Peter I and His Grim “Whims”

On February 8, 2025, the 300th anniversary of the death of the Russian Emperor Peter the First was commemorated. At his tomb, Metropolitan Barsanuphius of St. Petersburg and Ladoga of the Russian Orthodox Church officiated a memorial litany. The service was attended by the Governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov, Chairman of the Gazprom Board Alexey Miller, representatives of the Government and Legislative Assembly, public organizations, as well as the cultural and business communities of the Northern capital.

In 2022, Russia celebrated his jubilee — the 350th anniversary of the birth of the first emperor. Festive events are reportedly planned in various cities across the country. The center of the celebrations was St. Petersburg, which Peter himself founded and to which he transferred the capital in the 18th century. However, many forget that Peter’s reign became one of the darkest pages in the history of Russian culture, the Russian Church, and Russian tradition. Behind the panegyrics in honor of the first Russian emperor lies the tragedy of the Russian people, who under Peter were divided into a higher caste and the rabble, and were forced into the Procrustean bed of “Dutch,” “English,” and “German” customs. While central television broadcasts about the “brilliant” reforms of Peter I, let us discuss the little-known whims of the emperor that left an indelible and tragic mark on Russian history.

Plundering the Population

The ideas of the reforming tsar were essentially carried out at the expense of plundering the country’s population. For this purpose, the institution of “profit-makers” (прибыльщики) was created — a special position, institution, and entire financial department; the duty of a profit-maker, according to the decree, was “to sit and procure profits for the sovereign,” i.e., to invent new sources of state revenue. Starting from 1704, one after another, levies were introduced: land tax, measured and weighed taxes, collar tax, hat tax and boot tax — from branding collars, hats, and boots; cart tax from cab drivers — a tenth of the hire; garden tax, haymaking tax, leather tax — from horse and calf hides; bee tax, bath tax, mill tax — from inns, house rentals, rented corners; ice-hole tax, ice-breaking tax, cellar tax, watering tax, chimney tax — from stoves; arrival and departure taxes from river vessels, firewood tax, food sales tax, watermelon tax, cucumber tax, nut tax, and “other petty various levies,” as the list concludes. Taxes appeared that were difficult for even the Moscow taxpayer — already accustomed to previous levies — to comprehend, or that directly outraged him.

V. O. Klyuchevsky wrote: “Not only lands and trades were taxed, but also religious beliefs; not only property, but also conscience.” In particular, Peter I also ordered a census of Old Believers for the purpose of “imposing a poll tax on schismatics, and a double one compared to the Orthodox.” Established in 1715–16, it continued until July 20, 1782, when Catherine II permanently abolished the double tax on Old Believers. According to researchers, the profit-makers showed great ingenuity. From the list of taxes they invented — the “profits delivered,” as they said then — we see that they organized a general roundup of the common people, especially small industrialists, artisans, and workers.

As a number of historians write, under Peter the country’s population not only did not grow but even declined. In the book by historian M. V. Klochkov (1911), data are cited showing a 19.5% decrease in the number of taxable households from 1678 to 1710. According to Klochkov, the reasons for the “emptiness” of households were as follows: 20% of owners were taken into recruits and for labor, 35% fled, 30% died, 15% left for various reasons. In his book on Russian culture (1898), historian P. N. Milyukov writes that “immediately after the death of Alexei Mikhailovich, Russia’s population was one-fifth larger than during Peter’s time.” According to Milyukov, at the end of the 17th century, Russia had 16 million people, and by the end of Peter’s reign (1725) — about 13 million, i.e., the country lost 3 million people due to Peter’s activities. Some consider these figures exaggerated, but one thing is clear: the population during Peter’s reign was in extremely dire straits.

Promotion of Tobacco

The future emperor, who spent the best days of his youth in the German Quarter (now Lefortovo), built in 1652 for the settlement of foreigners, probably began smoking long before his trip to Holland. It is known that his first friends were avid smokers — the Scottish general Patrick Gordon and the Swiss François Lefort. Apparently, by that time the young tsar was already a passionate smoker, for already in February 1697 the tsar issued a decree permitting the sale of tobacco:

“To sell it openly in the rooms at taverns.”

