The Beginning of the Church Schism in Russia – Kozhurin

At the start of the 21st century, no one disputes that the church schism of the mid-17th century was one of the most tragic and bloody chapters in Russian history. The church reformation, initiated 350 years ago by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Patriarch Nikon, not only split the Russian Church but also divided Russian history itself, becoming a kind of watershed moment. Only in recent years has there been growing awareness of the irreparable catastrophe that struck Russia in the distant 17th century.

Let us recall the main milestones of the infamous church “reform” that led to the tragic events of the schism. In 1645, a circle of zealots for church piety, known as the “God-lovers,” formed in Moscow. This group included the young Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, his confessor Archpriest Stefan Vonifatiev, Archpriest Ioann Neronov, and several others. Their aim was to restore order to the Russian Church and state after the Time of Troubles earlier in the century. The God-lovers recognized the need for certain church reforms, advocated for adherence to Christian morality, devoted significant attention to preaching, established centers of Christian education, and sought to elevate the Church’s authority in the eyes of the people.

The true inspiration behind the group was Father Ioann Neronov, a native of the region known for the Zavolzhye elders. Neronov is credited with reviving personal preaching, which Russian Orthodoxy had not seen for centuries. He always carried a copy of Margarit, a collection of sermons by Saint John Chrysostom, using it to teach Russians “in the city squares and marketplaces… proclaiming the path to salvation to all.” Throughout his life, Neronov, despite the “spirit of the times,” strove to live by Christian commandments. He opened schools and almshouses and boldly intervened in secular affairs, both in the provinces and later in the capital. In 1632, he was exiled for two years to the Nikolsky Korelsky Monastery for criticizing the tsar’s campaign against the Poles. After his release, Neronov returned to Nizhny Novgorod and later settled in Moscow, where, through the intercession of Tsar’s confessor Stefan Vonifatiev, he became the archpriest of the Kazan Cathedral on Red Square in 1645. This was his “finest hour.” All of Moscow, including the tsar and tsarina, came to hear Neronov’s sermons. The walls of the Kazan Cathedral could not accommodate all those eager to listen, so his sermons were sometimes written on special boards displayed on the cathedral’s walls.

In 1646, Nikon (born Nikita Minov), then an obscure abbot of the Kozheozerskaya hermitage in the north, joined the God-lovers. Nikon quickly grasped the innermost thoughts occupying Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and his inner circle, and he soon embarked on a meteoric rise. Introduced to the young tsar, he made such a favorable impression that he was immediately appointed archimandrite of the Novospassky Monastery in Moscow, the ancestral monastery of the Romanovs. By 1649, Nikon was ordained Metropolitan of Novgorod, replacing the still-living Metropolitan Afphony.

Having attained episcopal authority, Nikon began introducing innovations in the Novgorod region under his charge. He single-handedly administered justice and punishment at the Sofia Court, and soon, by the tsar’s decree, began handling criminal cases as well, dealing harshly with Novgorodians who dared to complain about him to the tsar. Instead of the ancient unison (monophonic) singing, Nikon introduced polyphonic singing in Novgorod, modeled on Western practices. He later brought this style to Moscow, hiring Polish singers who performed “in organ-like harmony” and using compositions by Martin Mielczewski, the renowned director of the Krakow choristers’ chapel. Notably, chroniclers linked the preference for Orthodoxy by Prince Vladimir’s envoys (the “choice of faith”) to the aesthetic impression of “angel-like” ancient Byzantine singing. Nikon’s “pseudomorphosis” of Orthodoxy was similarly preceded by a fascination with singing—only this time, it was Western, Catholic singing. As Archpriest Avvakum would later say, “Their laws and customs are Latin; they wave their hands, nod their heads, and stomp their feet, as is customary among the Latins with their organs.”

In 1651–1652, disagreements arose among the God-lovers regarding the direction of church reform. Bishop Pavel of Kolomna, Archpriest Avvakum, and Archpriest Ioann Neronov zealously advocated for reforming the Church based on Russian traditions, following the decrees of the famous Stoglav Council of 1551. Meanwhile, Metropolitan Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich leaned toward reforming the Church according to the contemporary Greek model, mistakenly believing it to be the standard of ancient church tradition.

In 1652, Patriarch Joseph died suddenly, and Nikon was chosen as his successor. From the outset of his patriarchate, Nikon, with the support of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, vigorously pursued a church reform aimed at unifying the Russian Church with the Greek Church—a reform destined to strike at the heart of Orthodoxy and plunge Russian society into the abyss of schism.

According to the official narrative, long presented by synodal historians as an indisputable historical fact, Nikon’s first step upon assuming the patriarchate was to compare the Greek and Russian texts of the Creed. The author of Nikon’s biography recounts the following story: While examining a letter from the ecumenical patriarchs confirming the establishment of the patriarchate in Russia, Nikon discovered that the Greek text of the Creed, in its eighth article, lacked the word “true” (in reference to the Holy Spirit). Deeply shocked, Nikon exclaimed, “Even the sacred Creed has been corrupted among us!” He was then informed that the ancient sakkos (vestment) of Patriarch Photius, who lived in the 15th century, also bore the Creed embroidered in Greek letters. Upon inspecting the sakkos, Nikon found no mention of the word “true” and, weeping bitterly, could only cry out, “The faith is lost! The Church is lost! The divine dogmas have been corrupted!”

This unexpected “discovery” by Nikon, even if it had actually occurred, was undoubtedly a theatrical performance. Nikon was certainly aware of the differences between Greek and Russian liturgical practices and books long before his patriarchate. He had spent many hours discussing this topic with Patriarch Paisios, his agents Gabriel (Metropolitan of Naupaktos and Arta), Arsenius the Greek, and other visiting Greeks and Kievans. But a starting point was needed—a pretext dramatic enough to shake society and plunge devout believers into agonizing doubts and reflections. Indeed, if the faith was distorted, how could salvation be possible? “Patriarch Nikon imagined himself as having made an extraordinarily significant discovery. His soul swelled with pride and self-importance, and his will was immediately set on implementing this discovery in the Church’s life, earning fame as a great purifier and restorer of the Church. His ignorance of the history of the Russian Church allowed him to place himself among the greatest Church Fathers, the planters of Orthodoxy in Russian lands. Due to his ignorance, he was unaware of the history of the Creed’s translation into Russian or that earlier church thinkers, leaders, and hierarchs had invested profound understanding into this translation, making it one of the greatest achievements of Russian ecclesiastical thought and life. In his ignorance, Nikon may not even have suspected that Russians had long before mastered the Greek Creed and repeatedly trembled with the sacred desire to translate it into their native language while preserving every nuance of the theological thought embedded in the original Greek text, ultimately adopting a reading that included the word ‘true’”¹.

When embarking on the liturgical reform, Nikon demanded that old liturgical books be brought to Moscow from monasteries and churches, ostensibly to compare them with contemporary Russian ones. In reality, this was another publicity stunt. On November 17, 1652, Arsenius the Greek, freed by Nikon from Solovetsky imprisonment, and Zosima, the patriarch’s cell attendant, traveled to Novgorod to inspect local libraries and purchase Greek books. From the books sent to Moscow at Nikon’s behest, a splendid collection was compiled, totaling about 2,700 old service books, typicons, psalters, gospels, and other texts, which were placed at the disposal of the Moscow Printing House. However, as historian S.A. Zenkovsky notes, “this valuable material, along with books later brought by Arsenius Sukhanov, was never used during Nikon’s time. A thorough scholarly comparison of these texts would have required years of meticulous work and likely would not have yielded the desired results, as these books naturally reflected all the changes that had occurred in the typicon over centuries of Russian Christianity. They could not have provided the editors with a definitive text, and it seems no attempt was made to use them for the Printing House’s work under Nikon. Instead of studying old Slavic and Greek books, which might have clarified Nikon’s perplexities regarding Russian texts, the patriarch simply ordered the use of contemporary Greek books from Venetian editions of the late 16th and early 17th centuries”².

As early as October 9, 1652—before Arsenius the Greek’s trip for books and before Arsenius Sukhanov’s expedition returned from the East—the Moscow Printing House began printing a new edition of the Psalter with additional texts. By February 11, 1653, it was published. A notable feature of this edition was the removal of sections on the 16 prostrations during the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian during Lent (“Lord and Master of my life…”) and on the two-fingered sign of the cross. These sections had served as a concise catechism, clearly and accessibly outlining the basics of Christian doctrine. During the preparation of this edition, some editors expressed dissent, resulting in the dismissal of three: Elder Savvaty, Sila Grigoryev, and Hieromonk Joseph (secular name Ivan Nasedka). The latter had clashed with Nikon in 1651 over the editing of liturgical books, as Nikon insisted on correcting books according to modern Greek originals, while Elder Joseph argued that the Greeks “have hardened in sin… and live in captivity,” for which he was sent to the Kozheozersky Monastery in 1652. Nikon replaced the dismissed editors with loyal Greekophile monks—Euthymius of Chudov and Matthew—led by Arsenius the Greek, a Jesuit-educated scholar.

At the end of February 1653, at the start of Great Lent, Patriarch Nikon sent a decree—a “memorandum”—to Moscow churches, prescribing that all Orthodox Christians, starting that day, “should not perform prostrations on the knees in church but make bows from the waist, and also make the sign of the cross with three fingers.” This infamous memorandum, issued unilaterally by the patriarch without prior conciliar discussion, struck like a bolt from the blue. It had a particularly devastating impact on the zealots of church piety—the God-lovers. Years later, Archpriest Avvakum vividly recalled the event: “We, together with Bishop Pavel of Kolomna, the confessor Stefan, Ioann Neronov, Archpriest Daniel of Kostroma, and Archpriest Login of Murom, gathered and pondered: we saw that winter was coming, our hearts froze, and our legs trembled.”

But the God-lovers “did not remain silent in the face of Nikon’s madness.” Archpriest Ioann Neronov entrusted the Kazan Cathedral to Avvakum and secluded himself for a week in a cell at the Chudov Monastery, praying ceaselessly. There, he heard a voice from an icon of the Savior: “The time of suffering has come; you must endure steadfastly!” Archpriests Avvakum and Daniel of Kostroma then compiled excerpts from liturgical books about the two-fingered sign of the cross and prostrations and submitted them to the tsar, who passed their petition directly to Nikon…

Thus began the famous “book correction” process, which, over a few years, escalated into a total reformation of the Russian Church. The formal pretext for the reform was the correction of supposedly faulty liturgical books. The reformers claimed that, since the adoption of Christianity under Prince Vladimir, numerous errors had crept into the liturgical books due to copyists’ mistakes, necessitating serious revision. This idea stemmed from comparing originals and translations. But what was considered the “original” in this case? New Greek liturgical books printed in Jesuit-run presses in Venice and Paris! The Greeks, under Ottoman rule at the time, lacked their own printing presses. Over the seven centuries since Russia’s Christianization, the Greeks, influenced by Latin practices, had significantly altered the order of many services. Additionally, deliberate heretical distortions were introduced by the Jesuit owners of these presses. This was explicitly stated in a petition submitted to the tsar in 1645 by Theophan, Metropolitan of Paleopatras:

“Let it be known, sovereign tsar, that there is great weakness among all Orthodox Christians and strife from heretics, for the papists and Lutherans (i.e., Catholics and Protestants) possess Greek printing presses and daily print theological books of the holy fathers, embedding in them their vile heresy like deadly poison. They slander the holy and God-bearing fathers, claiming they write according to their customs, which is unreliable, for there are ancient handwritten books and Bibles in the monasteries of the Holy Mountain of Athos and other ancient monasteries, which reveal their deceit. The books they print and compile according to their own customs and inventions are used to wage disputes in various lands. Where ancient Bibles are absent, they arm themselves with our weapons, appear valiant, and shoot at us with our own arrows. This happens, sovereign tsar, because the Turks do not allow us to print books in Constantinople, hindering us out of envy and overpowering us with their bribes… The Lord is my witness, my heart rejoices that God has granted me to see such an Orthodox tsar and such great piety. I recall the troubles Christians face from heretics, many of whom are confused in their minds, reading these compiled books, believing them to be the work of the holy fathers, and thus falling into their delusion and perishing. I wept and resolved, compelled from the depths of my heart, to inform your great tsardom of all this, for the most gracious God has chosen you as tsar on earth, and your royal name is renowned throughout the world”³.

