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History of the Church of Russia

A. N. Mouravieff, tr. Blackmore, 1842

6. The Patriarchs. Job, First Patriarch, A.D. 1587

A most important event took place at this time in the Russian Church; important from the circumstances of the time itself; for the prosperity of the state was already declining to its fall, with the extinction of the race of Rurik, and a storm of long continuance impended, in which the Church, in the persons of her chief prelates, saved the country by seizing the helm; important also no less from its re-establishing the external order of the Church. About 150 years had elapsed since the fall of Constantinople; and the metropolitans of all Russia, who were appointed during all that time by synods of their own bishops, had not been confirmed by the patriarchs, although they still reckoned themselves as forming part of their spiritual province. Their acquiescence in this, in the first instance, and the calamitous circumstances of the East, might partly excuse this irregularity in that subordination of the hierarchy, which is so necessary to the unity of the Catholic Church; but the longer continuance of such a state of things might have been attended with danger. The remoteness, indeed, and the very extent of the Russian Church, necessarily prevented its immediate dependence upon the depressed see of Constantinople; but, on the other hand, it was impossible for her to become independent without the common consent of the four œcumenical patriarchs, lest she should fall into a fatal violation of unity¹.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, in His care for that Church which He purchased with His precious blood, Himself orders all for its good, and often works by such means as outwardly may be taken for the mere fortunate concurrence of circumstances, while they are in reality the secret ways of His Providence. Within a short space of time, two patriarchs, of Antioch, and Constantinople, came in quest of alms into our country; and the pious Tsar Theodore, having felt his soul gratified by the magnificence of the Church-ceremonies in which they took part, conceived a wish to elevate the metropolitans of all Russia to the rank of patriarchs; and this spontaneous impulse of his heart was perhaps the only really independent act of all his reign, the only one in which the ambition of Boris had no share. The synodical institution of a fifth patriarch in the place of the patriarch of Rome, who had fallen away², appeared so great an event in the ecclesiastical world, as we may see from the language of the contemporary acts, that it could never have proceeded from any political calculations of people and of an age which lived rather an ecclesiastical than a civil life. The very gradual way in which the affair made progress, of itself shews how doubtfully, and as it were apprehensively, it was at first undertaken; and what is most remarkable of all, the Church of Russia heard of it only after it had already been agreed upon between the Tsar and the patriarch of Constantinople.

In the year 1580, which was in the lifetime of the Metropolitan Dionysius, Joachim, patriarch of Antioch, came to Moscow, and their meeting in the cathedral of the Assumption gave the first idea of establishing the Russian patriarchate; for often from small beginnings great events take their rise. Dionysius, though only metropolitan, would not yield precedence to the Patriarch Joachim, but gave him his own benediction first, before he received the benediction from him, which the patriarch slightly remarked upon at the time. Soon afterwards, the pious Tsar, after making a statement to the boyars of his council on the history of the ancient and new mode of appointing our metropolitans, gave it as his judgment that it would be more suitable to erect a patriarchate in Russia, and sent the Boyar Godounoff to confer upon this idea with the prelate of Antioch: but Joachim returned for answer that such a matter was for the judgment of a full synod of the heads of the Church, and only promised for himself that he would consult the patriarch of Constantinople and the other two patriarchs respecting it.

After an interval of two years, when Job was now metropolitan, Russia was visited by the patriarch of Constantinople himself, Jeremiah II., a man deservedly celebrated for his learning, and for his sufferings in the cause of the Church. He was even imprisoned by the Sultan Amurath, in Rhodes, for his firm defence of her rights. Deprived by the Turks of his ancient patriarchal Church, Jeremiah came to beg assistance from the Tsar Theodore, having been also previously informed of his wishes by the patriarch of Antioch, and was received with that honour which was due to the first among the œcumenical patriarchs, on whom also the Muscovite Church itself depended. The monarch, overjoyed at his coming, proposed to the prelate to remain in Russia for good, so avoiding the troubles of the East, and to set up his patriarchal throne in the former capital Vladimir; for Theodore, with all his desire to have a patriarch in Russia, was still in some doubt; being at once backward to violate the rights of the see of Constantinople, by establishing the independence of the Russian Church, and at the same time not wishing to see near his own person as primate a foreigner, who was ignorant of our manners, and unable even to advise with him in his own language; neither did he choose to do any thing to mortify the Metropolitan Job, who was protected by the Godounoffs; and here was the only point in which the personal views of Boris had any influence in this whole business, which was of such immense importance.

Jeremiah, experienced from age, having grown grey amid the difficult circumstances of the East, and being zealous to maintain his own see, could not consent to the Tsar’s proposal. He saw clearly that a distant residence at Vladimir would make him equally useless to both the Churches of Constantinople and Moscow, and requested to be allowed to take his leave and return to Constantinople. At last however, after new instances on the part of the Tsar, he determined to appoint the Metropolitan Job, on his election and presentation, to be patriarch of all Russia. A synod of all the Russian bishops was solemnly convoked in the capital; the Tsar in person proposed to them to consult together on the institution of a patriarchate of Moscow; and the council submitted itself entirely to the wishes of the monarch, having the firmest assurance of his pious zeal for the good of the Church. They assembled in the cathedral of the Assumption for the election of three spiritual persons, leaving the final choice of one out of these to the Tsar; the Patriarch Jeremiah brought their names to the palace, and Theodore stopped at once at the name of Job, which had been placed first upon the list.

But now that the legitimate consent of the see of Constantinople had once been obtained for the independent existence of the Russian Church, the monarch made it his business to take care that the rights of a fraternal equality between the two patriarchs should in no respect be violated, and that from the very first moment Job of Moscow should enjoy a complete independence of Constantinople. Accordingly at his Nomination³ he was ordered to kiss the lips of Jeremiah, as a brother, and not to lay aside his crozier unless Jeremiah laid aside his too. His style and address were also changed by adding the prefix of Œcumenical Lord. Job did not return thanks standing with a wax light in his hand in the middle of the church, after the ancient order of Constantinople, but they both mutually complimented each other upon the ambon, and so separating, retired with equal honour by different doors⁴. Jeremiah solemnly performed the consecration, assisted by the synod, and repeated again over the patriarch-elect the whole office for the ordination of a bishop, as it was rightly thought that a double portion of grace was requisite for the chief pastor of the Church. Then both patriarchs seated themselves together side by side on an elevated ambon⁵, and the sovereign placed in the hands of Job a most costly crozier, together with a rich mantle and white cowl, ornamented with precious stones. A royal banquet awaited the prelates in the palace, and Godounoff himself, the Tsar’s master of horse, held the bridle of the new patriarch of Moscow when, according to custom, he rode round the walls to bless all the city. The interchange of magnificent presents between the Tsar and the patriarch concluded the ceremonies.