The famous diplomatic mission known as the “Grand Embassy” began somewhat later; the tsar arrived in Europe several months after legalizing tobacco. His passion for everything foreign blinded the tsar; already during his first meetings with European politicians and businessmen, Peter promised to grant every preference in the matter of spreading tobacco smoking and the tobacco business in Russia. A rather curious report from the secretary of the British Embassy in The Hague to higher authorities in London has been preserved:

“The King met incognito with the Muscovite Tsar in Utrecht. The immediate benefit we are trying to derive from this is that he allow us to import tobacco into his domains.”

Peter’s visit to London ended not only with receiving numerous gifts but also with the signing of a principal agreement on the supply of English tobacco to Russia. The principal terms of the contract were agreed upon by the end of February. The English received a tobacco monopoly in Russia for a term of two to seven years and agreed to pay 4 kopecks for each pound of tobacco imported into Russia. By September 1699, one and a half million pounds of tobacco had been completely legally imported into Russia.

From this moment, one can speak of large-scale tobacco narcotization of Russia. Tsar Peter not only set an example by smoking but also demanded that his close associates, as well as all state dignitaries and military personnel, smoke a pipe and the Dutch “rool” (cigar), or simply sniff the powder from a snuffbox. A few years later, in 1705, realizing the profitability of the tobacco business (and essentially, the population of Russia was becoming tobacco-dependent), Peter established a state tobacco monopoly for sale.

The All-Joking Synods

In addition, tobacco was used during pseudo-religious ceremonies at the so-called All-Joking Synods — riotous feasts and orgies organized by order of the sovereign. Thus, tobacco was used to fumigate the “worshippers” during the “consecration” of the new palace of Peter’s close associate Franz Lefort, which took place on January 21, 1699. Franz Lefort’s palace was “consecrated” in honor of the pagan god of drunkenness, Bacchus. The ritual performed was a mockery of the Orthodox rite of consecrating a building. Instead of sprinkling the building with holy water and censing with incense, the participants carried bowls of wine, mead, beer, and vodka and censed with tobacco.

The rite was led by Peter’s friend — “Prince-Pope” Nikita Zotov, who bore the title “Most Joking and Most Holy Patriarch Kir-Ebi of Presburg, Zayauzsky, from the Great Mytishchi to the Mudishchi.” Instead of a cross at the head of the procession, the “Prince-Pope” had two crossed smoking pipes.

Historian Andrei Shcheglov describes this sad phenomenon as follows:

“Peter the First was the personal creator and inspirer of the ‘All-Joking Synod.’ Beyond historical understanding remains the question of why a man raised in the traditional Christian spirit could suddenly become an open subverter of Christianity. He began his studies quite traditionally with the Book of Hours, Psalter, Gospel, and Apostle, learning all the church services and singing. Most likely, the corrupting influence on the young Peter was exerted by his first teacher, Nikita Moiseevich Zotov, a clerk of the Ambassadorial Prikaz and later an active participant in the blasphemous ‘all-joking’ affairs.

The ‘Most Extravagant, All-Joking, and All-Drunken Synod,’ as a mocking parody of the Christian Church, existed for no less than thirty years. The structure of the synod blasphemously copied the entire church hierarchy. The synod included ‘deacons,’ ‘archdeacons,’ ‘priests,’ ‘sacristan,’ ‘bishops,’ including ‘metropolitans,’ as well as ‘deaconesses,’ ‘archi-abbesses,’ and ‘princess-abbesses,’ etc. The synod had its own prayers, most of which are lost and preserved only in private correspondence of the ‘synod members.’

