Peter the Great

by Jacob Abbott

The tribunals before whom he was tried were not the regular judicial tribunals of the country. They were, on the other hand, two grand convocations of all the great official dignitaries of the Church and of the state, that were summoned expressly for this purpose—not to decide the case, for, according to the ancient customs of the Russian empire, that was the sole and exclusive province of the Czar, but to aid him in investigating it, and then, if called upon, to give him their counsel in respect to the decision of it. One of these assemblies consisted of the ecclesiastical authorities, the archbishops, the bishops, and other dignitaries of the Church. The other was composed of nobles, ministers of state, officers of the army and navy in high command, and other great civil and military functionaries. These two assemblies met and deliberated in separate halls, and pursued their investigations in respect to the several persons implicated in the affair, as they were successively brought before them, under the direction of the Czar, though the final disposal of each case rested, it was well understood, with him alone.

At length, in the month of June, when all the other cases had been disposed of, and the proof in respect to Alexis was considered complete, the Czar sent in a formal address to each of these conventions, asking their opinion and advice in respect to what he ought to do with his son.

In his address to the archbishops and bishops, he stated that, although he was well aware that he had himself absolute power to judge his son for his crimes, and to dispose of him according to his own will and pleasure, without asking advice of any one, still, "as men were sometimes less discerning," he said, "in their own affairs than in those of others, so that even the most skillful physicians do not run the hazard of prescribing for themselves, but call in the assistance of others when they are indisposed," in the same manner he, having the fear of God before his eyes, and being afraid to offend him, had decided to bring the question at issue between himself and his son before them, that they might examine the Word of God in relation to it, and give their opinion, in writing, what the will of God in such a case might be. He wished also, he said, that the opinion to which they should come should be signed by each one of them individually, with his own hand.

He made a similar statement in his address to the grand council of civil authorities, calling upon them also to give their opinion in respect to what should be done with Alexis. "I beg of you," he said, in the conclusion of his address, "to consider of the affair, to examine it seriously and with attention, and see what it is that our son has deserved, without flattering me, or apprehending that, if in your judgment he deserves no more than slight punishment, it will be disagreeable to me; for I swear to you, by the Great God and by his judgments, that you have nothing to fear from me on this account.

"Neither are you to allow the consideration that it is the son of your sovereign that you are to pass judgment upon to have any effect upon you. But do justice without respect of persons, so that your conscience and mine may not reproach us at the great day of judgment."

The convocation of clergy, in deliberating upon the answer which they were to make to the Czar, deemed it advisable to proceed with great caution. They were not quite willing to recommend directly and openly that Alexis should be put to death, while, at the same time, they wished to give the sanction of their approval for any measures of severity which the Czar might be inclined to take. So they forbore to express any positive opinion of their own, but contented themselves with looking out in the Scriptures, both in the Old and New Testament, the terrible denunciations which are therein contained against disobedient and rebellious children, and the accounts of fearful punishments which were inflicted upon them in Jewish history. They began their statement by formally acknowledging that Peter himself had absolute power to dispose of the case of his son according to his own sovereign will and pleasure; that they had no jurisdiction in the case, and could not presume to pronounce judgment, or say any thing which could in any way restrain or limit the Czar in doing what he judged best. But nevertheless, as the Czar had graciously asked them for their counsel as a means of instructing his own mind previously to coming to a decision, they would proceed to quote from the Holy Scriptures such passages as might be considered to bear upon the subject, and to indicate the will of God in respect to the action of a sovereign and father in such a case.

They then proceeded to quote the texts and passages of Scripture. Some of these texts were denunciations of rebellious and disobedient children, such as, "The eye that mocketh his father and that despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pluck it out," and the Jewish law providing that, "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father nor the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them, then shall his father and mother lay hold of him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place, and shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is rebellious: he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die."

There were other passages quoted relating to actual cases which occurred in the Jewish history of sons being punished with death for crimes committed against their parents, such as that of Absalom, and others.

The bearing and tendency of all these extracts from the Scriptures was to justify the severest possible treatment of the unhappy criminal. The bishops added, however, at the close of their communication, that they had made these extracts in obedience to the command of their sovereign, not by way of pronouncing sentence, or making a decree, or in any other way giving any authoritative decision on the question at issue, but only to furnish to the Czar himself such spiritual guidance and instruction in the case as the word of God afforded. It would be very far from their duty, they said, to condemn any one to death, for Jesus Christ had taught his ministers not to be governed by a spirit of anger, but by a spirit of meekness. They had no power to condemn any one to death, or to seek his blood. That, when necessary, was the province of the civil power. Theirs was to bring men to repentance of their sins, and to offer them forgiveness of the same through Jesus Christ their Savior.

They therefore, in submitting their communication to his imperial majesty, did it only that he might do what seemed right in his own eyes. "If he concludes to punish his fallen son," they said, "according to his deeds, and in a manner proportionate to the enormity of his crimes, he has before him the declarations and examples which we have herein drawn from the Scriptures of the Old Testament. If, on the other hand, he is inclined to mercy, he has the example of Jesus Christ, who represented the prodigal son as received and forgiven when he returned and repented, who dismissed the woman taken in adultery, when by the law she deserved to be stoned, and who said that he would have mercy and not sacrifice."