The position of the Russian Church before the reforms of Peter I
It is noteworthy that throughout the preparation for the reform of church government, Peter was in intensive relations with the eastern patriarchs - primarily the Patriarch of Jerusalem Dositheos - on various issues of both a spiritual and political nature. And he also addressed the Ecumenical Patriarch Cosmas with private spiritual requests, such as permission for him to “eat meat” during all fasts; his Letter to the Patriarch dated July 4, 1715 justifies the request by the fact that, as the document states, “I suffer from Febra and Scorbutina, which illnesses come to me more from all sorts of harsh foods, and especially since I am forced to constantly be for the defense of the holy church and state and my subjects in military difficult and distant campaigns<...>» . By another letter from the same day he asks Patriarch Cosmas for permission to eat meat at all posts for the entire Russian army during military campaigns, " “Our troops are still Orthodox<...>they are on difficult and long journeys and in remote and inconvenient and deserted places, where there are few, and sometimes nothing, any fish, below some other Lenten dishes, and often even bread itself.”. There is no doubt that it was more convenient for Peter to resolve issues of a spiritual nature with the eastern patriarchs, who were largely supported by the Moscow government (and Patriarch Dosifei was de facto for several decades a political agent and informant of the Russian government about everything that happened in Constantinople), than with their own, sometimes obstinate, clergy.
Peter's first endeavors in this area
Patriarch Adrian.
The position of the head of the Russian clergy became even more difficult when, in 1711, the Governing Senate began to operate instead of the old Boyar Duma. According to the decree establishing the Senate, all administrations, both spiritual and temporal, were required to obey the decrees of the Senate as royal decrees. The Senate immediately took possession of supremacy in spiritual governance. Since 1711, the guardian of the patriarchal throne cannot install a bishop without the Senate. The Senate independently builds churches in the conquered lands and itself orders the ruler of Pskov to place priests there. The Senate appoints abbots and abbesses to monasteries, and disabled soldiers send their requests for permission to settle in a monastery to the Senate.
Further, the regulations indicate historical examples of what the lust for power of the clergy led to in Byzantium and in other states. Therefore, the Synod soon became an obedient instrument in the hands of the sovereign.
The composition of the Holy Synod was determined according to the regulations of 12 “government persons”, of which three must certainly bear the rank of bishop. As in the civil colleges, the Synod consisted of one president, two vice-presidents, four councilors and five assessors. In the year, these foreign names, which did not fit in well with the clergy of the persons sitting in the Synod, were replaced by the words: first-present member, members of the Synod and those present in the Synod. The President, who is subsequently the first person present, has, according to regulations, a vote equal to the other members of the board.
Before entering into the position assigned to him, each member of the Synod, or, according to the regulations, “every collegium, both the president and others”, should be “to take an oath or promise before St. Gospel", Where "under a nominal fine of anathema and corporal punishment" promised “always seek the most essential truths and the most essential truths” and do everything “according to the statutes written in the spiritual regulations and which may henceforth be followed by additional definitions to them”. Along with the oath of fidelity to serving their cause, the members of the Synod swore fidelity to service to the reigning sovereign and his successors, pledged to inform in advance about the damage to His Majesty’s interest, harm, loss, and in conclusion they had to swear “to confess the ultimate judge of the spiritual board, the existence of the All-Russian monarch himself”. The end of this oath, drawn up by Feofan Prokopovich and edited by Peter, is extremely significant: “I also swear by the all-seeing God that I do not interpret all this that I now promise in any other way in my mind, as I utter with my lips, but in that power and intelligence, such power and intelligence as the words written here are revealed to those who read and hear”.
Metropolitan Stefan was appointed President of the Synod. In the Synod, he somehow immediately turned out to be a stranger, despite his presidency. During the entire year, Stefan was in the Synod only 20 times. He had no influence on matters.
A man unconditionally devoted to Peter was appointed vice-president - Theodosius, bishop of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.
In terms of the structure of the office and office work, the Synod resembled the Senate and collegiums, with all the ranks and customs established in these institutions. Just as there, Peter took care of organizing supervision over the activities of the Synod. On May 11 of the year, a special chief prosecutor was ordered to be present at the Synod. Colonel Ivan Vasilyevich Boltin was appointed the first chief prosecutor of the Synod. The main responsibility of the chief prosecutor was to conduct all relations between the Synod and the civil authorities and vote against the decisions of the Synod when they were not consistent with the laws and decrees of Peter. The Senate gave the chief prosecutor special instructions, which were almost a complete copy of the instructions to the prosecutor general of the Senate.
Just like the Prosecutor General, the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod is called an instruction “the eye of the sovereign and attorney on state affairs”. The Chief Prosecutor was subject to trial only by the sovereign. At first, the power of the Chief Prosecutor was exclusively observational, but little by little the Chief Prosecutor becomes the arbiter of the fate of the Synod and its leader in practice.
Just as in the Senate there were fiscals next to the post of prosecutor, so in the Synod spiritual fiscals were appointed, called inquisitors, with a proto-inquisitor at their head. The inquisitors were supposed to secretly monitor the correct and legal course of affairs of church life. The Office of the Synod was structured on the model of the Senate and was also subordinate to the Chief Prosecutor. In order to create a living connection with the Senate, the position of an agent was established under the Synod, whose duty, according to the instructions given to him, was “to recommend urgently both in the Senate, and in the collegiums and in the chancellery, so that, according to these synodal decrees and decrees, the proper dispatch is carried out without delay”. Then the agent ensured that the synodal proceedings sent to the Senate and collegiums were heard before other matters, otherwise he had to “protest to the presiding persons there” and report to the prosecutor general. The agent had to carry important papers coming from the Synod to the Senate himself. In addition to the agent, there was also a commissar from the Monastic Order at the Synod, who was in charge of the frequent and extensive relations between this order and the Synod. His position was in many ways reminiscent of the position of commissars from the provinces under the Senate. For the convenience of managing the affairs subject to the management of the Synod, they were divided into four parts, or offices: the office of schools and printing houses, the office of judicial affairs, the office of schismatic affairs and the office of inquisitorial affairs.
The new institution, according to Peter, should have immediately taken up the task of correcting the vices in church life. The Spiritual Regulations indicated the tasks of the new institution and noted those shortcomings of the church structure and way of life, with which a decisive struggle had to begin.
