Library › A. N. Mouravieff › History of the Church of Russia

History of the Church of Russia

A. N. Mouravieff, tr. Blackmore, 1842

15. Adrian, Tenth Patriarch, A.D. 1690

It is to be regretted that after such a distinguished pastor as Joachim, Adrian the aged metropolitan of Kazan should have been elected to the patriarchal chair: for though he was adorned with episcopal virtues, he was ill qualified to appreciate the necessity of those changes which fermented in the creative mind of Peter, and which circumstances themselves imperiously required. For from the time of the Tsar Alexis and the enterprising Nikon every thing in the kingdom had been tending gradually to a settled order of improvement and civilization, although not so rapidly as Peter effected it. Opinions of the boyars and prelates unfavourable to all his undertakings frequently reached the ears of the sovereign; and unfortunately his habits of intercourse with foreigners of low rank, whom he had invited into his dominions for the equipment of his fleet and the training of his forces, gave ground for the common complaints; and they who condemned him were unable to distinguish his great actions from such weaknesses as are incidental to human nature. Peter on the other hand who had passed through so many trials from his childhood, and had been obliged in all the heat of youth to moderate his anger against those who threw impediments in the way of his projects, for both his mother and his elder brother were generally of the same mind with the boyars and the patriarch, looked with no friendly feeling upon Adrian, whom he regarded as the representative of antiquated prejudices contending against his own bright genius. The creative spirit of Peter having once formed to itself in idea Russia—the object of his ardent affections—such as she was to become hereafter, from thenceforward, as if he had her actually before his eyes, was offended whenever his contemporaries were unable to divine that which only their posterity, after the lapse of a century, were to see—the embodying of his idea in the Russia of our times.

However, the patriarch himself, together with the prelates and boyars of the first rank, all joined in giving pecuniary contributions for the construction of the first Russian fleet, when Peter having conquered his natural aversion to water first on the still lake of Pereyaslavla, and then on the rough waves of the White sea, began to build vessels at Voronege for the reduction of Azoff. At this time the pastoral virtues of Metrophanes, first bishop of Voronege, and since reckoned among the saints, shone conspicuously. In him the great Peter found a true friend and assistant in his labours, while he was occupied there with the formation of his fleet, and at the same time no less a zealous and uncompromising maintainer of the doctrines of the Church, in defence of which he was ready to have laid down his life¹.

Other bright lights also shone at the same time in the now united Church of Great and Little Russia. In the North two zealous refuters of the heresies of their times, Athanasius archbishop of Kholmogori, and Ignatius metropolitan of Siberia, of the family of the Romano-Corsakoffs, strove both by word and deed to counteract those pernicious schisms with which their remote dioceses were infected. Three Letters or Charges of Ignatius, together with other Pastoral Admonitions, contain a description of the evil commencements of these heresies; and the Patriarch Adrian himself following the example of his predecessor, wrote against them a controversial book, called the Shield of the Orthodox Faith. In the South, under the paternal wing of the sage Barlaam Yasinsky, appeared two distinguished churchmen who afterwards exercised a most important influence on the destinies of the Russian Church, St. Demetrius, and Stephen Yavorsky. The first of these after having received a very superior education in the schools of Kieff and Lithuania, had sequestered himself for a long time in the convent of Batourin, the place of the residence of the hetmans,—and there Barlaam entrusted to him the continuation of a work commenced by Peter Mogila and Innocentius Gizel, on the lives of the Greek and Russian saints, which had been collected in the MS. copies of the Great Chetee-Menáë of the Metropolitan Macarius in the reign of John IV. This vast and important work which was encouraged by letters of commendation from the Patriarch Adrian, occupied the whole life of St. Demetrius, and still remains a rich treasure of spiritual edification to feed the souls of Christians, exciting them to the imitation of those saints whose labours and conflicts it records. The other of the two, Stephen, as yet only Preacher of the Word of God in Kieff, was destined to be called to the arduous duty of feeding the whole Church of Russia, and carrying into effect the bold designs of Peter, with a firm and vigilant adherence at the same time to the principles of Orthodoxy.