Despite the blessing of the Patriarch and the Council to base their work on ancient “parchment” manuscripts, the basis for Nikon’s reformers was Greek Venetian and South Russian Slavic editions from the early 17th century. The texts of the first “corrected” book, the 1655 Service Book, closely follow the texts of the Greek Venetian Euchologion of 1602 and almost literally match the texts of Bishop Gideon Balaban’s Service Book, published in Kiev in 1602. Unfortunately, the opinion that the 17th-century reform aimed to correct errors and mistakes allegedly introduced into liturgical texts over time due to “ignorant” scribes remains widespread. However, this view is far from the truth. Detailed textual studies of pre-reform and post-reform liturgical books have been conducted, and comparisons are far from favorable to the latter. As historian B. P. Kutuzov writes, “An objective comparison of the texts of pre-reform liturgical books, printed under Patriarch Joseph, with post-reform ones leaves no doubt about the falsity of claims regarding the poor quality of pre-reform liturgical books—there are likely fewer errors in these books than typos in modern ones. Moreover, the comparison leads to the opposite conclusion: post-reform texts are significantly inferior in quality to pre-reform ones, as the so-called corrections introduced a vast number of various inaccuracies and even errors (grammatical, lexical, historical, dogmatic, etc.).⁴” Thus, Nikon’s “reform,” carried out based on modern Greek models, did not correct liturgical books but distorted and damaged them.

When comparing old and new texts, one cannot help but agree with Archpriest Avvakum. He conveyed Patriarch Nikon’s instructions to the “reformer” Arsenius the Greek as follows: “Print the books however you like, Arsenius, as long as it’s not the old way!” Where the liturgical books previously said “youths,” it became “children”; where it said “children,” it became “youths”; where it was “church,” it became “temple,” and where it was “temple,” it became “church.” Blatant absurdities appeared, such as “the radiance of noise,” “to comprehend with eyes,” “to see with a finger,” “Moses’ cross-shaped hands,” not to mention the insertion of a prayer to the “evil spirit” in the baptismal rite. In the old version of the prayer, everything was clear: “We pray to Thee, Lord, that no evil spirit may descend with the one being baptized.” However, the new text, even in the 20th century, caused doubts among priests: to whom were they actually praying in this prayer—“We pray to you, evil spirit, that you may not descend with the one being baptized”? Likewise, the words “The Lord our Jesus Christ, who came into the world and dwelt among men, forbids you, devil” (old text) were replaced with “The Lord forbids you, devil, who came into the world and dwelt among men.” In the rite of the Theophany water blessing, the litany included the words “That this water may lead to eternal life”; this was changed to “That this water may leap to eternal life.” A remarkable translation! But the astonishment fades when one compares the translations with the originals. It turns out that the Venetian and Parisian editions of Greek liturgical books, which Nikon’s reform relied upon, differ significantly from one another in textual terms. These differences can span not just a few lines but sometimes a page, two, or more. “The tragedy of the schismatic reform lay in the attempt to ‘correct the straight by the crooked,’ proclaiming the flawed forms of later religious practices as the most ancient, the only true, and the only possible ones, while any deviation from them was deemed evil and heresy, subject to forceful eradication.”⁵

Priest Nikita Dobrynin, who wrote a lengthy petition listing various innovations, noted the scale of the church’s “reform”: “There is not a single psalm, prayer, or troparion… nor a single verse in the canons that has not had its wording altered.”⁶ Over time, it became clear that Nikon and the Tsar did not merely seek to correct scribal errors but aimed to change all the old Russian church rites and ceremonies to align with modern Greek ones, though the Tsar and Patriarch’s Grecophilia was often quite superficial. In March 1653, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich issued a decree to repaint the icons in the iconostasis of the Dormition Cathedral. For the first time in Russia, the Deesis tier featured the 12 apostles instead of the traditional saints and martyrs, a practice common in the iconostases of Greece and the Balkan countries. In May of the same year, a mitre with two Greek inscriptions was made for Nikon. “As a result of his ‘reforms,’ which were limited to reshaping and standardizing the rite—since unison singing and sermons, often attributed to him, were introduced by others—the Russian rite was completely remade in the modern Greek style,” wrote S. A. Zenkovsky. “The Patriarch himself appeared even more Greek, which he particularly strove for. Greek vestments were introduced in the Russian Church, and the Russian monastic cowl, including the famous white cowl of the Russian Patriarch, was replaced with Greek ones. Nikon’s Grecomania was so extreme and naive that he even introduced Greek food to the patriarchal kitchen. Now he could believe he looked and acted like the Eastern Patriarchs and that, in the event of Russia liberating the Orthodox East, he could lead the entire Orthodox world without the Greeks looking askance at what he considered his quaint, provincial Russian manners and rites. A sense of inferiority and provincialism, a desire to be ‘like all patriarchs,’ to look and serve like the dazzling and seductive Byzantines, undoubtedly played a significant role in shaping the ritual policy of a patriarch who came from simple peasant roots and spent most of his life in the deep provinces. His entire ‘Hellenism’ stemmed not from admiration for Greek culture or theology but from petty vanity and frivolous hopes for a universal role.”⁷ Indeed, Nikon’s fascination with all things Greek reached absurd levels. As a result, he even proudly declared: “I am Russian, but my faith is Greek.”

Regarding the changes introduced to the Russian Church as a result of Nikon’s reformation, there were many. Here are just some of the most significant from the perspective of Orthodox dogma and church canons:

