# The Greek and Eastern Churches/Part 2/Division 3/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III
THE REVIVAL OF RUSSIA
At Rome the popes were always ready to regard the distress of the East as their own opportunity; and more than once the threatened approach of the Turks to Constantinople had opened up the way for negotiations between the Lateran and the Byzantine court. A similar condition is to be observed in Russia under the Mongol oppression. The orthodox Church appeared to be now in the most helpless and hopeless condition. The Latin conquest of Constantinople had forced the Greek patriarch into exile, and his immediate task was to gather together the scattered remnants of his authority, while a usurper, a bishop of the papal Church, was sitting on his throne at St. Sophia. Thus harassed and hampered, he could not be expected to do anything to help his protégés in the north. Under these circumstances the Pope Innocent iv. proposed to assist Russia by raising a crusade against the Mongols on condition of union with Rome. With this end in view he sent his legates to the two princes, Alexander at Novgorod, and Daniel, the Prince of Galick in the south. The former, being fairly out of the reach of the invaders, could afford to reject the papal overtures; but Daniel, whose territory was suffering from the full force of the Asiatic scourge, accepted the crown the pope had sent him and with it the title of King of Galick, though shrewdly postponing the execution ​of his part of the proposed bargain till an œcumenical council had decided on the question of the union of the two Churches.
The post of metropolitan of Kiev had been vacant for ten years during the troubles of the times. This old political capital and ecclesiastical centre of Russia had been sacked, and its principal buildings, which had been used as fortresses during the siege—the cathedral of St. Sophia, the church of the Tithes, the monastery of St. Michael, and the great Pechersky Monastery—all captured one after the other and destroyed. Daniel now took steps to fill the vacancy. At the very time when he was carrying on his negotiations with the pope he was also in communication with the patriarch Manuel ii. He selected a patriotic Russian named Cyril to be metropolitan of Kiev, and sent him to Nicæa for consecration (a.d. 1250). Cyril proved to be a great bishop; it is to his energy that we must attribute in a large measure the rapid revival of the Church in Russia after the stunning blow it had received from the Mongol invasion. Cyril left the ruins of Kiev, passed through the desolate towns of Cheringoff and Riazan, and travelled on to Novgorod, which had escaped the scourge. There he consecrated an archbishop and met the Prince Alexander on his return from a journey to the horde to pay his homage to the khan. The camp of the nomadic Mongols had been moved from place to place during times of war; but now it was settled at Sarai. Since many Russians were actually resident there, or were at least compelled to go there from time to time to visit their foreign master, Cyril made it a bishopric, and consecrated Metrophanes, its first bishop. This see remained in being as long as the Mongol power existed; it was brought to an end when the horde was broken up.
In the year 1274, Cyril summoned a synod at Vladimir on the occasion of the consecration of Serapias, the archimandrite of the Pechersky Monastery, to the bishopric. The synod set about a reformation of Church discipline with a view to rooting out simony and other abuses, and ​exacting enquiry into the character of candidates for orders. The extreme importance attached to minutiae of ritual in the Eastern Church is well illustrated by the special emphasis which was afterwards given to this synod's prohibition of the custom of mixing the holy chrism with oil, and of the use of affusion instead of immersion in the rite of baptism.
When Cyril died (a.d. 1281), for a short time no successor was appointed, because, although the Latin usurpation was at an end, and Michael Palæologus was now reigning at Constantinople, both the emperor and his patriarch were suspected of inclinations towards Rome. But when, after the death of Michael (a.d. 1282), his son Andronicus restored the orthodox Joseph, that patriarch sent into Russia Maxim us, a Greek, to be metropolitan. It is to be observed that whenever the Russian prince chooses a metropolitan he selects a man of his own nationality, and that whenever the patriarch nominates anybody for the office he takes care to send a Greek. We may see in these facts a portent of the future, when Russia could dare to be more independent. In the last year of this gloomy thirteenth century the metropolitan Maximus moved his centre from the ruined Kiev and its desolated neighbourhood to the new capital, Vladimir. It was not long there; for on his death (a.d. 1305) it was removed to Moscow, a city destined to be the great metropolis of the Russian Church and empire for many years to come.
