Peter the Great (11 page)

In personal terms, these struggles took the form of a dramatic three-way confrontation among the Tsar Alexis and two extraordinary churchmen, the overbearing, iron-willed Patriarch Nikon and the fanatical, fundamentalist Archpriest Awakum. Ironically, Tsar Alexis was the most pious of all the tsars; he surrendered more power to a man of the church—Nikon—than any tsar before or since. Yet, before the end of his reign the Russian church was fatally divided and weakened and Nikon was draped m chains in a cold stone cell. Even more ironic was the struggle between Nikon and Avvakum. Both were men of simple origins from the forests of northern Russia. Both rose quickly in the church, came to Moscow in the 1640's and became friends. Both saw as the great goal of their lives the purification of the Russian church. Disagreeing violently as to what constituted purity, each passionately convinced that he alone was correct, the two great antagonists flailed and thundered at each other like mighty prophets. And then, almost simultaneously, both fell before the reasserted power of the state. In exile, each still believed himself the dedicated servant of Christ, had visions and worked miraculous cures. Death found one at the stake and the other by the side of a lonely road.

Nikon was the tall, rough-hewn son of a Russian peasant from the trans-Volga region of the northeast. Originally ordained a secular priest of the "white" clergy, he had married, but later he separated from his wife and became a monk. Shortly after arriving in Moscow as archimandrite or abbot of the New Monastery of the Savior, the six-feet-five-inch monk was introduced to the youthful Tsar Alexis. Awed by Nikon's spiritual intensity as well as his physical presence, Alexis began to meet him regularly every Friday. In 1649, Nikon became Metropolitan of Novgorod, one of the most ancient and powerful sees of Russia. Then, in 1652, when the incumbent Patriarch died, Alexis asked Nikon to accept the patriarchal throne.

Nikon did not accept until the twenty-three-year-old Tsar fell on his knees and begged him tearfully. Nikon agreed on two conditions: He demanded that Alexis follow his leadership "as your first shepherd and father in all that I shall teach on dogma, discipline and custom." And he asked the Tsar's suppoprt in all major attempts to reform the Russian Orthodox Church. Alexis swore, and Nikon took the throne determined on a broad program of reform. He intended to rid the clergy of drunkeness and other vices, establish church supremacy over the state and then, at the head of this pure and powerful Russian church, assert its pre
-
eminence over the entire Orthodox world. His initial move was to attempt to change the liturgy and ritual by which millions of Russian people worshipped daily, purging all sacred books and printed liturgies of the many deviations, alterations and simple errors that had crept into them over centuries of use, and making them consistent with scholarly Greek doctrine. The old, uncorrected books were to be destroyed.

Changing the ritual and liturgy provoked a storm of controversy. Devout Russians considered crucial such matters as how many hallelujahs were to be shouted at various points in the service, how many consecrated loaves were to be at the offertory or on the altar, the spelling of Jesus' name (from Isus to Iisus) and, most notably, whether, in making the sign of the cross, one extended the newly decreed three fingers (symbolizing the Trinity) or the traditional two fingers (symbolizing the dual nature of Christ). If one was convinced that the world was only a preparation for paradise or the inferno, and that personal salvation depended on the punctilious observance of church ritual, then crossing oneself with two fingers instead of three could mean the difference between spending eternity in heaven or in hellfire. Besides, the fundamentalist clergy argued, why accept the practices and wording of the Greek church over the Russian? Since Moscow had succeeded Constantinople as the Third Rome and Russian Orthodoxy had become the true faith, why bow to the Greeks in matters of ritual, dogma or anything else?

In 1655, Nikon sought and received support from a source outside Russia. He invited Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, to come to Moscow, and the Syrian churchman made the long journey, bringing with him his son and secretary, Paul of Aleppo. Paul kept a diary of the journey, and from it we have many firsthand views of Nikon and Alexis.* They arrived in January

*Paul of Aleppo's journal,
The Travels of Macarius.
is an extraordinarily rueful catalogue of lamentations, grumbles, groans, sulks and whines at having to put up with the hardships of life in seventeenth-century Russia.

