Russia under the Old regime

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Subsequent to the Regulation, Russian priests regularly collaborated with the police. For example, towards the end of Peter's reign, when the government struggled to compile a national census preparatory to the imposition of the soul tax, the rural clergy were commanded to help in uncovering any evasions under the threat of 'merciless whipping' and exile to Siberia. In the nineteenth century, denunciation of political dissidents was considered a regular part of a priest's obligations. The striking feature of the Ecclesiastical Regulation is not only that it should have been issued but that it met with no resistance. Peter simply sent high prelates copies of the document with instructions to sign; they duly complied, even though it must have been evident they were sealing the fate of their church. There are on record no cases of active opposition to the Regulation such as had been common during the Schism when ritual had been at stake. All of which suggests that in the Russian church it was the magic element in religion that mattered the most; and since Peter could not care less about liturgy, sacraments or any of its other rituals, the church was content to go along with whatever else he wanted. Knowing this, one is not surprised to learn that the actual expropriation of church holdings also evoked no resistance. This was carried out in 1762 by Peter m who ordered all land belonging to churches and monasteries to be incorporated into state properties. Catherine 11 confirmed this ukaz two years later. At that time (1767) approximately one million peasants living on ecclesiastical lands were taken over by the state, and all the parish and black clergy placed on government salary. Of the several million rubles' annual income which the crown henceforth drew from secularized church properties it returned to the clergy only some 400,000, and kept the rest. Landless abbeys which brought the state no income were ordered to be shut down, with the consequence that the total number of monasteries in Russia decreased by more than half: of the 954 active in 1764, 569 were closed. Nor were all of those remaining allotted government funds; out of the 385 monasteries which survived secularization, only 161 were put on the government payroll, the remaining 224 had to fend for themselves. These measures too aroused no opposition. The secularization of ecclesiastical land - perhaps the most powerful single factor in the European Reformation - was in Russia carried out as calmly as if it were a mere book-keeping operation. Once the state had assumed responsibility for supporting the clergy, it had to make certain that its payrolls were not padded by pseudo-clerics or priests who, although properly ordained, performed no duties for want of a parish. The government now began to draft regular personnel lists {shtaty) for clerical appointments such as it had for its civil service. Peter 1 issued instructions that 'superfluous' priests - that is, those without a parish of their own - either be conscripted in the army