The Regulations divided all matters subject to the jurisdiction of the Holy Synod into general ones, relating to all members of the Church, that is, both secular and spiritual, and into “own” affairs, relating only to the clergy, white and black, to theological school and education. Determining the general affairs of the Synod, the regulations impose on the Synod the duty to ensure that among the Orthodox all “it was done correctly according to the Christian law” so that there is nothing contrary to this "law", and so that it doesn't happen "scarcity in instruction due to every Christian". The regulations list, monitor the correctness of the text of the holy books. The Synod was supposed to eradicate superstitions, establish the authenticity of miracles of newly discovered icons and relics, monitor the order of church services and their correctness, protect the faith from the harmful influence of false teachings, for which it was endowed with the right to judge schismatics and heretics and have censorship over all the “stories of the saints” and all kind of theological writings, making sure that nothing contrary to Orthodox doctrine passes through. The Synod has categorical permission "perplexed" cases of pastoral practice in matters of Christian faith and virtue.
Regarding enlightenment and education, the Spiritual Regulations ordered the Synod to ensure that “We had a Christian teaching that was ready for correction”, for which it is necessary to compile short and understandable books for ordinary people to teach the people the most important dogmas of the faith and the rules of Christian life.
In the matter of governing the church system, the Synod had to examine the dignity of persons appointed to the bishopric; protect the church clergy from insults from others "secular gentlemen having a command"; to see that every Christian remains in his calling. The Synod was obliged to instruct and punish those who sinned; bishops must watch “Aren’t the priests and deacons acting outrageously, aren’t drunks making noise in the streets, or, what’s worse, aren’t they quarreling like men in churches?”. Regarding the bishops themselves, it was prescribed: “to tame this great cruel glory of bishops, so that their hands, while they are healthy, will not be taken, and the brethren at hand will not bow to the ground.”.
All cases that had previously been subject to the patriarchal court were subject to the Synod's court. Regarding church property, the Synod must oversee the correct use and distribution of church property.
Regarding its own affairs, the Regulations note that the Synod, in order to correctly fulfill its task, must know what the duties of each member of the Church are, that is, bishops, presbyters, deacons and other clergy, monks, teachers, preachers, and then devotes a lot of space to the affairs of bishops, affairs educational and educational and the responsibilities of the laity in relation to the Church. The affairs of the other church clergy and those concerning monks and monasteries were set out in detail somewhat later in a special “Addendum to the Spiritual Regulations.”
This addition was compiled by the Synod itself and sealed to the Spiritual Regulations without the knowledge of the Tsar.
Measures to restrict the white clergy
Under Peter, the clergy began to turn into the same class, having state tasks, their own rights and responsibilities, like the gentry and townspeople. Peter wanted the clergy to become an organ of religious and moral influence on the people, at the complete disposal of the state. By creating the highest church government - the Synod - Peter received the opportunity to have supreme control over church affairs. The formation of other classes - the nobility, townspeople and peasants - already quite definitely limited those who belonged to the clergy. A number of measures regarding the white clergy were intended to further clarify this limitation of the new class.
In Ancient Rus', access to the clergy was wide open to everyone, and the clergy was not bound by any restrictive regulations at that time: each clergy person could remain or not remain in the clergy rank, freely move from city to city, from serving in one church to another; the children of clergy were also not bound in any way by their origin and could choose whatever field of activity they wanted. Even unfree people could enter the clergy in the 17th century, and landowners of that time often had priests from strong people. People willingly entered the clergy because there was more opportunity to find income and it was easier to avoid taxes. The lower parish clergy was then selective. The parishioners usually chose from among themselves a person who seemed suitable for the priesthood, gave him a letter of choice and sent him to be “placed” with the local bishop.
The Moscow government, protecting the state’s payment forces from decline, has long begun to order cities and villages to elect children or even relatives of deceased clergymen for declining priestly and deacon positions, hoping that such persons are more prepared for the priesthood than "rural ignoramuses". Communities, in whose interests it was also not to lose extra co-payers, themselves tried to choose their shepherds from the spiritual families known to them. By the 17th century, this was already a custom, and the children of clergy, although they could enter any rank through service, preferred to wait in line to take a spiritual place. The church clergy therefore turns out to be extremely overcrowded with the children of the clergy, old and young, waiting for a “place”, and in the meantime staying with the fathers and grandfathers of the priests as sextons, bell ringers, sextons, etc. In the year the Synod was informed that at some Yaroslavl churches there were so many priests' children, brothers, nephews, grandchildren in the priestly places, that there were almost fifteen of them for every five priests.
Both in the 17th century, and under Peter, there were very rare parishes where only one priest was listed - in most there were two or three. There were parishes where, with fifteen households of parishioners, there were two priests in a dark, wooden, dilapidated church. In wealthy churches, the number of priests reached six or more.
The comparative ease of obtaining rank created in ancient Russia a wandering priesthood, the so-called “sacral priesthood.” In old Moscow and other cities, places where large streets crossed, where there was always a crowd of people, were called kresttsy. In Moscow, the Varvarsky and Spassky sacrums were especially famous. It was mainly the clergy who gathered here who had left their parishes to freely pursue the rank of priest and deacon. Some mourner, the rector of a church with a parish in two or three households, of course, could earn more by offering his services to those who wanted to serve a prayer service at home, celebrate the magpie in the house, and bless a funeral meal. All those in need of a priest went to the sacrum and here they chose whoever they wanted. It was easy to obtain a letter of leave from the bishop, even if the bishop was against it: the bishop’s servants, eager for bribes and promises, did not bring such profitable matters to his attention. In Moscow during the times of Peter the Great, even after the first revision, after many measures aimed at destroying the sacral clergy, there were more than 150 registered priests who signed up for the order of church affairs and paid stole money.
Of course, the existence of such a wandering clergy, given the government’s desire to enroll everything and everyone in the state into “service,” could not be tolerated, and Peter, back in the early 1700s, made a number of orders limiting the freedom to enter the clergy. In the year, these measures are somewhat systematized and confirmed, and an explanation follows of the measures to reduce the clergy: from its spread “the sovereign’s service in its needs was felt to be diminished”. In the year Peter issued an order to the bishops so that they “they did not multiply the priests and deacons of the unclean for the sake of profit, below for the inheritance”. Leaving the clergy was made easier, and Peter looked favorably on the priests leaving the clergy, but also on the Synod itself. Simultaneously with concerns about the quantitative reduction of the clergy, Peter's government is concerned about assigning them to places of service. The issuance of transitory letters is at first very difficult, and then completely stopped, and lay persons are strictly forbidden, under fines and punishment, to accept the demands of priests and deacons for fulfillment. One of the measures to reduce the number of clergy was the ban on building new churches. The bishops, accepting the department, had to take an oath that “neither they themselves nor will they allow others to build churches beyond the needs of the parishioners” .