Special vestments were sewn for the participants of the ‘synod,’ which also represented a parody of the attire of Christian clergy: for example, instead of an episcopal panagia, they wore a flask of wine, and on the mitre of the ‘Prince-Pope’ was depicted Bacchus (the Roman depiction of the ancient Greek god of winemaking, Dionysus). The composition of the permanent participants in the ‘synod’ of unrestrained revelry numbered from 80 to 200 people, the ‘unceasing abode’ of jesters and fools.” Interestingly, a real bishop, also a friend of Peter — Theophan Prokopovich, locum tenens of the Patriarchal throne — attended this blasphemous gathering.

The Intoxication of the People

The Russian writer and ethnographer Ivan Gavrilovich Pryzhov (1827–1885) collected numerous facts about how Peter I encouraged the alcoholization of Russian society. He notes that the 18th century begins with the nationalization of distilling and the appearance of a huge number of taverns integrated into the state system. Eating houses, which replaced inns, were given over to tax farming. Now it came to posting inns. In 1704, it was ordered to inventory posting inns in Moscow; but in the same year, a new decree was issued:

“All posting inns are to be registered to the Great Sovereign and, after valuation, given over to tax farming, and the owners are to be given money for those inns… according to the valuation.”

The approaching general tax farming for wine in 1705 was preceded by tax farms for fisheries, salt, and tobacco. In 1708, private distilleries in the Moscow uyezd were destroyed.

In 1707, throughout the Pomorie region, at parish churches, church clerks, and among all sorts of people, distilling vessels, cubes, cauldrons, and boilers were ordered to be registered; in general, private distilling was ordered to be destroyed with every severity, so that “through side thieving secret sales there would be no hindrance or loss to the sovereign.” The sworn men (fiscals, tax collectors) reported that with the seizure of the vessels in the Russian volosts, the drinking treasury received “no small replenishment.”

In 1705–1708, in the volosts and villages, drinking collections — where they amounted to from 100 to 1000 rubles — were given over to tax farming to people of merchant rank. The tax farmers, also called burmistry, were deprived of the right to produce wine themselves (strong drink — ed.), and had to buy it from the treasury, i.e., of state manufacture.

Thus, for the sake of replenishing the treasury, Peter and his successors contributed to increasing the number of taverns and the sale of alcohol.

Pryzhov writes that such a policy of Peter led to the fact that in the Great Russian guberniyas, where formerly in ancient times people made do with beer and kvass, now they drank only vodka, and terrible drunkenness appeared. The historian notes that the holiday of Yarila, almost unknown until the middle of the 18th century, now suddenly appears as a drunken holiday in the guberniyas: Tver, Kostroma, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Tambov, and Voronezh. On May 30, 1765, on Monday of Peter’s Fast and on the last day of the Yarila celebration in Voronezh, barrels of wine stood on the square, and drunks lay about.

Taverns Were Usually Built Near Volost Administrations

Taverns were ordinarily erected near volost administrations so that those who came to volost meetings would get drunk. The researcher points out:

“Often these gatherings are convened not for business, but at the instigation of the tavern keeper, and not a single gathering takes place without drunkenness, and such drunkenness is all the more harmful because here it is not a private individual who gets drunk, but an administrative assembly vested with authority!… Among the Great Russian people, little by little a new rule of life took shape: if you don’t drink, then there’s no point in living in the world.”

The Church as the Department of “Orthodox Confession”

In scholarly literature there exists the established term “Nikon-Petrine church reform.” And it is no accident. It implies that the reform begun under Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich — the “correction” of liturgical books and rites — culminated in the systematic restructuring of church institutions during the time of Emperor Peter Alexeevich.

Hegumen Kirill (Sakharov) reflects on this topic:

“Under Peter, the Russian Church (the New Rite, Synodal Church — editor’s note) was turned into a part of the Russian state, and the Synod essentially became a state rather than a purely ecclesiastical institution. ‘Department of Orthodox Confession’ — that is exactly how the Great Russian Church was officially named at that time. Previously the Church had held its own honored place in the state; now everything changed, which directly affected its authority. In the 19th century F. Dostoevsky wrote that the Russian Church was in a state of paralysis. In many cases, as Smolich wrote, church decisions were aimed not at purely ecclesiastical needs but at the interests of the state and the emperor. At first Peter established a Spiritual College alongside the other collegia, but later he nonetheless renamed it the Most Holy Governing Synod. At the same time he directed: ‘Appoint a good officer to this institution, this college, so that he may keep watch over the bishops.’

