The Russian Church and Russian Dissent/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
The Church in the Fifteenth Century.—Effect of Tatar Occupation.—Liberation of Russia from the Tatars.—Attempted Reforms in the Church.—The Orthodox Church in Poland.—Establishment of the Patriarchate in Russia.
The restless spirit of inquiry and enterprise, the prodigious mental activity which, at the end of the fifteenth century, had aroused Southern and Western Europe, spread into Russia and agitated the stagnant pools of Muscovite barbarism and prejudice. Civilization, elsewhere progressing with gigantic strides, was there creeping onward with slow and sluggish steps, hampered by the fatuity and apathy typical of its Oriental origin. Belief in the approaching end of the world turned men's minds towards the Church. Among the Russian people, pre-eminently ignorant and superstitious when ignorance and superstition were everywhere characteristics of the people, this expectation was generally prevalent, and the consequent devotional feeling correspondingly intensified. Public churches were multiplied, the rich erected private chapels and founded religious establishments; innumerable ecclesiastics were required for their services; restrictions for admission to the clergy were disregarded, and its ranks invaded by multitudes from the poorest and lowest of the population, seriously debasing its morals and lowering its character.
Among the great events of which this age was prolific, the greatest for Russia was its liberation from Tatar tyranny; national independence followed close upon independence of the Church.
The long period of foreign subjugation was productive of many grave and abiding results, and among the most noticeable are those affecting the clergy, as a body, and the Church.
The Tatar princes, recognizing the vast influence of the Church over the people, afforded it protection in order to enlist its support in favor of their authority. They were also not indifferent to the virtues and self-abnegation displayed by its members, and treated its bishops and dignitaries with respect, accepted their mediation, and yielded frequently to their solicitations on behalf of the suffering population. These marks of consideration, shown by infidel and lawless tyrants, inspired the people with increased veneration for their pastors, whom they found able to obtain for them protection and redress of wrongs. For this reason, apart from the influence of religious sentiment, they became more than ever accustomed to turn to the Church for relief, and to implicitly accept its guidance.
The monasteries and religious bodies, exempted from taxation and protected from spoliation, had grown rich and prosperous amid the general ruin, and afforded a haven, not only to the poor and needy, but also to such of the better class as, timid or weary of strife, were glad to sacrifice property and escape the responsibilities it entailed in order to secure safety or a peaceful refuge. Many of the rich and noble poured their wealth into the coffers of the Church from gratitude for protection, in expiation of crimes, or to purchase future happiness. Nearly all the great religious institutions of Russia arose during this period of the Tatar conquest.
The position and attitude of the clergy towards the governing powers were not so much changed as confirmed, in accordance with the submissive spirit of the Greek Church, always content to be the coadjutor or servant of the civil authority. Recruited in great measure from the people, the clergy sympathized profoundly with their feelings and sufferings, shared their aspirations for deliverance from oppression, and was inspired by the same ardent affection for the soil, but it was also deeply imbued with popular superstitions and prejudices. Deprived, under Tatar rule, of all right of interference in State affairs, it became devoid of ambition beyond its immediate sphere. Seldom, even with its native princes, did any of its members attempt to control, although they may have endeavored to direct, the civil power and stimulate it to action. While largely contributing to the maintenance of national sentiment, and devoted to the welfare of the people, it suffered in its tone and character from the general disorganization of society. The destruction of the seats of learning at Kiev and throughout the captured and plundered cities of the empire, the suppression or interruption of schools and academies almost completely annihilated facilities for education. With a few exceptions among the higher dignitaries, the great body of the clergy were hopelessly ignorant and illiterate; possessing barely the knowledge requisite for celebration of the Church service, they conceived religion to exist only in the formal routine of ceremonial observances. The standard of morality among them was lowered, their character as a body was debased, while their numbers were prodigiously increased.
Ivan III. came to the throne in 1462. He was zealous for the protection of religion, ambitious, but prudent and politic. He reduced nearly all the principalities and cities of Russia to his authority, and laid the foundations of the future greatness of the empire. Sophia, heiress of the Byzantine emperors, was his second wife. This alliance was favored by Rome in the hope that, educated in the Catholic Church, this princess would induce her husband to acknowledge the act of union decreed by the Council of Florence. The hope was vain; Sophia abjured the Roman creed and maintained Ivan steadfast in the Orthodox faith, while the Russian clergy strenuously asserted the independence of their Church.