The most important measure in this regard, in particular for the life of the white clergy, is Peter’s attempt “to determine the number of clergy and church ministers and so order the church so that a sufficient number of parishioners is assigned to each”. The Synodical decree of the year established the states of the clergy, according to which it was determined “so that there would not be more than three hundred households in the great parishes, but in such a parish, where there is one priest, there would be 100 households or 150, and where there are two, there would be 200 or 250. And with three there would be up to 800 households, and with so many priests there would not be more than two deacons, and the clerks would be according to the preportion of the priests, that is, under each priest there would be one sexton and one sexton.”. This staffing was not supposed to be implemented immediately, but as the excess clergy died out; The bishops were ordered not to appoint new priests while the old ones were alive.
Having established the staff, Peter also thought about feeding the clergy, who depended on the parishioners for everything. The white clergy lived by bringing them correction of their needs, and given the general poverty, and even with the undoubted decline in commitment to the church in those days, these incomes were very small, and the white clergy of Peter the Great’s times were very poor.
By reducing the number of white clergy, prohibiting and making it difficult for new forces from outside to enter it, Peter seemed to have closed the clergy class within himself. It was then that caste traits, characterized by the obligatory inheritance of the father’s place by the son, acquired special significance in the life of the clergy. Upon the death of his father, who served as a priest, the eldest son, who was a deacon under his father, took his place, and the next brother, who served as a deacon, was appointed to the deaconship in his place. The sexton's place was occupied by the third brother, who had previously been a sexton. If there were not enough brothers to fill all the places, the vacant place was filled by the son of the older brother or only enrolled for him if he had not grown up. This new class was assigned by Peter to pastoral spiritual educational activities according to the Christian law, however, not at the full discretion of the shepherds to understand the law the way they want, but only as the state authority prescribes to understand it.
And in this sense, Peter assigned grave responsibilities to the clergy. Under him, the priest not only had to glorify and extol all the reforms, but also help the government in identifying and catching those who reviled the activities of the tsar and were hostile to it. If during confession it was revealed that the confessor had committed a state crime, was involved in rebellion and malicious intent on the life of the sovereign and his family, then the priest had to, under pain of execution, report such a confessor and his confession to the secular authorities. The clergy was further entrusted with the responsibility of searching for and, with the help of secular authorities, pursuing and catching schismatics who evaded paying double taxes. In all such cases, the priest began to act as an official subordinate to the secular authorities: he acts in such cases as one of the police bodies of the state, together with fiscal officers, detectives and watchmen of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz and the Secret Chancellery. Denunciation by a priest entails trial and sometimes cruel punishment. In this new orderly duty of the priest, the spiritual nature of his pastoral activity was gradually obscured, and a more or less cold and strong wall of mutual alienation was created between him and the parishioners, and the distrust of the flock towards the shepherd grew. "As a result, the clergy, - says N.I. Kedrov, - closed in its exclusive environment, with the heredity of its rank, not refreshed by the influx of fresh forces from outside, it gradually had to lose not only its moral influence on society, but itself began to become impoverished in mental and moral strength, to cool, so to speak, to the movement of social life and her interests". Unsupported by society, which has no sympathy for him, the clergy during the 18th century developed into an obedient and unquestioning instrument of secular power.
The position of the black clergy
Peter clearly did not like monks. This was a trait of his character, probably formed under the strong influence of early childhood impressions. "Scary scenes, says Yu.F. Samarin, - They met Peter at the cradle and worried him all his life. He saw the bloody reeds of the archers, who called themselves defenders of Orthodoxy, and was accustomed to mixing piety with fanaticism and fanaticism. In the crowd of rioters on Red Square, black robes appeared to him, strange, incendiary sermons reached him, and he was filled with a hostile feeling towards monasticism.”. Many anonymous letters sent from monasteries, “accusatory notebooks” and “writings” that called Peter the Antichrist, were distributed to the people in the squares, secretly and openly, by the monks. The case of Queen Evdokia, the case of Tsarevich Alexei could only strengthen his negative attitude towards monasticism, showing what a force hostile to his state order was hiding behind the walls of the monasteries.
Under the impression of all this, Peter, who in general was far from the demands of idealistic contemplation throughout his entire mental make-up and who placed continuous practical activity in the purpose of a person’s life, began to see in monks only different "obsessions, heresies and superstitions". The monastery, in the eyes of Peter, is a completely superfluous, unnecessary institution, and since it is still a source of unrest and riots, then, in his opinion, it is also a harmful institution, which would not be better to completely destroy? But even Peter was not enough for such a measure. Very early, however, he began to take care of using the strictest restrictive measures to constrain the monasteries, reduce their number, and prevent the emergence of new ones. Every decree of his relating to monasteries breathes with the desire to prick the monks, to show both themselves and everyone all the uselessness, all the uselessness of monastic life. Back in the 1980s, Peter categorically forbade the construction of new monasteries, and in the year he ordered all existing ones to be rewritten in order to establish the staff of the monasteries. And all of Peter’s further legislation regarding monasteries is steadily directed toward three goals: to reduce the number of monasteries, to establish difficult conditions for acceptance into monasticism, and to give monasteries a practical purpose, to derive some practical benefit from their existence. For the sake of the latter, Peter was inclined to turn monasteries into factories, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, that is, “useful” government institutions.
The Spiritual Regulations confirmed all these orders and especially attacked the foundation of monasteries and desert living, which is undertaken not for the purpose of spiritual salvation, but “free for the sake of living, in order to be removed from all power and supervision and in order to collect money for the newly built monastery and profit from it”. The regulations included the following rule: “The monks should not write any letters to their cells, either extracts from books or letters of advice to anyone, and according to spiritual and civil regulations, do not keep ink and paper, since nothing ruins monastic silence so much as their vain and futile letters...”.
