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History of the Church of Russia

A. N. Mouravieff, tr. Blackmore, 1842

13. Pitirim, Eighth Patriarch, A.D. 1672

In the affairs of the Church alone the Tsar Alexis found no satisfaction, for whilst he felt the necessity of keeping Nikon at a distance, he could not forget their mutual vow of friendship, and was troubled in spirit to be deprived of his blessing; and besides this after Nikon’s degradation, he saw three patriarchs pass in rapid succession before his eyes as if in mysterious reprehension of his conduct, whilst he who had been patriarch before them was still pining in confinement. After the death of the meek Joasaph the choice of the clergy, which always fell on the senior prelate, elevated to the patriarchate men whose sentiments were unfriendly to Nikon. And thus Pitirim, who had been before at Novogorod, after sitting only ten months, yielded up the chair to another Lord of Novogorod, Joachim, of the noble family of the Savelloffs, who, when archimandrite of the Choudoff monastery, had together with Paul, then metropolitan of the Steeps, taken away the crosier of Peter the Wonder-worker from the Patriarch Nikon. This same Paul also was still alive, and employed the latter years of his life, in conjunction with Epiphanius Slavenetsky and other learned men, in correcting the translation of the Bible from the Greek into the Slavonic language, but his labours remained unfinished in consequence of his premature decease.