Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

ABOLITION OF THE PATRIARCHATE. 271

But since the usurpations of the temporal authority., the Christian religion in Russia has lost its virtue; it is stationary, or at least moves as one of the wheel-works of despotism, and nothing more. In this country, where nothing is clearly defined, it it-difficult to understand the actual relations of the church with the head of the state, who has made himself the arbiter of the faith, though without actually proclaiming such prerogative. He exercises it de facto, but he dares not claim it as a right; he has therefore preserved a synod, which is the last homage rendered by tyranny to the King of kings, and to His ruined church. The following is the account of this religious revolution in Evesque, whose History of Russia I have just been reading, while waiting for a blacksmith to repair another misfortune that has happened to my calèche.

"1721. Since the death of Adrian*, Peter had constantly deferred lending himself to the election of a new partriarch. Under a twenty-years' delay, the religious veneration of the people for this head of the church had insensibly cooled. The emperor at length believed that he might venture to declare the dignity abolished for ever. He divided the ecclesiastical power, formerly invested exclusively in the person of a chief pontiff, and caused all matters concerning religion to be brought under the jurisdiction of a new tribunal, called the Holy Synod.

" He did not declare himself head of the church, but he virtually became so, by means of the oath which the members of the new ecclesiastical college

* The last patriarch of Moscow.—Note of the Traveller. N 4