The influence of Protestantism was evident. As is well known, Peter traveled through Europe for a year and a half. Upon returning and learning of the streltsy revolt, he personally chopped off the heads of the streltsy. It seems that about one and a half thousand streltsy were killed, and Peter involved dignitaries in this slaughter in order to bind them with complicity in blood. This event was reflected in the well-known painting by Surikov, ‘Morning of the Streltsy Execution.’ Church administration was reformed according to the Protestant model. The Spiritual Regulation, drawn up by Bishop Theophan (Prokopovich) — a native of Little Russia, from Kiev, who had studied in the West — was adopted as a legislative act. In order to study in the West in Catholic schools, one had to renounce Orthodoxy, which our Little Russians did. Then they returned to Orthodoxy, but the fact of renunciation of the faith remained. Incidentally, according to the canons, one who has renounced the faith may receive communion only on his deathbed, at the end of his life. Yet these people who studied in the West became bishops.”

Peter the First as the Image of the Antichrist

Among a significant portion of the Russian people there arose not only rejection of Peter I’s reforms but also of his very person. Stories circulated that the tsar had been substituted during his journey to Holland. Manuscripts left by the emperor show that he had very poor command of the Russian language. They contain a multitude of Dutch and English words, and the handwriting itself resembles the scrawl of an unhealthy person. Reading these papers is so difficult that scholars have been unable to translate all of them into proper Russian for a hundred years. Nowadays Peter’s handwriting is being deciphered with the help of artificial intelligence and IT technologies. The head of the Federal Archival Agency (Rosarkhiv) and member of the Presidium of the Russian Historical Society, Andrei Artizov, noted that the publication of the written legacy of the first Russian emperor is an example of work far from completion. He believes that in the Russian Federation there are only a few people capable of interpreting the emperor’s records, and even their interpretations remain highly questionable.

It is therefore no coincidence that among a part of the Old Believers and believers in general, Peter was perceived as the Antichrist. This was spoken of in many writings of the time. The works of Grigory Talitsky (presumably an Old Believer) gained the greatest fame. He wrote about the coming of the last times and the arrival in the world of the Antichrist, under which he truly understood the tsar; he also wrote other letters rebuking the emperor, advising the people to withdraw from him, not to obey him, and not to pay taxes. He gave copies of his appeals to his friends and like-minded people to read; he also expressed these views in oral conversations with various persons — for example, with Bishop Ignatius of Tambov, who, listening to his speeches, wept, wept also while reading what was written in the notebooks, and kissed the latter. A similar conversation took place with Prince I. I. Khovansky, who likewise responded sympathetically to his words. Talitsky called Moscow Babylon and the sovereign the Antichrist, saying: “What kind of tsar is he — he himself tortures people.” Grigory Talitsky and his associates were sentenced to execution by suffocation; for this they were roasted in smoke for 7–8 hours.

Persecution of Old Belief

“Old Belief was declared outright war,” historian Kirill Mikhailov believes. The Synod adopted the text of an oath for priests, by which they were obliged to seek out schismatics and report them to the authorities. Old Believers were forbidden to hold any public offices. Their marriages were declared invalid. A special “Office for Schismatic Affairs” was created under the Synod, which had the right to inflict punishments ranging from severe bodily harm to exile to hard labor and manufactories.

Vice-President of the Synod Archbishop Theophan Prokopovich wrote about Peter’s attitude toward Old Believers: “He knew what darkness and blindness afflicted our schismatic false brethren. Truly unparalleled madness, thoroughly soul-destroying and pernicious! And how great is the multitude of poor people who are seduced and perish by those false teachers!”

