# The Greek and Eastern Churches/Part 2/Division 3/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV
THE PATRIARCHATE
The reign of Ivan's son, the amiable, feeble Feodor, is noteworthy in Church history as the time when the brief patriarchate of Moscow was established. Hitherto there had been five patriarchs—the patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem. But Rome was now apostate. Like Matthias who was chosen to fill Judas's vacant place, the patriarch of Moscow was to make up the normal number again. The piety of Feodor is credited with the idea of this daring ecclesiastical innovation; but circumstances had prepared the way for it. The fall of Constantinople and the loss of liberty suffered by its patriarchs under the Turks; the spread of Christianity over Russia and the shifting of the centre of gravity of Oriental Christianity from the Greek to the Sclavonic peoples; the removal of the metropolitan from Kiev to Vladimir, and then his settlement at Moscow, in the very heart of Russia, so far away from Constantinople; the centralising of government in the hands of the tsar and the consequent consolidation of the vast area over which his sway extended; the printing of the Bible and other books in the language of the people; and the Russianising of the Church and exclusion of Greek elements—all these factors combined to render the now merely nominal subjec​tion of the Church in Russia to the patriarch of Constantinople an anachronism and an inconvenience.
It was under these circumstances that Joachim the patriarch of Antioch paid a visit to the metropolitan Dionysius at Moscow in the year 1580, in order to seek aid for his poverty-stricken people. Dionysius stood on his dignity in giving the benediction to his visitor in the first instance, instead of humbly submitting to the blessing of an ecclesiastical superior and returning it. The tsar then proposed to his boyars the suitability of establishing a patriarchate at Moscow, and sent one of them to discuss the question with Joachim, who replied that it was a matter that could only be settled by an œcumenical council, but promised to consult the other patriarchs about it.
Two years later, Jermiah ii., the patriarch of Constantinople, followed the example of his brother at Antioch, and came to Moscow on a similar errand. It is painful to see how in both cases the need of pecuniary aid introduces a sordid element into the consideration of the tsar's proposal. The Greeks hoped to gain something by the friendship of Russia, and the Russians were not slow to take advantage of their poverty and weakness. Jeremiah had been imprisoned at Rhodes by the sultan, and, though now at liberty, he found himself in desperate straits when he threw himself on the compassion of his fellow-Christians in Russia. He can hardly be regarded as a free agent. Nevertheless at first he resisted the tsar's proposal. He was an old man and learned, and the chief custodian of the now ossified customs of the Greek Church. So great an innovation must have startled him when he heard of it from his brother prelate, the patriarch of Antioch. But he had had time to think it over since then; and inasmuch as he came to Moscow of his own accord, well knowing what was desired there, he must have been prepared to face the question. He really had no alternative but to yield, and he may have taken a common-sense view of the whole case. After all, the new step was inevitable. ​So Jeremiah gave his reluctant consent, and the new patriarchate was established without the œcumenical council which Joachim had said was necessary for the origination of it.
A synod of all the Russian bishops was now summoned at Moscow (a.d. 1587); and this synod submitted three names to the tsar, who at once chose the first of them, the metropolitan Job. The newly appointed patriarch was addressed as "œcumenical lord," and treated with the ceremonial honours so important in the eyes of an oriental court, which were scrupulously equated with those assigned by ancient custom to his guest, the patriarch of Constantinople. But beyond this accession of dignity the patriarch of Moscow had acquired no more real power than had been secured already by the metropolitan. Now, however, Novgorod was able to get its desire. The supremacy of Moscow being assured, there was no longer any objection to having a metropolitan at Novgorod. Accordingly, one of Job's first acts in the patriarchate was to raise the bishop of the northern city to the position of metropolitan; at the same time he made the bishop of Rostoff also a metropolitan. A year or two later the Bulgarian metropolitan Tirnoff, a descendant of the imperial families of the Cantacuzenes and Palæologi, came to Moscow, charged with synodical letters from the three patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, confirming the appointment of Job as patriarch of Moscow. Thus the new patriarchate was firmly established and duly recognised.
We are now approaching the time known as "the period of troubles." During the disorganisation of the civil government that followed the death of Feodor (a.d. 1598) the Church came to the front as the chief permanent institution of the Russian nation, and the patriarch of Moscow stood out as the one visible centre of unity. In this way the temporary weakness of the tsardom led to the temporary elevation of the patriarchate. We shall see later how the appearance of a strong tsar was followed by the total and final abolition of the patriarchate. Mean​while, however, the office was rendering good service to the State as well as to the Church.