His authority firmly established within his dominions, Ivan aspired to free his country from Tatar vassalage, and the whole nation arose at his call. He refused tribute to the khan, and summoned the entire forces of the empire to repel the invasion of Ahkmet. The armies were in presence on the banks of the river Oka, called by the people "the girdle of the Mother of God." Ivan's throne trembled in the balance; he faltered and feared to risk all upon a single battle, but, as in every great crisis of Russian history, the Church was strong on the side of nationality and independence. The clergy, by the voice of its prelates, urged him to combat. Vassian, the aged archbishop of Rostov, rebuked his timidity. "Dost thou dread death? Death is the lot of all; of man, beast, and bird alike; none can avoid it. I am old, borne down by weight of years, but give these warriors into my hands and I will brave the Tatar sword and never turn my back."
Gerontius, the metropolitan, was no less urgent: "Be thine, oh, my son! the courage and strength of mind that belong to a soldier of Christ. A good shepherd will die, if needs be, for his flock. May God protect thine empire and give thee the victory!"[1]
As Ivan still hesitated, and from his camp continued negotiations, Vassian again argued and earnestly besought him, in "the name of the metropolitan and of us all, representatives of Jesus Christ," to march against Akhmet, blessing "him and his son and his warriors, children of Christ."
A sudden and extraordinary panic spread through the hostile camps, and each fled from before the other, without striking a blow. The Russians were the first to rally, and Ivan reaped the fruits of the campaign.
The Tatar power, exhausted and broken by dissensions among its chiefs, was no longer formidable to the empire.
Victorious in war, Ivan was, in peace, a wise, enlightened, and magnificent prince. He assumed great state, embellished his capital, welcomed at his court scholars fleeing from the infidel conquerors of Byzantium, and endeavored, in Moscow, to revive the glories of Constantinople. He extended his favors to all members of the Greek communion; prelates came to the Russian metropolitan for consecration, and the patriarch of Jerusalem found refuge in Russia from the tyranny of the Sultan of Egypt. While solicitous for the national faith, he was tolerant of other religions. He protected Mahometans and Jews, and exhibited a leniency, extraordinary for the age, towards the dangerous and wide-spread heresy of the Judaizers, which, promulgated in secret, penetrated into high places of both State and Church.[2]
The metropolitan Zosimos, whom Ivan, in the plenitude of his power, had arbitrarily appointed, was convicted of participation, but was simply deposed and relegated to a monastery without further punishment.
Persecution was forbidden, and the votaries of this erratic religious movement were lightly dealt with, until their obstinate persistency, after years of forbearance, necessitated more rigorous measures of suppression.
With greater dignity assumed by the monarch came increased expenditure and a higher sense of imperial authority. Notwithstanding the great services rendered by the Church, Ivan, like his contemporary Louis XI. of France, became jealous of its power and envious of its enormous wealth. He attempted to sequestrate its landed property, and to render it more subservient to his will; but the determined opposition he encountered was too powerful, and a council confirmed its ancient grants and privileges. Simon, the successor of Zosimos, sturdily maintained its rights, and at the same time carefully watched over its discipline and the habits of the clergy. The monasteries for men were separated from those for women; priests and deacons who had lost their wives were prohibited from officiating at mass; simony, corruption, and irregularities of all kinds were severely punished, and every effort made to purify the morals and elevate the tone and character of the clerical profession.
During this period of consolidation in Russia the Church in Lithuania and Poland was exposed to trial and suffering. After the death of the Uniate metropolitan Gregory, its bishops repudiated the decrees of the Council of Florence, refused to acknowledge their dependence on the pope, and insisted upon the consecration of their metropolitans by the patriarch of Constantinople. The rulers of the country, on the contrary, professed the Roman creed, and subjected their Orthodox population to annoyance and persecution. When Ivan married his daughter Helena to Alexander of Lithuania, he carefully stipulated for freedom in the exercise of her religion, and earnestly exhorted her to be steadfast herself, and to be constant in her efforts for the protection of others of their faith. This family alliance was insufficient to prevent dissensions between neighboring princes, each grasping and ambitious, and with religious antagonism to whet suspicion and create irritation. Helena's influence was often, although ineffectually, exerted to alleviate the oppression to which the Orthodox were exposed, but her husband was under pressure from the papal element, which also had his sympathy, and Helena herself was made to feel it. Joseph Saltan, promoted to the see of Kiev, became, in gratitude for his elevation, a convert to the prince's views, and joined in his efforts to crush Orthodoxy and strengthen Romanism. Helena discreetly concealed her own vexations, but the cry of the people reached her father's ears and aroused his indignation. Political relations between Lithuania and Russia were always strained, war was constantly breaking out or imminent, and in such conditions the state of the Orthodox Polish Church was melancholy and distressing.
Under Ivan's son, Vassili IV., the Church in Russia enjoyed a long season of tranquillity; the missionary spirit was strong within it, and it sent forth priests to Christianize and colonize through Lapland to the shores of the Northern seas.