1. The two-finger sign of the cross, an ancient practice inherited from apostolic times, was labeled an “Armenian heresy” and replaced with the three-finger sign. For priestly blessings, the so-called “malaksa” or nominative finger arrangement was introduced. In the interpretation of the two-finger sign, the two extended fingers symbolize Christ’s two natures (divine and human), while the three fingers (fifth, fourth, and first) folded toward the palm represent the Trinity. By introducing the three-finger sign (symbolizing only the Trinity), Nikon not only disregarded the dogma of Christ’s divine-human nature but also introduced the “theopaschite” heresy (implying that the entire Holy Trinity, not just Christ’s human nature, suffered on the cross). This innovation, introduced by Nikon into the Russian Church, was a serious dogmatic distortion, as the sign of the cross has always been a visible Symbol of Faith for Orthodox Christians. The authenticity and antiquity of the two-finger sign are supported by numerous testimonies, including ancient images that have survived to our time (e.g., a 3rd-century fresco from the Catacomb of Saint Priscilla in Rome, a 4th-century mosaic depicting the Miraculous Catch of Fish from the Church of Saint Apollinaris in Rome, and a 5th-century painted image of the Annunciation from the Church of Saint Mary in Rome); numerous Russian and Greek icons of the Savior, the Mother of God, and saints, both miraculously revealed and anciently painted (all detailed in the “Pomorian Answers”); the ancient rite for receiving Jacobite heretics, which, according to the Constantinople Council of 1029, the Greek Church still practiced in the 11th century: “He who does not baptize with two fingers, as Christ did, let him be accursed”; and ancient books, such as those of Archimandrite Joseph of the New Savior Monastery, the cell Psalter of Cyril of Novoezersk, the Greek original of Nikon of Montenegro’s book, and others: “If anyone does not make the sign with two fingers, as Christ did, let him be accursed.” This custom, adopted by the Russian Church from the Greeks during the Baptism of Rus and unbroken until Nikon’s time, was solemnly affirmed at the Stoglav Council in 1551: “If anyone does not bless with two fingers, as Christ did, or does not make the sign of the cross with two fingers, let him be accursed, as the Holy Fathers have said.” Additionally, evidence that the two-finger sign is a tradition of the ancient Universal Church (not just the Russian local church) is found in the Greek Nomocanon, which states: “Ancient Christians made the sign of the cross on themselves differently from modern ones, using two fingers—the middle and index fingers—as Peter of Damascus says. The whole hand, says Peter, signifies the single hypostasis of Christ, and the two fingers—His two natures.” No ancient sources have yet been found that testify to the three-finger sign.
2. The practice of prostrations, an undeniable church tradition established by Christ Himself, as evidenced in the Gospel (Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “falling on His face,” i.e., making prostrations) and in patristic writings, was abolished. The abolition of prostrations was perceived as a revival of the ancient heresy of the “non-worshippers,” as prostrations, especially during Great Lent, are a visible sign of reverence for God and His saints and a sign of deep repentance. The preface to the 1646 Psalter states: “Cursed is this, and with heretics, such impiety is rejected—namely, not making prostrations in our prayers to God in church on the appointed days. Likewise, we have not deviated from the rule of the holy fathers, for in many, such impiety and heresy—refusing to kneel during Great Lent—has taken root. No pious person, a son of the apostolic conciliar church, can tolerate such impiety and heresy. Let there be no such evil among the Orthodox, as the holy fathers have said.”⁸
3. The three-bar, eight-pointed cross, long the primary symbol of Orthodoxy in Rus, was replaced with a two-bar, four-pointed cross, associated in the minds of Orthodox believers with Catholic doctrine and called the “Latin (or Polish) cross.” After the reform began, the eight-pointed cross was expelled from churches. The reformers’ hostility toward it is evident in the fact that one of the prominent figures of the new church, Metropolitan Dimitry of Rostov, referred to it in his writings as “Bryn’s” or “schismatic.” Only from the late 19th century did the eight-pointed cross gradually begin to return to new-rite churches.
4. The prayerful exclamation—the angelic hymn “Alleluia”—was quadrupled among Nikonians, as they sing “Alleluia” three times followed by a fourth, equivalent phrase, “Glory to You, O God,” thus violating the sacred trinity. The ancient “double Alleluia” was declared by the reformers to be the “abominable Macedonian heresy.”
5. In the profession of Orthodox faith—the Symbol of Faith, a prayer listing the main dogmas of Christianity—the word “true” was removed from the phrase “in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, true, and life-giving,” thus casting doubt on the truth of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. The Greek word “το Κύριον” in the original Symbol of Faith can be translated as both “Lord” and “true.” The old translation included both, emphasizing the equal honor of the Holy Spirit with the other Persons of the Trinity, which is entirely consistent with Orthodox teaching. The unjustified removal of “true” disrupted the symmetry, sacrificing meaning for a literal replication of the Greek text, which caused justified outrage among many. The conjunction “but” was removed from the phrase “begotten, but not made,” the very “but” for which many were ready to face martyrdom. Its removal could be interpreted as expressing doubt in Christ’s uncreated nature. Instead of the previous affirmation “Whose kingdom has no end,” the phrase “will have no end” was introduced, implying that the infinity of God’s kingdom is relegated to the future and thus limited in time. Changes to the Symbol of Faith, sanctified by centuries of history, were particularly painful. This was not unique to Russia with its alleged “ritualism,” “literalism,” and “theological ignorance.” A classic example from Byzantine theology is the case of a single altered “iota” introduced by the Arians into the term “consubstantial” (Greek “homoousios”), turning it into “similar in essence” (Greek “homoiousios”). This distorted the teaching of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, upheld by the authority of the First Nicene Council, regarding the relationship between the essence of the Father and the Son. For this reason, the Ecumenical Councils prohibited, under pain of anathema, any changes to the Symbol of Faith, even the slightest.
6. In Nikon’s books, the spelling of Christ’s name was changed: instead of the previous “Isus,” used among other Slavic peoples, “Iisus” was introduced, and the latter was declared the only correct form, elevated by new-rite theologians to a dogmatic status. According to the blasphemous interpretation of Metropolitan Dimitry of Rostov, the pre-reform spelling “Isus” supposedly meant “equal-eared,” “monstrous, and meaningless.”
7. The form of the Jesus Prayer, which, according to Orthodox teaching, holds special mystical power, was altered. Instead of the words “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” the reformers mandated the reading of “Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” The pre-Nikon Jesus Prayer was considered universal and eternal, based on Gospel texts as the first apostolic confession on which Jesus Christ founded His Church. It gradually became widely used and was even included in the Church’s Typikon. References to it are found in the writings of Saint Ephraim, Saint Isaac the Syrian, Saint Hesychius, Saints Barsanuphius and John, and Saint John of the Ladder. Saint John Chrysostom says of it: “I beseech you, brethren, never to break or despise this prayer.” However, the reformers removed this prayer from all liturgical books and, under threat of anathema, prohibited its use “in church singing and public gatherings.” It later became known as the “schismatic” prayer.
8. During processions, baptisms, and weddings, the new-rite adherents began to move counterclockwise, against the sun, whereas, according to church tradition, it was customary to move clockwise (following the sun, or “posolon”), symbolizing following Christ, the Sun. It should be noted that the practice of moving counterclockwise was associated with certain harmful magical cults.
9. In the baptism of infants, the new-rite adherents began to allow and even justify pouring or sprinkling water, contrary to the apostolic rule requiring baptism by triple immersion (Rule 50 of the Holy Apostles). Consequently, the rite for receiving Catholics and Protestants was altered. According to ancient church canons, confirmed by the Council of 1620 under Patriarch Filaret, Catholics and Protestants were to be baptized with full triple immersion. Now, they were admitted to the dominant church solely through chrismation.
10. The new-rite adherents began to celebrate the Liturgy using five prosphora, claiming that otherwise “there cannot be the true Body and Blood of Christ” (according to the old Service Books, the Liturgy was to be celebrated with seven prosphora).
11. Nikon ordered the destruction of “ambons” in churches and their replacement with “runduki” (platforms), altering the form of the ambon (the pre-altar elevation), each part of which held specific symbolic meaning. In the pre-Nikon tradition, the four pillars of the ambon signified the four Gospels; if there was a single pillar, it represented the stone rolled away by the angel from the cave containing Christ’s body. Nikon’s five pillars symbolized the Pope and the four Patriarchs, which contained a Latin heresy.
12. The white cowl of Russian hierarchs—a symbol of the purity and holiness of the Russian clergy, distinguishing them among the universal patriarchs—was replaced by Nikon with the “horned cap-like kamelaukion” of the Greeks. In the eyes of pious Russians, these “horned cowls” were compromised, as they had been repeatedly criticized in polemical writings against the Latins (e.g., in the story of Peter the Stammerer, included in the Paleya, Kirill’s Book, and Makary’s Menologion). Under Nikon, the entire attire of the Russian clergy was changed to follow the modern Greek model, which, in turn, was heavily influenced by Turkish fashion—wide-sleeved robes resembling Eastern caftans and kamelaukions resembling Turkish fezzes. According to Paul of Aleppo, following Nikon’s example, many bishops and monks desired to change their vestments: “Many of them came to our teacher (Patriarch Macarius of Antioch) and asked him to give them a kamelaukion and cowl… Those who managed to acquire them and had them placed upon them by Patriarch Nikon or ours had their faces light up with joy. On this occasion, they eagerly ordered kamelaukions made of black cloth in the same style as ours and the Greek monks’, and cowls made of black silk. They spat on their old cowls in our presence, throwing them off their heads and saying: ‘If this Greek attire were not of divine origin, our patriarch would not have been the first to wear it.’”⁹ Regarding this reckless rejection of native traditions and servile admiration for foreign customs, Archpriest Avvakum wrote: “Oh, poor Rus! Why do you crave German ways and customs?” He urged Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich: “Sigh for the old days, as it was in Stefan’s time, when things were good, and say in the Russian tongue: ‘Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ Leave the ‘Kyrie eleison’ behind; that’s what the Greeks say—spit on them! You, Mikhailovich, are a Russian, not a Greek. Speak in your native tongue; do not demean it in church, at home, or in proverbs. As Christ taught us, so we should speak. God loves us no less than the Greeks; He gave us literacy in our language through Saint Cyril and his brother. What more do we need? An angelic tongue? No, that won’t be given until the general resurrection.” ¹⁰
13. The ancient form of the bishops’ staffs was altered. On this matter, Archpriest Avvakum wrote with indignation: “That cunning Nikon, together with his like-minded followers, introduced the worst and most ungodly practice in our Russia—instead of the staff of Saint Peter the Wonderworker, he brought in new episcopal staffs adorned with accursed serpents that destroyed our forefather Adam and the entire world, which the Lord Himself cursed above all cattle and beasts of the earth. Now they sanctify and honor this accursed serpent above all cattle and beasts, bringing it into God’s sanctuary, into the altar, and through the royal doors as if it were some kind of sanctification. They perform the entire church service with these staffs adorned with accursed serpents, and everywhere, as if it were a precious treasure, they command these serpents to be carried before them for all the world to see, through which they bring about the destruction of the Orthodox faith.”¹¹
14. Instead of the ancient chant, new forms were introduced—first Polish-Little Russian, and later Italian. New icons began to be painted not according to ancient models but following Western styles, making them resemble secular paintings more than icons. This contributed to fostering an unhealthy sensuality and exaltation among believers, previously foreign to Orthodoxy. Gradually, ancient iconography was entirely supplanted by salon-style religious painting, slavishly and clumsily imitating Western models and bearing the grandiose title of “icons in the Italian style” or “in the Italian taste.” Andrei Denisov commented on this in the Pomorian Answers: “Today’s painters, having altered the sacred apostolic tradition, paint icons not according to the ancient models of miraculous Greek and Russian holy icons but based on their own arbitrary imagination: they thicken the flesh, and in other features, they do not resemble the ancient holy icons but rather Latin ones and others printed in Bibles or painted on canvases. These new artistic creations raise doubts in us…”¹² Archpriest Avvakum described such religious painting even more sharply: “By God’s permission, improper iconographic artistry has multiplied in our Russian land… They paint the Savior’s image, Emmanuel, with a puffy face, red lips, curly hair, thick hands and muscles, swollen fingers, and likewise thick thighs at the legs, making Him look like a stout German, lacking only a sword at His side. All this is painted according to carnal reasoning: for these heretics have come to love physical corpulence and have cast down heavenly things… They depict the Mother of God as pregnant in the Annunciation, just like the filthy Franks. And Christ on the cross is bloated: a chubby little darling stands there, with legs like little stools.”¹³
15. Marriages with non-Orthodox and with individuals within forbidden degrees of kinship, prohibited by the Church, were permitted.
16. In the new-rite church, the ancient custom of electing clergy by the parish was abolished and replaced with appointments from above.
17. Subsequently, the new-rite adherents abolished the ancient canonical church structure and recognized secular authority as the head of the church, following the model of Protestant churches.

There were other innovations, which continued to multiply over time. For instance, while the Pomorian Answers (early 18th century) listed 58 points of difference between the reformed new-rite church and the Old Orthodox Church, by the end of the 18th century, the Old Believer treatise Shield of Faith listed 131 types of changes! Innovations grew like a snowball. Many ancient rites of church sacraments were significantly shortened and altered (e.g., the rites of baptism, repentance, marriage, and ordinations), while some ancient rites were completely abolished (e.g., the rite of washing the table, washing holy relics, partaking of Theophany water, covering the bride’s head with a veil, tonsuring a nun, establishing brotherhood, the rite “for one wishing to enter seclusion,” the rite of the furnace action, and the beginning of the indiction). At the same time, new rites, unknown to Orthodoxy, were introduced, borrowed from the Trebnik of Metropolitan Peter Mogila of Kiev, which itself was modeled on Catholic Rituale Romanum. For example, Mogila’s Trebnik contained 37 different rites never before seen in Orthodox liturgical books (e.g., rites for blessing fishing nets, ships, herds, etc.).

All these lawless changes and innovations by Patriarch Nikon and his followers fell under the condemnation of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which declared: “We inviolably preserve all church traditions, whether written or unwritten… Therefore, we decree that those who dare to think or teach otherwise, or, following the example of vile heretics, despise church traditions and invent any innovations, or reject anything dedicated to the Church—whether it be the Gospel, the image of the cross, iconographic painting, or the holy relics of a martyr—or those who cunningly and deceitfully devise anything to undermine even a single one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church, or those who dare to put sacred vessels or venerable monasteries to profane use, we decree that such persons, if they are bishops or clergy, be deposed, and if they are monks or laity, be excommunicated.”¹⁴

Another characteristic phenomenon of Nikon’s reformation was the unprecedented decanonization in the Orthodox Church of previously glorified saints, a significant step in rehabilitating the Greeks and discrediting pre-reform Russian Orthodoxy. “Our saints were foolish and illiterate,” the reformers explained. Thus, in the early years after the schism, Saint Blessed Princess Anna of Kashin was decanonized. A commission found that the fingers on her incorrupt relics were arranged in the two-finger sign, which led to her exclusion from the ranks of saints. Also decanonized were Venerable Euphrosynus of Pskov (whose Life contained a reference to the “double” Alleluia), Venerable Euthymius of Arkhangelsk, the patron saint of the city of Arkhangelsk (decanonized in 1683 for being depicted with the two-finger sign and a “large beard,” a hallmark of Old Believers), Venerable Maximus the Greek, Venerable George, the Wonderworker of Shenkursk, and Blessed Simon of Yuryevets. Services to Saint Niphont, Archbishop of Novgorod, and the Vilna holy martyrs Anthony, John, and Eustathius were discontinued. In the new liturgical typikon, the status of services to many Russian saints was downgraded: the all-night vigil for Venerable Sergius of Radonezh was replaced with a regular evening service, as were those for Venerable Theodosius of the Caves and Dimitry of Priluki, and even the first Russian saints, Blessed Princes Boris and Gleb, had their status diminished. The list could go on endlessly. As historian B. Kutuzov notes, the official church “lost the initiative in the historical and national education of the people. The Russian person would henceforth learn national history not from the church choir but from the opera stage, through the paintings of secular artists, and the books of secular writers. It is easy to understand how much this accelerated the secularization of Russian society.”