A fresh attempt was now made to win over Russia by the Church of Rome. This began in the lifetime of Feodor, who had offered himself as a candidate for the kingship of Poland and Lithuania. Sigismund of Sweden was chosen, and he proved himself a zealot for Rome, and roused so fierce an anti-Russian feeling that his people were excited to a sort of crusade, which ultimately issued in the burning and sacking of Moscow. Terrible persecutions of the "orthodox" were perpetrated by the followers of the "union." At an early stage of the conflict the Swedes devastated the lands of the Solovetsky Monastery and some smaller convents. A little later the Khan of the Crimea invaded Russia and besieged Moscow. Then the patriarch Job sent his clergy round the walls chanting litanies and carrying the icon of "our Lady of the Don," after which he had it set up in a tent in the midst of the troops, like the ark in the tabernacle. Feodor, who was showing no energy in the defence of his city, calmly went to bed, assured that the spiritual protection secured by his patriarch would be sufficient. But the real protector of Moscow was Feodor's brother-inlaw, Boris Godunoff, the masterful head of the government, who strongly fortified the city and succeeded in driving off the Mongols.
A movement was now sedulously fomented in Little Russia to induce the bishops of that district to consent to union with Rome. It is said that two bishops were got to sign a request to King Sigismund and the pope for the union as though in the name of a synod, on the pretence that it was a petition for new priveleges for the orthodox Church. Hearing of this, Jeremiah the patriarch of Constantinople—who does not appear to have acted as though he had handed over his authority in this region to his brother at Moscow—wrote to the two bishops that he should deprive them of their offices if they yielded to Rome, and other ecclesiastics protested. Then Ignatius, the ​leader of the movement, assembled a council at Brest Litovsky, which he opened with a speech in favour of union. Many discussions followed. In the end the metropolitan Michael was gained over, and then he and four bishops signed a synodical letter consenting to union on the terms of the council of Florence, but with the proviso that the discipline and ceremonies of the Eastern Church were to be preserved. Meanwhile the two bishops whose signatures to the earlier document had been obtained by false pretences discovered and exposed the fraud. At the same time a great outcry was raised against the five apostates at Brest. Accordingly a second synod was assembled at this border town. It consisted entirely of the orthodox party. The churches were all in the hands of the party of the union, and the synod had to meet in a private house. The metropolitan refused to answer two summonses to attend. Then the synod pronounced an anathema on him, and also on all the apostate bishops. On the other hand, the Uniats held their synod in a church, where they pronounced their anathema on the orthodox. The result was a schism.
Rome admitted the Uniates on remarkably liberal terms. They were to retain their own ceremonies and even their own form of the creed. All that was required of them was submission to the pope. The Uniats had the upper hand both in Poland and in Lithuania, and they used their power to persecute both the orthodox party and also the protestants who were found in these parts.
The ancient cathedral of St. Sophia of Kiev was taken from the orthodox and held for a time by the Uniats. But the apostate metropolitan did not dare to make it his centre, and he resided in safer quarters at Novgorod. An effort was made to seize the famous Pechersky Monastery; but this failed. Subsequently much of the property of the orthodox monasteries was sequestrated, and Dominican convents were established in various parts of the country. This extraordinary condition of affairs, in which no orthodox bishops were appointed for Little Russia, went on for over twenty years.