The glory of Moscow, as a centre of learning, the seat of the mightiest prince and most potent prelate of the Orthodox Church, attracted thither monks and emissaries from the convents and holy places of the East in quest of alms and succor. Vast collections of religious manuscripts and books had been accumulated in former reigns, and more recently by Sophia. Vassili sent to Constantinople for theologians of competent erudition for their examination and study. The patriarch selected for the purpose Maximus, a Greek monk of Mt. Athos, distinguished for leaxning, piety, and ability. He applled himself assiduously to the task, discovered and corrected many errors which had crept into the Church books by the negligence of transcribers, and, by his emendations, restored the ritual in its original purity. His virtues, the wisdom of his counsels, his unaffected piety and religious zeal, greatly endeared him to the prince. Notwithstanding his frequent requests, now that his labors were ended, for permission to return to his convent home, Vassili would not consent, but retained him near his person.
In 1519 Pope Leo X. urged the Russian monarch to unite with the Christian princes of Europe, for the glory of God, against the Turks. He suggested that Constantinople was his legitimate inheritance as son of a Greek princess. He further offered to raise the see of Moscow to a patriarchate, preserving all the "allowable" practices of the Eastern Church, thus speciously disguising, while asserting, his assumption of jurisdiction. Vassili, however, mindful of the Te Deums celebrated by Leo for the great victory of the Lithuanians over the "heretic" Russians at Orscha, declined his advances, and refused others of a similar nature from Clement VII.
Vassili's attachment to the national religion was sincere, but he was impatient of clerical dictation. He forced Barlaam, for his uncompromising austerity, to retire from the primacy, and raised Daniel to his place. The new metropolitan was a man of elastic principles, of narrow, selfish views, unscrupulous, complaisant, devoured by ambition and by jealousy of Maximus, a foreigner.
In common with most of the clergy, Daniel was fanatically attached to the ancient ceremonies of the Church ritual, and opposed to reforms. To strengthen his position and ingratiate himself with the prince, Daniel authorized Vassili's divorce from his wife Salomina, on the plea of her sterility, and celebrated his marriage with Helena. On this matter Vassili had set his heart, but for a long time in vain, as it was contrary to ecclesiastical canon. It is related that, by Daniel's advice, Vassili consulted the Eastern patriarchs, and Mark of Jerusalem replied by a prediction terribly fulfilled in the succeeding reign—
"Shouldst thou contract a second marriage thou shalt have a wicked son; thy states shall become a prey to terror and to tears; rivers of blood shall flow; the heads of thy mighty ones shall fall; thy cities shall be devoured by flames."
Maximus agreed with the other prelates in condemning the proceedings, and Daniel seized upon the occasion to accomplish his ruin. Vassili's affection was turned to hatred, and, deprived of this support, Maximus was summoned before a council, convicted of heresy and sacrilege for tampering with the Sacred Books, and sentenced to reclusion. Daniel's triumph was of short duration; during the infancy of Vassili's son Ivan this scheming prelate and his successor were actively engaged in court intrigues and conspiracies, and both suffered from the vicissitudes of the struggle between rival factions; one was forced to abdicate, and the other was banished. The primacy was in the gift of the party in power, and the selection of the incumbent was of grave importance from the influence he might exercise over the young prince, to whom, by virtue of his functions, he had free access, and from his authority as head of the Church. Macarius, archbishop of Novgorod, an ambitious man, but of recognized piety and ability, was chosen in 1542.
Ivan IV. was an infant when his father died; his youth was turbulent and riotous; gifted by nature with great talents and force of character, with lofty aspirations, but strong and ungovernable passions, with untiring energy and unbounded confidence, his education was purposely neglected by his guardians, who, while intriguing and disputing among themselves for power, each in turn, in order to strengthen and prolong their authority, gratified his caprices, encouraged his excesses, pandered to his vicious propensities, sedulously fostered his harsh and tyrannical disposition, and, by adulation and flattery, imbued his mind with the conviction that as Tsar he could do no wrong. In early life he gave evidence of his impatience of control and of his cruel nature. When but thirteen years of age he joined in the overthrow of the ruling faction, viewed with complacency the torture and death of its chief, whose body he ordered to be thrown to his dogs to be devoured. At seventeen years of age, in 1547, he assumed sovereign authority, and was crowned as Tsar. This title, derived from the Hebrew, borne by Chaldean kings of Biblical history and by Greek emperors, sometimes adopted by his father and grandfather, was henceforth to be the designation of the monarchs of Russia. He married Anastasia Romanoff, a native princess of great beauty, rare intelligence, and piety.
By a singular contradiction, Ivan, in his wildest excesses, always exhibited extraordinary regard for devotional observances, scrupulous adherence to religious ceremonial, and superstitious reverence for the Church.
