The 'Great Reforms' under Alexander II (r. 1855-81) also included the Church and sought to transform the basic institutions of the Church - its administration, education, judiciary, censorship and parish. The reforms, largely undertaken at state initiative, applied the general principles and policies ofthe secular reforms to the Church. Above all, that meant measures to encourage society to help plan, finance and implement reform. In the case of the Church, this entailed a limited 'democratisation' (for example, by allowing priests to elect deans and hold diocesan assemblies) and even 'laicisation' (by allowing the laity to assume a greater role in parish affairs). The hope was to revitalise the Church and to bring it into greater accord with society and state.
These hopes were soon dashed. The 'democratisation' elicited strong criticism, chiefly on the grounds that the dean was now the agent of the clergy, not the bishop, and therefore lax and lenient in the face of grievous misdeeds and malfeasance. Nor did the diocesan assemblies perform as hoped, partly because of the bishops' hostility, partly because of the clergy's own shortcomings. In any case these changes failed to solve the needs of the clergy and seminary and to provide a forum for pastoral interaction and co-operation. The parish reforms were no less disappointing. The 1864 statute (establishing parish councils to raise funds for charity, schools, clergy and the parish church) ran into a wall of popular indifference: few parishes availed themselves of the opportunity to establish a council and, of those that did, they raised scant funds (which, for the most part, went mainly to renovate and beautify their church). By 1869 the reform resorted to an older strategy of'reorganising parishes', i.e. merging them into larger units and reducing resident clerical staffs, with the expectation that a higher parishioner:priest ratio would enable more ample material support. That too failed: parishioners resisted and withheld support (by cutting the voluntary gratuities), while the clergy found that they had to serve many more parishioners for the same income.
Reform in ecclesiastical administration and judiciary failed even to pass from draft to law. Already the butt of lay criticism for red tape and corruption, ecclesiastical administration suffered from hyper-centralisation at the top and under-institutionalisation at the base. And time did not stand stilclass="underline" the workload rose sharply in the post-reform period, making the deficiencies of diocesan rule increasingly evident. The critical dynamic was the deluge of marital and divorce cases, which increased exponentially in sheer numbers and became ever more complex - so that, by century's end, they were completely overwhelming diocesan and Synodal administration.[104] Indeed, it is not wholly unfair to describe the final decades, marked by a gradual breakdown of ecclesiastical administration, as an incremental de-institutionalisation - a reversal of the process launched by the Petrine reforms in the early eighteenth century.
That was compounded by a sharp deterioration in Church-State relations in the years before the 1905 Revolution. One impetus was K. P. Pobedonos- tsev, the chief procurator (1880-1905) who engineered 'counter-reforms' (to dismantle the reforms of the 1860s) in an abrasive, imperious way that put a severe strain on Church-State relations.[105] Matters deteriorated further with the accession of Nicholas II to the throne in 1894: to an unprecedented degree, he personally intervened in strictly spiritual matters. Partly out of conviction, partly out of his own (and others') desire to 'resacralise' autocracy, Nicholas launched an inquiry into the moral and religious condition of monasteries, sought to shield 'popular' icon-painting from commercialisation and mass production, and personally sponsored the canonisation of a popular religious figure, Serafim Sarovskii, in 1903.[106] This unprecedented intrusion offended hierarchs and did little to resacralise autocracy. Particularly ominous was the February Manifesto of 1903 ('Plans for the Improvement of the State Order') with hints of further concessions to religious minorities that posed a direct challenge to the Church's privileged position. By 1905 clergy, lay activists and conservative prelates had come to demand an end to state tutelage, realisation of'conciliarism' (sobornost'), even re-establishment of the patriarchate.
The clergy
The 'clerical estate' (dukhovnoe soslovie) that served the Church consisted of three categories: the ruling episcopate, celibate monastic clergy and married secular clergy. All underwent profound changes, some positive and some negative, that significantly recast their profile and mentalite.
Episcopate
The hierarchy (comprised of three descending ranks - metropolitan, archbishop and bishop) still came exclusively from the ranks of monks but exhibited substantial change in the imperial era. The total size increased steadily, rising from 26 prelates under Peter the Great to 147 by 1917, partly through the establishment ofadditional dioceses but mainly through the appointment of suffragan bishops to assist in larger, less manageable dioceses. There were equally striking changes in their social and education profile.[107] To overcome opposition from tradition-bound Russian prelates, Peter chose prelates from Ukraine, not because of their ethnicity, but because of their superior education (often in Catholic institutions in the West), which, he presumed, would incline them to support his reforms. From the middle of the eighteenth century, however, prelates came primarily from central Russia, partly because of suspicion of Ukrainian prelates, but chiefly because of the growing network of seminaries in central dioceses (which could now supply qualified Russian candidates). The social origin of bishops also changed: whereas only half of the Petrine prelates came from the clerical estate, by the nineteenth century this quotient had climbed to more than 90 per cent. Bishops from other groups, notably the nobility, virtually disappeared. The critical factor here was education: elevation to the episcopate required a higher ecclesiastical education which was only accessible to members of the clerical estate. Indeed, most bishops held advanced degrees, published extensively and earned the sobriquet of 'learned monks'. Education also shaped their careers prior to consecration: many served as rectors in seminaries and academies, earning their spurs as scholars and administrators, and then rising quickly - at an early age - to choice episcopal appointments. Only in the late imperial era did this career-line change, chiefly because fewer students in the elite ecclesiastical academies were willing to take monastic vows. As a result, by the early twentieth century over half of the new prelates had come from non-academic careers in the secular clergy (widowed priests who had taken monastic vows) and in missions. They too, however, were of clerical origin and held a higher academic degree.[108]
After consecration, an episcopal career proved highly volatile, with bishops moving rapidly up (or down) the diocesan hierarchy, as their merits and luck would have it. The rate of transfers steadily accelerated; under Alexander III the average tenure in a given diocese shrank to a mere 2.4 years. In theory, mobility gave prelates a broader, national perspective and a strong incentive for zealous performance. But rapid turnover also denied them a chance to develop spiritual bonds with local clergy and laity; it also generated accusations that prelates were careerists with no real interest in the spiritual needs of their flock. Tensions between prelates and priests, while hardly new or unique to Russia, increased markedly in post-reform Russia as priests and parishioners became ever more aggressive in asserting their rights and prerogatives. This challenge from below, compounded by the pressure from the secular state, made prelates increasingly protective of canons (and their prerogatives), deepening the divide within the clergy itself.
104
See G. L. Freeze, 'Matrimonial Sacrament and Profane Stories: Class, Gender, Confession and the Politics of Divorce in Late Imperial Russia', in M. Steinberg and H. Coleman (eds.),
105
See G. L. Freeze,
106
See G. L. Freeze, 'Subversive Piety: Religion and the Political Crisis in Late Imperial Russia',
107
For details see Jan Plamper, 'The Russian Orthodox Episcopate, 1721-1917: A Prosopog- raphy',
108
See G. L. Freeze, 'L'episcopato nella chiesa ortodossa russa: crisis politica e religiosa alla fine dell'ancien regime', in Adalberto Marinardi (ed.),