​The disorders that next afflicted Russia were occasioned by one of the most amazingly successful impostures ever known to history. A pretender personated young Prince Dmitri, a son of Ivan the Terrible, who had died, probably murdered, some years before. This clever man was able to fight his way to Moscow and to reign there for some troublous years as Tsar of Russia. In the civil war thus occasioned the Church was seriously affected, and monks and bishops were directly involved. One man in particular now comes to the front, both on account of his vigorous activity at the time, and because his name has become famous in the light of subsequent history. This is Philaret Romanoff, the ancestor of the now reigning imperial family of Russia. The house of Ruric, the founder of the Russian princedom at Kiev, became extinct at the death of Dmitri. The new family of tsars was not yet in evidence. But during the time of confusion that intervened, its first known ancestor was already a person of importance in national and ecclesiastical affairs. Philaret was metropolitan of Rostoff. When the city was attacked by the pretender's party, most of the inhabitants fled; but the bishop held his ground, shut himself up in his cathedral with those who refused to desert him, and there celebrated the liturgy as usual. The rebels broke in, to find him preaching to his people. They seized hold of Philaret, tore off his episcopal robes, and dragged him out of the place, half dead from their violent handling. At Moscow the Trinity laura became a citadel of defence and supported a siege of sixteen months, when attacked, it is said, by an army of 80,000 men with sixty cannons pouring shot on its walls and churches. On the side of the monastery eight hundred men fell; but still the place held out. Twice it supplied Moscow itself with food. So wonderful an endurance was only accounted for by the protecting presence of two saints, Sergius and Nicon, who were believed to appear to the valiant defenders in visions or dreams. This monastery was now the heart of the defence of Russia against an impudent, lying usurpation. At the same time the patriarch Hermogenes was ​exerting all his influence to check the imposture. To add to the miseries of the time, the Poles ravaged the country, and seized and burnt its capital, deposed Hermogenes, and imprisoned him in a monastery, where he was starved to death (a.d. 1612). The Greek Ignatius, a follower of the pseudo-Dmitri, was now set up as patriarch of Russia. Meanwhile the monks and their supporters in the Trinity Monastery still held out. At length its devoted patriotism and loyalty to its Church were rewarded. Gradually the infection of heroism spread. A fast of purification was observed all over Russia. The new spirit now awakening in the people infused itself into an army of rescue. The Poles were defeated; the Kremlin was captured; and Philaret's young son Michael was elected tsar in the Trinity Monastery (a.d. 1613).
The new tsar showed his gratitude to the Church and his appreciation of its support by uniting a council of bishops to the council of the boyars. In this way the Church was represented in the government of Russia as it is in that of England by the presence of the bishops in the House of Lords. Much against his will, Philaret, now old and worn with the hardships he had endured, was elected patriarch; and thus father and son stood at the head of Church and State as patriarch and tsar. The two together effected several important administrative reforms both in civil and in ecclesiastical affairs. Centralisation was aimed at throughout. Courts were established at Moscow for trying affairs concerning the provincial towns, and even the governors were made subject to these courts. Similarly the archimandrites of the monasteries and the priests and deacons and other clerical officers were put under the jurisdiction of the patriarch in all except capital cases. On the other hand, Michael confirmed his father's edict forbidding the monasteries to acquire any more real property. By this time a large part of the land of Russia had come into the hands of the monks. The growth of the Church is seen in the continual increase in the number of dioceses. One addition, the bishopric of Astrachan, organised earlier, ​was a sign of the extension of Russia in Asia that was now going on. Two dioceses in Tobolsk and Siberia were added (a.d. 1623). Philaret prepared a new Trebuik, or book of ritual, and other service books.
Modern Western scholarship was now gradually trickling into Russia, though only in slender rills, which left the greater part of the empire intellectually dry and barren. The most prominent leader in this movement was Peter Mogila. He had been educated at the university of Paris, had served as a distinguished soldier in the Polish war, and had subsequently taken the tonsure and retired to the Pechersky Monastery, of which in course of time he was made archimandrite. No sooner was Mogila in charge of this great monastery than he established a school, from which he sent the more promising students to universities in Western Europe, Cyril Lucar took note of his intellectual activity and appointed him exarch of his See. Peter Mogila was more competent to appreciate the various aspects of the age-long controversy with Rome than any previous defenders of orthodoxy had been. He had a printing press, from which he issued editions of the Fathers, and service books carefully edited in the interest of orthodoxy, in order to counteract the service books circulated by the Uniats. This is a curious feature of the polemics of the Russian Church and most significant of the importance attached to ritual. Very few people could read; sermons were rarely preached. Apart from the schools, which could not have been numerous, most of the people got their religious instruction from the contemplation of pictures and from attendance at the services. The icons were worshipped as mere fetishes; still, to thoughtful people many of them conveyed historical and allegorical lessons. Then the ritual was all symbolical, and the words of the service books embodied the dogmas of the faith. For most people these were the only verbal or literary ​presentations of orthodoxy. Accordingly both parties manipulated them for their own purposes. The Uniats altered them so as to favour Roman Catholicism, and the orthodox ruled out these innovations and brought them more into line with the authorised teaching of the Eastern Church. But Peter Mogila did more than this. He broke the silence of centuries which had brooded over the ice-bound sea of Greek theology, and published a Confession of Faith, which was written partly by himself and partly under his direction by the archimandrite Isaiah Trophiniovich. It was subsequently revised by Meletius Syriga, and in its newer form it passed into the Russian Church proper, where it is still acknowledged as a standard authority. This catechism was not only intended to defend the orthodoxy of the Church against Roman errors, it was also issued as a safeguard against Calvinism, which was now penetrating into Poland and Little Russia.