To add to the troubles of these dark times, the princes, who were allowed a measure of home rule under the suzerainty of the khan, quarrelled among themselves. The Church was then the one bond of unity for the unhappy Russian people, and the metropolitan bishop its one visible centre. Thus this ecclesiastic acquired temporarily in Russia some shadow of the influence that was exercised by the pope in Italy during the quarrels of the barons. It was the perception of this fact that led Prince John at Moscow to invite the metropolitan to come from Vladimir and reside ​at his capital. Meanwhile another movement was going on in the West. In the year 1392, Lithuania was brought into connection with Poland; eighteen years later, its prince, Vitovt, defeated the Teutonic knights, and so stayed the encroachments of Germany and the papal influence. In order to strengthen his independence both politically and ecclesiastically, Vitovt requested the patriarchs of Constantinople to appoint a metropolitan for Kiev. This would have involved the independence of Moscow and its metropolitan. But the patriarch would not comply. Then Vitovt convoked a synod of his orthodox bishops, which elected a Bulgarian, Gregory Tsamblak, to the new office.
Gregory was orthodox according to the Greek standard. But Vitovt sent him to the council of Constance, which was then in session. A little later the metropolitan Photius seized a favourable moment for visiting both Vitovt and Yagello the King of Poland. The death of Photius was followed by a time of miserable dissentions at Moscow. Vitovt died, and his successor, Svidrigailo, sent Gerasimus, the bishop of Smolensk, to Constantinople to be appointed metropolitan of Kiev. For some reason not easy to divine, the patriarch Joseph consented. He may have thought that the disorderly condition of Moscow unfitted that new metropolis to be the seat of a primate. But he may also have had some foresight of the inevitable consequence of the removal of the metropolitan so far beyond the reach of Constantinople. There does not seem to have been any formal act on the part of the patriarch to put the central and eastern parts of Russia under the new metropolitan. Nevertheless, the appointment of Gerasimus as metropolitan of Kiev while the see of Moscow was vacant could not but imply a transference of the ecclesiastical centre of gravity. Joseph could not recognise any independent Church of Lithuania. To the patriarch of Constantinople both Russia proper and the Western provinces on its border were but parts of the one holy orthodox Church. ​There is not much advantage in discussing this curious situation, because even though appointed metropolitan by the patriarch, Gerasimus was unable to exercise any influence in Russia, or to be recognised by any of the Russian bishops. Though it was his wish to go to Moscow and establish himself there, he had to remain at Smolensk. Had he succeeded, the patriarch would have gained nothing by his appointment. The magnitude of the Russian Church would have left Lithuania hanging on its fringe as a mere outlying district, and Constantinople would have had no better security for the retention of its influence and authority. If we are to understand that from the first Joseph had intended Gerasimus to reside at Moscow, it is difficult to discover what good he could have hoped to reap from his unpopular act in thrusting an outsider on the Russian Church. Russia had not always submitted to Greek metropolitans with good grace. But to be governed by a Lithuanian when Lithuania was independent and looking to Poland for sympathy, certainly this was not a thing for her to meekly accept even from the hands of the patriarch.
Nor did Lithuania itself ultimately profit. Gerasimus came to an awful end. His friend and patron Svidrigailo was informed that he was carrying on a treasonable correspondence with Sigismund, a rival claimant to the principality. In a rage at the ingratitude of a man whom he had so much favoured, the prince burnt him alive. After this tragedy the ecclesiastical independence of Lithuania came to an end. Her metropolitan was never able to take the lead of the Russian Church. But she was not strong enough to stand alone. The inevitable drift was in the opposite direction. The independence of Lithuania was maintained for almost a century and a half, and then ended by the diet of Lublin (a.d. 1568). Gradually the leading families joined themselves to Poland and accepted the Roman Catholic religion, and the people followed.
We now come to the important events associated with the career of Isidore. At this point Russia emerges from her comparative isolation, and in the person of her ecclesiastical ​representative takes a leading place in the history of the universal Church. When the Emperor John was preparing for the council, which, as he hoped, was to bring about the union of Christendom and so help him in his resistance to the encroachments of the Turks, Isidore was sent from Constantinople to be metropolitan at Moscow. He was deliberately chosen as a man favourable to the union of the Eastern and Western Churches, and it has been maintained that the Pope Eugenius had actually intrigued for his appointment. Nevertheless, he met with a warm welcome in Russia. Both Kiev and Moscow gave him a public reception, But he had not been in office more than four months when he urged the prince, Basil, to permit him to attend the council that was to meet in Italy, and obtained a reluctant consent, on the ground that otherwise Russia would be the only Christian country excluded. It was a difficult position. At Constantinople the emperor was straining every nerve to be reconciled with Rome in order to obtain the aid of the Western powers. But Constantinople's danger was not felt at Moscow, and there nobody had the slightest wish for union, except the one Greek at the head of the Church who had been sent there for the express purpose of helping it on.
