Resistance to Nikon's reforms
The reforms and the patriarch's intransigence in enforcing them split the reform coalition. In a series of increasingly agitated letters written in late 1653 and early 1654 to the tsar and Vonifat'ev, Ivan Neronov severely criticised Nikon's abandonment of Russia's heritage and the arrogance with which he was treating his former friends. The three-finger sign of the cross and the altered number of deep bows (poklony) in services were specific examples of these destructive policies. In one letter to Vonifat'ev, he told of hearing a voice from an icon urging him to resist Nikon's reforms, a story later retold in his friend Avvakum's autobiography.[312] For their outspoken protests, the authorities excommunicated Neronov and imprisoned him in a remote northern monastery and exiled Avvakum to Siberia. According to tradition, the one bishop who in 1654 openly questioned the reforms, Pavel of Kolomna, lost his see and his life for his stand.[313]
As these examples indicate, resistance to the liturgical reforms began with individuals and small, scattered groups. Beginning with Spiridon Potemkin in 1658, a few prominent clergymen, members of the ecclesiastical elite, wrote detailed critiques of Nikon's reforms. They received valuable support from Bishop Aleksandr of Viatka who, although he did not write any polemics of his own, encouraged those who did and collected a library of texts to support the anti-reform position. Despite some differences in details, the works of Potemkin, Nikita Dobrynin 'Pustosviat', the priest Lazar' and others all attacked the internal inconsistencies in the new service books and raised fundamental questions about the legitimacy of Russian Orthodoxy. For if traditional Russian usages were heretical, were all previous generations of Russian Christians - saints and sinners alike - damned as heretics? Although these manuscripts had very limited circulation, they served as a valuable resource for later generations of polemicists against the reformed Church.
Nikon's critics faced formidable polemical opponents armed with the two weapons they lacked - the resources of the Printing Office and the support of the hierarchy and government. In addition to the Skrizhal, Simeon Polotskii, resident court poet and tutor to the tsar's children, published Zhezl pravleniia in 1668. Afanasii of Kholmogory's Uvet dukhovnyi of 1682 was to be the next in a long succession of attacks on critics of the reformed Church.[314]
Small numbers of uneducated laypeople also expressed opposition to the reforms. In 1657, the ecclesiastical and governmental authorities imprisoned the Rostov weaver, Sila Bogdanov, and two companions for publicly condemning the new service books.[315]
More radical still were the small groups that made up the Kapiton movement. Beginning in the 1620s or 1630s, Kapiton and his followers rejected the Orthodox Church and its clergy as corrupt and practised extreme forms of asceticism, such as rigorous fasting in all seasons and, if official accusations can be believed, some even starved themselves to death. In 1665 and 1666, the authorities investigated several informal monastic communities that followed his fundamental teachings. And although not their central concern, these later followers of Kapiton included the new liturgical books in their list of grievances against the Church.
In the short run, isolated objections to the new liturgical texts did nothing to shake Nikon's overwhelming power over the Church and influence at court. The only threat to his position lay in his dependence on his royal patron, Tsar Alexis. Historians have advanced many hypotheses, none completely convincing, to explain the deterioration of their relationship. Many of the tsar's courtiers, much of the hierarchy - and perhaps Alexis himself - had probably become weary of the patriarch's imperious manner and jealous of his influence and wealth. Be that as it may, Alexis and Nikon abruptly parted ways in 1658. After the tsar refused to settle several seemingly trifling conflicts to Nikon's satisfaction, on 10 June, the patriarch withdrew from Moscow to the New Jerusalem monastery and left the day-to-day business of the Church in the hands of the usual second-in-command, the Metropolitan of Krutitsy. At the same time, Nikon still thought of himself as the patriarch. For example, in 1659, he attempted to anathematise Metropolitan Pitirim of Krutitsy for replacing him in the role of Christ in the annual Palm Sunday procession.
Nikon's self-imposed exile without abdicating from the patriarchal office created an extremely awkward situation. As messages and emissaries shuttled back and forthbetween Moscow and New Jerusalem, it became clearthat there was no hope of reconciliation, for, in addition to intense personal animosity, Nikon and Alexis's government had radically different ideas about the relations of Church and state in a Christian monarchy. In his lengthy Refutation of 1664 Nikon insisted in the strongest possible terms on the superiority of the spiritual power to the secular arm.[316] Therefore, in matters of principle such as, for example, the complete judicial independence of the Church from lay justice, the Church and its primate should prevail. Was Nikon, as he claimed, simply restating fundamental Orthodox principles? Many of his arguments and examples do indeed come from classic Orthodox texts. Nevertheless, the vehemence with which he made his case stretched the elastic notion of 'symphony' beyond the breaking point. And, as many scholars have noted, Nikon borrowed some of his most telling images - for example, likening the Church to the sun and secular government to the moon - from Papal polemics of the high Middle Ages.[317] Finally, Nikon's attitudes ran counter to the tendency of governments and ecclesiastical leaders all across sixteenth- and seventeenth- century Europe to collaborate in making the Church a force for maintaining political cohesion and social order.
In this situation, Alexis had no choice but to replace Nikon. But with what procedures and on what grounds could a patriarch be deposed? It is a measure of the tsar's desperation that his most valuable agent in arranging Nikon's deposition was Paisios Ligarides, a former apostate to Roman Catholicism who styled himself Metropolitan of Gaza, an office from which he had been deposed. After a local ecclesiastical council in 1666 was unable to reach a compromise whereby Nikon would abdicate the patriarchate, but maintain his episcopal dignity and administrative control of his favourite monasteries, the government chose a more radical solution, an 'ecumenical' council of Eastern Orthodoxy with the participation of the other patriarchs, only two of whom actually appeared. Its decisions were a foregone conclusion. On 12 December 1666, the council deposed Nikon for dereliction of duty, insulting the tsar and mistreating the clergy, reduced him to the rank of an ordinary monk, and imprisoned him in the remote Ferapontov monastery.
Old Belief and the official Church after 1666
The government and its ecclesiastical allies dealt with the critics of the reformed liturgy in a similar fashion. Taking a reconciliatory position, the local council of i666 had proclaimed that the new rites were correct, but avoided condemning traditional Russian practices. Several of the leaders of the opposition, particularly Ivan Neronov and Aleksandr of Viatka, reconciled themselves with the new dispensation in order not to divide the body of Christ. Others resisted to the bitter end.
The ecumenical council of 1666-7 settled the issue simply and radically. It declared that only the reformed liturgy was true Orthodox usage and condemned traditional Russian practices and the Stoglav which sanctioned them as heretical. Simultaneously, its representatives exerted intense pressure on the recalcitrant critics of the new liturgy to recant. One, Nikita Dobrynin, yielded - temporarily as it turned out. Five others - Avvakum, Lazar', Epifanii, Nikifor and deacon Fedor - held out. All were defrocked, two had their tongues cut out for insulting the tsar, and all were sent to prison in Pustozersk on the Arctic coast.
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Contrast M. V Zyzykin,