Further measures required monks to live in monasteries permanently, all long-term absences of monks were prohibited, a monk and nun could only leave the monastery walls for two or three hours, and then only with written permission from the abbot, where the period of leave of the monk was written under his signature and seal. . At the end of January of the year, Peter published a decree on the monastic title, on the placement of retired soldiers in monasteries and on the establishment of seminaries and hospitals. This decree, finally deciding what the monasteries should be, as usual, told why and why a new measure was being taken: monasticism was preserved only for the sake of “the pleasure of those who with a straight conscience desire it,” and for the bishopric, for, according to custom, bishops can only be from monks. However, a year later Peter passed away, and this decree did not have time to enter into life in its entirety.
Theological school
The Spiritual Regulations in its two sections “The Affairs of Bishops” and “College Houses and in Them Teachers, Students, and Preachers” gave instructions on the establishment of special theological schools (
The transformations of Peter I provoked protest from the conservative boyars and clergy. The head of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Adrian, openly spoke out against wearing foreign clothes and shaving the beard. During the execution of the rebel archers on Red Square, the patriarch, begging for their mercy, came with a procession to Peter in Preobrazhenskoye, but the tsar did not accept him. After the death of Adrian (1700), Peter decided not to appoint a new patriarch, around whom opponents of the reforms could concentrate. He appointed Ryazan Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky as “locum tenens of the patriarchal throne”, but did not grant him the rights belonging to the patriarch. The king himself openly said: “My father dealt with one bearded man, and I dealt with thousands.”
Peter was tolerant of Protestants and Catholics and allowed them to perform their services. At first, Peter was tolerant of schismatics, but the proximity of prominent supporters of the schism to Tsarevich Alexei dramatically changed matters. Dissenters were subject to a double capitation salary, were not allowed into public service and had to wear a special dress.
The schismatics saw in barber shaving heresy, a distortion of the face of a person created in “God’s likeness.” In the beards and long clothes, the schismatics saw the difference between the Russian people and the “busurmans” - foreigners. Now, when the tsar himself and his entourage shaved, wore foreign clothes, smoked “the godless antichrist herb” (i.e. tobacco), legends arose among schismatics that the tsar was replaced by foreigners in “Glass” (i.e. in Stockholm) . In 1700, the book writer Grigory Talitsky was tortured in the Preobrazhensky Prikaz for writing a letter in which it was stated “as if the last time had come, and the Antichrist had come into the world, and that Antichrist was the sovereign.” In the handwritten works of the readers, in the personal apocalypses, the Antichrist was depicted as similar to Peter, and the Antichrist servants as Peter’s soldiers, dressed in green uniforms. The severity of the opposition in the schism was largely an expression of peasant protest against growing oppression.
Peter fought against the schismatics by sending “exhorters,” while at the same time ordering that in case of “cruel stubbornness” they be brought to trial. Relations with the moderate part of the split, which abandoned opposition to the government, developed differently. Peter was tolerant of the famous schismatic monastery on the Vyga River, founded by Denisov. The inhabitants of the monastery worked at the Olonets ironworks.
In general, Peter I followed the path of transforming church services into state ones.
Even during his first trip abroad in the 90s of the 17th century, the young tsar was keenly interested in church life in European states. For more than two hours, Peter talked with the English king and his daughter on the topic of organizing the Anglican Church. It was then that the English monarch gave advice to the young Russian Tsar “to become the head of the Russian Church himself, in order to have full state power, following the example of England.” The Protestant spirit of the church structure finally captured Peter when he visited Saxony, the homeland of Martin Luther. Standing in front of the statue of the first reformer, Peter declared: “This man, for the greatest benefit of his sovereign, so courageously stepped on the power-hungry pope that he truly deserved the greatest respect from his people.”
According to the Protestant church system, all churches located on the territory of any state depend on the head of this state for their highest governance. This dispensation completely coincided with the ideas of Peter's church transformation. He wanted the sovereign, without anyone’s complaints, to be able not only to interfere in the affairs of the Church, but also to manage it.
However, about twenty years passed before Peter brought his ideas to life. To implement them, he needed a like-minded person in the church environment. And such a person was found. This was the Kiev Archimandrite Feofan (Prokopovich). The process of the birth of church reform took place in complete secrecy from the Church and its hierarchy.
The enrichment of the concept of “public service” is facilitated by the analysis of its varieties, in particular such original ones as the state service of the clergy and its subtype - the state spiritual service. Although the Table of Ranks of 1722 provided only for military, civil, and court ranks, without mentioning spiritual ones, the service of the Orthodox clergy can be recognized as a special type of public service. During the period of development and adoption of the Table, the state spiritual service was not yet completely objectified: global church-administrative reform was carried out in parallel. Subsequently, the real situation could not be reflected in the Table for ideological reasons: the secular authorities did not dare to advertise the incorporation of the institutions of the Orthodox Church into the state mechanism. As a result, the legal regulation of the state religious service was determined by a set of precedents and was only indirectly and/or partially reflected in the regulatory legal acts of Anderson M.S. Peter the Great. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 2007. - P.94.
Civil service in the Russian Empire was determined by activities “in the order of subordinate management of the state” and was characterized by subjective (a specific person as a representative of a governing body) and objective (the activities of the person himself in the government apparatus) aspects. The main thing in the civil service became “authority” for subordinate activities in the field of management. Accordingly, the main features of the civil service are: a set of certain actions; actions are performed in the interests of public administration; a certain way of performing actions; being within the limits of official authority History of Russia. From ancient times to the end of the century. - M.: AST, 2001. - P.122. In our opinion, the service of the Orthodox clergy has these characteristics. Thus, confessors at correctional institutions were endowed with a certain competence, including performing the sacraments of faith. These actions of the clergy were carried out in the interests of state administration, if only because, as is known, under Emperor Peter I, in the event of reporting information in confession about an impending crime against state power or the reigning dynasty, the clergyman was obliged to report this to law enforcement agencies. In addition, clergy in correctional institutions were not limited solely to the purpose of performing the sacraments, but also carried out educational and educational functions in the prison environment on the basis of both secular state acts - university statutes, etc., and state-corporate acts of the Church. This corresponds to the characterization of management as a subordinate administrative activity.
The pre-revolutionary theory of law did not see the difference between the church and any other union subordinate to the supreme power and promoting the goals of public well-being. Secular power, being the highest and exclusive authority for the common good, recognized itself as having the right to govern the church in the same way as any other institution or union pursuing public goals. By the beginning of the 20th century. The religious and ecclesiastical evolution, which began with the transformations of Peter the Great, ended. As a result of a set of reforms, the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church and the clergy turned out to be more illusory than real. The clergy became a special kind of “service class” through attachment to the civil service. The Church in the Russian Empire lost its independence, becoming, in essence, a state Department of Orthodox confession. The most striking example of the merging of the responsibilities of the state with the competence of a church corporation is the maintenance of civil status records in the form of metric books.