The princes and prelates assembled at Ferara waited for Isidore, as representing the largest branch of the Eastern Church, before opening the council. As soon as he arrived the sessions began. It will be remembered that while Mark of Ephesus led the opposition, Bessarion, the metropolitan of Nicæa, and Isidore of Moscow were foremost in supporting the proposals for union. After the council had been transferred to Florence, and when at length Eugenius had triumphed and the union was declared, Bessarion and Isidore were both rewarded by being made cardinals, and the latter received the title, "Cardinal Legate of the Apostolic See in Russia." He returned home triumphant. He had accomplished his object—at Florence. But what was the good of that if his action should not be ratified in Russia? ​Isidore seems to have deceived himself with the notion that he could simply assume that in what he had done he had carried his Church with him. So enamoured was he of the papal idea, that he seems to have behaved like a pope himself. He appears to have been deluded by the enthusiastic reception that had been accorded him when he first came to Moscow. But then the people were delighted at having a metropolitan of their own after a long interval, during which the Lithuanian metropolitan had been trying to get the upper hand in Russia. Now the case was very different. Without consulting his bishops the metropolitan had surrendered the chief points of dispute between the Eastern and Western Churches. It looked like a betrayal of trust. We are prepared for the sequel.
Isidore is conducting the service at the church of the Assumption on the first occasion after his return. The archdeacon standing by his chair has read the acts of the council of Florence to an astonished congregation. Isidore names the pope in his prayers. Then the Prince Basil cannot contain his indignation. He calls Isidore a traitor to orthodoxy and a false pastor.
The first step is to summon a council of bishops and boyars. They come together as men of one mind. Not a bishop, not a lord will own the pope as vicar of Christ. Every member of the council without exception rejects the Western doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. This means the condemnation of their metropolitan. In spite of his skilful pleading he can make out no case to win a single vote for his side. The issue is the banishment of Isidore to the Choudoff Monastery.
The subsequent story of Isidore is full of adventure. He escaped from his prison and fled to Rome. Thence he was sent to Constantinople to attempt there what he had been unable to effect in his own see. The Greeks were as reluctant as the Russians to submit to the Florentine decision. Isidore was one of the ablest men of the day; but ability counted for little when confronted with age-long orthodoxy. His efforts were brought to an abrupt ​termination by the last act in the tragedy of the Eastern Empire. While the Christians were quarrelling the Turks were advancing. At the capture of Constantinople by Mohammed ii., Isidore was one of the many Greeks who fled to Italy. No one had earned a better right to an asylum at Rome, and there he was rewarded with the phantom title of "Patriarch of Constantinople."
A shadowy attempt to maintain the papal authority which Isidore had vainly tried to introduce into Russia was made in the appointment of one of his followers named Gregory as metropolitan of Kiev. But although he was recognised by Casimir, the Prince of Lithuania, Gregory was never acknowledged by the Church in Russia or even in Lithuania. The schism was maintained for some time by the appointment of a succession of Latin metropolitans at Kiev; but these men had no following. They can only be regarded as papal agents resident in a country over which they exercised no authority and in which they were not in any way recognised by the people or the Church.
The fall of Constantinople, which makes the year 1453 a landmark in the history of Europe, while it was followed by disastrous effects on the Greek Church in the dominion of the Turks, only had an indirect influence on the Church in Russia. Ecclesiastically the immediate consequence was the gaining of independence. The Russians were no longer made to look to the imperial patriarch for the appointment of their chief pastor. The metropolitan was now elected by a council of Russian bishops. Still, there was no breach of Church unity; the Russian Church remained in communion with the oppressed Greek Church, as a branch of the one holy orthodox Church, and was still nominally subject to the patriarch of Constantinople. Jonah, who had been appointed after a vacancy of eight years to succeed the deposed Isidore, was the last primate who bore the title "Metropolitan of Kiev." His successors were named "Metropolitan of Moscow and of all Russia," Thus the change which had ​long been an accomplished fact was now openly recognised in that most conservative of all spheres—the ecclesiastical vocabulary.