Some days having intervened, Job, in the presence of the Most Holy Jeremiah, appointed two archbishops, Alexander of Novogorod, and Barlaam of Rostoff, to be metropolitans⁶ of the same dioceses; and afterwards two others, Gelasius, bishop of the Steeps, as vicar in the patriarch’s own diocese, and the archimandrite of the monastery at Kazan, the illustrious Hermogenes, to be metropolitan of Kazan. The first two had been put in nomination for the patriarchate at the time of the election of Job, and after it the names of each of them were again presented to the Tsar, together with those of two archimandrites, for him to elect to the new metropolitan sees which they had respectively filled before with a lower title. The Tsar Theodore Ivanovich had previously arranged with the Most Holy Jeremiah that the patriarchs of Moscow should be appointed by the council of their own bishops, notice only being given at the time to the see of Constantinople, as was to be done reciprocally at the change of any one of the œcumenical patriarchs; and for the sake of having the council which was to elect them complete, with all the ranks of the hierarchy, it was determined at the same time to increase the number of metropolitan sees in the Russian Church to four, and to raise six bishoprics to the rank of archbishoprics, which were those of Vologda, Souzdal, Nijny-Novogorod, Smolensk, Riazan, and Tver, also to restore the two former bishoprics of Colomna and Bransk, and to add five more new ones, of Pskoff, Rjeff of Vladimir, Oustiog, Bielo-ozero, and Dmitroff. The Tsar, for greater security, ordered an account to be drawn up and engrossed on parchment of all this new institution of metropolitan archiepiscopal and episcopal sees, together with the coming of Jeremiah, his consecration of Job, and his giving consent to the future appointment of the patriarchs of all Russia by the council of their own bishops. He gave force and authenticity to this document by causing to be affixed to it his own royal seal, as well as the seal of the two patriarchs, and of all our own and as many Greek bishops as were present. The greater part of the Russian archimandrites and hegumens joined in with their written subscriptions, as did also the archimandrites of Constantinople, and those from the holy mountains of Sinai and Athos, and from the Holy Sepulchre, who had come with the patriarch. On the return of spring, Jeremiah was dismissed with magnificent presents and great honour, having promised to send speedily letters of confirmation from the œcumenical council⁷.

In the mean time, the change in the external relations of the primate of Moscow with the primate of Constantinople, by which from a subordinate metropolitan he became a brother patriarch and equal, did not affect the internal relation in which he stood to his own Church. The title only was raised, but in fact the metropolitan by becoming patriarch gained no new right or power over his bishops; his ecclesiastical court continued on exactly the same footing, and had just the same jurisdiction as before over the spirituality who were subject to him, and over all the domains which belonged to him, with the exception of those religious houses, which had had the privilege granted them of having their own separate judicatories by letters of exemption from the Great Princes. The former customary dues were continued, which accrued from the decision of such judicial matters as came before him, in cases of marriage, inheritance, wills, sacrilege, and other matters; also the regular contribution which the metropolitans had received from each parish of their ecclesiastical province, and the fixed payments allowed by canon at ordinations of deacons and priests, and presents on the consecration of bishops. Neither was the court itself of the ancient metropolitans changed, which consisted of their own boyars, gentlemen, clerks, and retainers, and of the officers of their chanceries and consistories, so as to be the counterpart of the court of the Great Princes themselves. With respect to the autocrat, the patriarch remained in the same sacred position in which from all antiquity the Catholic Church had placed her prelates in the presence of Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, and others of the greatest Roman emperors. As a spiritual father and intercessor with God for the Tsar, Job was invited by him to share in his councils, in which he otherwise never interposed of himself; and with his blessing those matters were concluded upon, which were submitted to him for consideration by the sovereign, who trusted to his experience in all the more difficult conjunctures of his government.

A year after the departure of Jeremiah, Dionysius, metropolitan of Tirnoff⁸ and all Bulgaria, who was descended from the imperial race of the Cantacuzenes and Paleologi, brought to Moscow to the Tsar and patriarch synodical letters of confirmation from the œcumenical patriarchs, in which they affectionately acknowledged the patriarch of Moscow as their brother, in the place of the Roman bishop, who had fallen away, and assigned him the fifth place in the hierarchy of the Universal Church, and in her prayers, next after the patriarch of Jerusalem; although the first wish of Theodore had been that the primate of Muscovy should be named third, yielding precedence to the patriarch of Alexandria only on account of his title of Œcumenical Judge⁹. This document was signed by only three patriarchs, Jeremiah of Constantinople, Joachim of Antioch, and Sophronius of Jerusalem, the fourth, of Alexandria, being dead; and further, by forty-two of the eastern metropolitans, nineteen archbishops, and twenty bishops, with the rest of the clergy who were present at the council. Notwithstanding this, the Tsar and the patriarch still continued to make instances to obtain the third place; and on occasion of Dionysius of Tirnoff publicly taking his leave, the Most Holy Job declined acceding to his proposal, that he should select some one of the Greek metropolitans as his representative at the patriarchal see of Constantinople, as was usual with the other heads of the Eastern hierarchy. The Tsar dismissed the Metropolitan Dionysius with great honour, and with most magnificent presents to all the patriarchs, and a long epistle, in which he recapitulated to the whole council, and particularly to the Lord of Constantinople, all the details of his coming into Russia, of the negotiation, the election, and even of the rank of precedence given to Job, and sent at the same time bountiful alms for the erection of a new patriarchal Church, to replace the ancient Church of the Almighty Ruler, which had been taken away from the Christians by the Sultan Amurath.