In the year following his marriage Moscow was destroyed by a furious conflagration; popular insurrections broke out, and general anarchy threatened the stability of the government. At this juncture, when Ivan was terrified and dismayed by these calamities, Sylvester, a monk of Novgorod, revered for his sanctity and holy life, appeared before him, and, like a prophet of old, boldly rebuked his shameful excesses and cruelty, declared the ruin of Moscow to be the sign of divine wrath, invoked upon him the vengeance of the Almighty if he did not turn from his wickedness, and exhorted him to give heed to the Gospel injunctions if he would escape from the hand of God and live. Ivan was moved to tears, and promised amendment. Among his companions was Alexis Adaschef, a youth of great personal attractions, of pure and elevated character, and signal, ability, who valued royal favor only as a means for noble ends, and who joined Sylvester in his efforts to reclaim the prince. Henceforth the influence of these virtuous, patriotic men was paramount, and, guided by them, Ivan, with characteristic energy, summoned the bishops of the Church, made public confession of his faults, and besought the metropolitan to aid his youth and inexperience.
Success to his arms abroad and prosperity within his realm followed the wise and prudent administration of his new counsellors. The civil laws were reduced to a code in 1550, and the year following an assembly, known as that of "the Hundred Chapters," from the number of its decisions, was convened to confirm the legal code and to take into consideration all matters pertaining to clerical discipline and reform. It was opened by Ivan in person, who appealed to the fathers present to "enlighten and instruct him in all godliness," not to spare his weakness, but to "rebuke his errors without fear;" "so shall my soul live and the souls of all my people."
From the scanty records of this council it would seem to have undertaken a thorough reform of the Church and of the ritual, but its action was incomplete and most unfortunate. Many superstitious practices were preserved, and the alterations of the Church books were superficial and incorrect. Errors, allowed to stand, received thereby additional confirmation, and were more widely disseminated by the introduction of printing.
Meanwhile Russian arms were everywhere victorious. Kasan and Astracan were subdued, the Golden Horde crushed, and the dominion of the Church was extended over the conquests of the State. Ivan, yet faithful to his virtuous resolves, loved by his people, feared by his enemies, realized a crowning happiness in the birth of a son. A change was imminent, terrible as it was unexpected.
During a serious illness of the tsar intrigues and disputes regarding the succession filled his soul with doubts of the loyalty of his most faithful friends. His mind, unhinged by sickness, was painfully affected by the sudden death of his child and of his beloved wife, and perfidious counsels fostered suspicions, to which his dark and sombre disposition was prone. He sought advice from a former favorite of his father, Vassian, ex-bishop of Kolomna, who had been deprived of his diocese for crime. This old man, whose heart was filled with gall and envy, whispered suggestions which found ready response in Ivan's diseased fancies.
"If," said he, "you wish to be absolute monarch, have no confidant wiser than yourself; give orders, but receive advice from no one; always command and never follow the lead of others; thus you will be indeed a king, terrible to your lords. Remember, above all, that a counsellor, even of the wisest prince, inevitably becomes his master."[3]
The poisonous seed bore fatal fruit. Ivan, then but thirty years of age, seemed to lose all faith in mankind. He surrounded himself with sycophants and parasites, and plunged anew into the wild excesses of his youth; he pursued his former friends with relentless cruelty, arraigned and condemned Adaschef and Sylvester for treason. His tyranny grew with its indulgence; every one became an object of suspicion; prisons were filled with victims; blood ran like water; no head was too high, no character too pure, for attack. The natural ferocity of his disposition broke through all restraints, and he seemed to be possessed by a wild, insane fury to torture, slay, and destroy; yet, with strange inconsistency, making profession of earnest devotion all the while, constantly humbling himself before the altar, and, cleansed of past enormities, going forth with fresh thirst for blood.
Anastasius succeeded Macarius, but, terrified at the atrocities committed by the tsar, and at his impatience of all remonstrance, he soon retired to a monastery.
Ivan, apprehensive of the possible consequences of his cruelty and oppression, removed with his court to Alexandrov; his people, in consternation at his departure from Moscow, implored him to return, and he yielded to their solicitations only upon condition of absolute submission to his will. This they promised, and their obedience never faltered through a long reign distinguished in all history for its unspeakable horrors.
"He who blasphemes his Maker will meet with forgiveness among men, but he who reviles the Tsar will surely lose his head," is a Russian saying, and loyalty was a principle of religion ingrained in the Russian soul. A nobleman impaled by Ivan, for some trivial offence, while languishing in agony, constantly repeated, "Great God, protect the Tsar!" "Neither tortures nor dishonor," writes a chronicler of the times, "could shake their devotion to the sovereign."