Torture methods of “converting” Old Believers were also employed. In addition to the Supreme Decree of 1722, according to which priests were required to report to the authorities all “premeditated villainies against the Church and the state” revealed to them in confession — including conversion to Old Belief — the Synod issued a “Regulation” stating:

“There is no better sign by which to recognize a schismatic” than by forcibly communing him” [quoted from: 7, 94].

Thus, during Peter’s reign, church sacraments were turned into instruments of torture and execution. A certain “gag” was even invented, with the help of which Communion could be poured into an Old Believer through clenched teeth — a practice described in detail by the Old Believer historian Ivan Filippov. Fines were introduced for Old Believers’ failure to attend confession and Communion in the churches of the ruling Church, special penalties for wearing beards, for the right to perform rites, and even mandatory contributions to the official clergy. It was forbidden to accept complaints and petitions from them.

Historian Gleb Chistyakov also recounts anti-Old-Believer historical forgeries fabricated at the direct order of the tsar:

“The locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Stefan (Yavorsky) of Ryazan, and Archimandrite Pitirim of Nizhny Novgorod (later archbishop), in collaboration and on the advice of Tsar Peter I — a notorious inventor capable of any deception for the sake of his cause — fabricated forged acts of a fictitious Kievan Council of 1151 that supposedly condemned the two-fingered sign of the cross, processions sunwise, and other ancient Russian traditions.

The ‘discovery’ of this historical fact was decided to be attributed to the already deceased Archbishop Dimitry of Rostov, who nevertheless enjoyed great authority in the Synodal Church as the compiler of the menaion collections ‘Lives of the Saints.’

According to historian P. P. Pekarsky, Peter I greatly liked the idea of the hierarchs close to him. In his notebook the tsar noted: ‘Write a book about hypocrites and expound the beatitudes (David’s meekness and so forth), that it is not as they think, and append it to the service books, and in the preface reveal that it was the work of the Rostov man and his companions’ [1].

Metropolitan Stefan (Yavorsky) sent the learned monk Theophylact on “historical inquiries” to the libraries and ancient repositories of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. There, after prolonged and meticulous searches, Theophylact “found” the Acts of the “Kievan Council of 1151.” In these “Acts” it was stated that the two-fingered sign of the cross, the double alleluia, and other ancient Russian and ancient Byzantine rites were invented in the 12th century by a certain heretic named Martin the Armenian.”

The Mournful Results of Peter’s Reign

Contrary to the numerous television segments glorifying the 350th anniversary of Peter, in reality many of the outcomes of his reign were lamentable.

One of the last documents to critically examine the activities of Peter I was the resolution adopted by participants of the Round Table on Issues of Old-Rite Parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church, dated May 25, 2022:

“Under Peter, Russia acquired internal social and moral illnesses such as the alienation of the elite from the main population of the country, cultural-civilizational dependence on foreign influence, and rapid secularization. Having opened itself to the West in the 18th century, Russia began to receive from there not only the fruits of Western culture and knowledge, but also ‘dangerous ideas based on the denial of Christian heritage and moral relativism.’ Within Russia itself, destructive forces of God-fighting and destruction began to ripen. Following the Gospel principle ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’ (Matt. 7:16), one must acknowledge: less than two centuries after Peter, the Orthodox Russian Empire he founded came to a monstrous revolution in its consequences, to the spiritual catastrophe of the 20th century.

Such were the fruits of the hasty and in many ways violent secularization in the Western spirit, which continue to affect our life today — both within the country, in the persisting divisions of society, and in foreign policy — in the difficult relations with the collective West. In the spiritual realm, ‘Peter’s path’ — anti-traditionalism, license in all things, and imitation of the Protestant structure of the Church — has proven itself to be the ‘wide gate’ (Matt. 7:13) leading to catastrophes and tragedies.”

Literature:

[1] Pekarsky P. P. Science and Literature in Russia under Peter the Great. St. Petersburg, 1862. Vol. 1. p. 401.

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