At a certain stage of development, the Russian Orthodox Church also became a kind of “mass media” of state power: By the Decree of 1718 it was ordered that it was compulsory to go to church on Sundays and holidays, since there, after mass, new Decrees were read, about which those who could not read could find out only during such hearings. In addition, one cannot help but notice the interference of the Governing Senate in the organization of church parishes, the composition of clergy and the procedure for admission to clergy. The granting of the title “imperial” to theological academies was made with the only meaning inherent in this - the training of cadres of “ecclesiastical officials”. The church was involved in the promotion of ideas and activities useful for the autocracy, including credit, insurance, and forms of farming. The black clergy was entrusted with the work of education and charity, and in addition - the responsibility of maintaining the monastic states History of Russia: In 2 volumes. T. 1: From ancient times to the end of the 18th century. /Edited by A. N. Sakharov. - M.: AST Publishing House LLC: NPP Ermak CJSC: Astrel Publishing House LLC, 2008. - P.311.
Thus, all the clergy were recruited into public service and formed a special semi-privileged service class of the state spiritual service. According to authoritative pre-revolutionary researchers of church law, the reform of church life finally went not along the path of establishing self-government, but along the bureaucratic path.
Peter rejected all persistent requests from the higher clergy for the election of a patriarch. Peter first mentioned the upcoming reform only in 1718, responding to another complaint from the patriarchal locum tenens and reproaching him for his helplessness. The Tsar stated that “from now on, for the best, it seems that there will be a spiritual college, so that it would be more convenient and possible to correct such great matters as church governance.” At the same time, he instructed Theophan, who had already become the Bishop of Pskov, to write a draft for this board and a word in its defense.
5.5. ABOLITION OF THE PATRIARCHATE BY PETER I
The beginning of Peter's church reforms. After coming to power (1689), Peter did not openly show his attitude towards the Russian Church. Everything changed after the death of the authoritative patriarch Joachim (1690), and then his mother (1694). Peter had little regard for Patriarch Adrian (1690-1700). Unrestrained by anyone, the young tsar blasphemed - staged a parody of the conclave - “the most foolish, extravagant and most drunken council of Prince Ioannikita, Patriarch of Presburg, Yauz and all Kukui,” where the participants were blessed with crossed tobacco pipes, and the tsar himself played the role of a deacon. Peter refused to participate in the donkey procession on Palm Sunday, when the patriarch enters the city on a donkey led by the bridle of the king. He considered the mystery of Christ's entry into Jerusalem to be a derogation of the royal dignity. The trip to Europe in 1697-1698 was of great importance for Peter. Peter saw that in Protestant countries the church was subject to secular authority. He talked with King George and William of Orange, the latter, citing the example of his native Holland and the same England, advised Peter, while remaining king, to become the “head of religion” of the Moscow state.
Then Peter developed the conviction of the need for complete subordination of the church to the king. However, he acted cautiously, at first limiting himself to repeating the laws of the Code. By decree of January 1701, the Monastic Order with secular courts was restored. The management of church people and lands, the printing of spiritual books, and the management of theological schools came under the jurisdiction of the Monastic Prikaz. By decree of December 1701, the tsar took away the right to dispose of income from the monasteries, entrusting their collection to the Monastic Prikaz. Peter sought to limit the number of clergy, primarily monks. It was ordered to arrange a census of them, prohibit transitions from one monastery to another and not make new tonsures without the permission of the sovereign.
Ukrainianization of the Church. The most important step in secularizing the church was the appointment of a patriarchal locum tenens after the death of Adrian in 1700. The Tsar reacted favorably to proposals to postpone the election of a new patriarch. Interpatriarchal disputes also happened in the 17th century, but before the consecrated cathedral under the leadership of two or three bishops chose the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, and now Peter himself chose him. In December 1700, he appointed Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky as locum tenens. He was entrusted with matters of faith - “about schism, about the opposition of the church, about heresies”; other matters were distributed according to orders. The Tsar also ordered that the records of the patriarchal institutions be conducted on royal stamped paper, i.e. took another step to introduce control over church governance.
With Yavorsky, Peter begins the transfer of church power in Russia into the hands of Little Russian hierarchs - Western-educated and divorced from the Russian Church. True, the experience with Stephen was unsuccessful - he turned out to be an opponent of Peter’s Protestant reforms. Over time, Peter found another Kyiv scribe who, despite his Catholic education, shared his views on the subordination of the church to the state. He was a teacher at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy Feofan Prokopovich. He became Peter's main ideologist on church issues. Peter made Prokopovich rector of the academy, in 1716 he called him to St. Petersburg as a preacher, and in 1718 he appointed him bishop of Pskov. Prokopovich prepared a theological justification for church reform for Peter.
Freedom of belief. Since childhood, Peter did not like the Old Believers (and Streltsy), because the Streltsy-Old Believers killed his loved ones in front of the boy’s eyes. But Peter was least of all a religious fanatic and was constantly in need of money. He terminated the articles adopted by Sophia that prohibited the Old Believers and sent those who persisted in the old faith to the stake. In 1716, the Tsar issued a decree imposing a double tax on schismatics. Old Believers were allowed to practice their faith on condition that they recognized the authority of the Tsar and paid double taxes. Now they were persecuted only for double tax evasion. Complete freedom of faith was granted to foreign Christians who came to Russia. Their marriages with Orthodox Christians were allowed.
The case of Tsarevich Alexei. A black spot on Peter is the case of Tsarevich Alexei, who fled abroad in 1716, from where Peter lured him to Russia (1718). Here, contrary to the tsar’s promises, an investigation into Alexei’s “crimes” began, accompanied by torture of the tsarevich. During the investigation, his relations with clergy were revealed; Bishop Dositheus of Rostov, the confessor of the prince, Archpriest Yakov Ignatiev, and the custodian of the cathedral in Suzdal, Fsodor the Desert, were executed; Metropolitan Joasaph was deprived of his pulpit and died on his way to interrogation. Tsarevich Alexei, sentenced to death, also died, either tortured during interrogations or secretly strangled on the orders of his father, who did not want his public execution.