The constitution of the orthodox Church in Russia had only just been thus settled, as we have described, when she was threatened with a great danger on the side of Poland and Lithuania, on occasion of the election of a new king. Poland was without a government, and parties were divided in the diet at Cracow, where, of three candidates for her slippery throne, Maximilian of Austria, Sigismund of Sweden, and Theodore himself, the popular majority already shewed a disposition to favour the Tsar, but the decided answer of our ambassadors on the unchangeable orthodoxy of our sovereign opened the way for the prince of Sweden; and from the accession of Sigismund, who was a zealot for Rome, there began that course of hostile policy of the Western Church against Russia which so cruelly manifested itself in the Unia and the pretenders, and at length in the calamitous sacking and destruction of Moscow. Theodore, as if he had a presentiment of the storm which was coming from Sigismund, sought by all means to persuade Maximilian not to yield up to him his pretensions to the Polish crown; but the establishment of friendly relations with the emperor, and royal presents of great value, designed to engage him in the plan of a general crusade to be undertaken in common, were the only fruits which he obtained of his proposed coalition.

Border disputes arose with Sweden, on account of the frequent incursions of the Swedes into Carelia, where they laid waste the domains of the Solovetsky monastery, and several small unprotected convents. The Tsar, having failed to obtain satisfaction, took the field himself, and commenced the campaign by besieging Narva. On the capture, however, of this town by assault, the war was terminated, and a short armistice was concluded, which left Russia in possession of several border fortresses. The hostile intentions of Sweden shewed themselves on the first favourable opportunity that she found, in the time of the troubles caused by the pretenders.

But the most fatal event of this period, which in the end cost so much Christian blood, was the unfortunate death of the Prince Demetrius, half brother to Theodore, who was murdered when only eight years old at Ouglich. According to the account of all the annalists, and the unanimous voice of the people, he fell by the hands of emissaries employed by Godounoff, from fear that Demetrius would be his enemy, and that by the extirpation of this last scion of the royal stock, the Russian empire might pass to his own family. The Prince Basil Shouesky, who was sent by the Tsar to Ouglich to investigate this deed of blood, accused the citizens, who had put the murderers of the princes to death, as guilty of insurrection, while he charged his uncles the Naghi, and all who had been about his person, with carelessness in providing for his security; at this mock enquiry many witnesses were brought forward, to make it appear that the blessed child had been seized suddenly by a fit while at play, and so had fallen upon a knife and run it into him. His innocent body was buried in the cathedral at Ouglich; while the zealous citizens were pursued with the punishments of death or exile; Pelim, in the marshy wastes of Siberia, was colonized with them, and the populous city of Ouglich was left without inhabitants, while the bodies of those who had been killed there as the murderers of the young prince, that is, of the city officer Bitiatofsky, his son and nephew, of the son of Demetrius’s nurse, and others, who were reported to have been concerned in the murder, were committed to the ground with honour. The three Naghi, uncles of the lad, were sent to different distant prisons; the Tsaritsa his mother was compelled to receive the tonsure under the name of Martha, in the remote district of Bielo-ozero, as a member of the poor convent of St. Nicholas. The talk of the people was quieted for a time, as under a little dust, by multiplied acts of beneficence on the part of Boris, after the dreadful conflagrations which laid waste Moscow and other cities; and afterwards, all means that human precaution could devise were taken to stifle the lamentations of the land of Russia, and the innocent blood which cried out from her bosom: In vain! The Lord himself appeared as the avenger of iniquity.

An unexpected incursion of Kazi Hirey, khan of the Crimea, drew off for a time the general attention. The Russian generals allowed the Tartar army to pass the Oka, and from the heights of the Sparrow Hills the khan, greedy of plunder, already devoured with his eyes the golden-roofed city of Moscow, as though certain of the prey which his innumerable hosts surrounded. But from the upper apartments¹⁰ of his palace in the Kremlin the pious Theodore looked down calmly upon the hostile masses of the infidels, and considered that fear would be a sin: he took the Icon of our Lady of the Don, which in former time had accompanied his ancestor Demetrius at the battle with Mamai; the Patriarch Job caused Litanies¹¹ to be sung, and committed it to the assembled clergy, to carry in procession round the walls; after which he set it up under the tent in the ambulatory church of St. Sergius, our never-failing protector in the hour of need, in the midst of the troops which had been collected and were encamped before the gates of the capital. For a whole day they fought from the walls and under the walls, and Godounoff with his generals had the direction of the battle; for a whole day a fearful suspense agitated the hearts of all the besieged, except that of Theodore alone, who calmly went to sleep amidst the tumult and storm of the engagement, having said first these words, “To-morrow there will be no enemy;” and accordingly in the morning there was none: the khan had been alarmed by intelligence of the near approach of fresh Russian troops to the capital, and had fled, leaving behind him a rich spoil. On the spot where the chapel tent of St. Sergius had stood with the miraculous Icon, a monastery was founded by the zeal of the Tsar, in the name of Our Lady of the Don, the chosen conductress of our armies on that day of victory; and the Tsar liberally rewarded his officers, and especially their commander Boris, with a gold medal and collar.

But the danger was scarcely over when the popular rumours about the death of the Tsarevich Demetrius were again revived. They said that Godounoff had been the cause of the fires; that Godounoff had invited the khan to invade Russia, in order to smother the memory of Demetrius; that when a son had in reality been born to Theodore, Godounoff had concealed it and substituted a daughter, the same child whose birth was signalized by the sending of rich presents to the four patriarchal thrones, and whose early death was a cause of bitter lamentation to her inconsolable parents. These rumours of suspicion and hatred, which were continually renewed at every opportunity, pursued Boris throughout the whole reign of Theodore, until they grew up under his own government to the full measure of their stature, in the form of a man, who by the mere fact of his personal resemblance to Demetrius overturned his throne.

In the mean time in South Russia the exertions of the wily Jesuit Possevin, who was disappointed by John as to the reception of the Florentine Council, obtained the success he desired for them under the protection of Sigismund. The oppressions of the nobles, who, in spite of the Statute of Lithuania granted by him at his coronation, violently appropriated to themselves the property of the orthodox clergy, compelled the Metropolitan Onesiphorus, a most zealous pastor, to beg for new privileges from the king, for the protection of his Church. Already in the tenth year of his episcopate under Stephen Batori, he had found great difficulty in resisting the introduction of the new Gregorian Calendar, which had been prohibited by a circular letter of the Patriarch Jeremiah¹². On the one hand incessant persecutions and influences both secret and open to desert orthodoxy, on the other the weakness of their defences, and the desperate struggle they had to maintain for their fundamental rights, had produced a relaxation of morals among the clergy, and irregularities in the election of their bishops. The metropolitan himself, though otherwise a man of irreproachable life, had been twice married, which was contrary to the canons; and the same was the case with Cyrill Terletsky, bishop of Loutsk, the first author of the Unia.