Indeed, the most significant negative consequence of Nikon’s reformation was the change in the very spirit of the church. After Nikon, the new-rite church lost its conciliar spirit, fell under state control, and was forced to adapt to each new government change, altering and adjusting its teachings to new trends, even to this day. Like the Catholic Church, the new-rite church became divided into a “teaching church” and a “taught church.” According to later new-rite theology, the true church consists of the hierarchy—bishops and priests—while the people are nothing in the church, their role being to obey the hierarchy’s decisions unquestioningly, even if they contradict the spirit of Christ’s faith. The idea of electing clergy and bishops, as practiced in the ancient Church, became unthinkable. This fostered false obedience and false humility among the Russian people. Further, even more deplorable phenomena emerged in church life: performing sacraments for money, violating the secrecy of confession (directly mandated by the “head of the church,” Emperor Peter I), performing sacraments for non-believers who came to be baptized or married “by tradition” or “just in case,” and the commercialization and secularization of the church.

Thus, Nikon’s reformation initiated a large-scale process best described as the “de-Christianization of Rus.” This process began with doubting the faith once accepted by ancestors under Saint Prince Vladimir and rejecting it, continued with religious skepticism in the 18th century and nihilism in the 19th century, and culminated in militant atheism in the 20th century and neo-pagan materialism in the 21st century. Under the influence of Western culture, Russian culture gradually became detached from the church (secularization and worldliness), transforming secular culture into an autonomous sphere. This led to the stratification of Russian society. As historian V. O. Klyuchevsky noted, whereas Russian society was once culturally and religiously unified despite social differences, Western influence shattered this moral integrity: Russian society, unevenly absorbing Western influences, split like glass heated unevenly.

As French researcher Pierre Pascal, who studied the life and works of Archpriest Avvakum, aptly noted, “after Nikon, there was no longer a church in Russia; there was the religion of the state. From there, it was only one step to a state religion. The state religion was introduced by an authority that vanished along with the empire in 1917.”¹⁵

Nikon’s innovations sparked widespread protests, which were met with immediate repression. Starting in the summer of 1653, a crackdown began on the zealots of piety who were displeasing to the Tsar and the Patriarch. The first victim of Nikon’s inquisition was Archpriest Login of Murom. Next came Archpriest Ioann Neronov, who stood up for him. An open confrontation erupted between Neronov and Nikon. Rostov Metropolitan Iona and Yaroslavl Archpriest Ermil testified that during one Council meeting, when Neronov spoke of the need for the Tsar’s approval of decisions, Nikon made an utterly unheard-of statement: “I have no need for the Tsar’s help, it’s useless to me, and I spit and blow my nose at it.” Hearing such words, Metropolitan Iona wanted to “flee the scene.” Neronov responded to Nikon: “Vladyka, you speak wrongly; all the holy fathers and councils called upon pious tsars and their councils to aid them and the Orthodox faith.”

At the next Council meeting, Neronov directly accused Nikon of abusing his authority. However, Metropolitan Iona and Archpriest Ermil, witnesses to the Patriarch’s audacious remarks about the Tsar, retracted their testimonies, fearing Nikon’s wrath. Yet Neronov continued to openly rebuke Nikon: “If someone wishes you well, you hate them, but those who are slanderers and whisperers, you love, favor, and listen to. If someone slanders another, even from 500 or 1,000 versts away, you believe them. You call the pious, based on the words of slanderers, impious… You were once our friend, but now you’ve turned against us. You’ve removed some and put others in their place, and we hear nothing good from them.”

During the dispute, Nikon claimed that a petition had been received from the priests and clerics of the Kazan Cathedral, accusing Neronov of disorderly conduct. Neronov demanded that the petition be read aloud, and when it was not, he threw at Nikon: “Truly, Patriarch, you lie.” Nikon’s supporters attacked Neronov: “How dare you call the great hierarch a blasphemer, an idle talker, a tormentor, a liar?” Neronov replied: “The Patriarch allows you to speak all sorts of absurd words against God’s true servants before him, and I don’t know what to call your council, for you care not for God’s law but engage in reproaches and insults. Why do you shout and wail? I have not blasphemed or sinned against the Holy Trinity; I condemn your council. Such councils were held against John Chrysostom and Stephen of Surozh.”

Punishment followed swiftly. On August 4, Ioann Neronov was arrested and placed under guard in the Novospassky Monastery. That same day, he was transferred to the Simonov Monastery, where he was held under strict arrest: his family was not allowed to see him, he was forbidden from attending church, and at night he was guarded “with candles.” A week later, he was taken to the Tsareborisovsky Court, where he was mercilessly beaten, then returned to the Simonov Monastery and chained by the neck. On August 12, in the Dormition Cathedral, Ioann Neronov was defrocked (the rite was performed by Krutitsy Metropolitan Sylvester), and on August 13, he was exiled under strict supervision to the Spaso-Kamenny Monastery on Lake Kubenskoye in the Vologda region. “When Neronov, in chains and with chains around his neck, was being taken out of Moscow, crowds of people followed their beloved pastor to the Klyazma River. All were weeping. In farewell, the Archpriest delivered a sermon to his flock and read passages from his beloved Margarita by John Chrysostom. The old man could rightly compare his fate to that of the confessor Patriarch of Constantinople, who suffered for the truth.”

After Ioann Neronov’s arrest, Archpriest Avvakum became the leader of the Old Believer opposition. An open struggle began between members of the zealots of piety circle and the new Patriarch. Avvakum preached rejection of Nikon’s “innovations.” “Come now! Rise up and confess Christ, the Son of God, loudly before all! No more hiding. Even if they beat or burn you, glory be to the Lord God for it. Do not hesitate! Suffer for Christ with joy! The Russian land has been sanctified by the blood of martyrs. I would die, and die again for Christ our God.”

To a modern person, such devotion to faith and willingness to die for a “single letter” may seem strange. But we should not judge people of another era by our imperfect standards. If, in this age of widespread religious skepticism and so-called “faith in the heart,” we fail to understand something, it reflects our weakness, not our superiority. It must not be forgotten that in pre-Nikon Rus, faith permeated every moment of a person’s life, and in every pious family, a near-monastic way of life was observed. For a sincerely believing person, compromise in matters of faith was impossible. One could not “for show” make the new sign of the cross while “inwardly” believing in the old way.

In August 1653, Archpriest Avvakum, together with Kostroma Archpriest Daniil, wrote a petition to the Tsar, pleading for Neronov. “O pious Tsar,” they wrote, “whence have these things come into your realm? The teaching in Russia has ceased, and the head has fallen away from the church, for the wild boar from the meadow and the wild monk have taken and devoured it…” Receiving no response, Avvakum turned to the people with a sermon against Nikon’s innovations. On August 12, the day of Ioann Neronov’s defrocking, while preaching on the porch of the Kazan Cathedral in the presence of patriarchal “subdeacons,” Avvakum “spoke unnecessary words that should not have been spoken” (as priest Ioann Danilov of the same cathedral wrote in a letter to Neronov on September 29, 1653).

As a result, expelled from the Kazan Cathedral by local priests, Avvakum took an unprecedented step: clad in his priestly stole, he continued the all-night vigil in a “drying shed” (a hay barn) in the courtyard of Ioann Neronov’s nearby house. “For at times,” he said, “a stable is better than a church.” A significant portion of his flock followed Avvakum from the Kazan Cathedral, reportedly up to a hundred people. In essence, the drying shed in Ioann Neronov’s courtyard became the first Old Believer prayer house—without an altar or “external trappings”—like the prayer houses in which Old Believers, expelled from the ancient churches sanctified by their pious ancestors, would pray for the next three hundred years.

But even in the drying shed, Avvakum was not allowed to complete the vigil. The incident was promptly reported to the Patriarch, and during the reading of a passage from John Chrysostom’s Homilies, Avvakum was arrested by Boris Neledinsky with a group of musketeers. They began beating him while he was still in his stole and dragged him by the hair. “They tore my vestments and trampled the holy Gospel, knocking it off the lectern. They put me on a cart with chains, stretching out my arms, and drove me through the streets for hours,” he recounted. He was then taken to the Patriarchal Court, where he was chained. Along with Avvakum, 33 others present at the “drying shed service” were arrested, as well as 40 people who had signed the petition in defense of Ioann Neronov.

Meanwhile, the crackdown extended to other zealots of piety who were displeasing to Nikon. Archpriest Daniil of Kostroma was personally tortured by Nikon in the Chudov Monastery, then defrocked and exiled to Astrakhan, where he was starved to death in an earthen prison. Another Daniil, the archpriest of Temnikov, was imprisoned in the Novospassky Monastery. Semen Bebekhov, who had transcribed Avvakum and Daniil’s petition for Neronov, was chained at the Patriarchal Court. Also arrested were the Solovetsky monk Gerasim Firsov, Archpriest Mikhail Rogov (compiler of the Kirillov Book), Archpriest Gavriil of Nizhny Novgorod (later executed), Priest Mikhail from the Bogoroditsky Monastery in Moscow (who perished without a trace), Priest Ermil, who was banned from serving and exiled to a Yaroslavl monastery, and Archpriest Semen Trofimov, a friend of Neronov and Avvakum, who fled. Priest Lazar hid with Abbot Nikanor at the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery but was captured and exiled to Tobolsk. Over ten archpriests, leaders of the zealots’ movement, were sent into exile. Only Archpriest Stefan Vonifatiev, the Tsar’s confessor, escaped repression, but he remained silent, unwilling to intercede for his friends from the zealots’ circle—described by Avvakum as “having grown weak in every way.”

Having eliminated the most active opponents, Nikon decided to convene a council to legitimize his unlawful actions. The council took place in Moscow in 1654 (beginning on February 27 and ending on May 2). Curiously, no historian seems to have noted a mystical fact: the church council of 1654, convened at the initiative of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and his appointee Patriarch Nikon—a council that approved and blessed the reform leading to the tragic schism of the Russian Church and society—occurred exactly 666 years after the Baptism of Rus, the time when a new civilization, Holy Rus, was born, enlightened by the Gospel under Grand Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich.

The 1654 council was presided over by the Tsar and the Patriarch. Participants included five metropolitans: Macarius of Novgorod, Cornelius of Kazan, Iona of Rostov, Sylvester of Krutitsy, and Michael the Serbian; four archbishops: Markell of Vologda, Sofrony of Suzdal, Misail of Ryazan, and Macarius of Pskov; one bishop, Pavel of Kolomna; as well as archimandrites, abbots, 13 archpriests, and several of the Tsar’s close associates. The council’s participants were meticulously selected by the Patriarch and the Tsar, prompting Father Ioann Neronov to call it a “Judaic assembly.” The council’s decisions were predetermined by the very method of decision-making: Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich cast the first vote.