In the year 1643 there was held a synod at Jassy in Moldavia, which condemned the doctrines of Calvinism. Peter Mogila and four Russian bishops signed the acts of this synod. Thus, while as the most learned prominent theologian of his country Mogila took the lead in the campaign against Romanism, he was equally decided in his opposition to Protestantism. He was not drawn into the tentative alliance between the two great opposing forces that were contending with the papacy, which might have become a mighty force changing the current of the history of Christendom, if Cyril Lucar's large-minded liberal policy had been pursued. The Russian Church has never been liberal. More than once reforming itself in morals and discipline, it is intensely conservative in doctrine and ritual. Thus its literature is almost wholly devoted to apologetics and liturgiology. Scholarship, not speculation, characterises its most intellectual leaders.
There are many instances of great scholarship among the Russian ecclesiastics. Thus Philaret's successor Joseph was celebrated for his learning, and Michael conferred with him and the bishops in regard to a project for ​a common codification of civil and ecclesiastical law. This great work was carried out, however, by boyars and ministers of State.
By far the most famous of all the patriarchs of Moscow is Nicon, who followed Joseph after an interval. His long life extends over the whole of the patriarchal period. He was born before the first patriarch was appointed; and he lived to see the patriarchate superseded by the Holy Synod. The child of a peasant home at Nijgorod, he learned to read the Scriptures in early life, and he was so moved by them that he resolved to devote himself to the service of God. Following the custom of his age and Church, he understood this to mean becoming a monk. He left home secretly, and was about to commence his novitiate in the monastery of Jeltovodsky. But his father discovered him and persuaded him to return home, marry, and become a priest. It was against his own judgment, and he afterwards took the death of all his children as a call to return to his earlier aims. Nicon now induced his wife to enter a convent, and he himself retreated to the distant northern monastery of Solovetsky. After a time he sought still deeper seclusion in an island hermitage amid the ice of the White Sea. In the year 1646 he submitted to the urgent entreaty of the monks of Kojeozersky, and was appointed to the headship of their monastery. This position following on the fame of his asceticism led to his being regarded as a leader of the Church, and he had to visit Moscow in connection with ecclesiastical affairs (a.d. 1649). There he came under the notice of the new tsar. Michael had died in the year before Nicon's appointment to Kojeozersky and had been succeeded by his son Alexis (a.d. 1645), an intelligent, if not a strong ruler, anxious to promote moral reform, Western culture, and general progress. Attracted by the noble bearing and vigorous eloquence of Nicon, Alexis appointed him archimandrite of the Novospassky Monastery, where the members of the Romanoff family were buried. He was now brought into frequent contact with the tsar, who came to ​lean upon his advice in regard to matters of State as well as in ecclesiastical business. Three years later Alexis made him metropolitan of Novgorod, and he then had the exceptional honour of being consecrated by the patriarch of Jerusalem, who happened to be in Russia at the time on one of the begging expeditions to which the once venerated chief bishops of the Greek Church were compelled to humiliate themselves.
Nicon was now entrusted with great power. For instance, he had the right to enter the prisons, hear the prisoners' complaints, and if he thought them innocent, order their release; so that his position in this respect was something like that of the English Home Secretary. He proved his heroism during a riot, when he faced the mob and was knocked down and left for dead in the square at Novgorod. Helped up by his assistants, he persisted in penetrating to the most dangerous part of the city, walking in procession with the cross, and actually entered the building where the rebels were assembled. Struck with admiration for his intrepidity, they did not molest him any more. The rebellion went on for a time. But at last Nicon was able to quell it by his personal influence.