The Patriarch Jeremiah, when he visited for the first time this part of his flock, could not look with indifference on such disorders; by his own act and authority he degraded Onesiphorus, and consecrated in his room Michael Ragoza, who was presented to him in Wilna by the Lithuanian nobles, with reluctance, according to the testimony of the annalists, as if he had had some presentiment of his apostacy. Unfortunately, the double marriage and the vicious life of the bishop of Loutsk were unknown as yet to the patriarch, who was deceived by his pretended zeal; Jeremiah deprived, however, Timothy, the guilty archimandrite of Souprasylsk, and when he departed for Moscow gave it in charge to the metropolitan to convoke a synod in his absence for the reformation of the Church. Sensible of the necessity of learning, the Patriarch Jeremiah who had already established one Stauropegia in the monastery of the Assumption in the town of Lvoff, now in like manner took under his own special protection the School of the Fraternity of the Holy Spirit in Wilna, making it also into a Stauropegia, and regulating it upon the same model; and on his return he gave his blessing to the institution of the Brotherhood of the Epiphany in Kieff, since converted into the Spiritual Academy, as he saw what a superiority the well-trained zealots of the Western Church, the Jesuits, had over the orthodox. Arsenius, archbishop of Elasson, who accompanied him to Moscow, together with the metropolitan of Monembasia, and remained there and accepted the diocese of Souzdal, probably for some similar reason, was taken by Jeremiah from being rector of his seminary at Lvoff, that he might be of use in diffusing a spirit of learning and improvement in those districts through which he had to travel.

But after a residence of a year in the capital of Russia, the patriarch on his return to Wilna did not find that any synod had met as he desired, and having Church business which made it necessary for him to go on further, he determined to wait for its assembling, first in Zamost, and then again in Wallachia, although by so doing he lost much valuable time, and was obliged to incur heavy expenses, which his impoverished see could ill afford. But Jeremiah’s waiting was to no purpose. Too many exposures and convictions would have followed upon the meeting of a council, and the timid metropolitan Ragoza dreaded the consequences. In the mean time a report of the immoral life of the bishop of Loutsk had at length reached Jeremiah; and he sent from Zamost, Gregory, a monk in priest’s orders, with a letter to the metropolitan, in order that he might be proceeded against and punished; but the Bishop Cyrill gave orders that this letter should be intercepted and taken away from the messenger by force on the passage through his diocese; and he himself was so daring as to go straight to the patriarch to justify himself, taking with him Gideon Boloban, bishop of Lvoff, whose zeal for orthodoxy was well known, and he succeeded once more in deceiving the pontiff by his hypocritical assurances; as a proof of his devotion, he even conducted him on his way, together with Gideon, as far as to the frontiers of Wallachia.

But the violence which Cyrill had used towards the patriarchal envoy could not remain long concealed. Fresh reports were raised, and Meletius Bogourinsky, bishop of Vladimir¹³, again accused Cyrill to the patriarch. Then Jeremiah intrusted to Meletius letters authorizing him to call a synod, and commissioned the Archimandrite Dionysius to act in it as exarch from himself, as he no longer looked for any thing from the metropolitan; and he demanded from this latter, as a sort of punishment for having screened the guilty, the payment of those expenses which he had been obliged to incur during his fruitless delay at Zamost. The crafty Cyrill Terletsky knew well how to turn to his advantage this circumstance, small as it was; foreseeing his own condemnation in the council, he so wrought upon the metropolitan by his well-feigned indignation, as to prevent his fulfilling the wishes of the patriarch; while he contrived, during a friendly visit to Meletius, to steal from among his papers the patriarchal letter of commission; and upon his death, which followed shortly after, he persuaded Ragoza to consecrate to the see of Vladimir Ignatius Potsi, whom he had himself not long before admitted to the monastic tonsure as a convert, from having been one of the Castellans¹⁴ or Roman priests at Brest, as a fit tool of his traitorous designs, knowing that Ignatius had already once before apostatized from orthodoxy.

These two men became the chief promoters of the Unia, and strove by all possible means to bring into it the rest of the orthodox bishops, at the two local diets of Brest-Litofsky and Lvoff; but they met with strenuous opposers in Gideon Balaban of Lvoff, and Michael Copistensky of the city of Peremuishla, and in Nicephorus Toura, the eloquent archimandrite of the Pecherskay Lavra at Kieff. However, as they scrupled at no means for the attainment of their end, they fraudulently obtained the signatures of both the bishops to a parchment, upon which they pretended they were going to write a petition to the king for new privileges and securities to the orthodox Church; and then, instead of this, they wrote, as in the name of a synod, a request to him and to the pope for a union with the Church of Rome.

In the mean time the Patriarch Jeremiah, having heard of the agitation that was going on in the Church of Little Russia, sent round a circular letter by another exarch, whose name was Nicephorus, threatening the metropolitan and the bishops, in the event of their apostacy, with deprival. But the king, Sigismund, bade them rely upon his protection, and promised that the excommunication of the patriarch should never take effect in his dominions. The death of the Most Holy Jeremiah, which followed shortly after, depriving the Church of her experienced governor, and the rapid changes of his successors, of whom no less than three followed each other in the short space of two years, told very much in favour of the Unia, although the wise and learned patriarch of Alexandria, Meletius Pega, who after them was administrator of the see of Constantinople, sent fresh circulars for the maintenance of orthodoxy, by his exarch Cyrill Lucar, who afterwards became patriarch of Constantinople. Neither were the two zealous pastors Gideon and Michael of Peremuishla silent, nor the archimandrite of the Pechersky; in concert with these was the venerable Prince Constantine of Ostrog, voivode of Kieff, now a hundred years old, and long celebrated for his love of learning. While John the Terrible was yet on the throne of Russia, the orthodox Church had been indebted to him for an edition of the first printed Bible, and of other sacred books, in the Slavonian language, and for the establishment of flourishing schools in Ostrog and Kieff. He sent about the patriarchal letters in every direction, and protected the exarchs of the orthodox from the persecutions of the king, who did not venture to interfere with him.