Another influence, more positive in character, now came in to advance the importance of the Greek Church. This was the rise of Russia as a great united nation. Hitherto, although a certain common life had pulsated through the populations scattered over the vast area which we now know as European Russia, this was not unified under one government. We have seen how Lithuania established independence in conjunction with Poland. Novgorod was also virtually unattached to the southern Sclavs and administered as a separate republic. Other districts had their autonomy under different princes. Even the chief rulers at Kiev, and afterwards at Vladimir, were regarded as princes, or grand dukes, not as kings or emperors. But soon after the destruction of the Byzantine Empire there appeared in the north a new empire, the Russian Empire. Thus the rise of Russia as a great united nation nearly synchronises with the fall of the power that had stood for Rome in the East. This most important historical fact was mainly brought about by the ability and energy of Ivan iii., who reigned for forty-three years—from a.d. 1462 to a.d. 1505. The power of the horde had now broken up and crumbled away, leaving only scattered fragments, such as the Mongol settlement in the Crimea. A strong ruler had a clear course for the consolidation of his nation. Ivan took a politic step in marrying Zoe, a niece of the heroic Constantine Palæologus, with the approval of Pope Sixtus ix., who saw in the match a hope of the fulfilment of the dream of the papacy and chief end of all its diplomacy—the union of Christendom under the pope. Here, however, he was mistaken. Zoe proved to be a devoted member of the Eastern Church. On the strength of this connection with the Byzantine imperial family Ivan assumed the cognisance of the double-headed eagle, ever afterwards the badge of Russia, and also in a tentative way the title of ​Tsar. It was a broad hint that the empire of the East which had perished at Constantinople was to have its resurrection at Moscow. Ivan laid the foundations of empire broad and deep. He was anxious to encourage letters and civilisation, and he welcomed many learned Greeks who came to Moscow with the Princess Zoe, bringing precious manuscripts with them. In some degree Russia shared in the scattering of pearls of learning which followed the flight of the scholars from Constantinople, and brought the works of classic literature, together with the scholars who could interpret them, to Western Europe. Moscow never enjoyed the Renaissance, as that wonderful awakening was enjoyed by Florence and Basle. On the other hand, it must be remembered that, unlike the benighted West, before the Mongol invasion Russia had been in close touch with the life of Constantinople. Italian architects also visited the progressive city of Moscow. The most important of these was Aristotle Fioraventi, who designed many of the most important public buildings.
We look to see what part the Church had in the life and movement of the new age. There was no reformation in Russia. That is the first broad fact to be noticed, differentiating the new empire of the tsars from the West. Russia had not suffered from the abuses of the papacy; she had not experienced the tyranny of the popes which drove German princes to revolt quite apart from the interests of religion; she had no doctrine of .purgatory and no sale of indulgences—Luther's first provocation. Not entering into the great intellectual awakening which so opened men's eyes in regard to religion as well as secular knowledge that in England it was popularly known as "the new learning," she missed its inspiration of new ​ideas. Having had the Bible from the first in the vernacular she had no such experience as that which resulted from its translation into English and German, and the consequent popularising of Scripture as a long lost treasure gladly recovered. Lastly, she had no Luther, no Zwingli, no John Knox. On the other hand, in justice to the Sclavonic race represented by Russia, it should be remembered that John Huss was a Sclav; and in some respects John Huss was the parent as he certainly was the precursor of the Reformation on the Continent. Originating in an Englishman, Wycliffe, the first of the reformers before the Reformation, it passed through Huss the Bohemian into Germany, and so came back from the Sclav to the Teuton again.
Now, though Russia did not need reformation to the extent that was requisite in Europe, because she was not suffering from the specific corruptions of the Roman Church at the end of the Middle Ages, she had her own superstitions derived from a still earlier period, in the magical value attached to icons and relics by the mass of the people, as well as what some would consider to be the errors of both branches of the Church in their departure from the primitive type. At all events, in so far as the Reformation, over and above its Iconoclasm, was a religious awakening, to Protestants it must be a matter of regret that Russia had no share in it. The common habit of treating the Western Church as though it were the whole Church has resulted in regarding the Reformation as a movement stirring Christendom to its depths, instead of which it was simply a Western movement. Great churches occupying vast areas of Europe, Asia, and Africa, were quite outside its range, being neither scourged by the evils against which it protested nor favoured with the factors of its new life.