On returning to the capital, Ivan, in a wild caprice, established the "Opritchnina,"[4] and divided the empire into the so-called "personality" and "communality;" the one to be his individual property, under his personal rule, and the other to be governed by the boyars and ordinary officers of the State. He formed a body-guard called the "Opritchniki," or Legion of the Elect, chosen for their debauched and lawless habits, and sworn to obey him only, and in all things, ignoring all other authority. With them he gave free vent to his fiendish passions and diabolic cruelty. City and country, noble and peasant, were alike subjected to pillage, extortion, and torture. At Alexandrov he established a chapel and monastery, where he and his familiars, in the garb of monks, officiated and assiduously followed the strictest rule of monastic life. He spent hours in prayer and self-flagellation, as if to quiet remorse, and then, unable to control his thirst for blood, he passed from the fatiguing and exhausting service of the altar to rest and refresh himself by superintending the rack. Vain of his theological acquirements and devotional practices, he was wont to vary his occupation as torturer and executioner by admonishing the clergy to be faithful, and to take pattern from him in the discharge of their duties.
Before the Church fell into ignominious subserviency a martyr was added to its list of saints. When Athanasius retired, Germanus refused the primacy and rebuked the tsar for his crimes. Philip, a monk of noble birth, distinguished for piety and learning, was summoned from the distant monastery of Solovetsk. Mindful of the grave responsibilities and duties of the high office offered him, he declined its acceptance unless the tsar would abolish the Opritchnina and restore the unity of the empire. Finally, hoping to mitigate the evils of this institution, if he could not obtain its suppression, he yielded to the solicitations of the people.
Ivan's diseased imagination saw conspiracy and rebellion threatening his throne, and, to strike his enemies with terror, he redoubled his persecutions. Philip, by his constant exhortations to mercy and amendment, became odious to the tyrant, who at times seemed possessed by an insane fancy to mock the Church which generally he so much feared. He presented himself, on one occasion, dressed in strange attire, accompanied by a band of his Opritchniki, before the primate at the altar, to receive his blessing. Philip took no notice of his presence, but when the boyars announced to him that the tsar was before him, he replied, "I do not recognize the tsar in any such dress; I do not recognize the tsar in his acts. What is this that thou hast done, O tsar! to put off from thee the form of thine honor? Fear the judgment of God. Here we are offering up the bloodless sacrifice to the Lord, while behind the altar there is flowing the innocent blood of Christian men." Ivan, furious, tried to stop his lips with menaces. "I am a stranger and a pilgrim upon earth," was the reply, "as all my fathers were, and I am ready to suffer for the truth. Where would my faith be if I kept silence."
Ivan was awed, but greedily listened to accusations of seditious intrigues brought against Philip, and a packed tribunal of venal prelates condemned him. He calmly submitted and resigned the insignia of his office, but was ordered to officiate again at a solemn festival When on the steps of the altar, arrayed in his pontifical robes, a troop of armed men invaded the sanctuary; their leader proclaimed the primate's deposition, and the soldiers, with blows and insult, tore the sacred vestments from his back and dragged him to prison. Philip exulted in being permitted to suffer for the truth, and, turning on the steps of the Church, he gave his blessing to the horror-struck worshippers, with the single admonition, "Pray."[5] Transferred to the Otroch monastery, he was strangled in his cell by the tsar's command, and died a martyr; to the honor of Russian monarchs, be it said, the only one the annals of the Church record.
After the death of Philip, weak and pusillanimous prelates, humbly submissive to the tyrant's will, occupied the metropolitan throne, and all attempts to check the tsar's excesses ceased. The Church sanctioned his frequent marriages, in scandalous violation of ecclesiastical canons, and, unable to protect even its own members, was a silent witness to scenes of atrocious cruelty and unbridled license. An imaginary conspiracy w.as Ivan's pretext for the destruction of Novgorod, still boasting the name of "Great," but sadly fallen from its ancient high estate. The unhappy city was given over to sack and pillage; churches and monasteries were sacrilegiously plundered; the miserable inhabitants led forth by thousands to be broken on the wheel, boiled in oil, sawn between planks, or flayed alive, while Ivan looked gleefully on, racking his hellish ingenuity to devise new tortures. Pskov was saved from a similar fate by the bold interposition of a religious fanatic named Nicholas, who, feigning insanity, dared upbraid the savage tyrant, and so aroused his superstitious fears that he left the city in peace. It is related that he offered Ivan raw meat, and, it being Lent, the tsar replied, "I am a Christian, and eat no meat in Lent." "Thou doest worse," was the hermit's rejoinder; "thou feedest upon human flesh and blood, forgetting, not Lent indeed, but Christ Himself."
Notwithstanding the subserviency of the clergy, its patriotic spirit was not extinct. In 1580, when Russia was sore beset on every side, a council assembled at Moscow eagerly responded to the monarch's call for aid, and relinquished to the crown all the landed estates which the Church had acquired by gift or purchase from the princes of Moscow. At this critical juncture Ivan's wonted energy deserted him. Hidden from his people in the gloomy retreat of Alexandrov, he revelled and caroused with his favorites, giving his son in marriage and espousing his seventh wife, while defeat and disaster overwhelmed the empire. He was compelled to humble himself before the Polish king and sue for peace.