Notwithstanding this opposition, Ignatius succeeded in assembling a council in his own diocese; it being more easy for him to incline the feeble metropolitan to his side in the frontier town of Brest-Litofsky, than it would have been in Kieff, the capital of orthodoxy, or Wilna, or Novogrodok, his usual residences. Besides the metropolitan Ignatius, and Cyrill, there were present also on the part of the orthodox, Nathaniel of Polotsk, Gideon of Lvoff, and Dionysius of Kholm, with many archimandrites and hegumens; while on the part of the Romans, there was the primate of the kingdom, the archbishop of Gneznen, with four other bishops. Ignatius opened the council with a speech persuading them to a union with the Western Church; and, after many discussions, the metropolitan was gained, and he, with four other bishops who had apostatized from orthodoxy, Ignatius, Cyrill, Leontius, and Dionysius, signed a synodal letter for a union, on the terms of the council of Florence, but with a reservation in favour of all the discipline and ceremonies of the Eastern Church. Death preserved Nathaniel of Polotsk from signing so disgraceful an act; but Gideon and Michael strenuously protested against it, and were responded to both by the clergy and the people. Nevertheless Ignatius and Cyrill, by the exertions of King Sigismund, were sent as if they were the representatives of the whole Russian Church, to the Roman pontiff, to testify before him their submission: and Clement VIII. returned public thanksgivings for the successful completion of this long-desired union. But in the mean time, before the return of these envoys, Gideon and Michael, having learned the wicked use made of their signatures, proclaimed to all the world the knavery of the proceeding; while the prince of Ostrog loudly exclaimed against the apostacy of Brest, where five bishops had taken upon themselves to betray the cause of the whole orthodox Church. The general excitement which prevailed on account of the ancient doctrines of the faith, at the time when the diet of the kingdom was about to assemble, made it absolutely necessary for both parties that a fresh council should be called, which might determine more clearly the actual position of the Church, and shew who were her true pastors, and who adversaries; and accordingly in the same town of Brest-Litofsky there met a second council much more numerously attended than the first. On this occasion there came not only the orthodox clergy who had their rights to defend, but the aged Prince Constantine of Ostrog also, with the prime of the nobility; while there appeared on the other side, in the name of the king, Radzivil, hetman¹⁵ of Lithuania, with the primate and the voivodes.

The two exarchs of the patriarch, Nicephorus and Cyrill Lucar, Luke, metropolitan of Belgrad, and the bishops Gideon and Michael, Nicephorus the archimandrite of the Pechersky, and other members of the clergy, were the representatives of their Church at the council of Brest. Seeing the weakness of the Metropolitan Michael, who only the day before had signed his definitive consent to the Unia, and the vexations to which they were subjected by their opponents, who had refused to recognise Nicephorus as exarch from the patriarch, they solemnly assembled in a private house, because they could not obtain the use of a Church; there, together with all the orthodox, both clergy and laity, after they had twice in vain summoned the metropolitan, they delivered him over to an anathema as an apostate from orthodoxy, together with the bishops who had also fallen away. On the other hand, the conventicle of the Uniates and the Romans, after having solemnly confirmed their first agreement for a union, which was sealed by the joint celebration of the liturgy in the same church, pronounced a similar sentence of excommunication against the orthodox; and thus the Church of Little Russia was divided into the Orthodox and the Uniate, both preserving, however, the same form, not only of external rite in the celebration of Divine Service, but even of doctrine; for Rome at first allowed the Creed¹⁶ without alteration, and required nothing but the one capital point of submission to the pope.

From this time began the hard and long-continued struggle of orthodoxy against the Unia in all the Polish and Lithuanian provinces, and the persecutions of the Western Church, and more particularly of the civil government, against those who refused to betray the faith of their ancestors. Contrary to all former fundamental statutes, they were deprived of their civil rights, which had ever been equally enjoyed by both Confessions. These persecutions were so severe, that three years after the council of Brest the orthodox senators and noblemen were compelled to join, with other members of the highest, and also of the inferior orders in the kingdom, of the Protestant confession, so far as by a public act at the conference of Wilna to engage themselves to afford each other mutual succour and protection at the diets, and in the courts of justice, before the face of the king. Other defenders also appeared, armed with the sword instead of law; the free Cossacks of the Zaporojsky horde, or horde beyond the Falls¹⁷, who, under the command of their atamans, had already more than once struck terror into Poland. The late king, Stephen Batori, had conferred on them legal privileges, and had recognised their ataman; but the danger of being deprived of the free profession of the orthodox faith, which had been made the first and indispensable condition of the agreement on the part of the horde, provoked them to rebel against Sigismund, and for a time deprived them of all the privileges which had been granted them by the crown, when their brave ataman, Nalivaiko, who had inflicted such losses on the Polish armies, was himself defeated by the Polish Hetman Jolkefsky, and burned alive. They, however, soon recovered themselves under the command of a new captain, whose name was Sagaidachny.

Another war also broke forth of bitter controversies and reproaches between the clergy of the two contending parties, and, till death closed the lips of the champions of the Church, Gideon, Michael Toura, and the prince of Ostrog himself, they exerted themselves to the utmost, both by speech and writing, though all they could do was weak in comparison with the overpowering violence of the Unia. The bishops, who were selected from the most devoted partizans of Rome, had not only every facility of recommending their party by preaching, but were able also to use active measures by the aid of the civil government, and thus, in the course of a few years, perverted as many as four millions of people in their dioceses.

