The Beginnings of Orthodoxy in Russia

Initially, Russia was seen as a satellite area rather than an independent entity. The area was not unified under a single ruler, and the cities were all relatively small, certainly in comparison with the Byzantine empire. The original structure of the church, under the reign of Vladimir, had 8 dioceses; by the end of the Kievan period, this number had grown to 16.

After the conversion in 988, the Russian metropolitan was the head of the Russian church, and both he and the church itself were under the control of the Byzantine patriarch of Constantinople. The first generations of bishops in Russia, and most of the metropolitans of Russia, were all from Byzantium, furthering the tie between the two areas.

Kievan Christianity was important in nearly all aspects of life for the Russians; literature, art, education, etc, were almost exclusively church-related, and the church was also responsible for charity, healing the sick, and sheltering travellers, much as the Western Roman Catholic Church was in the west. In addition, the church became one of the largest land holders in all of Russia during this period.

After the Fall of Kiev

The invasion of Russia by the Mongols completely changed the nature of Russian development during this time, although some historians have argued that there was very little lasting impact of the invasion (see the Mongol lecture). The Mongols would remain in Russia until the reign of Ivan IV, although their power was greatly diminished by that time.

The invasion by the Mongols aided the Orthodox Church; rather than shutting the church down, the Mongols patronised it, and later, when they converted to Islam, they did not persecute those who followed Orthodoxy. While they initially had little respect for the church itself (burning down church buildings, etc), they basically left the Russians alone in terms of practicing their faith.

The church continued to grow in importance through the next three centuries, becoming more powerful and more significant as time went on. When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, rumours began to circulate that Moscow was the Third Rome in Orthodoxy. This idea, which became a dominant one in the 16th century, stated that Moscow was the Third Rome (following Rome and Constantinople), and that if Moscow fell, a fourth Rome there shall not be. This apocalyptic view of the world (if Moscow fell, Antichrist would be walking the earth, and Judgment Day would be near), came to dominate Russian ecclesiastical literature through the 16th and 17th centuries. In addition, Russia became more isolated as it lost its main political and religious ally after the fall of the Byzantines, and this led several of the Russian leaders, including Ivan IV and Aleksei, to seek out western allies.

Moscow also became the center of the monastic movement in Russia, which developed into a movement of tremendous importance, and the religious leadership in Moscow would certainly affect the political leadership in the same city.

The Church Before the Schism

The major church schism in Russia, which would impact the church in the same manner as the Protestant Reformation in Europe, occurred in the 1660's, but there were other religious sectarians which existed before the great raskol, most importantly the Judaizers who came to prominence in the late 1400's. The Judaizers accepted Christ as a prophet rather than the Messiah, and therefore rejected the teachings of the New Testament. Their conviction led to the movement becoming increasingly popular, and Ivan III was convinced by the leaders of the Orthodox Church to suppress them. The leaders of the movement were burned at the stake, and their followers brutally suppressed, a pattern which would become the norm over the course of the next 200 years.

The first major controversy the Orthodox Church in Russia had to face following the fall of Constantinople was the issue of the possessors vs. the non-possessors. The possessors, led by Joseph of Volok, believed in a strong union between the wealthy church and the autocratic government; the prince, or tsar, was a natural protector of the church, and in return the church would be expected to support his authority, which extended even into the appointment of church administration as well as secular matters. The possessors also believed in formal and ritualistic religious ceremonies, the sanctity of all that was approved by the church, and the violent suppression of anything that was not.

Countering this were the non-possessors, led by Nil Sorskii. The non-possessors, whose origins were primarily from the monasteries of the northeast, objected to religious and ecclesiastical wealth and particularly to landholding by monasteries. They instead believed that monks should live ascetic lives of contemplation, that the church and state should remain totally independent of each other, and the state had no right to interfere with the church. They stressed inner contemplation rather than stylised ritual, which placed them in direct opposition to most of the Church leaders within the Orthodox hierarchy.

The Church Council of 1503 decided in favor of the possessors, claiming that the church needed to have large land holding in order to be able to carry out its mission, especially the exercise of charity, on a large scale. The non-possessor leaders were ordered to adhere to the Council's ruling, and those who refused were suppressed and in some cases executed.

