a layman the tribunal is to be mixed, partly civil and partly ecclesiastical. Further, the State shall interfere to punish anybody who infringes the judicial rights of the Church.
Here then we see a Church established by the civil authority, endowed with State funds, privileged to govern itself and discipline its clergy and other ecclesiastical persons, and granted immunity from interference in the exercise of its rights and privileges. As yet there was no idea of the supremacy of the head of the State in the government of the Church, such as has subsequently come about in the person of the tsar. Vladimir's edict offered the Russian Church greater freedom than the Greek Church enjoyed under the Byzantine emperors. Everything depended on the degree of respect shown to the spirit as well as to the letter of this fundamental charter of the Church. Now it became customary for the bishop of each district to be selected by the prince of that district. Theoretically that was not in accordance with canon law; and practically it gave great power to the civil governor, who of course would be likely only to nominate a candidate who was persona grata to himself. Then every bishop had the right to appoint the priests, deacons, and inferior church officers in his diocese, and also the archimandrites {i.e. the abbots and abbesses) of the religious houses. Thus a firm hand was kept on the personnel of the Church, even though liberty was granted it in the exercise of its guaranteed functions.
In the pursuit of his missionary enterprises the metropolitan Leontius formed five dioceses—the first five in Russia—namely, Chernigoff, near Kiev, Novgorod in the north, Belgrod and Vladimir far in the north-east, and Rostoff still farther off in the same direction. These were not equally successful. At the ancient city of Novgorod, from which the ruling family had migrated to Kiev, Joachim of Cherson, the newly appointed bishop, was able to take the daring action of throwing the statue of the national god Perun into the river, without meeting any opposition on the part of the inhabitants.[1] On the other
- ↑ Nestor, viii.