Worst of all were the length and conditions of the Russian church services which they, as visiting churchmen, were required to attend. "All their churches are void of seats," complained Paul. "There is not one, even for the Bishop. You see the people all through the service standing like rocks, motionless, or incessantly bending with their devotions. God help us for the length of their prayers and chants and masses. . . . Custom has made them insensible of weariness. . . . We never left the church but tottering on our legs after so much standing.
...
We remained very weak with pains in our backs and legs for some days.
...
We suffered from the severe cold, enough to kill us as we had to stand upon the iron pavement. What surprised us most was to see the boys and little children of the great officers of state standing bareheaded and motionless without betraying the smallest gesture of impatience." In one service all the names of all the soldiers who died fighting

1655 and were greeted by the regal figure of the Russian Patriarch, Nikon, "robed in a green velvet mandya embroidered with figures in red velvet, with cherubim in the center in gold and pearls. On his head was a white latia of damask, surmounted with a gold arch bearing a cross of jewels and pearls. Above his eyes were cherubim in pearls; the edges of the latia were laced with gold and set with pearls."

From the beginning, the travelers were as much impressed by the piety and deferential humility of the young Tsar as by the commanding magnificence of the Russian Patriarch. On his own, Alexis made "a habit of attending on foot the festivals of the principal saints in their own churches, abstaining from the use of his carriage. From the beginning of the mass to the end, he stands with his head uncovered, bowing continually, striking his forehead on the ground in weeping and lamentation before the saint's icon; and this in the presence of the whole assembly." On one occasion, Alexis accompanied Macarius on a visit to a monastery thirty miles from Moscow, and there "the Emperor took our master [Macarius] by the arm and led him to the temporary hospital that he might bless and pray over the paralyzed and sick. On entering the place, some of us were unable to remain there for the disagreeable, putrid smell, nor could we endure to look at the afflicted inmates. But the Emperor's only thought was his wish that our master should pray over and bless them. And as the Patriarch blessed each, the Emperor followed him, and kissed the patient's head, mouth and hands, from the first to the last. Wonderful indeed appear to us such holiness and humility while we thought of nothing but escaping from the place."

On the matter of changing the ritual and liturgy which had so stirred up the Russian church, Macarius stood firmly behind Nikon. At a church synod summoned by Nikon in the fifth week of Lent 1655, Nikon pointed out the errors to his fellow Russian churchmen and repeatedly called upon Macarius to confirm his judgment. Macarius invariably sided with Nikon, and the Russian clergy, whether convinced or not in their hearts, publicly were forced to agree.

Like other lordly monarchs—for such he had become—Nikon was a great builder. As Metropolitan of Novgorod, he founded

*
against the Poles over the past two years were read. "The archdeacon read with great slowness and composure while the singers continually chanted 'Everlasting Remembrance' until we were ready to drop with the fatigue of standing, our legs being frozen under us."

In conclusion, Paul decided, "anyone wishing to shorten his life by
five
or ten years should go to Muscovy and walk there as a religious man."

convents and rebuilt monasteries throughout his vast northern see. In Moscow, using tiles and stones given him by. the Tsar, he constructed a magnificent new patriarchal palace inside the Kremlin. It had seven halls, broad balconies, great windows, comfortable apartments, three private chapels and a rich library of books in Russian, Slavonic, Polish and other languages. In one of these halls, Nikon dined on a raised platform while the other clergy were served at lower tables, exactly as, not far away, the Tsar was dining surround by his boyars.

Nikon's greatest architectural monument was his huge Monastery of the Resurrection, known as "The New Jerusalem," constructed oh the Istra River, thirty miles west of Moscow. The Patriarch meant the parallels to be exact; the monastery was erected on the "Hill of Golgotha," the stretch of river nearby renamed the Jordan and the central cathedral of the monastery was modeled after the Church of the Resurrection which houses the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem itself. On the cathedral, with its dome 187 feet high, its twenty-seven chapels, its bell tower, its high brick walls, gilded gates and dozens of other buildings, Nikon spared no expense, proclaiming in architecture what he was also proclaiming in other ways: that Moscow was the true site of the New Jerusalem.