Other church councils were held in 1524 and 1531, with the largest being held in 1551. Called the Council of a Hundred Chapters, its decrees regulated the position of the church in relation to society and the state. Some of these rulings had major implications for the church's power vis-a-vis the state: most importantly, the church lost the right to acquire more land without the tsar's permission. Regional saints were incorporated into the church's national calendar, and the rituals of Orthodoxy were upheld. In all, the church saw its regulations being tightened and greater control exercised by the church.

The council also approved the new legal code introduced by Ivan IV in 1550 as well as local governmental reform, and both were approved by the council and made law. The council of 1551 was the last major council before the schism, and as such the decrees from the council were considered particularly significant for the Old Believers and others who chose to follow the pre-schism church.

The Schism

The great church schism in Russia invites comparisons with the Protestant Reformation in many cases, but it is also a seminal event in Russian history that deserves more attention than it has traditionally received.

The beginnings of the schism can be seen in the reform movements which swept through the Russian church in the late 1630's and early 1640's. Many of the abuses at the parish level (mnogoglasnie, for example, or many voices, in which multiple parts of the service were chanted at once, thus limiting the length of the service) were eliminated, and the reformers came to the attention of both Tsar Mikhail and later Tsar Aleksei.

The two most significant reformers to emerge were Nikon and Avvakum, who initially were close allies but would turn on each other.

The election of the Romanov family to be tsar had led to closer ties to the church, as Mikhail's father Filaret was himself a monk and influenced his son to bring the state closer to the church. Aleksei, Mikhail's son, became renowned for his piety.

Aleksei's reputation made the schism all that more unfathomable to those who witnessed it, but Aleksei's interest in the west appears to have had a great impact, as did the maneuverings of Nikon.

The schism itself developed over several rituals which Nikon, the new patriarch, hoped to bring more in line with the western Church. Believing that these rituals had been mispracticed, Nikon introduced small changes in the psalters (prayer books) and in the rituals practiced in the mass. These included the number of genuflections done during the mass, the number of Hallelujahs spoken, and the number of fingers used to cross oneself (the old ritual was two, representing the duality of Christ; Nikon wanted three, representing the Trinity).

These changes, as minor as they seemed, were radical to many members of the Church because they represented changes in the ritual which was needed for salvation. The vast majority of the Russian population was illiterate, and they followed the rituals exactly to guarantee salvation. When the changes were introduced, many Russians worried that either they themselves would not be admitted to heaven if they followed the changes, or, if the changes were correct, that their dead relatives who had practiced the old rituals were condemned for eternity.

Leading the charge against the new rituals was Avvakum, one of the leaders of the previous reform movements. His opposition to the changes became a rallying cry for all of those who believed that the changes were too radical and too westernized. Nikon, his old ally, became his staunchest foe. Avvakum gathered together supporters, primarily other clerics but also peasants and a few nobles, and demanded that the rituals remain intact.

Initially, Aleksei, who had become tsar in 1645, had little interest in the squabbles between clerics, and the Old Believers, as they became known, were left alone. Nikon managed to alienate both the tsar and the church council, and he was removed as patriarch following the Church Council of 1666-1667. His reforms, however, were kept intact, and Aleksei was increasingly convinced that defiance against the church was, in fact, defiance against his rule and therefore treason. As a result, especially after the death of his first wife (who sympathized with the Old Believers), Aleksei began to crack down on those who followed the old rituals, and they were arrested, imprisoned, and in some cases executed.

The persecution of the Old Believers came at a time in which there were other portents and symbols that the end of the world was on hand, and many Old Believers claimed that Antichrist walked the earth (this would be a charge leveled most frequently at Peter the Great). To avoid being forced to revert to rituals which they felt were blasphemy, the Old Believers gathered in large groups, and when confronted by tsarist officials, set fire to the building. This happened repeatedly in the 1670s and 1680s, and led to the deaths of thousands of men, women and children. It was not until the reign of Peter I that this practice was largely ended; Peter simply wanted more taxation money, and was willing to allow the Old Believers to continue their practices in private if they paid an additional tax. Hence, the Old Believer communities on the Don and in the Olonets region were able to survive into the nineteenth century.