The pope Gregory XIII. deemed the opportunity propitious for renewing the oft-repeated attempt at union of the Churches, and, in 1581, despatched to Moscow Anthony Poissevin, a Jesuit of wily and insinuating manners, of great diplomatic skill, to act in his name as mediator between the combatants. Although the vast resources of Russia were far from being exhausted, Poissevin, adroitly playing upon the pusillanimous fears of the tsar, induced him to conclude an armistice upon disadvantageous terms, and Livonia was lost to Russia, after nearly six centuries of possession. During the negotiations with Stephen Batory, King of Poland, the tsarevitch Ivan, who, though educated in vice, inherited the manliness of his father's youth, indignant at the national humiliation, begged permission to lead an army against the enemy; but the jealous tyrant, in a fit of frenzy, suspicious of treachery even in his own son, felled him by a fatal blow from his iron staff.
Poissevin, relying on his success in securing the peace which Ivan desired, proceeded to Moscow to develop the future plans of Rome. In return for the services he had rendered he urged the tsar to recognize the fusion of the Churches promulgated by the Council of Florence, to enter into an alliance with the other European powers, and thus array the whole Christian world in a crusade against the Turks. He eloquently discoursed on the glorious opportunity of restoring unity to the universal Church, not, he claimed, by abjuring the Greek religion, but by preserving it in its ancient purity, as established by the early Councils, as decreed at Florence, recognized by the Greek emperor, the patriarch, the clergy of Constantinople, and by Isidore, the former illustrious head of the Russian Church. He adroitly insinuated the prospect of recovering Kiev, the ancient patrimony of the race of Ruric, and of grasping the sceptre of the Byzantine Empire. His arguments fell on a listless and unwilling ear. Ivan, consumed by remorse at the murder of his son, his anxiety about foreign invasion allayed, his youthful energy dulled by excesses and indulgence, felt no kindling ambition for a shadowy empire in the East. He ridiculed the Orthodoxy of Western Christians, who shaved their beards, and the pretensions of the pope to sit on a throne above kings, and give them his toe to kiss. "We earthly sovereigns," said he, "alone wear crowns. The heir of the apostles should be meek and lowly in spirit. We reverence our metropolitan, and crave his blessing, but he walks humbly on earth, and seeks not, in pride, to raise himself above princes. There is but one Holy Father, and He is in heaven; whoso calleth himself the companion of Jesus Christ, but is carried on men's shoulders, as if borne up on a cloud by angels, is no true shepherd, but a wolf in sheep's clothing."[6]
Poissevin's persistence and eloquence were exerted to no purpose; the utmost concession he could obtain was that Catholics, like other heretics, might dwell in Russia without molestation on the score of religion, but the erection of Latin churches and the propagation of their faith were prohibited.
The erudite Dionysius, surnamed "Grammaticus" for his learning, had, during the last years of this reign, by his prudence, virtues, and energy, somewhat restored the dignity of the metropolitan see.
Worn out before his time by the warring of his fierce passions, alternating with fits of remorse and repentance, Ivan, in his latter days, turned again to the Church for relief; he showered rich alms on the holy convents of Sinai and Athos, exhorted his youthful son and heir to rule with mercy and charity for his subjects, and, receiving tonsure from the priest's hands, the "Terrible" Tsar yielded up his soul as the simple monk Jonah.
"He had passed over the land of Russia," says a great poet, "like a blast of divine wrath," and now, on the throne of this "scourge of God," sat a gentle and pious youth, who seemed lost in the gloomy precincts of the Kremlin, a wandering monk who had strayed from his monastery.
Feodor (Theodore) I. was small in stature, weak in health and intellect; he joined to extreme mildness of disposition a timid spirit, excessive piety, and a profound indifference for this world's affairs; he passed his days in listening to pious legends, singing hymns with monks. and his greatest pleasure was to ring the convent bells and share in the services of the Church; "He is a sacristan," said his father, "and no tsarevitch."
Yielding in character, and fondly attached to his wife, Irene, he reposed implicit confidence and trust in her brother, Boris Godounov, who, during the entire reign, wielded the supreme authority in the young tsar's name.
Godounov, by his energy and ability, restored strength to the crown and prosperity to the State. Looking forward with far-sighted and patient ambition, he saw the sceptre within his grasp. So important an element, in his calculations, as the clergy, was not neglected; Dionysius, the metropolitan, penetrated the secret of his treacherous designs, and, anxious regarding the succession, as Irene was childless, he instigated a petition, notwithstanding its uncanonical object, to the tsar for his divorce. His machinations resulted in his ruin; he was deposed, and confined in the convent of Khoutinsk. Godounov was all-powerful, and by his influence Job, archbishop of Rostov, was installed as primate.