The Metropolitan Ragoza took away from the orthodox in Kieff the ancient cathedral of St. Sophia, which, however, did not long remain in the hands of the Uniates; but he failed in his attempt to get possession of the Pecherskay Lavra, which was defended by the prayers of its founders St. Anthony and St. Theodosius. He himself did not dare any longer, after his apostacy, to reside either in Kieff or Wilna; the place which he chose for his permanent residence was Novogrodok, and there he remained, without ever ceasing, to the end of his life, to doubt and fluctuate, writing letters, with assurances of his orthodoxy, to the prince of Ostrog, and to the Russian ambassadors, when they passed by on their way into Poland. Hypatius, bishop of Vladimir, being chosen after his death to be metropolitan in his room, maintained and strengthened the Unia by planting Dominican convents over the whole of his ecclesiastical province, and by violently taking from the orthodox monasteries a great part of their possessions, beginning with Kieff. He obtained a royal edict forbidding the reception of orthodox scholars into the schools, and at the same time allowed none to be ordained anywhere without having been educated in them. The decisive measures which he took to promote the Unia were greatly assisted by Pope Clement VIII., who twice sent his legate, the Abbati Comouleio, to the Tsar Theodore, under the pretext of inviting his co-operation in a general crusade, but really with the same end in view for which the Jesuit Anthony Possevin had formerly come into Russia.

But in the mean time, one after another, all the champions of orthodoxy departed to their rest, without leaving any to supply their places. First of all died Constantine, prince of Ostrog, at the age of one hundred years, having had his life prolonged to nearly twice the ordinary span, as if on purpose that he might support the Church in her distresses, till the approach of better times; and almost together with him went her watchful pastor Gideon, bishop of Lvoff. All the family of the first, except one son, the Voivode Basil, fell away to the Unia; the flock of the latter remained long without a head, till at length the metropolitan of Wallachia appointed in his place a bishop, whose name was Joseph. Before long, the last zealous defender of the Church, Michael, bishop of Peremuishla, also departed; and the orthodox, having no longer any bishops, were all obliged to have recourse for the ordination of their priests, and for the holy chrism, to the distant town of Lvoff, to the Bishop Joseph, who was now the only one left in all the south-west of Russia. The audacity of the Metropolitan Hypatius rose in proportion to the losses of the others; he continued, even at the risk of his life, to take the ancient convents from the orthodox, and give them up to the Uniates, and at Wilna he all but fell a sacrifice to the fury of the people, on account of his having violently taken possession of the monastery and cathedral of the Trinity. Contrary to the canons of the Church, he during his own life nominated as his successor his favourite Joseph, who still further strengthened the Unia, by establishing a Congregation of Schools, and a superior seminary over them. To counteract him by the same means as he employed against them, some of the orthodox nobles endeavoured on their side also to set on foot similar fraternities of schoolmasters, and made sacrifices of their property for this purpose.

In this wretched and forlorn condition did the Church of Little Russia remain for the space of more than twenty years, without either metropolitan or bishops, till the coming of Theophanes, patriarch of Jerusalem, torn and agitated by the Unia, and trampled under foot by Rome. And these troubles and sufferings of the sister Church were to be bitterly felt by the Church of Russia itself, when, from the same poisonous nest, from the same fatal elements, the terrible pretender arose, formed by the skilful hand of the Jesuits, and burst with the same storm upon Russia.

But Theodore¹⁸ had now closed his eyes for ever, and was spared by Providence the sight of the miseries that were approaching. In his person the race of Rurik, after six centuries, bade its final adieu to Russia, shedding upon her its last benefits before a separation for ever. The end of the pious Tsar was happy; a holy man appeared to him as if in the act of meeting him at the gates of heaven. The royal house of Moscow was left tenantless by his departure. His disconsolate widow, Irene, who was unanimously acknowledged as the reigning Tsaritsa, quitted the throne, and received the tonsure in the Novodaëvichy convent; notwithstanding this, however, all forms continued to run, and all public business to be transacted, in her new name Alexandra¹⁹, as there was no other head to the kingdom. The patriarch only watched over its tranquillity, and convoked the councils, first that of the boyars, and then that of the provinces, for the election of a Tsar. Two persons drew upon themselves the general attention, on account of their family connection with the deceased; his cousin-german on the side of his mother Anastasia, the Boyar Theodore Niketich Romanoff²⁰; and his brother-in-law on the side of his consort Irene, Boris Godounoff.

But Russia, in the course of the fourteen years of Theodore’s reign, had already become used to the government of Boris; and alarmed at her own state of orphanage, which was new to her, in being left without a head, she chose him at the suggestion of the Patriarch Job and the boyars of the Privy Council. For a long time Boris refused the crown, and even concealed himself in the cell of the Tsaritsa his sister. The patriarch went in procession with the Cross, accompanied by all his clergy, and with great difficulty persuaded him to accept of it, for the sake of the Icon of our Lady²¹ of Vladimir, which they had brought to him to the convent. He then publicly crowned him in the cathedral of the Assumption with the crown of Monomachus²². It seemed as if all was likely to go well with the new Tsar, who was learned, and experienced in the business of government, respected both within and without the empire, the very appearance of whose camp in the field of itself struck with a panic the ambassadors of the khan of the Crimea, on the banks of the Oka, and with whom the emperor, the queen of England, and the shah of Persia, besides his nearer neighbours, all entertained friendly relations. His royal court was distinguished for unusual splendour, while his more private apartments²³ were graced with a flourishing family, consisting of his son Theodore and his daughter Xenia, the object of his tenderest affections, for whom he strove to realize the splendid prospect of two crowns, that of Russia for Theodore, and that of Denmark for Xenia, by marrying her to the king’s son. He had no reason to doubt but that his children would succeed to the undoubted inheritance of the throne, according to the regular order of succession; yet the boyars who stood next, and the Romanoffs, as being related to Theodore, excited the suspicion of Godounoff. They were falsely accused of a plot against the life of the Tsar, and, like the Naghi, the uncles of the young Prince Demetrius, five brothers of the Romanoffs were sent to different distant prisons, where four of them died. The eldest, Theodore, and his wife Maria, were compelled to receive the tonsure, the one under the name of Philaret, in a small religious house at Sieskay, the other under the name of Martha, in the convent of Zaonege; while their young son Michael, destined one day to be Tsar, shared the confinement of his uncle, the prince of Cherkask, at Bielo-ozero.