The consolidation of the Russian Empire under Ivan iii. and his successors was accompanied by quite another stimulus to devotion. In the West the year 1000 had been anticipated with terror as the destined date of the ​cud of the world; a similar alarm was felt in Russia towards the close of the fifteenth century, on the ground that the seven-thousandth year after the Creation was approaching. Then the boyars showed their zeal by building a number of private churches. A curious result followed. Priests were sent to private churches apart from the parochial clergy. Being responsible only to their patrons who had appointed and who alone supported them, they were indifferent to the bishops and independent of the State, since they did not live upon the tithes. Accordingly, these chaplain priests were charged with insubordination and suspected of laxity of morals due to the absence of ecclesiastical discipline. We must not admit this scandal too readily, knowing the source from which it comes.
Instead of the dreaded end of the world, what Russia now came to experience was a final and victorious conflict with the Mongols. The Church took a leading part in this patriotic effort. An old man, Bassian, archbishop of Rostoff, encouraged Ivan with the utmost enthusiasm, declaring that if the sovereign would not go he would lead the assault; he was seconded by Gerontius the metropolitan, and Ivan set out to attack the Mongols. Their chief Achmed fled without striking a blow, and Russia was free again.
A strange light is thrown on the mind of the Church at this time by the story of Gerontius's successor, the metropolitan Zosimus. This man had been appointed by Ivan without the consent of a synod (a.d. 1491). He was accused of adopting "a blasphemous Jewish heresy which rejected our Saviour Jesus Christ and all His doctrine." A Jew named Zachariah was said to have brought the heresy from Lithuania to Novgorod twenty years before, and to have seduced two priests in that city, Alexis and Dionysius, by magic and cabalistic art. When Zosimus was at Novgorod he met the two priests, and was so drawn to them that he brought them with him back to Moscow, and appointed one to be the chief priest at the famous new ​Church of the Assumption and the other to be chief priest of the Church of the Archangel. In this way the suspected teaching was introduced to the very heart of the empire on the highest ecclesiastical authority. The heresy which the Jew had whispered in the closet was now preached on the housetop. But Gennadius, the Prince of Novgorod, would not let the matter rest. He viewed the new teaching with horror, and induced Ivan and Zosimus to summon a synod on the question. Joseph of Volokolamsk appeared as the eloquent champion of orthodoxy, and the heresy was condemned. Alexis had already passed to the silence "beyond these voices." But Dionysius was alive to receive his anathema, and he was punished with imprisonment in a convent. Zosimus himself was spared for the time being. But twelve years later he was required to resign by Ivan and sent off to a monastery on the ostensible ground of drunkenness (a.d. 1496). So grave was the idea of the head of the Church being guilty of heresy that this shocking scandal was hushed up under cover of what was regarded as the milder evil of intemperance.
After this the new metropolitan Simon presided over a synod which was called to bring about a reformation of morals. It ordered that convents for women should be kept apart from the religious houses for men, and that no men should perform Divine service in them—a drastic measure that throws a lurid light on the suspected consequences of the visits of priests to these convents in discharge of the duties of their holy office. The same synod enacted the canon, which has obtained down to our own day, that a priest must give up his cure on the death of his wife and retire into a monastery—so dangerous did the Russian Church consider a celibate priesthood to be. Priests of unworthy characters were to be deprived of their posts and degraded from their orders. The enactments of this synod imply a recognition of serious moral decay in the Church.
Meanwhile practices little better than the doings of savages were witnessed in the court. One physician—who ​had staked his head in undertaking the case—was publicly executed for not saving the life of Ivan's eldest son whom he was called in to cure; another—a German—for failing in his treatment of a Tartar prince at court, was put to the torture by the chief's son, who would have let him off alive for a ransom. The grand duke, to use the chronicler's title, would not allow this; so "they took him to the river Moska, under the bridge in winter, and cut him to pieces with a knife, like a sheep." The decay of morals is further reflected in the Sudebuik, a code of laws which Ivan issued in the year 1497 and which marks the second stage in Russian jurisprudence, the first being seen in the Russkaya Pravada. Clearly the rise of the tsardom and the consolidation of Russia into a great empire, while indicative of a kind of progress, and while really associated with a certain spread of culture, must not be confounded with an advance of the people in those higher things that make for a nation's real greatness; nor may the corresponding development of the Church be taken as a proof that the spirit of Christianity was becoming a power in the land.
