This two-volume collection from a 2013 international symposium presents important research into the art, architecture, culture, history, politics, and religion, as well as biographies of several key figures of the early modern Moscow Patriarchate (1589–1721).
The first volume's seven essays look at the patriarchate from its 1589 establishment to 1647. The first essay, by Ludwig Steindorff, provides a useful history of the Eastern Orthodox patriarchates from the formation of the ancient Pentarchy (Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem) through the creation of the various medieval patriarchates (Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and Russia). The second and third essays, by Elena V. Belyakova and Nikolas Pissis, look at the divergent Russian and Greek views of the establishment of the Moscow patriarchate, documents used by the Muscovite state and church to legitimize it, particularly under patriarchs Filaret (r. 1619–1633) and Nikon (r. 1652–1666), contrasted by the refusal by the Greek patriarchates to recognize Moscow as equal to them, and explaining the elevation of Moscow as either a mistake by Patriarch Jeremiah II (r. 1572–1579, 1580–1584, 1587–1595) or a decision forced upon him by tsarist officials.
In the fourth essay, Isaiah Gruber does not address the Moscow patriarchate, but rather focuses on the Jewish community in Russia before the Petrine reforms and the Partitions of Poland, offering a thought-provoking glimpse at overall Russian policy versus the realities of Jewish life in a period that is poorly understood, while pointing the way—like many essays in this collection—to further, fruitful research.
The fifth essay by Dmitrii P. Isaev reconsiders the co-rulership of Tsar Mikhail Romanov (r. 1613–1645) and his father, Patriarch Filaret, arguing the tsar was always preeminent and the patriarch could issue ukazes on his own only on ecclesiastical matters. The sixth essay, by Georg B. Michels, is an engaging look at Filaret’s attempt (which ultimately failed) to insulate Russian society, and especially the Russian clergy, from Catholic and Polish influences by interrogating Ukrainians and Belarusians crossing over from Poland-Lithuania.
The first volume's seventh and final essay, by Alfons Brüning, reviews the career of Peter Mohyla and his family and their contribution to Orthodoxy in L΄viv and Kyiv, despite being accused of Catholic tendencies. Kyiv was ecclesiastically under Constantinople at this time, but Mohyla's academy and printing press greatly influenced the Moscow Patriarchate.
The second volume's nine essays discuss the patriarchate from 1648 to Peter the Great's abolition of it in 1721. Several essays focus on the significant figure of Patriarch Nikon.
The first essay, by Aleksandr Lavrov, looks at the reform program of the Zealots of Piety, aimed at ending the practice of mnogoglasie during the Divine Liturgy, increasing clerical discipline, and strengthening lay piety. He cites several letters Nikon issued while Metropolitan of Novgorod (1649–1652), indicating his early reforming zeal there.
In the second essay, Vera Tchentsova looks at the strange, multiconfessional career of Arsenios the Greek (ca. 1610-ca.1666), a translator of important texts and key associate of Nikon, who was, at one time, Orthodox, perhaps Catholic, then Muslim, then Orthodox again.
The third and fourth essays look at art and architecture. Lilia M. Evseeva discusses the artistic and theological transformation of Russian iconostases beginning in the late 1390s, from traditional altar screens or templons to a full, multi-tiered wall reaching to the ceiling. Alexei Lidov's contribution then looks at Nikon's creation of sacred space in his construction outside Moscow of the New Jerusalem monastery and the Hermitage or Otkhodnaia Pustyn attached to it.
In the fifth essay, David Goldfrank reconsiders what we know about why Nikon's patriarchate collapsed, and though he does not reach a firm conclusion, he asks a number of intriguing questions pointing the way to future research.
In the sixth essay, Ovidiu Olar looks at manuscripts from Leiden and Bucharest and what they tell us about Nikon's reforms, in particular an exchange of letters between Nikon and Patriarch Paisios of Constantinople (r. 1653–1654): Nikon asks about differences between Russian and Greek liturgical texts and practices and requests guidance in bringing Russian practices in line with those of the Greek church. Paisios and his synod reply by praising Nikon's efforts to strengthen and preserve Orthodoxy but warn him not to press minor matters too much to avoid unnecessary division: “the proper hour to begin the liturgy or the number of the fingers used for the sign of the Cross, should not cause separation” (142). Nikon failed to heed this warning, eventually bringing about the Old Believer schism.
In the seventh essay, Nikolaos Chrissidis reviews the Moscow patriarchate's charitable giving in the year 1661–62, during the patriarchate of Joasaf II (r. 1667–1672), revealing a very narrow geographic focus in and around the Moscow Kremlin and the nearby bridges (where beggars congregated).
Donald Ostrowski argues in the eighth essay that the Russian church did not become an arm of the state, nor did it fall into decline, with end of the patriarchate in 1721, but in fact, the Holy Governing Synod enacted the church's Enlightenment program to better train the clergy, fight superstition, and increase lay piety. The Russian church, in fact, flourished up until the end of the empire in 1917.
Finally, Kevin Kain looks again at art, in particular the Parsuna “Patriarch Nikon with Clergy,” a seventeenth-century secular portrait in an iconographic style, and how this particular portrait influenced historic views of Nikon, especially in the nineteenth century.
These essays offer fascinating glimpses at Russian Orthodoxy, the patriarchate, and broader religious and cultural history in the time of the earlier Moscow Patriarchate, adding to our overall understanding of early modern eastern Europe.