Despite the careful selection of participants, some expressed dissent, and one bishop—ordained by Nikon himself—openly defended the old books. This was Bishop Pavel of Kolomna, a member of the zealots’ circle, who became the next victim of the proud and power-hungry Patriarch. “We will not accept the new faith,” Pavel declared directly to Nikon. (The essence of this “new faith” was later succinctly expressed by the new-rite Patriarch Ioakim: “I know neither old nor new faith, but whatever the authorities command, I am ready to do and obey in all things.”)

Attempting to “reason” with the defiant bishop and justify the need for the book “corrections,” Nikon claimed it was not about a new faith but merely about certain “amendments” requiring “grammatical expertise.” Bishop Pavel responded cogently: “Innovations are not introduced by grammatical rules: what grammar commands you to abolish the three-bar cross from the prosphora? It is not by grammatical rules that you abolish the seven prosphora in the service or add and subtract from the Symbol of Faith.” He listed other innovations introduced not by grammatical rules: the triple “Alleluia,” the change in the sign of the cross, and instead of signing the council’s resolutions, he wrote: “If anyone takes away from, adds to, or in any way corrupts the traditions of the holy conciliar church, let him be anathema.”

This enraged Nikon. He personally beat Bishop Pavel at the council, tore off his mantle, stripped him of his episcopal see without a conciliar trial, and ordered his immediate exile to a remote northern monastery.

Bishop Pavel of Kolomna’s fate was tragic. For resisting Nikon’s “reformation,” he was thrown into a dungeon and subjected to torture, yet he remained steadfast. Nikon then unilaterally stripped him of his rank and exiled him to the Paleostrovsky Monastery near Lake Onega. Given some freedom, Bishop Pavel began teaching local Christians to remain firm in the ancient patristic traditions. Later, he was transferred under stricter supervision to the Khutyn Monastery in Novgorod, where he was killed. The official version stated: “No one saw how the poor man died: whether he was taken by wild beasts or fell into the river and drowned.” However, the Moscow Council of 1666–1667, which tried Nikon for numerous crimes, held him accountable for deposing and causing the death of Bishop Pavel: “You, Nikon,” the council’s verdict stated, “deposed Bishop Pavel of Kolomna without a council, against the rules, insulted him, exiled him, and tormented him to death there, and this deposition is counted as murder.”

Old Believer sources provide a different account of Bishop Pavel’s final days. Deacon Theodore writes: “Nikon deceitfully insulted him, stripped him of his rank, and exiled him to the Khutyn Monastery of St. Varlaam… But that blessed Bishop Pavel began to act as a fool for Christ’s sake.” This testimony of the bishop taking up the rare podvig of holy foolery—a unique case of a fool-for-Christ bishop, previously unknown in either the Greek or Russian Church—is striking. In Rus, holy fools were treated with special reverence; they were listened to and allowed what others were not. Even the Tsar dared not offend a holy fool. “Pavel of Kolomna, the only Russian hierarch to become a holy fool, did so for two reasons,” writes A. M. Panchenko. “It was his last chance to preserve his life, as a holy fool was considered untouchable. It was also his final argument in defense of national traditions: a bishop whose pastoral word was rejected turns to the people with a ‘strange and wondrous spectacle.’”¹⁶

The abbot and brethren of the Khutyn Monastery considered Bishop Pavel mad and thus decided not to burden themselves with supervising a “lunatic,” granting him full freedom to wander the monastery’s surroundings as he pleased. However, Pavel used this freedom to preach Old Orthodoxy among the local people. When Nikon learned of this, as Deacon Theodore writes, “he sent his servants to the Novgorod region, where Pavel wandered. They found him walking in a deserted place, seized him like wolves seizing a gentle lamb of Christ, killed him, and burned his body.” On April 3, 1656, Great Thursday, Pavel of Kolomna was burned in a log cabin by men sent by Nikon—“baked like bread for God.”

This latter version seems more plausible, especially considering Nikon’s harsh temperament and pathological cruelty. Historian N. F. Kapterev writes: “Nikon dealt cruelly with those who offended him in any way, subjecting them to all sorts of tortures and torments, but that was not all. By his own admission, there were times when he, the Patriarch, personally beat guilty individuals, sometimes even in church or at the altar. What is particularly characteristic is that Nikon considered such personal physical punishment, even in the altar, entirely lawful and appropriate for a patriarch, as if based on the example of Christ Himself, the rules of the holy apostles, and the holy fathers… Of course, Nikon’s cruelty to subordinates can be explained by the so-called spirit of the times—it was a cruel era, and everyone acted this way. But it is also undeniable that Nikon’s actions utterly lacked the spirit of true Christian pastoral care. This was well understood even then, despite the spirit of the times, by many who could not accept the notion that Nikon’s cruel actions were lawful or just, befitting the head of the Russian Church’s pastors or tolerable in Christ’s Church. On the contrary, Nikon’s behavior outraged many as shameful and intolerable for a true pastor of the church.”¹⁷

Although many inwardly disagreed with Nikon, including at least four prominent bishops—Macarius of Novgorod, Markell of Vologda, Simeon of Tobolsk, and Alexander of Vyatka—none dared to follow Bishop Pavel’s example and openly protest against the innovations. The hierarchy, which obediently followed Nikon and the Tsar, began to lose its authority. The initiative in the struggle for the old faith and spiritual authority almost immediately passed to ordinary priests, and after most of them were physically eliminated, to selected laypeople.

The situation in the Russian Church in the mid-17th century somewhat resembled the situation in the Greek Church after the Florentine Union. The Florentine Union—the unification of the Western and Eastern Churches—was formalized at the council Catholics call the Eighth Ecumenical Council in Florence in 1439. At that time, the act of union was signed on the Byzantine side by Emperor John VIII and representatives of the Eastern patriarchs. The Constantinopolitan Patriarch Joseph, who was present at the council, died suddenly before its conclusion and did not sign the act, but both he and his successor, Patriarch Metrophanes, supported the union. Twelve years later, in 1451, the union was confirmed by John VIII’s successor, the last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI. Thus, the highest ecclesiastical and secular authorities in Constantinople submitted to Rome, hoping to secure Western aid against the Turks at the cost of abandoning Orthodoxy. However, the Byzantine church populace rejected the union, rendering the legal document signed in Florence essentially meaningless. Byzantine resistance centered around the only bishop who did not accept the union, Metropolitan Mark Eugenikos of Ephesus. A similar situation unfolded in Russia: the only bishop to openly oppose the Jesuit-prepared Nikon reform, Bishop Pavel of Kolomna, led the Russian resistance. The different outcomes of these two Orthodox popular movements were largely determined by the differing fates of their leading hierarchs: while Metropolitan Mark Eugenikos survived, Bishop Pavel of Kolomna met a very different end.

Bishop Pavel did not appoint a successor, as he believed, based on Orthodox church canons, that this was impossible in his current position as a bishop stripped of his see. It should be noted that in the Russian Church before the schism, there was a practice of re-ordaining bishops when transferring to a new see, meaning a bishop was appointed not to the rank but to a specific diocese, and there could be no bishop without a diocese. Pavel of Kolomna instructed his followers not to accept any sacraments or rites from the reformed new-rite church, to re-baptize those baptized in it, and not to accept priests ordained in it. He affirmed that not only ordained monks but also pious laymen could perform certain sacraments and meet the spiritual needs of others.

After the conclusion of the unlawful council on May 2, 1654, Ioann Neronov wrote a letter from the Spaso-Kamenny Monastery to Tsarina Maria Ilyinichna. In it, he stated that Bishop Pavel of Kolomna, Archpriests Daniil of Kostroma, Avvakum, Login of Murom, and others were suffering unjustly and had been condemned “by a secular court” unlawfully. He likened their actions “for the sake of preaching the law and teaching” to the feat of Christ Himself, who also “suffered innocently at the hands of the Jews.” Neronov asked the Tsarina to intercede with the Tsar on behalf of the condemned and predicted misfortune for the country if the innocently suffering were not returned from exile and imprisonment. These prophecies would soon come to pass.

On May 18, 1654, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich left for the war with Poland, leaving Nikon as the regent of the state and entrusting him with the care of the royal family. Thus, the Tsar temporarily withdrew from current state affairs, leaving his appointee to deal with the consequences of the reform, which had met significant resistance among the Russian people. To lend further credibility, the Tsar even agreed to formally expand Nikon’s title. On October 23, 1653, while announcing the decision to go to war with the Poles in the Dormition Cathedral, the Tsar referred to Nikon as the “great sovereign” in his speech to the boyars. Previously, only one person besides Russian tsars had borne this title—Patriarch Filaret, the father of Tsar Michael Feodorovich. In the preface to the 1655 Service Book, Tsar Alexei and Patriarch Nikon are described as a “God-chosen and God-wise pair,” for whom “all living under their authority and under their unified sovereign command… will sing comforting songs glorifying the true God who raised them.”

The power Nikon gained went to his head. As the “great sovereign,” he gradually changed his views on the role and place of patriarchal authority in the state. “The priesthood is greater than the kingdom,” he declared, supporting his opinion with various sources, including the famous forgery commissioned by Roman popes, the Donation of Constantine. This “document” was even printed in the Nomocanon published under Nikon. According to Y. F. Samarin, Nikon sought to “establish a private national papacy in Russia.” Nikon illustrated the relationship between spiritual and secular authority with the analogy of the Sun and the Moon, through which “Almighty God showed us the authority of the bishop and the tsar.” The patriarch, in Nikon’s view, was the image of Christ Himself, the head of the Church, and thus the Church knew no other “lawgiver.” Neither laypeople nor even bishops, as his subordinates, could judge the patriarch. Only a council of patriarchs had the authority to pass judgment on him. Nikon complained that “the sovereign has encroached upon the church and taken all judgment upon himself,” whereas many matters should be subject to ecclesiastical judgment. From this perspective, Nikon sharply criticized the Sobornoye Ulozheniye of 1649, despite having signed it earlier. What irked him most was that, under the Ulozheniye, the clergy were subject to secular courts. However, Nikon’s attempt to place spiritual authority above secular authority disrupted the principle of the “symphony of powers,” inevitably leading to the subordination of spiritual authority to the secular and contributing to the secularization of Russian society.

Having concentrated immense power in his hands, Nikon began to flagrantly violate the articles of the Ulozheniye. In the vast patriarchal domain, he was the absolute ruler. All his servants, monasteries, and peasants were removed from the jurisdiction of the Monastery Office. Contrary to the Ulozheniye, which prohibited the patriarch and clergy from acquiring real estate through purchase, the Tsar allowed Nikon to buy new lands and estates both in his own name and for three new monasteries he founded: New Jerusalem (Resurrection Monastery near Moscow, founded in 1655), Iversky (near Valdai, founded in 1652), and Krestny (near Onega, founded in 1656).