In matters of religion Nicon was also felt to be a great leader. Preaching was now almost extinct in the Russian Church. Dreary homilies prescribed by authority and monotonously read took the place of real sermons. The services consisted for the most part of the chanting of long archaic liturgies on the part of the priests, unintelligible to a later generation, or genuflections and prostrations by the congregation. Nicon revived the practice of preaching. His sermons were scriptural in teaching and full of life and power. Crowds gathered to hear him, and felt the spell of his eloquence. We may regard him as the Chrysostom of the Russian Church. Nicon also reformed the order of the liturgical service, which had drifted into confusion, and improved the singing arrangements after the model of the Greek chanting.
Saint worship was as characteristic of the Russian ​Church as of the Roman—perhaps more so. Advised by Nicon, Alexis convoked a solemn synod in honour of the three dead prelates—Job, Hermogenes, and Philip—with the object of bringing their remains to the church of the Assumption. Nicon himself went to the remote Solovetsky Monastery to fetch the body of the martyred Philip, who was addressed as though living, in an appeal from the tsar that he would come to Moscow and absolve the spirit of Ivan who was buried there. A more curious embassy was never despatched. It was directed to the spirit of the saint which was thought to be accessible at the place where his bones were lying; he was requested to grant permission for their removal; with them he would come himself. The spirit of the old mad tsar was also supposed to haunt his own mouldering remains. Therefore, of course, the martyr could bring relief to the lost soul by the coming of his body into the place where Ivan's body was buried. This is an application of the ideas of relic worship that exceeds all precedents. It illustrates the character of the Russian religion of the seventeenth century in the person of one of the most enlightened of rulers. Then what must that religion have meant to ignorant peasants, villagers living in remote regions of the vast empire, cut off from the metropolis by wolf-scoured forests?
In the year 1653, after long resisting the entreaties of Alexis, Nicon accepted the position of patriarch of Moscow, which had been vacant for some time, since the death of his predecessor Joseph. We cannot always penetrate to the motives which lie behind the traditional nolo episcopari; but in the present case we can see that, quite apart from any ascetic abnegation of ambition, Nicon would perceive the serious difficulties of the position offered to him. Two sections of the community were already opposed to him—the ecclesiastics who resented his disciplinary reforms, and the boyars who were jealous of the imperial favouritism that he enjoyed. But no sooner were his objections overborne by the entreaties of his friend and master the tsar, than Nicon threw himself into the duties ​of his exalted position with his customary fearless energy. In the first place, he revised the service books. It has been considered that his most important reform in this matter was a correction of the position of the fingers in the benediction. According to the Greek posture—which differs from the Latin—the ring finger is bent so as to touch the thumb and thus represent X for "Christ," and also for the cross, while the first finger being upright and the second a little curved, those fingers perhaps represent I C, the initial and final letters of "Jesus." So great importance was attached to this symbolism, that irregularities in regard to it were severely punished. On the other hand, Nicon's discipline in dealing with the prevalent laxity of finger posture increased the number of his enemies. To us his literary emendations may be more interesting. Alexis took the greatest interest in a revision of the Sclavonic version of the Bible. This was carried out under the directions of Nicon, who got five hundred manuscripts of the Scriptures and other books from Mount Athos for the correction of the text, which had become very corrupt. Nicon's revisions of service books and Bible were confirmed at a synod of Greek bishops convoked by Paisius the patriarch of Constantinople. In sending this decision to Nicon, Paisius urged him to preserve the unity of the orthodox Church under the five patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Moscow, but at the same time begged him to be indulgent to those who erred in unimportant matters. Unhappily this was not Nicon's way. He is grand when showing fearless independence in opposition to a mob, and strong and bold ​in carrying out his purging of the Church against all opposition; but the temperament which favours such virile virtues is not so ready to cultivate the graces of tolerance and gentleness, and Nicon was a stern ecclesiastic. Even his admirer Mouravieff admits that his "ardent zeal for eradicating all that was evil in the Church carried him beyond the bounds which pastoral long-suffering might have observed."
The tirst revised work to be printed was the Slonjebuik or service book, which was followed by the Skreejál ("The Table"), a patristic catena of doctrines. The revision was not left to make its way on its merits. The old MSS. of the corrupt text were violently taken from the monasteries, where they had been used for years, and the revised versions forcibly substituted. Naturally such high-handed acts roused fierce resentment among the ignorant, conservative monks. The result was a schism which issued in the large sect of the Staro-Obriadtsi, or Raskolniks, who have suffered much persecution for their adhesion to the old books.
