same period served to disseminate more widely the books and missals in their ancient form, and this was generally accepted as definitively the true and canonical version.
It was reserved for Nikon, in the middle of the seventeenth century, to accomplish a fundamental reform. This extraordinary man was well fitted for the task. His learning was, for the age and the country, varied and profound, his genius vast and enterprising, his piety and devotion to the Church sincere, his zeal and energy unbounded, and his determination inflexible. He possessed the entire confidence of his sovereign, and wielded over the State a power and influence commensurate with that he exercised over the Church. At his command Greek and Slavonic manuscripts were collected and collated, monks were summoned from Byzantium and from the holy sanctuaries of Palestine, and the work of expurgation and correction was vigorously pursued. The rites and ceremonies were restored in their primitive purity, and invested with all the pomp and splendor of the Oriental Church. The liturgy and missals, freed from interpolations and erroneous readings, were approved by a council, and the use of the amended version forcibly imposed throughout the empire. These radical measures, received with stupefaction and amazement, were at first apparently successful, but soon aroused a storm of popular indignation and revolt; resistance was organized and encouraged by a large portion of the clergy, especially by those of the lower ranks, who came in more immediate contact with the people; they denounced the alterations as a