Paul of Aleppo testifies that Nikon “has great influence over the Tsar, and thus, whereas previously the Tsar had granted the patriarchate 10,000 peasant households, Nikon increased their number to 25,000, for whenever a boyar dies, the patriarch goes to the Tsar and requests a portion of the deceased’s peasants and estates. He also took possession of many lakes, which bring him significant income from salt and fish… Whenever a boyar dies without heirs, the patriarch inherits… Patriarch Nikon took half the monks’ income, so his daily income, as they say, amounts to 20,000 rubles. His annual income from the churches of this city and its surroundings is 14,000 rubles; from each church, according to the number of its parishioners, even the poorest contributes a ruble. He also collects an annual levy from all churches and priests in his country, which they pay to him and their bishop. The income of the Trinity Monastery equals a third of the Tsar’s income, but Patriarch Nikon appropriated half of that income, saying: ‘The patriarch has more right to it.’ He also took a large part of the Tsar’s treasures from the monastery, as we later saw: there was not a single item in the patriarchal church that was not given to it by the patriarch—vestments richly adorned with precious stones and pearls, vessels, and more.”¹⁸

The estates of the three monasteries founded by Nikon formed a vast domain, separate from the patriarchal holdings, entirely under Nikon’s personal control. These monasteries soon surpassed even the oldest monastic houses, as Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, at Nikon’s request, assigned 14 monasteries from other bishops’ dioceses to them. Contemporaries remarked: “That wolf Nikon, like a robber, plunders villages and estates from holy monasteries and princes alike, seizing everything for himself, adding to his own, bringing many princes to tears, offending and ruining monasteries, and tormenting simple peasants with heavy labors…” All parish churches, numbering up to 500, located in Nikon’s estates and the monasteries attached to them, came under his jurisdiction, along with the right to judge and collect dues and tributes. Having received such significant grants, Nikon considered them a matter of course: “We will not bow for the Tsar’s alms… for he will receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life,” he wrote. The immense material wealth corresponded to the extraordinary splendor surrounding Nikon, both in his ecclesiastical duties and in his domestic life. In administrative matters, Nikon was strict and unrelenting. The number of banned priests under him was so great that in some places, there was no one to perform the sacraments. To oversee the clergy, he employed his own special clerks and musketeers; the lower clergy complained about the burden of their economic dependence, exacerbated by the demanding enforcers of the Patriarch’s will. Finally, with his arrogance and lust for power, and his constant interference in secular affairs, Nikon turned the boyars against himself.

In the summer of 1654, Nikon ordered the collection of “newly painted” icons in Moscow, done in the “Latin” and “Frankish” styles. As Paul of Aleppo writes, “those icons were painted not according to patristic tradition but from papal and Latin translations.” The faces on these icons were scraped off, and their eyes were gouged out. Musketeers, acting as royal heralds, carried these icons through the city, proclaiming: “Whoever henceforth paints icons in this manner will face exemplary punishment.” This reckless act by the overreaching Patriarch caused great disturbance among the people. This is understandable, as “all Muscovites are deeply devoted to and love icons, paying no attention to the beauty of the depiction or the skill of the painter; all icons, beautiful or not, are equal to them: they always venerate and worship them, even if the icon is a sketch on paper or a child’s drawing. Every warrior, without exception, carries a beautiful triptych icon on their chest, never parting with it, and wherever they stop, they place it prominently and worship it”¹⁹.

In July of the same year, Moscow was suddenly struck by a severe plague epidemic. Many Orthodox perceived this as divine punishment for the church hierarchy’s apostasy from ancestral faith. The people clearly understood the pro-Western nature of Nikon’s church reform. As if to confirm this, another ominous sign followed: a total solar eclipse on August 2. Archpriest Avvakum described these events in his Life: “In our Russia, there was a sign: the sun was eclipsed in the year 162 (i.e., 7162 from the creation of the world, or 1654 AD.), a month or less before the plague. Archbishop Simeon of Siberia was sailing on the Volga River, and at noon, darkness fell… for about three hours, they stood weeping by the shore; the sun dimmed as the moon approached from the west, according to Dionysius, showing God’s wrath toward the people: at that time, the apostate Nikon was corrupting the faith and church laws, and for this, God poured out the vial of His fierce wrath upon the Russian land; the plague was so great that we still remember it and cannot forget”²⁰.

The Orthodox populace grew restless. People began saying that the plague and solar eclipse were God’s wrath for Nikon’s desecration of holy icons. To make matters worse, Nikon, along with the entire royal family, left the capital for Vyazma. This also provoked public discontent. On August 25, a riot against Nikon broke out in Moscow—during the liturgy, people gathered at the Dormition Cathedral with an icon of the Savior Not-Made-by-Hands, its face and inscriptions scraped off. They claimed that the plague had been sent by God for such desecration of icons. The people accused Nikon of abandoning his flock in a time of danger instead of praying for them. The rebels openly called things by their names: “The Patriarch is unreliable in faith and acts no better than heretics and iconoclasts.” Muscovites protested the destruction of icons and were outraged that a dubious figure like Arsenius the Greek, who had repeatedly changed his faith, was involved in the book reforms. One of the main demands of the rebels was to halt the church reform. However, the riot against Nikon ended as abruptly as it began…

These ominous events of the summer of 1654 did nothing to sober the power-drunk Nikon. On March 4, 1655, the Sunday of Orthodoxy, after a lengthy liturgy in the Dormition Cathedral, served by the Patriarch with five hierarchs, including Patriarch Macarius III of Antioch, something unprecedented occurred.

“When the altar was covered,” writes Archdeacon Paul of Aleppo, “Patriarch Nikon came out and ascended the ambon, while we and the other officiants gathered around him. The long service and standing until evening were not enough for him, but then the deacons opened before him a collection of patristic homilies, from which he began reading the appointed homily on icons for that day. He read not only slowly but with many teachings and explanations, while the Tsar and all present—men, women, and children—stood with uncovered heads in the bitter cold, maintaining complete calm, silence, and stillness. During the sermon, Nikon ordered old and new icons to be brought, which some Moscow iconographers had begun painting based on Frankish and Polish models. As this Patriarch is distinguished by his extreme severity and adherence to Greek rites, he sent his men to collect and bring him all such icons, from whatever house they were found in, even those of state dignitaries, and this was done… On this day, the Patriarch seized the opportunity to preach in the Tsar’s presence, speaking at length about how such painting, as seen in these images, is impermissible. He cited the testimony of our lord Patriarch and, to prove the illegality of the new painting, pointed out its similarity to Frankish images. The Patriarchs anathematized and excommunicated both those who would make such images and those who would keep them. Nikon took these images in his right hand one by one, showed them to the people, and threw them onto the iron floor tiles, smashing them, and ordered them to be burned. The Tsar stood near us with his head uncovered, listening to the sermon with a meek expression in silence. Being a very pious and God-fearing man, he quietly pleaded with the Patriarch, saying: ‘No, Father, do not burn them, but let them be buried in the ground.’ And so it was done. Nikon, raising each icon in his right hand, exclaimed: ‘This icon is from the house of such-and-such a nobleman, son of so-and-so,’ meaning the Tsar’s dignitaries. His aim was to shame them so that the rest of the people, seeing this, would take it as a warning”²¹.

Following this blasphemous act, the Patriarch began speaking to the stunned people about the sign of the cross. “In Antioch, and nowhere else,” Nikon said, “believers in Christ were first called Christians. From there, the rites spread. Neither in Alexandria, nor Constantinople, nor Jerusalem, nor Sinai, nor Athos, nor even in Wallachia, Moldavia, or the land of the Cossacks does anyone make the sign of the cross this way, but all use three fingers together.”

From March 26–31, 1655, during the fifth week of Great Lent, another council was convened—this time with foreign guests: Patriarch Macarius of Antioch and Patriarch Gabriel of Serbia (whom Nikon, firmly believing in the doctrine of “pentarchy,” insistently called an archbishop). The main issue was the discrepancy between Russian church books and rites and modern Greek ones. The results of comparing liturgical books and manuscripts brought by Arsenius Sukhanov from the East with ancient Slavic ones were reviewed. The council approved the Service Book prepared by Nikon’s editors, altered the text of the Symbol of Faith, established a new appearance for antimins in Russia, and replaced the re-baptism of Catholics with chrismation. After the council’s closure, Nikon handed over six Uniate priests to Patriarch Macarius for reception. Macarius anointed them with chrism, and they were issued new ordination documents to serve in Orthodox churches.²²

The new Service Book, approved by the Council, was printed on August 31, 1655, and introduced for universal use in the Russian Church. As mentioned earlier, it was a translation of the Greek Euchologion, printed in a Jesuit press in Venice in 1602. The Service Book legalized the three-finger sign of the cross, the triple Alleluia, and other ecclesiastical innovations. However, the new text contained false references to old Russian and Greek documents. The publication of the new Service Book provoked a sharp reaction from opponents of the innovations, further deepening the division in Russian society.

In the same year, the book Skrizhal (The Tablets) was published, holding a special place among the symbolic books of Nikon’s reforms. The title itself alluded to the Old Testament: Nikon imagined himself as a new Moses, giving the Law to his people. Essentially, Skrizhal was a compilation based on a work of the same name by the Greek hieromonk John Nathanael, printed in Venice in 1574 and sent to Nikon by Patriarch Paisius of Jerusalem. Nathanael’s work interpreted the rite of the liturgy, church architecture, priestly vestments, and liturgical vessels. To this, Nikon added excerpts from Patriarch Paisius’s 1655 letter, several articles explaining the liturgy, and an additional 12 articles, the composition of which varied across different copies of the book (articles on the three-finger sign, Nicholas Malaxas’s discourse on the nominative finger arrangement, and articles on the text of the Symbol of Faith). These articles explained and justified Nikon’s various innovations.

Notably, among the authors of Skrizhal’s articles were controversial figures like Arsenius the Greek and Epiphanius Slavinetsky. The first, Arsenius the Greek, an international adventurer, arrived in Moscow with Patriarch Paisius’s entourage and was recommended by him as a translator and teacher. Arsenius was born around 1610, according to some sources in Thessaloniki, though he himself claimed it was Trikala, a Turkish city. At 14, his elder brother, Archimandrite Athanasius, took him to Venice to study grammar. He continued his education at a Jesuit college in Rome. Later, while exiled in Solovki, Arsenius admitted that during his time in the papal capital, he had changed his faith to be admitted to the Roman school. He then studied philosophy and medicine for three years at the University of Padua. After completing his education, Arsenius returned to his homeland. However, his brothers suspected him of apostasy, and at 23, he solemnly renounced the Catholic faith and took monastic vows.

For some time, he served as abbot on the island of Kythira, then lived with the Wallachian voivode Matthew and the Moldavian voivode Vasile. After two years with the latter, Arsenius set out for the Kiev Academy, then renowned as a spiritual and educational center of Southwestern Rus, hoping to secure a teaching position. On the way, he learned that no one was accepted there without the Polish king’s permission. He then traveled to Warsaw, where he was received by King Władysław IV and reportedly cured him of kidney stones, earning a letter of recommendation to Kiev Metropolitan Sylvester Kossov. In Kiev, he met Patriarch Paisius of Jerusalem, who was impressed by his intellect and broad education. Paisius took Arsenius to Moscow, where he was enrolled in the patriarchal entourage as a “liturgical overseer” during Paisius’s stay.