Soon after this a dreadful famine raged throughout the whole of Russia, which Boris in vain attempted to alleviate, though he did all that prudence could suggest, both in distributing relief, and engaging the people with employment on public works. The belfry tower, called after John the Great, which he caused to be erected at this time in the capital, remained a monument of the cares of the Tsar. From the famine arose pestilential diseases, together with a spirit of robbery and licentiousness throughout all the empire. This was only the beginning of those calamities, which neither the earnest prayers nor the liberal oblations and alms of Boris, the most magnificent of all our sovereigns in his gifts, could avoid. Fearful signs forewarned men, as it were, of the impending troubles: but before they came, the Tsaritsa and nun, Alexandra, had closed her eyes, like her mild consort Theodore, in peace; and Boris was left alone to drink the cup of bitterness to the dregs.

At this distressing time a report was spread about Russia that the Prince Demetrius, the son of John, the youth whom she had so long lamented, was still living, and had shewed himself in Poland. Boris, alarmed by this report, began to make enquiry as to the time of his appearance and the person of the pretender himself; and even sent, that the matter might be cleared up, for the mother of the prince to come from her confinement at Bielo-ozero to the capital. It appeared that a certain Gregory Otrepieff, one of the “Sons of the boyars” who had originally been in the service of the Romanoffs, a bold youth, who had received some education, had become a monk in Souzdal, and had passed from thence into the Choudoff monastery, where the Patriarch Job ordained him deacon, and employed him in copying the canons, in spite of the caution given him by the metropolitan of Rostoff, Jonah, who foresaw in the worthless young monk an instrument of the devil. At the courts of the patriarch and the Tsar, Gregory heard of the unhappy end of the prince, and of the accidental resemblance which his own person bore to that of Demetrius, and by way of an impudent joke swore that he would be Tsar in Moscow. This insolent speech reached the Tsar, and the monk was already destined to expiate his offence in the island of Solovetsky, when Otrepieff, learning what was to be his sentence from a secretary who was his relation, secretly made off, with two other monks, to Novogorod-Seversk, passing from one monastery to another. At Poutivla he for the first time insinuated to the archimandrite his own lofty descent. Having been received in Kieff by the son of the illustrious Prince Constantine of Ostrog, he lost himself by the open profligacy of his life, fled to the Cossacks of the horde beyond the Falls, and took part with them in their distant expeditions; he afterwards learned to read and write the Latin and Polish languages in a school in Volhynia, and entered into the service of a rich nobleman, the Prince Adam Vishnevetsky, where, during a feigned sickness, he discovered himself to his confessor, and persuaded the credulous prince of his royal birth.

Such an account of the runaway monk Otrepieff was circulated from the capital at the first report of the appearance of the pretended Demetrius; and a synod assembled, which at once anathematized him, and decreed a Perpetual Memory²⁴ in the church to the blessed youth whose person he counterfeited. Besides this, the uncle of Otrepieff, whose name was Smirnoy, was sent into Poland, to unmask his nephew at the court of Sigismund, whither the pretender had already made his way, through the countenance of the prince Vishnevetsky, who had taken him up as if he were really the son of John, and had been saved, as he gave out, from Ouglich by the fidelity of a physician. He was supported by the Jesuits, and by the papal Nuncio Rangoni, who selected him as their instrument for the subjugation of Russia, and influenced the king’s mind in his favour. In the midst of the severe struggle between the Unia and Orthodoxy, which then agitated Lithuania and Volhynia, nothing could have been more opportune for Rome than the appearance of such a person, who might be able by his imposture to shake orthodoxy at its very centre, in the capital of Russia: every expedient seemed lawful for such an end. Sigismund, though he had acknowledged the false Demetrius, was yet undecided to break the truce with Russia; and went no further than to give his nobles permission to assist the pretended Tsarevich if they pleased.

The first to take up arms was Mnishek, voivode of Sendomir, to whose proud daughter, Marina, the pretender had promised his hand and the throne of Moscow. Before long there joined him bands of deserters from the Ukraine, and the Cossacks of the Don, who were persuaded by a single traitor that he was really the prince. The district of Seversk rose in his favour. Boris, in amazement, hesitated, and lost time in sending about letters from the patriarch in council to Kieff and into Lithuania, for the purpose of undeceiving the voivodes, the clergy, and the people; at last he despatched an army, to which the brave defence of Novogorod Seversk by the Voivode Basmanoff rendered material assistance. Twice the pretender was defeated; twice he re-appeared with fresh forces, and now in the district of Orloff; and in the mean time he was gaining more and more on the favour of the people, when death suddenly struck Boris in the act of rising from table in the palace; he scarcely lived long enough to receive the monastic habit, with the name of Bogolep, and to commit his young son Theodore to the care of the patriarch²⁵. With him the greatness of his house was at an end.

The boyars took the oath of allegiance to the new Tsar, but it did not bind them long. The warlike Basmanoff, who had been chosen to the command of the royal army, delivered it up to the pretended Demetrius. This act of treason was followed and imitated by many of the first nobles of Russia. Terror took possession of the capital: letters from the pretender were read aloud in the public place²⁶: in vain the Boyars Shouesky and Mistislafsky, by advice of the patriarch, went out from the Kremlin to try to undeceive the people. The insurgent mob rushed into the Kremlin, and led out the young Tsar with his mother and sister from the palace to that same private mansion of Boris, from whence he had gone forth with so much magnificence to mount the throne. Those of the boyars who were partizans of the pretender, publicly swore allegiance to him, and were in vain denounced by the patriarch Job in the cathedral of the Assumption. While he was in the act of celebrating the liturgy, a band of miscreants broke into the church, and tore from him his pontifical robes. He then himself took the Panagia from his own neck, and placed it on the image of our Lady, and with a firm voice pronounced these words: “Here, before this sacred Icon, was I consecrated to my office, and for nineteen years have I preserved the purity of faith; I now see that misery is coming upon the kingdom, that fraud and heresy are to triumph. Oh, mother of God, do thou preserve orthodoxy!” They then put on him a common black gown, treated him with every kind of contumely in the public square, and drew him on a cart to the Staritsky monastery, to which he had formerly belonged. The young Tsar and his unhappy mother were smothered by murderers like those who had been employed to make away with Demetrius; for the Lord sometimes visits the sins of the fathers on the children.

