Russia under the Old regime

THE CHURCH AS SERVANT OF THE STATE

had fallen as punishment for heresy; Moscow has become the Third Rome; as such it would stand for all eternity because there shall be no Fourth. This idea, formulated some time in the first half of the sixteenth century by the monk Philotheus of Pskov, became an integral part of official Muscovite political theory. Related to it was the belief that Muscovy was the purest, most pious Christian kingdom in the world;

2. The imperial idea: the rulers of Moscow were heirs of an imperial line which extended all the way back to the Emperor Augustus: theirs was the most ancient and therefore the most prestigious dynasty in the world. A genealogy to fit this scheme was worked out by clerics working under the supervision of Metropolitan Macarius and given official sanction in the tsarist Book of Degrees (Stepennaia Kniga);

3. The rulers of Russia were universal Christian sovereigns: they were emperors of all the Orthodox people in the world, i.e. they had the right to rule and protect them and, by implication, to bring them under Russian suzerainty. One of the occasions at which this was asserted was at the church synod held in 1561 (above, p. 73). In some writings, claims were made on behalf of the Russian tsar as the ruler of all the Christians, not only of those professing the Orthodox faith;

4. Divine authority of kings: all authority was from God, and the Russian tsar, in the exercise of his office, was like God. His authority extended over the church in all but doctrinal matters; he was the church's temporal ruler and the clergy had to obey him. Introduced into Russia by Joseph of Volokolamsk, the theory was subsequently confirmed by several church synods, including that convened in 1666.

By throwing its weight so fully behind royal absolutism, the Russian church achieved its immediate objectives: it uprooted dangerous heresies and saved (for the time being, at any rate) its properties. But it bought these victories at a terrible price. The refusal to adopt the reforms advocated by the anti-property clergy had a doubly negative effect: it progressively ossified the church within and forced it into increased dependence on the state. In effect, in the first half of the sixteenth century the Russian church placed itself voluntarily under the tutelage of secular authority. It was an exceedingly short-sighted policy that the leaders of the Russian church adopted at this critical juncture in its history. The results were not slow in making themselves felt as the church administration rapidly slipped under control of state organs. In the course of the sixteenth century it became customary for tsars to make on their own appointments of bishops and metropolitans, to decide who would attend church synods, and to interfere with church justice. In 1521 Basil in removed a metropolitan; he also appropriated moneys belonging to the church. By the end of the sixteenth century there was precious little left of the Byzantine ideal