After Patriarch Paisius left Moscow, Arsenius the Greek stayed at the invitation of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, “as one skilled in many languages,” and even began teaching. However, his pedagogical activities were abruptly halted. On his way back through Kiev and Wallachia, Patriarch Paisius allegedly heard unflattering reports about Arsenius from locals and felt obliged to inform Moscow. “Let it be known to you, pious Tsar,” Paisius wrote, citing Little Russians and Wallachians, “that Arsenius… was once a monk and priest, then became a Muslim; later, he fled to the Poles and became a Uniate there, capable of all sorts of evil deeds. Examine him thoroughly, and you will find all this…”

Upon receiving Paisius’s report, the Tsar ordered Prince N. I. Odoevsky and Duma clerk M. Volosheninov to interrogate Arsenius. He denied everything: “I did not partake in the Catholic sacrament in Rome, nor was I ever a Muslim or a Uniate.” However, when Prince Odoevsky threatened a physical examination, Arsenius admitted that he had indeed been circumcised and converted to Islam under duress but later repented to the Metropolitan of Ioannina and was anointed with chrism. During the investigation, Arsenius was likened to a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” The court sentenced him to exile in Solovki. There, he unexpectedly embraced “Russian piety,” spending three years ingratiating himself with the local monks, praising Russian customs, and fervently crossing himself with two fingers. As a result, the Solovki monks spoke highly of him.

In 1652, Nikon, visiting Solovki to retrieve the relics of Metropolitan Philip, freed Arsenius and brought him to Moscow, where he gave him a cell in his own house, entrusted him with managing the patriarchal library, and from 1654 appointed him as an editor at the Printing Yard and a translator of liturgical books. But Nikon, shortsighted, harbored a snake in his bosom. When Nikon lost power and could no longer shower Arsenius with favors, Arsenius betrayed him without hesitation and sided with his former patron’s enemies.

The public formed a clear opinion of Arsenius the Greek: “a sorcerer, heretic, astrologer, full of the filth and stench of Jesuit heresies.” During the 1654 plague in Moscow, people said: “It’s all the Patriarch’s fault; he keeps a known heretic, Elder Arsenius, gives him free rein, and ordersertina has ordered him to edit printed books, and that monk has ruined many books, leading us to utter ruin; for his many heresies, he was exiled to the Solovetsky Monastery instead of death”.²³ Arsenius’s activities sparked hatred among the Moscow clergy. In 1654, Ioann Neronov wrote to the Tsar from his exile: “Do not dare to let such a one translate or handle holy books, like that wicked monk Arsenius the Greek, about whom Patriarch Paisius of Jerusalem wrote to you from Putyvl; now he, Arsenius, has been brought to Moscow and lives in a cell at Patriarch Nikon’s, and he sets him up as a witness against the enemy, while rejecting the testimonies of ancient great men and holy wonderworkers. Oh! Alas! Pious Tsar! Stand firm, heed the cries and prayers of your sovereign’s intercessors—do not take foreign monks, introducers of heresies, into your counsel.”

Echoing Neronov, the renowned Solovki monk Epiphanius, later Avvakum’s fellow prisoner in Pustozersk, wrote: “Due to our sins, God allowed Nikon, a forerunner of the Antichrist, to ascend the patriarchal throne. He, the accursed one, soon placed God’s enemy Arsenius, a Jew and Greek, a heretic once imprisoned in our Solovetsky Monastery, at the Printing Yard. While in Solovki, that Arsenius, Jew and Greek, told his spiritual father, Hieromonk Martiry, that he had been in three lands and thrice denied Christ, seeking demonic wisdom from God’s enemies. With this renegade and enemy of Christ, Arsenius, Nikon, also an enemy of Christ, began sowing heretical tares, accursed ones, into printed books, sending those new books filled with evil tares across all of Russia, to the weeping and lamentation of God’s churches and the perdition of human souls”.²⁴

In vivid apocalyptic imagery, Archpriest Avvakum depicted Arsenius’s activities: “This heretic Arsenius was brought by Nikon from the Solovetsky Monastery to Moscow, praised to the Tsar, and kept by him like a snake under his arm. When Nikon became Patriarch, he attacked the holy church like that beast seen by the Theologian, rising from the earth with two horns like a lamb’s and speaking like a serpent. He exercised all the authority of the first beast before it, making the earth and all its inhabitants worship the first beast that rose from the sea. His skin was like a lynx’s, his mouth like a lion’s, his feet like a bear’s, his teeth like iron, his claws like bronze, tearing apart church laws, trampling and crushing all dogmas. He appointed that unfaithful servant and enemy of God, Arsenius, to edit books at the Printing Yard. And they began to corrupt the books, printing all sorts of heretical tares in them”.²⁵

According to surviving documents, in 1662, Arsenius was exiled to Solovki for a second time and was only released in 1666, likely due to the intercession of the Eastern patriarchs, by a royal decree. His subsequent fate is unclear, and even the date of his death remains unknown. The only reference to the circumstances of his death comes from Deacon Theodore, who, describing the ignominious end of most reformers, writes: “The Greek Arsenius, the heretic who corrupted Nikon’s faith and translated the new books, split apart at his death, they say, and died wretchedly”²⁶.

Another co-author of Skrizhal and a loyal supporter of Patriarch Nikon, Hieromonk Epiphanius Slavinetsky, was born around 1600. A Belarusian by origin, he took monastic vows at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. He taught Latin at the Kiev Brotherhood School (having compiled a Latin Lexicon) and also knew Greek. In 1649, when Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich requested Metropolitan Sylvester to send learned individuals to Moscow, Epiphanius arrived in the summer of that year. His official purpose was to oversee the publication of the Bible, which was realized only in 1663 with his preface, essentially a reprint of the Ostrog Bible with minor corrections and linguistic updates. By the time of Nikon’s reforms, Epiphanius had earned a reputation as a scholarly expert and was involved in the book revisions. The 1654 Council decreed that liturgical books be corrected “according to ancient parchment and Greek manuscripts,” and Epiphanius, taking charge of the Printing Yard, set to work using new Greek books printed by Jesuits in Venetian presses. He prepared a program of changes to the church Typikon and a new text for the Service Book, deliberately including false references to old Russian and Greek documents (this Service Book was discussed earlier). During Nikon’s voluntary abdication of the patriarchate, Epiphanius took a pro-Nikon stance, delaying the patriarch’s deposition. He left a vast literary legacy, including poetry and numerous theological and secular translations. He died in 1675 and was buried in the Chudov Monastery in Moscow.

Historian N. Kapterev characterizes the translation work of both Skrizhal authors: “Arsenius, as a foreign Greek, did not command the Russian language sufficiently to grasp all its nuances… thus, his translations naturally differed from the old ones, often inferior in clarity, accuracy, and appropriateness of expression, sometimes appearing ambiguous and scandalous… Another prominent translator, during and after Nikon, was Epiphanius Slavinetsky. This translator was known for his extreme literalism, sacrificing clarity and comprehensibility for fidelity to the original, crafting artificial and unexpressive words and phrases just to stay closer to the source. As a result, his translations are always clumsy, often obscure, and hard to understand, so that the meaning of some of our church hymns remains difficult to grasp even today”²⁷.

The Skrizhal, published in haste, contained not only numerous typographical errors but sometimes outright heretical opinions. For instance, it includes a strange teaching that “it is better to call God darkness and ignorance than light,” a doctrine contrary to the entire Orthodox “metaphysics of light”²⁸, the Symbol of Faith, and the Church Fathers, who typically associated “darkness” with the devil. It further states that Jesus was not Christ before His baptism. Traces of the Latin teaching of dividing the Church into “teaching” and “taught” also appear, which was entirely foreign to Orthodox ecclesiology. Nevertheless, the book, containing many outright heretical views, was declared by the 1656 Council not only “irreproachable” but “worthy of admiration.” The Council mandated that Skrizhal be revered on par with the Gospel. Later, at the 1667 Council, the deposed ecumenical patriarchs Paisius and Macarius recommended holding the book “in great honor” but noted that “not everyone is suited to read such a theological book, only the skilled, the initiated, and the learned should possess and read it.”

Patriarch Nikon himself had a peculiar understanding of Christianity. This is best evidenced by his 1656 decree forbidding priests to administer Holy Communion or hear confessions of repentant criminals—thieves, robbers, and all “wicked people”—even before their execution. While Christ (and the Church following Him) taught that no crime in the world cannot be atoned for by sincere repentance, Nikon, following the ancient heretics Novatian and Eustathius, adamantly denied this possibility. If Christ was crucified for the whole world and offered Himself as a sacrifice to redeem people from all sins and crimes, Nikon, using his authority, prohibited accepting the repentance of criminals sentenced to death.

In the same year, 1656, when the newly compiled Skrizhal was published, revised versions of the Lenten Triodion, Irmologion, Horologion, and Trebnik were also printed. The church reform was in full swing…

On February 24, 1656, during the Sunday of Orthodoxy service in the Dormition Cathedral, Patriarch Macarius of Antioch, Patriarch Gabriel I of Serbia, and Metropolitan Gregory of Nicaea pronounced an anathema against adherents of the two-finger sign of the cross. The decree they signed stated: “We have received the tradition from the beginning of the faith, from the holy apostles and holy fathers, and the seven holy councils, to make the sign of the Honorable Cross with the first three fingers of the right hand. Whoever among Orthodox Christians does not make the cross thus, according to the tradition of the Eastern Church, which has held from the beginning of the faith until today, is a heretic and an imitator of the Armenians. For this reason, we hold him excommunicated from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and accursed.” In addition to Patriarch Macarius of Antioch, Patriarch Gabriel of Serbia, and Metropolitan Gregory of Nicaea, the decree was also signed by Metropolitan Gideon of Moldavia. Thus, the first anathema against the Old Believers was pronounced not by Nikon but by visiting Eastern “alms-collectors,” ready to dance to someone else’s tune for money. After the liturgy, Nikon spoke at length about the “correct” sign of the cross, citing pre-prepared and out-of-context excerpts from patristic writings.

Indeed, to achieve his goals, Patriarch Nikon did not shy away from outright deception. At the 1656 Council, he claimed that the two-finger sign of the cross had never been officially sanctioned by the Church but had crept into Moscow’s printed books through ignorance: “They reproached our humility, me, Nikon the Patriarch, when the Holy Ecumenical Patriarchs of the Holy Eastern Church—Athanasius of Constantinople, Paisius of the holy city of Jerusalem, Gabriel, Metropolitan of the holy city of Nazareth, and others—came to our royal city of Moscow for their needs; they greatly reproached me for the lack of correction in divine chanting and other ecclesiastical faults. Among these is this: that we make the sign of the cross on our face with three fingers, the last two small ones joined with the thumb, and the other two, the index and middle, extended, as introduced through ignorance from Theodore’s writings into printed books, in the great Psalter with additions, the small Psalter, and other handwritten books. This was not by the decree of any Tsar or Patriarch, nor by any council of assembled bishops”²⁹.