The Russian Church was still nominally under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the patriarchal see of Constantinople, but the Eastern Church had fallen to a state of lamentable decrepitude and degradation. The patriarch, although elected by a synod, was dependent on the Turkish emperor for confirmation, which was to be obtained only by intrigue and bribery; the ambition of Eastern prelates to wield the pastoral staff was a never-failing source of revenue to the sultan and his favorites. Each incumbent was in turn the victim of the jealousy of his competitors, and scarcely had he mounted the slippery steps of the throne ere he was removed to make place for a rival more fortunate from influence at court or with a heavier purse to support his pretensions.
During the century subsequent to the fall of Constantinople suffering and martyrdom were the general lot of the successors of St. Chrysostom, but it was suffering without good for the Church, and martyrdom without dignity. Their procession is a melancholy one; Joasaph Cocas, persecuted by his clergy, attempted, in despair, to drown himself in a well; rescued, and reseated on the throne, he was driven into exile by the sultan; Mark Xylocarabœus was exiled; Simeon paid a thousand gold florins for his seat, and was thrown into a monastery; Dionysius had the same fate; Raphael, to secure his nomination, doubled the tribute hitherto exacted; unable to pay the sum promised, he was thrust forth, loaded with chains, to beg by the roadside, and died in misery; Nyphon had his nose cut off, and was forced into exile; Joachim raised the tribute to three thousand ducats, was exiled, recalled, and again exiled; Pacome was poisoned; Jeremiah I. started on a pastoral tour, his vicar deserted him on the way, hurried back, bribed the vizier, and usurped the see; he was driven away by a popular outbreak, and Jeremiah's friends purchased for him permission to resume his seat; Joasaph II. again raised the tribute, was deposed and excommunicated by his clergy for Simony; Gregory was cast into the sea; Cyril Lucar was exiled and strangled; Methrophanes, accused of simony, was induced to resign by the offer of two dioceses; he sold the one and administered the other; Jeremiah II., bishop of Larissa, was elected and confirmed in 1572; his funds were exhausted by the tribute, then fixed at ten thousand florins, and he piteously complained, in his correspondence, that he dared not undertake a pastoral tour to replenish his treasury from the alms of the faithful for fear that, in his absence, some ambitious brother might seize upon the throne. The danger was real; Methrophanes reappeared, and reasserted his claims to the patriarchate; as his purse was the longer, he was reinstated on appeal to the sultan. At his death Jeremiah again enjoyed a brief spell of power, but, accused of conspiracy against the government, he was imprisoned, then exiled to Rhodes. Theoptus, his accuser, seized the vacant seat, disputed, also, by Pacome, a monk of Lesbos, and, by the opportune payment of a double tribute, secured the imperial confirmation; imprudently he ventured on a pastoral visit to Walachia, and in his absence Jeremiah's friends purchased his pardon, and reseated him on the throne.[7]
The dilapidation of the finances of the patriarchate, the ruin threatening the whole fabric, and the exhaustion of all parties, brought about perforce a general reconciliation, and Jeremiah was left in undisputed possession. A common effort was made to heal the wounds of the unhappy and suffering Church; missions were despatched to various countries in search of succor and alms, and Jeremiah himself, for the same purpose, undertook a journey to Russia, the wealthiest and most powerful member of the Orthodox communion. His arrival was happily timed for the designs of the ambitious Boris.
Under his influence the pious Feodor had eagerly seized upon the idea of freeing the national Church from all dependence, however slight, upon foreign jurisdiction. Probably to prepare the way for this step, early in his reign he sent an embassy to the sultan, and charged his envoy with rich gifts for the patriarch and kindly assurances of good-will towards the Church. In 1586 Joachim of Antioch appeared in Russia in quest of alms, and, during his visit, Feodor announced to his council and clergy his intention to elevate the see of Moscow to the rank of patriarchate. They approved of his project, but urged that the assent of the whole Eastem Church be first obtained, in order to forestall any reproach from schismatics or heretics, that the change was due to a merely arbitrary act of the tsar. Joachim, while favoring Feodor's plan, concurred in the wisdom of delay, and, abundantly rewarded for his compliance, took his departure for the East, promising to press the matter upon his brother patriarchs. A year or more pasfsed; the œcumenical fathers delayed their answer; doubtless the proposition met with little favor in their eyes; they feared to affront a powerful friend, yet, unwilling to assent, sought refuge in procrastination.
