Such a brief account does scant justice to one of the finest and most complete collections of ecclesiastical furniture the world has produced; but, interesting as some of the objects are to all beholders, it is to the student of ecclesiasticism that they will appeal with greatest force. To him also, the technique of ritual; the customs appertaining to the dispersion of relics among newly-built churches and restoration of those injured by time and accident; together with many other matters of Church rule and procedure which find illustration in this collection, should prove both attractive and instructive. Of greater general interest is the story of the struggle between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, the rise of heresy and states of different forms of dissent; that dramatic movement of ecclesiasticism which is world wide, continuous, and of perennial concern to all.
Whatever heresies may have existed in early Russia, with the ascendancy of Moscow these perished, and the prelates had only to guard against the wiles of Rome and to stay its power on the confines of the kingdom. During the reign of Vasili the Blind the unsuccessful attempt of the Metropolitan Isidor to introduce Romish practices intensified the conservatism of the prelates. In 1582, Anthony Possevin, a Jesuit emissary of the Pope, Gregory XIII., had long discussions with Ivan the Terrible in the Granovitaia Palata respecting the union of the Churches. Ivan was outspoken: the emissary returned unsatisfied.
The false Dmitri’s view has already been given: he was overthrown and the supremacy of the orthodox prelates increased by Boris Godunov’s initiation of the Patriarchate. The Tsar Michael and his father Philaret appear to have been always in accord, and then the temporal power of the prelates was equal to that of the sovereign. Alexis, a boy of seventeen, was unfortunate in having as collaborator the sturdy Nikon. After his absence in the war against the Poles he found Nikon, as Veliki Gossudar, a title reserved for the Tsars, absolutely autocratic. The Tsar objected to the use of the title by the Patriarch; Nikon resigned his office, and retired to the Vosskresenki Monastery on the Varvarka, expecting Alexis would seek him, but the Tsar did not visit him nor did he appoint another patriarch. Nikon had already given great offence to the clergy for, attracted by some text on one of the ecclesiastical vestments that had been received from Greece, he recognised a considerable difference between the Greek rendering and that current in Slavonic; prosecuting his investigations further he found many discrepancies and tried in all things to revert to the older practice. His action was construed as the introduction of new procedure—and consequently vigorously opposed—and orthodoxy split into two camps; those who agreed with the head of the Church that the ancient practice was correct and should be introduced and the more conservative who would not depart from that to which they had been accustomed, and it is they who are known as the “Old Believers,” for the alterations proposed by Nikon ultimately became general. Although the Patriarch had resigned he continued to receive the clergy and concern himself with the direction of ecclesiastical affairs. In 1654 he angered the people by going into private chapels and houses and removing all copies of the ikon Nerukotvorenni, “not made with hands,” because unlike the ikons of Mount Athos. The priest visited Moscow, and the people paraded the empty ikon cases and the defaced ikons, attributing to this outrage the plague from which so many suffered, and the clergy then left Moscow in large numbers fearing assault. In 1659 the Tsar’s emissaries informed him that he ought no longer to interfere. He thereupon withdrew from Moscow. In Advent 1664 he suddenly reappeared with many monks at early matins in the Uspenski Cathedral, peremptorily ordered the officiating clergy to perform certain offices. The clergy at once apprised the Tsar, who in turn ordered his boyards to command Nikon to leave the Cathedral. Nikon pleaded that he had been instructed by Jonas in a vision to act as he had done, but the Tsar only repeated the command; he stated then that he had power to heal the sick, but the Tsar was inflexible and Nikon retired. At a council in 1666 he was formally deposed, and withdrew to a distant monastery where he continued his researches; he was pardoned by the Tsar Theodore in 1681 but died whilst on his journey to meet his sovereign.
Joachim, the succeeding Patriarch, opposed Nikon’s innovations, and held tenaciously to the customary practice and attempted to stifle schism by persecuting relentlessly. He forbade Catholics to worship, banished Jesuits, barely tolerated Calvinists and Lutherans, and burned to death Kullman the German mystic for proclaiming false doctrines. When he died in 1690 he besought Peter to drive all heretics and unbelievers from Russia—it is to him that Peter erected the chapel on the Srietenka. As in 1682 and earlier, the “old believers” had been cruelly tortured for not conforming to the innovations of Nikon, more especially the unfortunate and obstinate Boyarina Morozov and her sister Princess Urusov, so with the change of the head of the Church the people were condemned for such acts as they had previously been commended for performing, and now knew not whom to believe. With the accession of Peter to sole power, and the enforcement by him of practices foreign to former habit, the people associated all his innovations with those purely clerical ones which had recently met with opposition and caused persecution and suffering. It was impossible to stamp out opposition, exile but spread the discontent. When Peter quarrelled with the Church, the clergy were unable to cope with the popular reaction against the innovations of Nikon and his disciples. Peter was at last induced to persecute the noncontents, but these, disgusted with his secular innovations, fled into distant parts of the country and even abroad, where for long they were politically an element of grave danger to the state, but, the rule of Nikon was established and the old believers regarded as Raskolniki, or dissenters.
These, under persecution, and lacking adequate direction again split into two sections; one, the popovtsi, or those who acknowledge the priesthood and depend for their clergy upon schismatics from among the orthodox, who after ordination, find their practice preferable.
They are quite insignificant in comparison with the Bezpopovtsi, or those who do not have ordained priests, but are more powerful because united, whereas the bezpopovtsi number as many different brotherhoods as there are distinct dissenting sects in England. The best known among these are the Dukhobortsi, who deny the divinity of the Holy Ghost, strongly oppose civil authority, refuse to pray for their sovereign or the head of the orthodox church, and consider death by starvation or fire, so long as it is self-wrought, to be the highest duty. Nearly akin to them are the terrible Skoptsi or mutilators, and the fanatic Khlysti, or Flagellants, and many others. To the orthodox church all who are not slavopravni are alike. The civil government has always discriminated between the harmless and those whose tenets are opposed to the welfare of the individual and to the commonwealth.
The orthodox regard the discussion as terminated: the Tsaritsa Sophia herself was present in the Granovitaia Palace, at the discussions of the Patriarch with the chief of the Ras Kolniks, a fanatic Nikita. There were stormy scenes; at the close each sect claimed to have the right, and for long afterwards there were frequent discussions between the supporters of both parties, around the porch of the Blagovieshchenski Sobor.