Under Nikon’s pressure, the 1656 Council not only abolished and banned the ancient two-finger sign, replacing it with the new three-finger sign, but also anathematized the very custom of the two-finger sign as allegedly containing Arian and Nestorian heresies, as well as all those who make the two-finger sign of the cross: “The Holy Eastern Church holds that every Christian should make the cross with the first three large fingers, but what is found in Theodore’s and Maximus’s writings in the Psalter with additions of Moscow printing, and in other handwritten books, that the two smallest fingers be joined with the thumb, showing the inequality of the Holy Trinity, is Arianism. And to have the two larger fingers extended, confessing two Sons and two natures in one Christ God, as Nestorius did, as we have sufficiently said before, is unacceptable to the Church. We have commanded that all this be utterly rejected, issuing a rule thus: if anyone henceforth, knowing this, does not conform to making the sign of the cross on their face as the Holy Eastern Church has received from of old, and as the four Ecumenical Patriarchs with all Christians under them throughout the universe now hold, and as the Orthodox held here before the printing of Theodore’s words in the Psalters with additions of Moscow printing, that is, with the first three large fingers of the right hand, depicting the Holy, consubstantial, indivisible, and equally worshipped Trinity, but instead makes this unacceptable to the Church, joining the two smallest fingers with the thumb, signifying the inequality of the Holy Trinity, and keeping the two larger fingers extended, implying two Sons and two natures per Nestorius’s heresy, as we said before, or making the cross in any other way: we hold such a one, following the rules of the seven Ecumenical Councils and other local councils and the four Ecumenical Patriarchs of the Holy Eastern Church, utterly excommunicated from the Church along with Theodore’s writings, just as the Fifth Council condemned his false writings against Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, and the true faith, following Nestorius’s heresy, so we too condemn”³⁰.

The acts of the 1656 Council bear the signatures of three metropolitans: Macarius of Great Novgorod and Velikiye Luki, Cornelius of Kazan and Sviyazhsk, and Iona of Rostov and Yaroslavl; four archbishops: Markell of Vologda and Velikopermsky, Lavrenty of Tver and Kashin, Joseph of Astrakhan and Terek, and Macarius of Pskov and Izborsk; Bishop Alexander of Kolomna and Kashira; and 22 archimandrites and 9 abbots. There is no doubt that all the aforementioned participants of the 1656 Council were well aware of the antiquity of the two-finger sign and its recognition by the Stoglav Council of 1551 as an indisputable apostolic tradition. However, fear of Patriarch Nikon’s unrestrained wrath and the dread of sharing Bishop Pavel of Kolomna’s fate outweighed their conscience and ancestral faith, which the hierarchs and prominent priests of the Russian Church publicly renounced at that council and solemnly condemned with anathemas.

Yet the Christian conscience of ordinary Russian people could not reconcile with the curses and slanders against the pious church tradition and those who, following a host of ancient saints, make the two-finger sign of the cross. “These reckless and soul-destroying curses and excommunications struck the Russian people like thunder. It was clear to all that Nikon and the Eastern hierarchs had anathematized the entire Russian Church, all its hierarchs and wonderworkers who used the two-finger sign. According to the judgment of Nikon and the visiting Greeks, the entire Russian land was heretical, Armenian, accursed, for it all—from hierarchs and nobles to the simplest beggar—made the sign of the cross with two fingers. The pious Russian people, or rather, the entire Russian Church, could not agree with such an utterly lawless condemnation proclaimed by Nikon and his like-minded Greek hierarchs, especially since they spoke blatant falsehoods, claiming that the apostles and holy fathers established the three-finger sign”³¹.

Characteristically, alongside the pronouncement of monstrous curses on the two-finger sign of the cross and other traditions of the ancient Church, the issue of re-baptizing Catholics was again discussed at the 1656 Council sessions. On May 11, Nikon abolished the practice of receiving Catholics through the first rank—formally because the Greeks at the time recognized Catholic baptism by pouring. However, knowing the Jesuit underpinnings of the criminal reform, it is not difficult to discern the true reasons for this highly peculiar action. On May 18, a decree was issued prohibiting the “repeated” baptism of Catholics. Thus, the main obstacle to a future union was eliminated once and for all.

Tens, even hundreds of thousands of ordinary Christians and dozens of clergy, devoted to the faith of their pious ancestors, severed communion not only with Patriarch Nikon, who had single-handedly issued the “Memory” of 1653, but also with all the hierarchs who signed the impious oath at the 1656 Council. This decision, too, was based on clear church rules—the 15th rule of the Double Council and the 31st rule of the Holy Apostles: “If any presbyter, despising his own bishop, holds separate assemblies and sets up another altar, not having convicted the bishop in a trial of anything contrary to piety or justice, let him be deposed as one who loves power. For he is a usurper of authority. Likewise, let the other clergy who join him be deposed. Laypeople, however, shall be excommunicated from church communion. And this shall be after one, two, and three admonitions from the bishop”³². The most holy Patriarch Theodore Balsamon interprets this rule as follows: “In every city, clergy and laity must submit to the local bishop, assemble with him, and participate in church prayers, unless they convict him in a trial as impious or unjust. For then, if they separate from him, they will not be condemned”³³. Finally, the 3rd rule of the Third Ecumenical Council states: “If any of the clergy in any city or village have been deprived of their priesthood by Nestorius and his associates for their Orthodox thinking, we grant them the right to reclaim their rank. We generally decree that members of the clergy who share the views of the Orthodox and Ecumenical Council shall in no way be subject to bishops who have apostatized or are apostatizing from Orthodoxy”³⁴.

After the publication of the Service Book and Skrizhal, Nikon paid little attention to the progress of the book “corrections,” entrusting it entirely to his appointees, while he focused intently on developing the rite of episcopal liturgy. Nikon first took an interest in this rite in 1654, after the deposed Constantinopolitan Patriarch Athanasius Patellarios wrote a treatise for him titled “The Rite of Episcopal Celebration of the Liturgy in the East,” which later formed the basis for the new-rite editions of the Episcopal Ritual Book. Patriarch Nikon closely observed the liturgies of Eastern hierarchs and slavishly sought to imitate them. He often celebrated the liturgy in Greek, and after him, untranslated Greek exclamations and prayers—“Kyrie eleison” (“Lord, have mercy”), “Axios” (“worthy”), and others—were reintroduced into Russian episcopal services, despite having been used in Slavic in the Russian Church since at least the 14th century. He was clearly preparing for a future liturgy in the main church of the Orthodox world—Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.

However, Nikon’s lust for power and pride, aspiring to become in the Orthodox world what the Roman Pope was in the Catholic world, eventually led to a break even with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who had promoted and supported him. In 1656–1657, Nikon was made the absolute administrator of all state affairs during the Tsar’s absence for another war—this time with Sweden. However, the military campaigns, which temporarily freed the Tsar from Nikon’s personal influence, marked the beginning of Nikon’s downfall. The war with Sweden, largely initiated under Nikon’s influence, ended in complete failure. Over time, it became clear: the Tsar no longer needed Nikon. In 1658, the “great sovereign Nikon, Patriarch of all Great, Little, and White Russia,” slighted by the Tsar’s inattention, voluntarily abandoned the patriarchal throne, left his flock to its fate, and departed for the Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery he had built.

Swedish diplomats described the falling out between the Tsar and Nikon in their report of August 9, 1658: “The matter with the Patriarch reached the point that the common people, long dissatisfied with his actions, wrote a petition to the Tsar, calling the Patriarch a heretic, a sodomite, and a disturber of the peace, who had corrupted religion, ancient church vestments, and rites, and sorrowfully requested a new patriarch, pious and a true Christian. But since no one dared to deliver the petition, it was placed where it fell into the Patriarch’s hands, who flew into a great rage and went to the Tsar, demanding an immediate investigation to find the authors, using torture and other such means. The Tsar, on the contrary, said the matter should be investigated but approached with utmost caution to avoid inciting a riot. The Patriarch, dissatisfied with this, immediately packed up and left Moscow. The Tsar tried through Prince Trubetskoy and another nobleman to dissuade him, but as this failed, he sent several hundred musketeers to bring him back and hold him under guard, while the Moscow clergy were tasked with investigating the matter. No one believed he would get off lightly, for the whole country hated him. And if anyone tried to exonerate him, it would cause, God knows, discontent or rebellion. So everyone said. In Novgorod, I recorded from a reliable source that a miracle occurred near Pskov, where for three days the ground was covered with blood, and at night, churches glowed with light and two unknown men appeared, who spoke to no one, walked across seas and lakes, and appeared everywhere”³⁵.

By demonstratively abandoning the patriarchal throne, Nikon likely hoped the Tsar would come to his senses, beg him to return, and meet his new demands. But Nikon was no longer needed by the Tsar or his entourage. “The Moor had done his deed…”

K.Ya. Kozhurin, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences

source

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3. Quoted in: Kapterev, N. F. Collected Works. Moscow, 2008, Vol. 1, pp. 366–367. ↩︎
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7. Zenkovsky, S. A. Russian Old Belief. Moscow, 2006, p. 179. ↩︎
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13. The Life of Archpriest Avvakum…. Moscow, 1960, pp. 135–136. ↩︎
14. Acts of the Ecumenical Councils. Kazan, 1909, Vol. 7, pp. 284–285. ↩︎
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18. Paul of Aleppo (Archdeacon). Op. cit. Moscow, 2005, pp. 373–374. ↩︎
19. Paul of Aleppo (Archdeacon). Op. cit. Moscow, 2005, p. 357. ↩︎
20. The Life of Archpriest Avvakum…. Moscow, 1960, p. 56. ↩︎
21. Paul of Aleppo (Archdeacon). Op. cit. Moscow, 2005, pp. 357–358. ↩︎
22. Interestingly, despite the conciliar decision, Russian hierarchs continued to accept Catholics through baptism. Nikon himself, in January 1656, blessed the re-baptism of the captured Polish Grand Hetman Pawel Potocki. However, at the Council of 1656, the decision to abolish baptism for Catholics would be revisited. ↩︎
23. Solovyov, S. M. History of Russia. Moscow, 1960, Book VI, Vol. 10, p. 630. ↩︎
24. Epiphany, Monk. Life. In: Pustozersk Prose…. p. 174. ↩︎
25. The Life of Archpriest Avvakum…. Moscow, 1960, p. 314. ↩︎
26. Pustozersk Prose. p. 246. ↩︎
27. Kapterev, N. F. Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Vol. 1, p. 485. ↩︎
28. Acts of the Council of 1666. Moscow, 1893, f. 17v, first pagination. ↩︎
29. Responsive Word. In: Skrizhal. Moscow, 1656, ff. 1v–2. ↩︎
30. Ibid., ff. 14v–16v. ↩︎
31. Melnikov, F. E. A Brief History of the Ancient Orthodox (Old Believer) Church. Barnaul, 1999, p. 37. ↩︎
32. Rules of the Holy Apostles, Holy Ecumenical and Local Councils, and Holy Fathers with Commentaries. Moscow, 1876, pp. 66–67. ↩︎
33. Ibid., p. 68. ↩︎
34. Rules of the Holy Ecumenical Councils with Commentaries. Moscow, 1877, p. 120. ↩︎
35. Lobachev, S. V. Patriarch Nikon. St. Petersburg, 2003, pp. 375–376. ↩︎