At this juncture Jeremiah arrived at Moscow, and was welcomed with all the honors that a pious monarch could render to one of his exalted rank. Touched with gratitude at his reception, he expressed his approval of the tsar's desire to institute a Russian patriarchate. To his surprise, Godounov, by the tsar's orders, proposed to him that he should abandon his poverty-stricken capital on the shores of the Bosphorus, escape from humiliating subjection to the infidel Turk, and assume charge of the newly-established primacy over rich, powerful, Orthodox Russia. Jeremiah, dazzled by the brilliant prospect, willingly assented, but it formed no part of the plans of the astute Godounov that a stranger should occupy in Russia so exalted a station. While laboring for the aggrandizement of the national Church, he intended that it should also serve his ambitious ends, and reserved the primacy for a friend and partisan upon whose support he could rely. At his suggestion the tsar intimated his intention to fix the residence of the new primate at Vladimir, which city was, after Kiev, the ancient ecclesiastical capital of the empire. Jeremiah demurred, and insisted that Moscow was the only proper abode of the head of the Church. He appealed to former precedents in the East, and claimed it to be his province to be near the sovereign. This was inadmissible; the presence of a foreigner at court in such intimate relations with the tsar would shock national prejudices; the necessity of an interpreter between the sovereign and the prelate would bring a third—possibly an indiscreet—person into secrets of state or religious polity. Moreover, it would entail the forced retirement of Job, who was still the actual head of the Church, a sorry reward for years of zealous and faithful service.
During the negotiations which ensued the wily Greek soon perceived that he was but a tool in the hands of the unscrupulous Godounov. He began, also, to weary of the strange, and, to him, savage habits and customs of the country; waxing old and feeble, he became apprehensive, and sighed to return to milder climes and scenes to which he had been accustomed. When, therefore, the alternative was placed before him of a residence at Vladimir or the appointment of a native prelate to fill the patriarchal throne, he chose the latter.
A synod of all the Russian bishops was solemnly convoked at Moscow for the election, the result of which was a foregone conclusion; three names were submitted to the tsar, and he selected the first on the list, that of Job, the metropolitan, the friend and faithful adherent of Godounov. Jeremiah, whose expectations had been raised only to be disappointed, now earnestly craved permission to depart, although With his desire to escape from Russia were mingled grave apprehensions of the reception that might await him at Constantinople for his complicity with these serious changes in the constitution of the Church. His presence at Moscow was, however, yet necessary to add to the dignity and sacredness of the event, and he was detained, sorely against his will, to officiate at the ceremony of installation. As the elder and first of the pastors of the Eastern Church, he solemnly imposed hands and blessed Job as "Chief of Bishops, Father of Fathers, and Patriarch of all the Countries to the North, by the grace of God and the will of the Tsar."
A formal record of the proceedings was subscribed to by the tsar, with the great seal of the State, by all the Russian bishops and dignitaries present, by Jeremiah and the Greek prelates who accompanied him. It was therein set forth that ancient Rome had fallen into heresy, and the Western Church was polluted by false doctrines; that new Rome was in the hands of the infidel Turk, and henceforth a third Rome had arisen at Moscow; that the first œcumenical prelate of the Church was the patriarch of Constantinople, the second the patriarch of Alexandria, the third the patriarch of Moscow, the fourth the patriarch of Antioch, the fifth the patriarch of Jerusalem. It was further declared that the patriarch of Moscow should be elected and consecrated by the clergy of Russia, without any necessity of reference to other authorities of the Greek Church.
In order to complete the hierarchy of the Russian establishment four metropolitan sees were instituted—at Novgorod, Kasan, Rostov, and Kroutitsk—and six archbishops, with eight bishops, were added to the ranks of the clergy.
The reorganization of the Church thus completed, Jeremiah, loaded with presents, was dismissed, with all possible honors, in the spring of 1589.
His apprehensions of an unfriendly reception at the hands of the vain and intolerant clergy of the East, hostile to any intrenchment upon the shadowy dignity of their position, were fully realized, and he found it by no means an easy task to reconcile his brother patriarchs of Asia and Africa to the proceedings authorized by him. His own companions disavowed his acts, regardless of their signature to the record at Moscow, but, after much mutual recrimination, the Oriental fathers acquiesced in the inevitable, and signified their assent to what they could not have prevented and could not now undo, stipulating, however, with clerical jealousy of rank, that the Russian patriarchate should, as the youngest, be fifth in order of precedence instead of third, and that its incumbent should seek investiture at Constantinople.
These conditions were never enforced, and within a century were formally abolished.
- ↑ Karamsin, vol. vi., p. 183.
- ↑ See p. 183.
- ↑ Karamsin, vol. viii., p. 234.
- ↑ Opritchnina, or opritchina, is an old Russian word, now obsolete, meaning privilege; opritchniki, the persons who are "privileged."
- ↑ Mouravief, pp. 116, 117.
- ↑ Karamsin, vol. ix., p. 460.
- ↑ De Vogüé, Revue des Deux Mondes, Mars, 1879.