Establishment of the Holy Synod. Since 1717, Feofan Prokopovich, under the supervision of Peter, secretly prepared the “Spiritual Regulations”, which provided for the abolition of the patriarchate. Sweden was taken as a model, where the clergy is completely subordinate to secular power.
In February 1720, the project was ready, and Peter sent it to the Senate for review. The Senate, in turn, issued a Decree “On collecting signatures of bishops and archimandrites of the Moscow province...”. The obedient Moscow bishops signed the “regulations”. In January 1721 the project was adopted. Peter indicated that he was giving a year for the “regulations” to be signed by the bishops of all Russia; seven months later he had their signatures. The document was called “Regulations or Charter of the Ecclesiastical College.” Now the Russian Church was ruled by the Spiritual Collegium, consisting of a president, two vice-presidents, three advisers from archimandrites and four assessors from archpriests.
On February 14, 1721, the first meeting of the College took place, which turned out to be the last. During its course, the “Ecclesiastical College”, at the suggestion of Peter, was renamed the “Holy Government Synod”. Peter legally placed the Synod on the same level as the Senate; the collegium, subordinate to the Senate, turned into an institution formally equal to it. Such a decision reconciled the clergy with the new organization of the church. Peter managed to achieve the approval of the Eastern Patriarchs. The Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch sent letters equating the Holy Synod with the patriarchs. To monitor the progress of affairs and discipline in the Synod, by Peter's decree of May 11, 1722, a secular official was appointed - the chief prosecutor of the Synod, who personally reported to the emperor on the state of affairs.
Peter I looked at the clergy utilitarianly. Having limited the number of monks, he wanted to involve them in work. In 1724, Peter’s decree “Announcement” was issued, in which he outlined the requirements for the life of monks in monasteries. He proposed that simple, unlearned monks be occupied with agriculture and crafts, and nuns with handicrafts; the gifted should be taught in monastery schools and prepared for higher church positions. Create almshouses, hospitals and orphanages at monasteries. The tsar treated the white clergy no less utilitarianly. In 1717 he introduced the institute of army priests. In 1722-1725 carries out the unification of the ranks of the clergy. The staff of priests was determined: one per 100-150 households of parishioners. Those who did not find vacant positions were transferred to the tax-paying class. In the Resolution of the Synod of May 17, 1722, priests were obliged to violate the secret of confession if they learned information important to the state. As a result of Peter's reforms, the church became part of the state apparatus.
Consequences of the schism and abolition of the patriarchate. Split of the Russian Church in the 17th century. in the eyes of most historians and writers, it pales in comparison to the transformations of Peter I. Its consequences are equally underestimated by admirers of the great emperor, who “raised Russia on its hind legs,” and by admirers of Muscovite Rus', who blame “Robespierre on the throne” for all the troubles. Meanwhile, the “Nikon” reform influenced Peter’s transformations. Without the tragedy of the schism, the decline of religiosity, the loss of respect for the church, and the moral degradation of the clergy, Peter would not have been able to turn the church into one of the boards of the bureaucratic machine of the empire. Westernization would have gone smoother. A true church would not allow the mockery of rituals and the forced shaving of beards.
There were also deep-seated consequences of the split. The persecution of schismatics led to an increase in cruelty comparable to the Time of Troubles. And even during the years of the Troubles, people were not burned alive and prisoners were executed, not civilians (only the “Lisovchiki” and the Cossacks stood out for their fanaticism). Under Alexei Mikhailovich, and especially under Fyodor and Sophia, Russia for the first time approached the countries of Europe in terms of the number of fiery deaths. Peter's cruelty, even the execution of 2000 archers, could no longer surprise the population, which was accustomed to everything. The very character of the people changed: in the fight against the schism and accompanying riots, many passionaries died, especially from among the rebellious clergy. Their place in churches and monasteries was taken by opportunists (“harmonics”, according to L.N. Gumilyov), who were ready to do anything for a place in the sun. They influenced the parishioners, not only on their faith, but on their morals. “Like the priest, so is the parish,” says a proverb that arose from the experience of our ancestors. Many bad traits of Russians emerged, and the good ones disappeared at the end of the 17th century.
What we have lost can be judged by the Old Believers of the 19th - early 20th centuries. All travelers who visited their villages noted that the Old Believers were dominated by the cult of purity - the purity of the estate, home, clothing, body and spirit. In their villages there was no deception and theft, they did not know locks. He who gave his word fulfilled his promise. Elders were respected. The families were strong. Young people under 20 did not drink, but older people drank on holidays, very moderately. Nobody smoked. The Old Believers were great workers and lived prosperously, better than the surrounding New Believers. The majority of merchant dynasties emerged from the Old Believers - the Botkins, Gromovs, Guchkovs, Kokorevs, Konovalovs, Kuznetsovs, Mamontovs, Morozovs, Ryabushinskys, Tretyakovs. The Old Believers generously, even selflessly, shared their wealth with the people - they built shelters, hospitals and almshouses, founded theaters and art galleries.
250 years after the council of 1666-1667, which accused the Russian Church of “simplicity and ignorance” and cursed those who disagreed, and 204 years after the transformation of the Church into a state institution, reckoning came. The Romanov dynasty fell, and militant atheists, persecutors of the Church, came to power. This happened in a country whose people have always been known for piety and loyalty to the sovereign. The contribution of church reform in the 17th century. here is indisputable, although still underestimated.
It is symbolic that immediately after the overthrow of the monarchy, the Church returned to the patriarchate. On November 21 (December 4), 1917, the All-Russian Local Council elected Metropolitan Tikhon as patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Tikhon was later arrested by the Bolsheviks, repented, was released and died in 1925 under unclear circumstances. In 1989, he was canonized as new martyrs and confessors by the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. The turn of the Old Believers came: on April 23 (10), 1929, the Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate under the leadership of Metropolitan Sergius, the future patriarch, recognized the old rituals as “saving”, and the oath prohibitions of the councils of 1656 and 1667. “Canceled because they weren’t exes.” The resolutions of the Synod were approved by the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church on June 2, 1971. Justice has triumphed, but we are still paying the price for the deeds of the distant past.
Nevrev N.V. Peter I in foreign attire
before his mother, Queen Natalya,
Patriarch Andrian and teacher Zotov.
