The Nizhnii Novgorod petitioners also attacked the laity's boisterous celebration of non- or pre-Christian festivals such as Rusalii and Koliada at the most solemn times of the liturgical year. Folk minstrels (skomorokhi) drew their particular ire (for depictions of skomorokhi and other popular entertainers, see Plate 23). On this issue too, the hierarchy agreed but could see no way to uproot these ancient practices.[297]
Attacking mnogoglasie was more controversial. Liturgical short-cuts had crept into Russian Orthodoxy for good reason. Over the centuries, monastic services had become the norm in parishes, putting severe demands on the patience and stamina of even the most devout laypeople.[298] When the first attempts to set some limits to these traditional practices encountered vigorous opposition, Iosif retreated and, in 1649, to the reformers' chagrin, an ecclesiastical council chose to maintain the status quo.[299]
Paradoxically, the reformers' desire for an orderly and consistent liturgy opened the Muscovite Church to books and scholars from Ukraine - precisely what Filaret had feared. From the late i630s to the early i650s, the Pechatnyi dvor published new editions of the most important service books, a number of saints' lives and classics of Eastern Christian spirituality such as writings of St John Chrysostom, St Efrem the Syrian and St John Climacus, works in which the editors avoided offending Muscovite sensibilities. In the i640s, however, the Pechatnyi dvor also published a number of works from Ukraine including Petr Mohyla's catechism, the Nomokanon of Zakhariia Kopystenskii and the pioneering Slavonic grammar of Meletii Smotritskii. Moreover, since the Printing Office desperately needed more editors who knew Greek and Latin, three scholars from Ukraine joined its staffin i649. Finally, from Ukraine came a book that stimulated apocalyptic reflection among the cultural elite of Moscow, Hegumen Nafanail's compilation of apocalyptic writings, the Book of Faith, an Orthodox interpretation of the Union of Brest as a prelude to the End Time. The Muscovite miscellany, the Kirillova kniga, and the writings of St Efrem also contributed to the climate of apocalyptic speculation.[300]
In 1645, Aleksei (Alexis) Mikhailovich became tsar. His decisive role in the stormy events of the following decades demonstrates the extent to which, long before Peter I, the attitudes and choices of the secular ruler ultimately determined the fate of the Russian Orthodox Church. Strong supporters of reform, the young ruler and his confessor, Stefan Vonifat'ev, gathered like- minded men, traditionally known as the Zealots of Piety, including parish priests such as Neronov and his protege Avvakum, and in time the future patriarch Nikon. Everyone in this diverse group agreed that parish life must be revitalised through effective preaching, the full and orderly celebration of the liturgy, and strict enforcement of the Church's moral teachings.
Before long, Alexis and his allies in the Church made several of the reformers' demands official policy. The tsar, already known for his personal antipathy towards folk entertainment, issued a series of decrees, beginning in December 1648, ordering local governors to ban skomorokhi and suppress the folk customs associated with them in every village and hamlet in their jurisdictions.[301]Issuing decrees, however, was much easier than changing deep-rooted patterns of behaviour: scattered evidence suggests that the skomorokhi continued to practise their ancient trade in the remote countryside into the eighteenth century and many of the agrarian rites and folk festivals survived long enough for modern ethnographers to record them.[302]
The reformers also won their battle for edinoglasie (celebrating the liturgy with no overlapping or short-cuts). Reversing the decision of 1649, another ecclesiastical council, in February 1651, made the practice obligatory in parish churches as well as in monasteries.[303]
Not surprisingly, the implementation of the Zealots' programme aroused violent opposition among the laity. Avvakum's hagiographic autobiography, written roughly twenty years after the events, describes his clashes with a prominent aristocrat, other local notables, and ordinary parishioners while parish priest of Lopatitsy. Twice, in 1648 and 1652, in fear for his life, he fled his parish for the safety of Moscow. The second time, he received a major promotion to become dean ofthe cathedral in Iurevets on the Volga, but could serve only eight weeks until'... the priests, peasants and their women.. .'beat him and drove him out of town. As he recalled them, Avvakum's methods of enforcing liturgical and moral order and rebuking sinners were hardly subtle.[304]Moreover, his clashes with his parishioners took place at a time of extreme unrest in many urban centres of Russia. Nevertheless, his problems with his parishioners ultimately arose from his commitment to radical change. Other reformist priests suffered through similar tribulations. As foot soldiers in a campaign ofreform from above, they took the brunt ofparishioners' anger at the demand that they abruptly change their traditional way of life.
Legal and economic issues also threatened the reformers' campaign. The Law Code of 1649 significantly changed the legal relationship of Church and state. It created a Monastery Chancellery (Monastyrskii prikaz) and gave it authority to try criminal and civil cases involving clergymen and inhabitants of Church lands except the patriarchal domain.[305] Moreover, under pressure from urban taxpayers, the government confiscated the tax-exempt urban settlements in which the Church's dependents conducted trade. Although neither the judgement of churchmen by the secular government nor the confiscation of ecclesiastical property was unprecedented - the Great Court Chancellery had previously handled legal cases involving the clergy - the sweeping provisions of the Code made clear that neither the Church's judicial privileges nor its lands were sacrosanct.
Patriarch Nikon
When Nikon became patriarch in 1652, many of the latent tensions within the Russian Church erupted into open conflict. Nikon aroused enormous controversy in his own day and still fascinates and perplexes us. Born into a peasant family in the Nizhnii Novgorod area, he served briefly as a parish priest before taking monastic vows in the Anzerskii Skit on an island in the White Sea. In this small idiorrhythmic community, he followed a severely ascetic rule of life. He also displayed great energy and administrative talent, qualities that ultimately brought him to the position of abbot of the Kozheozerskii monastery on the coast ofthe mainland. In this capacity, he travelled to Moscow in 1646 and was introduced to Tsar Alexis.
From that moment, Nikon became a favourite of the tsar and an ally of the Church reformers at his court. Although his long-term relationship with Alexis was very complex, his meteoric rise to the patriarchal throne unquestionably required the unconditional support of the tsar and his advisers. Alexis immediately appointed him archimandrite of the Novospasskii monastery in Moscow, a favourite foundation of the Romanov family. In 1649, he was consecrated Metropolitan of Novgorod, the second most powerful position in the hierarchy. In both of these capacities, he carried out the programme of the reformers with characteristic determination. In 1650, he also displayed great physical courage and political astuteness in quelling an uprising in Novgorod with minimal bloodshed.
297
299
'Deianiia Moskovskogo tserkovnogo sobora 1649 goda', ed. S. A. Belokurov,
300
A. S. Zernova,
301
N. Kharuzin, 'K voprosu o bor'be moskovskogo pravitel'stva s narodnymi iazycheskimi obriadami i sueveriiami v polovine XVII v.',
302
Russell Zguta,
304
Archpriest Avvakum,
305