After the capture of Azoff, which crowned with glory the first military enterprise of the Tsar, and after the death of his brother John², which was marked to him by a fresh mutiny of the Streltsi, Peter determined to gratify his thirst for information by visiting foreign countries. He committed the government of the kingdom to the Prince Romodanofsky with the title of Cæsar, in conjunction with the boyars who were related to him, and the patriarch; and set out himself on his travels, following in the suite a Grand Embassy, in which his Preceptor Lefort appeared as the chief person. His route lay through Prussia to Holland, where the Tsar throwing off all his greatness devoted some months as a common workman to the acquisition of the art of ship-building, but his divesting himself of his outward splendour only made the inward brightness of his genius to shew more clearly, as a lamp burning brighter in the dark. England in her turn presented herself to the inquisitive observation of Peter. The Roman Emperor Leopold conferred with him in Vienna on the question of war or peace with Turkey, whose power under the Great Soliman had become a cause of apprehension to Europe. The death of John Sobiesky and the election of another king by the restless republic of Poland also occupied the mind of Peter. He favoured the pretensions of Augustus Elector of Saxony, and sent some regiments of Streltsi to assist him; but this service served as a pretext for their last mutiny, and hastened the return of the Tsar.

A dreadful fate awaited the guilty. Peter, rendered severe by so many revolts, resolved utterly to extirpate this hotbed of mutiny in the capital. Many thousands were sent away to different distant towns; and many hundreds were condemned to public execution. In vain the patriarch moved by feelings of humanity went in solemn procession with the Icon of Vladimir, to entreat Peter to have mercy. The mildness of the prelate only the more provoked the monarch, who saw that their strict punishment would be productive of the general good, and therefore rejected the intercession of Adrian. The Tsarevna Sophia was placed under still closer inspection in her monastic cell, on account of the designs of the Streltsi, who wished to see her again on the throne; and at the same time another sister named Martha was compelled to receive the tonsure in the same monastery on account of certain family quarrels. Even the young wife of Peter herself, the Tsaritsa Eudocia, of the family of the Lopouchins, did not escape the same sad fate: her fixed attachment to those old-fashioned opinions, which were so offensive to the sovereign, destined her to be confined in the convent of Souzdal during the whole course of Peter’s reign.

After his return from abroad, his inclination for foreign customs and dress became still more apparent than before, and he resolved to introduce them gradually amongst his subjects, that he might in this way make them approach more rapidly to European civilization. The beards and kaftans of the boyars gradually disappeared in obedience to the will of Peter; but the clergy and the lower classes retained what they had inherited from their ancestors. Peter also changed certain usages which did not correspond with his way of thinking;—such as the solemn procession of the patriarch on an ass on Palm Sunday, which had crept in amongst us from the West, and which the Patriarch Joachim also had already forbidden the other prelates to observe: also another custom, of all the people kissing the Tsar and the patriarch on the square of the Kremlin during what was called the Act of the New Year. He even transferred the festival of the new year itself to the first of January, so as to make it agree with the custom of the rest of Europe; he did not, however, venture to introduce the Gregorian Calendar; and notwithstanding so great a change in the civil and ecclesiastical reckoning, the festival of the new year of 1700 passed over without the slightest disturbance.

The aged patriarch, however, who was worn out with disease, was offended, and refused to officiate at the solemn liturgy, which Cornelius metropolitan of Novogorod celebrated in his absence in the cathedral of the Assumption, and complimented the Tsar on the new year. Adrian was still more disquieted when Peter, meditating great reforms and alterations, invited all the Functionaries of the first rank in the kingdom to assist him in correcting the national code and in forming a new one, with a clear separation between the provinces of the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The patriarch, during the last days of his life, and whilst he was standing with one foot already in the grave, gave orders in vain for a collection to be made and copied out of the rights and privileges of the Russian Church, beginning with the Nomo-canon and the edicts of Vladimir and Yaroslaff, and including also the Tallies of the Khans of the Hordes, granted to the great prelates Peter, Alexis, and their successors: lastly, like Joachim, he exhorted with tears the boyars who were to form the code to respect all these privileges and rights, and not to depart from the maxims of their ancestors. He departed this life at the end of the year 1700, and with him the personal dignity of patriarch in the Russian Church came to an end.

Previous · Contents · Next