1903
Since its inception in 1589, the institution of the patriarchate has become the second political center of the Moscow state after secular power. The relationship of the Church to the state before Peter was not precisely defined, although at the church council of 1666-1667. the supremacy of secular power was fundamentally recognized and the right of hierarchs to interfere in secular affairs was denied. The Moscow sovereign was considered the supreme patron of the Church and took an active part in church affairs. But church authorities were also called upon to participate in public administration and influenced it. Rus' did not know the struggle between church and secular authorities, familiar to the West (strictly speaking, it did not exist under Patriarch Nikon either). The enormous spiritual authority of the Moscow patriarchs did not seek to replace the authority of state power, and if a voice of protest was heard from the Russian hierarch, it was solely from a moral position.
Peter did not grow up under such a strong influence of theological science and not in such a pious environment as his brothers and sisters grew up. From the very first steps of his adult life, he became friends with the “German heretics” and, although he remained an Orthodox man by conviction, he was more free about Church Orthodox rituals than ordinary Moscow people. Peter was neither a scolder of the Church, nor a particularly pious person - in general, “neither cold nor hot.” As expected, he knew the circle of church services, loved to sing in the choir, sing the Apostle at the top of his lungs, ring the bells at Easter, celebrate Victoria with a solemn prayer service and many days of church ringing; at other moments he sincerely called on the name of God and, despite the obscene parodies of the church rank, or, rather, the church hierarchy he did not like, at the sight of church disorder, in his own words, “he had on his conscience the fear that he would not be unresponsive and ungrateful If the Most High neglects the correction of the spiritual rank.”
In the eyes of the Old Testament zealots of piety, he seemed infected with foreign “heresy.” It is safe to say that Peter, from his mother and the conservative patriarch Joachim (d. 1690), more than once faced condemnation for his habits and acquaintance with heretics. Under Patriarch Adrian (1690-1700), a weak and timid man, Peter met with no more sympathy for his innovations. And although Adrian did not clearly prevent Peter from introducing certain innovations, his silence, in essence, was a passive form of opposition. Insignificant in itself, the patriarch became inconvenient for Peter as the center and unifying principle of all protests, as a natural representative of not only church, but also social conservatism. The Patriarch, strong in will and spirit, could have been a powerful opponent of Peter if he had taken the side of the conservative Moscow worldview, which condemned all public life to immobility.
Understanding this danger, Peter, after the death of Adrian in 1700, was in no hurry to elect a new patriarch. Ryazan Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky, a learned Little Russian, was appointed “Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne.” Management of the patriarchal household passed into the hands of specially appointed secular persons. It is unlikely that Peter decided to abolish the patriarchate immediately after the death of Adrian. It would be more accurate to think that Peter then simply did not know what to do with the election of the patriarch. Peter treated the Great Russian clergy with some distrust, because many times he was convinced of their rejection of reforms. Even the best representatives of the old Russian hierarchy, who were able to understand the entire nationality of Peter’s foreign policy and helped him as best they could (Mitrofaniy of Voronezh, Tikhon of Kazan, Job of Novgorod), even they rebelled against Peter’s cultural innovations. For Peter, choosing a patriarch from among the Great Russians meant risking creating a formidable opponent for himself. The Little Russian clergy behaved differently: they themselves were influenced by European culture and science and sympathized with Western innovations. But it was impossible to install a Little Russian as patriarch because during the time of Patriarch Joachim, Little Russian theologians were compromised in the eyes of Moscow society, as people with Latin errors. For this they were even persecuted. The elevation of a Little Russian to the patriarchal throne would therefore cause a wave of protest. In such circumstances, Peter decided to leave church affairs without a patriarch.
The following order of church administration was temporarily established: at the head of the church administration were the locum tenens Stefan Yavorsky and a special institution, the Monastic Prikaz, with secular persons at the head. The Council of Hierarchs was recognized as the supreme authority in religious matters. Peter himself, like previous sovereigns, was the patron of the church and took an active part in its governance. But he was extremely attracted by the experience of the Protestant (Lutheran) church in Germany, based on the primacy of the monarch in spiritual matters. And in the end, shortly before the end of the war with Sweden, Peter decided to carry out the Reformation in the Russian Church. This time too, he expected a healing effect on the confused church affairs from the colleges, intending to establish a special spiritual college - the Synod.
Peter made the Little Russian monk Feofan Prokopovich the domestic, tame Luther of the Russian Reformation. He was a very capable, lively and energetic person, inclined to practical activity and at the same time very educated, having studied theology not only at the Kyiv Academy, but also at the Catholic colleges of Lvov, Krakow and even Rome. The scholastic theology of Catholic schools instilled in him a hostility towards scholasticism and Catholicism. However, Orthodox theology, then poorly and little developed, did not satisfy Theophan. Therefore, from Catholic doctrines he moved on to the study of Protestant theology and, being carried away by it, adopted some Protestant views, although he was an Orthodox monk.
Peter made Theophan bishop of Pskov, and later he became archbishop of Novgorod. A completely secular man in his mind and temperament, Feofan Prokopovich sincerely admired Peter and - God be his judge - enthusiastically praised everything indiscriminately: the personal courage and dedication of the tsar, the work of organizing the fleet, the new capital, colleges, fiscal officials, as well as factories, factories, mint, pharmacies, silk and cloth factories, paper spinning mills, shipyards, decrees on wearing foreign clothing, barbering, smoking, new foreign customs, even masquerades and assemblies. Foreign diplomats noted in the Pskov bishop “immense devotion to the good of the country, even to the detriment of the interests of the Church.” Feofan Prokopovich never tired of reminding in his sermons: “Many believe that not all people are obliged to obey state authority and some are excluded, namely the priesthood and monasticism. But this opinion is a thorn, or, better said, a thorn, a serpent’s sting, a papal spirit, reaching us and touching us in some unknown way. The priesthood is a special class in the state, and not a special state.”
It was to him that Peter instructed him to draw up regulations for the new administration of the Church. The Tsar was in a hurry to the Pskov bishop and kept asking: “Will your patriarch be in time soon?” - “Yes, I’m finishing my cassock!” - Feofan answered in the same tone as the king. “Okay, I have a hat ready for him!” - Peter noted.