The pretended Demetrius advanced in triumph to Moscow; the dignitaries of the kingdom went out to meet him to Toula, and even there were already forced to see his preference for foreigners. His chief counsellor was a Jesuit. The people of the capital joyfully welcomed the supposed son of John, restored to them as it were from the dead, from attachment to the ancient race of their Tsars, and as soon cooled again when they saw the baseness and licentiousness of the Poles who surrounded him, and the disrespect evinced for all that they held sacred by the Tsar himself, who trampled under foot the traditions of their fathers. No time was lost in proceeding to the election of a new patriarch in the room of Job, who was shut up in confinement. The pretender was afraid of the Russian bishops, and selected a Greek named Ignatius, then archbishop of Riazan, and formerly of Cyprus, who had come to Russia with the patriarch of Antioch, and had remained there and made it his adopted country, as Arsenius of Elasson had also done. However, that the order of the Church might not be openly violated, the pretended Demetrius sent his patriarch elect to Starits, to ask the blessing of the aged Job. But that prelate, firm in the midst of his persecutions, and knowing the leaning of Ignatius towards the customs of Rome, absolutely refused him his benediction, and notwithstanding the menaces used to shake him, called him “a pastor worthy of his Ataman.” In spite of this Ignatius was consecrated. For the greater evidence of his pretended descent from John, he recalled and set at liberty those of the Naghi and Romanoffs who were yet alive, the monk Philaret, the nun Martha, and their son the youth Michael. By the will of Providence, which uses unworthy as well as worthy instruments for good, the pretended Demetrius was made the means of the elevation of Philaret Niketich, who was consecrated to be metropolitan of Rostoff. Other illustrious exiles also were brought back, both living, and dead; the coffins of the Naghi and those of the Romanoffs were transported with honour to Moscow; while the coffin of Boris, on the contrary, was ignominiously ejected from the cathedral of the Archangel, and put away under ground in the Barsonophieff monastery, till it should be interred for the third and last time in the Trinity Lavra, during the reign of Shouesky.

The unfortunate Tsar Simeon also, son of Bekboulat, of the Kazan family, who had received the title of Great Prince of Tver from John the Terrible, and had been banished to his province, and had had his eyes put out in the time of Theodore, now profited for a short time by the grace of the Tsar, but only to end with being again confined in the monasteries of Solovetsky and Bielo-ozero, where he terminated, in the habit of a monk, his singular and troubled course. The Nun Martha herself, the Tsaritsa, and mother of the true Demetrius, was a second time sent for from the lone convent of Bielo-ozero by her pretended son, and was obliged to testify, by her silent recognition and acceptance of the attentions of the Tsar, to the truth of his person. Apartments were prepared for her in the Kremlin, in the monastery of the Ascension, where she also received as her daughter the proud bride of the pretender. Marina arrived from Poland, with her father the voivode, surrounded by extraordinary pomp and magnificence, to the infinite disgust of the people, who were scandalized at the immodesty of western manners, and at the misplaced prodigality of the Tsar, who gave away whole provinces to her and to his father-in-law Mnishek. Two stout prelates, Hermogenes, metropolitan of Kazan, and Joseph, bishop of Colomna, had the courage to demand that the new Tsaritsa should be baptized, and renounce the Roman doctrines, previously to her marriage; they were sent in consequence in disgrace to the monasteries of their respective dioceses. The marriage and coronation were celebrated at the same time. The pretended Demetrius, who had even before given permission both to Roman priests and to Lutheran pastors to perform their different services in the Kremlin, now began entirely and openly to contemn the orthodox religion, holding correspondence with the pope, who engaged him to make a union between the Churches, and maintaining the closest relations with his Nuncio Rangoni and the Jesuits. A crusade for the recovery of Constantinople was the favourite dream of the warlike pretender. In the mean time, as the violence of the Poles increased, the patience of the people was exhausted. Murmurs and accusations became more and more audible; one of the royal secretaries was not afraid to call the pretended Demetrius, Otrepieff, before his own face, and paid with his life for his noble boldness, together with others who risked their lives for truth. Among these appeared the courtier Shouesky, who had in past time dissembled to please Godounoff, and had borne false witness concerning the murder of the true Demetrius, but was now bold enough to speak the truth of the pretender. The intercession of the queen-mother with difficulty prevailed to save him from suffering death when he was already at the place of execution, but he became in consequence the object of the people’s affection. The careless pretender, forgetting amid his wedding-festivities all measures of precaution, soon recalled him from banishment, and Shouesky then held meetings in his house with the boyars, the citizens, and the military, for the expulsion of the usurper.

All night Moscow was in a state of agitation; just as it was beginning to dawn the tocsin was sounded, and troops of armed men, led on by Shouesky, poured into the Kremlin to the royal palace. None defended the pretender but his body-guards, who were foreigners; he threw himself out of a window into the court of the Granary-yard, where had been the former house of the Tsar Boris, and was taken up by the Streltsi with one of his legs broken. Once more the testimony of the mother was demanded to certify them as to the truth of his pretensions; and at that moment of his fate, Martha, who had been called out of her cell, declared that she did not acknowledge him to be her son.

They then began to examine the pretender himself, when two shots struck him dead in the midst of their enquiries. The boyars only just succeeded in saving the lives of his consort Marina, her father, and the Polish ambassadors: of the other Poles few escaped the fury of the populace. Shouesky with difficulty appeased the tumult; the body of the pretender was burned, and his ashes scattered to the winds²⁷. The next day after the insurrection, the Council of the Boyars, and the people, unanimously elected as their Tsar the Prince Basil Shouesky, the author of their deliverance, who was also the senior of all the princely families of the line of Rurik. The metropolitans and bishops blessed him to the kingdom, and at the same time they shut up in the Choudoff monastery the intrusive Patriarch Ignatius, who had blessed the pretender. The first thing which the new Tsar did was to desire the election of a patriarch, that the Church of Russia might not be left any longer without a pastor. Job, aged and infirm, had become blind from misfortunes and persecutions. By the general voice of the Ecclesiastical synod, they elected Hermogenes, the nobleminded metropolitan of Kazan, who had been a confessor during the days of the false Demetrius, and became afterwards a martyr for the faith and for his country during the vacancy of the throne: for the dreadful storm that had been raised by the pretender was not stilled by his overthrow: the preservation of the life of Marina, and of the ambassadors and some of the nobles of Sigismund, did not satisfy Poland, which wished to take advantage of the misfortunes of Russia, and to crush her power and the orthodox faith at once.

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