27 - The Orthodox Church and the schism

Summary

The seventeenth century was a time of bitter conflict and wrenching change in the Orthodox Church of Russia and its relationship with the tsars’ government and society. In this respect, the Church reflected the fissures in Muscovite society and culture of which it was an integral part. After the successful building of a ‘national’ Church in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, described in an earlier chapter, its leaders faced grave challenges. Critics from within demanded liturgical purity and moral reform and representatives of other branches of Eastern Orthodoxy challenged the legitimacy of Russian national tradition. At critical moments – especially in the pivotal years, 1649–67 – the clashing interests of the tsars’ government and Church’s leaders disrupted the ‘symphony’ that, in Orthodox tradition, ideally characterises the relations of Church and state. And laymen and women increasingly rebelled against the Church’s claims and its economic power and social privilege. By the first decades of the eighteenth century, the results of these conflicts included a radical redefinition of the relationship between Church and state and a schism among the faithful.

The legacy of the past

Several of the most important themes in the history of the Russian Church after 1613 can be traced to pivotal events at the end of the sixteenth century and beginning of the seventeenth. First, in 1589, while visiting the Russian capital in search of financial support, Patriarch Jeremiah of Constantinople agreed, under extreme pressure, to the creation of the Patriarchate of Moscow and, in 1590 and 1593, the other Orthodox patriarchs accepted the fait accompli.