On January 25, 1721, Peter published a manifesto on the establishment of the Holy Governing Synod. In the regulations of the Theological College published a little later, Peter was quite frank about the reasons that forced him to prefer synodal government to the patriarchal one: “From the conciliar government, the Fatherland need not be afraid of rebellions and embarrassment, which come from its only spiritual ruler.” Having listed examples of what the lust for power of the clergy led to in Byzantium and other countries, the tsar, through the mouth of Feofan Prokopovich, concluded: “When the people see that the conciliar government has been established by a royal decree and a Senate verdict, they will remain meek and lose hope of the help of the clergy in riots. " Essentially, Peter conceived the Synod as a special spiritual police. Synodal decrees imposed heavy duties on priests that were not characteristic of their rank - they not only had to glorify and extol all reforms, but also help the government in identifying and catching those who were hostile to innovations. The most blatant order was the violation of the secrecy of confession: having heard from the person confessing that he had committed a state crime, his involvement in a rebellion or malicious intent on the life of the sovereign, the confessor was obliged to report such a person to the secular authorities. In addition, the priest was charged with identifying schismatics.
However, Peter was tolerant of the Old Believers. They say that their merchants are honest and diligent, and if so, let them believe what they want. To be martyrs for stupidity - neither they are worthy of this honor, nor will the state benefit. Open persecution of Old Believers ceased. Peter only imposed double government taxes on them and, by decree of 1722, dressed them in gray caftans with a high glued “trump card” of red color. However, calling on the bishops to verbally exhort those who were stuck in schism, the tsar sometimes still sent a company or two of soldiers to help the preachers for greater persuasion.
Among the Old Believers, the news spread more and more widely that far in the east, where the sun rises and “the sky is close to the earth” and where the Rahman-Brahmans live, who know all worldly affairs, about which the angels who are always with them tell them, lies on the sea- Okiyans, on seventy islands, the wonderful country of Belovodye, or the Opon kingdom; and Marko, a monk of the Topozersky monastery, was there and found 170 churches of the “Asir language” and 40 Russian ones, built by the elders who fled from the Solovetsky monastery from the royal massacre. And following the happy Marco, thousands of hunters rushed to the Siberian deserts in search of Belovodye to see with their own eyes all the ancient beauty of the church.
By establishing the Synod, Peter emerged from the difficulty in which he had been for many years. His church-administrative reform preserved an authoritative body of power in the Russian Church, but deprived this power of the political influence that the patriarch could use.
But from a historical perspective, the nationalization of the Church had a detrimental effect on both itself and the state. Seeing in the Church a simple servant of the state, who had lost her moral authority, many Russian people began to openly and secretly leave the bosom of the church and seek satisfaction of their spiritual needs outside of Orthodox teaching. For example, out of 16 graduates of the Irkutsk seminary in 1914, only two expressed a desire to remain in the clergy, while the rest intended to go to higher education. In Krasnoyarsk the situation was even worse: none of its 15 graduates wanted to take the priesthood. A similar situation occurred in the Kostroma seminary. And since the Church has now become part of the state system, criticism of church life or complete denial of the Church, according to the logic of things, ended in criticism and denial of the state order. That is why there were so many seminarians and priests in the Russian revolutionary movement. The most famous of them are N.G. Chernyshevsky, N.A. Dobrolyubov, I.V. Dzhugashvili (Stalin), A.I. Mikoyan, N.I. Podvoisky (one of the leaders of the seizure of the Winter Palace), S.V. Petliura, but the full list is much longer.
Speaking briefly about the progress of Peter I's church reform, it is important to note its thoughtfulness. At the end of the reform, Russia, as a result, received only one person with absolute full power.
Church reform of Peter I
From 1701 to 1722, Peter the Great tried to reduce the authority of the Church and establish control over its administrative and financial activities. The prerequisites for this were the protest of the Church against the changes taking place in the country, calling the king the Antichrist. Having enormous authority, comparable to the authority and complete power of Peter himself, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' was the main political competitor of the Russian reformer tsar.
Rice. 1. Young Peter.
Among other things, the Church had accumulated enormous wealth, which Peter needed to wage war with the Swedes. All this tied Peter’s hands to use all the country’s resources for the sake of the desired victory.
The tsar was faced with the task of eliminating the economic and administrative autonomy of the Church and reducing the number of clergy.
Table “The essence of the reforms being carried out”
|
Events |
Year |
Goals |
|
|
Appointment of the “Guardian and Manager of the Patriarchal Throne” |
Replace the election of the Patriarch by the Church with an imperial appointment |
Peter was personally appointed as the new Patriarch |
|
|
Secularization of peasants and lands |
Elimination of the financial autonomy of the Church |
Church peasants and lands were transferred to the management of the State. |
|
|
Monastic prohibitions |
Reduce the number of clergy |
It is forbidden to build new monasteries and conduct a census of monks |
|
|
Senate control over the Church |
Restriction of administrative freedom of the Church |
Creation of the Senate and transfer of church affairs to its management |
|
|
Decree limiting the number of clergy |
Improving the efficiency of human resource allocation |
Servants are assigned to a specific parish and are prohibited from traveling |
|
|
Preparatory stage for the abolition of the Patriarchate |
Get full power in the empire |
Development of a project for the establishment of the Theological College |
January 25, 1721 is the date of the final victory of the emperor over the patriarch, when the patriarchate was abolished.
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Rice. 2. Prosecutor General Yaguzhinsky.
The relevance of the topic was not only under Peter, but also under the Bolsheviks, when not only church power was abolished, but also the very structure and organization of the Church.
Rice. 3. Building of 12 colleges.
The Spiritual College also had another name - the Governing Synod. A secular official, not a clergyman, was appointed to the position of Chief Prosecutor of the Synod.
As a result, the reform of the Church of Peter the Great had its pros and cons. Thus, Peter discovered for himself the opportunity to lead the country towards Europeanization, however, if this power began to be abused, in the hands of another person Russia could find itself in a dictatorial-despotic regime. However, the consequences are a reduction in the role of the church in society, a reduction in its financial independence and the number of servants of the Lord.
Gradually, all institutions began to concentrate around St. Petersburg, including church ones. The activities of the Synod were monitored by fiscal services.
Peter also introduced church schools. According to his plan, every bishop was obliged to have a school for children at home or at home and provide primary education.
Results of the reform
- The position of Patriarch has been abolished;
- Taxes increased;
- Recruitment from church peasants is underway;
- The number of monks and monasteries has been reduced;
- The Church is dependent on the Emperor.
What have we learned?
Peter the Great concentrated all branches of power in his hands and had unlimited freedom of action, establishing absolutism in Russia.
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