But while Nicon was severe in the discipline of the Church, he showed a large-minded tactfulness in dealing with foreign affairs. During his patriarchate Little Russia was united with the Church and empire after a war with the Poles. The movement from within was led by Kmeltnitsky, the "Hetman," who asked the army whether they would belong "to the unbelieving khan (the sultan), to the Latin king, or to the orthodox tsar?" He saw and he made the men see that independence was impossible. Faced by this dilemma, they shouted, "We wish to be under the orthodox tsar."
It was more difficult to secure ecclesiastical submission. The metropolitan of Kiev and the archimandrite of the Pechersky Monastery had no inclination to exchange a merely nominal subordination to Constantinople for a very real submission to Moscow with its masterful prelate. But Nicon's flattering reception of the delegates from ​these two ecclesiastics and the presents he sent back with them molified their resentment against the policy of the government; and although the union was not actually effected at once, it came about some thirty years later. Thus at last, after centuries of alienation, Kiev, the venerable parent city of Christianity in Russia, was reunited to the national Church to which it had given birth. This happy result, springing from the diplomatic skill of Nicon, delighted the tsar. In another way he greatly pleased Alexis. When Moscow was devastated by the plague, the patriarch bestirred himself to improve the sanitation of the place, and took personal care of the royal family. For these services the tsar bestowed on him the title of "Great Lord."
Meanwhile Nicon's severity of discipline increased his unpopularity among the clergy. He punished intemperate popes with flogging and imprisonment—customary modes of chastisement at the time; and he insisted on some degree of education in candidates for ordination, the minimum being ability to read and write. Then the boyars' jealousy led to plots and intrigues, which produced such an intolerable situation, that Nicon, being on one occasion reproached for his pride by one of the princes, broke out into a rage, declared that he was no longer patriarch, and tore off his episcopal robes. Dressed in the simple garments of a monk, he retired to the Krestnoy Monastery, near the White Sea. He now became gloomy and bitter in spirit, anathematising one after another of his enemies. A little later, on the invitation of one of the boyars who was friendly to him, he made a secret journey to Moscow, suddenly presented himself in the Church of the Assumption, resumed the patriarch's robe and staff of office, and conducted the liturgy. Here was a dramatic surprise for prince and people. The boyars persuaded the mild Alexis, who was powerless in their hands, not to receive his old friend in his palace. The situation became intolerable, and a council was summoned to deal with it. This was the most imposing Church council ever held in ​Russia. The patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria were there as well as Russian metropolitans and bishops. Nicon came in his patriarchal robes. At the sight of the great man summoned as a defendant, Alexis burst into tears. But the tsar was impotent to save his old friend. A variety of charges were brought against him, consisting in the main of accusations of arbitrary, tyrannical dealings with the Church, on the ground of which he was formally deposed, stripped of his robes, and sent as a prisoner to a monastery at Bielo-ozero.
Nicon lived to see the end of the patriarchate and the establishment of the Holy Synod under Peter the Great. He may have owed his fall from power in a measure to his own harshness; but he had been a great ecclesiastic and a great statesman, correcting abuses in the Church and helping to establish the unity and power of the nation. He has been called the Russian Thomas à Becket, a comparison that does not do justice to his merits.
* ↑ The Trebuik is like the Roman ritual, a book directing the rites for all the sacraments except the communion, which is regulated by the ritual of the Liturgy, corresponding to the Roman mass.
* ↑ Χριστός.
* ↑ Ἰησοῦς. In the Latin benediction the thumb and the first two fingers are held upright, while the third and fourth fingers are bent.
* ↑ One of the most important Sclavonic MSS. of the Gospels is the Ostromir Codex written by Gregory, a deacon of Novgorod, and dating from the year 1056–57. The earliest dated complete Sclavonic MS. of the Gospels now known is assigned to the year 1144, and the earliest MS. of the whole Bible to the year 1499. The first printed edition is the famous Ostrog Bible of a.d. 1581. See Scrivener, Criticism of the N.T., 4th edit. (edited by P. Miller), vol. ii. pp. 158–161.
* ↑ History, p. 206.
* ↑ Leroy Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, part iii. p. 154.