Ivan iii. was followed by his son Basil (a.d. 1505), and he in turn by his son Ivan iv., known as "Ivan the Terrible." This strong, capable ruler was the first to definitely and persistently denominate himself tsar, and so make a bold, open claim to be the heir of the Roman Cæsars, or at least their equal. His grandfather had only used the title casually and tentatively. Ivan iv. had no hesitation about the adoption of it.
Ivan was but a child ten years old when his father died (a.d. 1533), and the government was administered first by his mother and then by the boyars, till he was able to take it up himself. For a time he ruled well under the guidance of an old priest of Novgorod, named ​Silvester. At the age of seventeen he issued a revised edition of his grandfather's Sudebuik, and the next year the Stoglat or "Book of the Hundred Chapters" appeared. Its object was to reform the discipline of the Church, and among other improvements it ordered was the establishment of schools throughout the country, where reading, writing, and choral singing were to be taught.
The second half of Ivan's reign was totally different in character. He had greatly increased the importance of Russia by his military achievements; but later on he grew suspicious of the disaffection of the boyars, and his conduct bordered on insanity. Ivan now went about the country with a body of six hundred young men, whom he called his "Peculiars," burning and ravaging his towns and villages. He claimed the lives of his slaves, the Russians, as his property. In a fit of passion he killed his own son. Yet Ivan was religious in his way. He prided himself on his orthodoxy, and was credited with being able to repeat whole chapters of the Bible. He would ring the bell for matins himself and call up his court at all hours of the night to attend the prayers. When at Alexandrooskoe he spent most of his time in church. He practised severe asceticism and attempted to force it on his servants.
One metropolitan after another fell under the displeasure of the pious tyrant. When the tsar's insane degeneration set in, Athanasius, the metropolitan in office at the time, being of a mild, timid nature, retired from his responsible post, unable to meet its new requirements. Ivan then appointed Germanus, the archbishop of Kazan, a good old man, who begged to be excused from undertaking the difficult task that was laid upon him. But the tsar would have no refusal. Germanus, forced to accept the post, now resolved to do his duty in it. He at once sought an interview with Ivan, and in a faithful, earnest, fatherly way, urged him to turn from his ruinous course. Such impertinence was intolerable. The tsar flung himself into a rage, and forthwith sent the old bishop back to his former diocese.
​Ivan's next choice fell on a friend of his childhood, the monk Philip, who had retired to the wild solitude of the Solovetsky, where his influence was stimulating the monastery's missionary work round the borders of the White Sea. In his queer way the tsar felt the fascination of the venerable man's holiness, and chose him as bis spiritual adviser. Philip wept at the compulsion that dragged him from his retirement. But he went forth with the spirit of a hero and a martyr. Rarely did any man undertake a more perilous duty. He would gladly have escaped the task; but now that it was laid upon him, like his predecessor Gerontius, he determined to discharge it faithfully to the full. Philip called on the bishops to help him in opposing the tsar's tyrannical conduct. Some were openly conniving at it; others, though disapproving dared not offer a word of protest. They united in warning the metropolitan of the danger to Church and State from irritating the tyrant. But Philip would not hear of any compromise with iniquity. On the day of his consecration he uttered fearless words of admonition in his reply to the tsar's address of recognition, and Ivan submitted to them, being at present under the spell of his veneration for the speaker.
It was not long before a fresh outbreak of cruelty on the part of Ivan sent the boyars to Philip for protection. Then he behaved like a second Ambrose, but under very different circumstances. The mad Ivan was a far more dangerous person to confront than Theodosius, passionate Spaniard though he was. Yet Philip would not recognise Ivan when he came to the church with his "Peculiars," and when the metropolitan's attention was called to the tsar's presence he refused to own him. When Ivan would have silenced the bold pastor with threats, Philip exclaimed, "I am a stranger and a pilgrim upon earth, as all my fathers were, and I am ready to suffer for the truth. Where would be my faith if I kept silence?"