Nikon was a stern enforcer of discipline on both laity and clergy. Attempting to regulate the daily life of the common people, he banned cursing, card playing, sexual promiscuity and even drinking. Further, he insisted that every faithful Russian spend four hours a day in church. Against the erring clergy, he was relentless. Paul of Aleppo reported: "Nikon's janissaries are perpetually going the rounds of the city, and whenever they find any priest or monk in a state of intoxication, he is taken to prison. We saw his prison full of them in the most wretched condition, galled with heavy chains and with logs of wood on their necks and legs. When any of the higher clergy or a superior of a monastery has committed a crime, he is sentenced to irons and condemned to sift flour for the bakehouse day and night until he has completed his sentence. Whereas formerly the Siberian convents were empty, this Patriarch has filled them with the heads of monasteries and higher clergy and with dissolute and wretched monks. Lately, the Patriarch has gone so far as to deprive the High Steward of the Supreme Convent of Troitsky of his great dignity, although he ranked as the third dignitary of the kingdom after the Emperor and the Patriarch. He has sentenced him to be a com grinder in the convent of Sievsk for the crime of taking bribes from the rich. By his severities, Patriarch Nikon makes all fear him and his word prevails."

For six years, Nikon acted as virtual ruler of Russia. He not
only shared with the Tsar the title
of
"Great Sovereign," but he often exercised purely political power over temporal affairs. When Alexis left Moscow to campaign in Poland, he left Nikon behind as regent, ordering that "no affair great or small should be determined without his advice." Given this authority, Nikon did everything possible to exalt the supremacy of the church at the expense of the state. Within the Kremlin, he behaved more regally than the Tsar; not only churchmen and commoners but the great nobles of Russia came beneath his sway.

Paul
or
Aleppo described Nikon's imperious treatment of Alexis' ministers of state: "We observed that, when the council met in the council chamber, and when the Patriarch's bell rang for them to come to his palace, those officials who were late were made to wait ou
t
side his door in the excessive cold until he should order them to be admitted. When they were allowed to enter, Patriarch Nikon would turn to the icons while all the state officers bowed before him to the ground, bareheaded. They remained uncovered until he left the hall. To each he gave his decision on every affair, commanding them how to act." The truth, Paul concluded, was that "the grandees of the Empire do not entertain much dread of the Tsar; they rather fear the Patriarch and by many more degrees."

For a while, Nikon ruled serenely and it began to seem that the exercise of power gave him the power itself. But this assumption had a fatal weakness: True power still rested with the Tsar. As long as the Patriarch retained the Tsar's devotion and support, no one could stand against him. But his enemies continued to accumulate, like the slow piling up of an avalanche, and they worked to stir up the Tsar's jealousy and distrust.

In time, signs of friction between Nikon and Alexis became more numerous. Even as Macarius and Paul were leaving Moscow to return to Antioch, they were overtaken by a royal courier summoning Macarius to return. On the road back, they met a group of Greek merchants who reported that on Good Friday the Tsar and the Patriarch had had a public argument in church on a point of ceremony. Alexis angrily called the Patriarch a "stupid clown," whereupon Nikon retorted, "I am your spiritual father. Why then do you revile me?" Alexis shot back, "It is not you who are my father but the holy Patriarch of Antioch, and I will send to bring him back." Macarius returned to Moscow and managed to close the breach temporarily.

By the summer of 1658, however, Nikon's position had been severely weakened. When the Tsar began to ignore him, Nikon attempted to force Alexis' hand. Following a service in the Assumption Cathedral, he dressed as a simple monk, left Moscow and retired to the New Jerusalem Monastery, asserting that he
would not retu
rn until the Tsar reaffirmed confidence in him. But he had miscalculated. The Tsar, now a mature twenty-nine, was not unhappy to be rid of the imperious Patriarch. Not only did he let the surprised Nikon wait in his monastery for two years, but then he called a synod of churchmen to accuse the Patriarch of having "of his own will abandoned the most exalted patriarchal throne of Great Russia and so having abandoned his flock and thus having caused confusion and interminable contention." In October 1660, this synod declared that "by his conduct the Patriarch had absolutely abdicated and thereby ceased to be Patriarch." Nikon rejected the synod's decision, sprinkling his rebuttal with abundant references to the Holy Scriptures. Alexis sent both the accusations and Nikon's replies to the four Orthodox Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria, pleading with them to come to Moscow "to review and confirm the case of the ex-Patriarch Nikon, who had ill-administered the stewardship of the patriarchal power." Two of the Patriarchs, Pasius of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch, agreed to come, although they did not arrive until 1666. In December of that year, the trial of Nikon was convened with the two foreign Patriarchs presiding over a synod of thirteen metropolitans, nine archbishops, five bishops and thirty-two archimandrites.