Although the tsar left the church in a towering rage ​even yet he did not dare to lay violent hands on the revered metropolitan. But a little later some charge was trumped up against Philip, and a slavish law court then pronounced his deposition. While he was conducting the liturgy in his church a crowd of "Peculiars" rushed in and stripped him to his shirt—a brutal act ordered by the spiteful tsar in revenge for the public rebuke he had received in church from the metropolitan. Dragged before Ivan, Philip besought the tsar to mend his ways, but in vain. Philip's punishment for this new act of daring was to receive the bleeding head of his nephew sent by the tsar as a present to him in prison. He was then banished to the Otroch Monastery in Tver, where after a short time he was strangled by Ivan's order. The story of Philip is worth telling in detail for the sake of the revelation of a noble character which it contains; but also because it relates to the one recognised "martyr" among her prelates in the Church of Russia—a Church singularly free from persecution during the whole course of her history.
Ivan reigned for fifty-one years, and died in the year 1584. His career has been a puzzle for the historians. Not only did it vary greatly in character during successive periods, but throughout it revealed a nature of startling contrasts and inconsistencies. The cruel tsar was intensely religious in his own way, but he was actively interested in literature and culture. He set up the first printing press in Moscow, where the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles were printed under the superintendence of the metropolitan Macarius during the happy early part of this reign. A little later the tsar had a copy of the Gospels printed, and after that the entire Bible was printed in Sclavonic at Kiev, under the directions of Constantine the deputy-governor.
Some of Ivan's actions were rather the achievements of a strong, capable ruler than the doings of a mere despot, even when he was most tyrannical. In the course of the consolidation of Russia he destroyed the ancient liberties of Novgorod, which hitherto had governed itself as a practically ​independent republic. This may be compared to the later policy of Russia in invading the freedom of Finland. It was cruel to the subjects; yet it was regarded as a political necessity by the government. Like the State, the Church at Novgorod was in a way self-contained. In the earlier times, throughout the rest of Russia the clergy were more or less Greek, or at least under the influence of the Greek patriarch. But at Novgorod they were entirely Russian, and the archbishop was elected by the citizens without waiting for any investiture from the metropolitan of Kiev. He took the first place of dignity in the republic; in acts of State his name was cited before all other names. Novgorod wanted to have a metropolitan; but that was not allowed, and now Ivan's vigorous action put an end to both its political and its ecclesiastical independence.
The remarkable contrasts which the life of Ivan contains have given rise to conflicting views about his character. The Polish poet Miçkiewicz describes him as "the most finished tyrant known in history." The historian Karamsin—in his eloquent denunciation of this tyrant which he read to Alexander i., with the liberal tsar's approval—writes, "His conversion would have scandalised the world and shaken belief in providence. He had advanced too far into hell to be able to turn back." Karamsin regards him as a prince born vicious and cruel, miraculously brought into ways of virtue for a time, and abandoning himself to fury in his later years; and Kostomarof follows on similar lines. On the other hand, Soloviev distrusts the partisan tales on which his evil reputation rests. He was opposed by the nobles whose independence he was limiting, and they would be only too ready to encourage discreditable stories about their ruler. But M. Ramabaut calls attention to one terribly significant piece of evidence—a document preserved at the monastery of Cyril, in which Ivan asks for the prayers of the Church for his victims by name—how characteristic is this of his mixture of religion and cruelty! This document contains 986 proper names, and references ​to as many as 3,470 persons. In some cases a name is followed by one of the clauses, "with his wife," " with his wife and children," "with his son," "with his daugliter." Probably the true solution of the problem is that there was a strain of madness in the tsar which first showed itself in melancholia during a time of seclusion, and then at the end of his reign in some approach to homicidal mania. A cruel, self-willed, passionate tyrant, of great ability, energy, and prowess, successful to a remarkable degree in war, strong and wise in much of his civil government, rigorous in the observances of religion and enforcing the same rigour on those about him, Ivan is one of the most weird characters in all history—a mad genius, doing his worst to ruin the empire he had built up with magnificent ability; a diabolical devotee wading through seas of blood to his untimely prayers.
* ↑ An order established to convert the heathen Lithuanians by force.
* ↑ See p. 268.
* ↑ This title—corresponding to the Latin "Cæsar"—did not necessarily involve a claim to the supreme position, since that had been designated by the higher name "Augustus." Roman emperors had given dependent princes the honorary designation of Cæsar, under their own imperial suzerainship. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether among the Russians in this late age the distinction was recognised.
* ↑ P. 367.
* ↑ In Russian this surname means one to be reverenced or respected; and it was originally applied to Ivan as a title of honour. History, however, has justly connected it with its more ugly signification.
* ↑ Mouravieff, p. 115.