Moscorovius, Hieronyjius, a Polish Unitarian writer of note, flourished towards the close of the 16th or about the opening of the 17th century. He was a nobleman and a lay worker in the Church. He is sup- posed to have died about 1625. He is distinguished especially as the joint author (with Valentine Schmalz, a Socinian minister) of the larger Sodnian Catechism, which was published in the Polish tongue (1605, 12mo). It was translated into Latin under the title: Catechesis Ecdesiarum, quce in regno Pokm. et magno ducatu Li- thuanice et uliis adistud regmun pertinentibus provinciis affirmant, neminem uliam prceter patrem domiui nosiri J. C. esse ilium unum iJeum Israelis, kominem autem il- ium, Jesum Naz.,qniex virgine natus est, nee ulium prce- ter aut ante ipsum, Dei jilium unigenitum et agnoscunt et confitentur (Kavoc. 1609, 12mo) : a new edition, togeth- er with a refutation, was published by G. L. Ocder (Francf. and Leips. 1739, 8vo) ; here the questions are for the first time numbered. This Catechism was ordered to be burned by the Parliament of England in 1652. It was translated, with notes and illustrations, and a sketch of the history of rnitarianism, by Thomas Pees (Lond. 1818). See extracts in Gieseler, L'ccl. Hist, iv, 367 sq. Concerning other editions, which also contain other con- fessions of faith adopted by the Socinians (the Confessio Fidei drawn up by Job. Schlichting, 1646, 8vo), comp. Winer, Ilandbuch der t/ieol. Literatur, ii, 25 sq. See also Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. ii, 212.
Mosco'W (Puss. Moshrd), the ancient capital of Russia, and forinerly the residence of the czars, and sit- uated in a highly cultivated and fertile district on the Moskva, 400 miles south-cast of St. Petersburg, is not only " the very personification of the ecclesiastical his- tory of Russia," as Stanley speaks of it {East. Ch. p. 424), but has acquired a stronger hold over the religious mind of a larger part of Christendom than is probably exer- cised by any other city except Jerusalem and Rome. It must, therefore, be brieflj' considered here. Just as the Jew delights to call Jerusalem "the holy Zion," the Russian points with pride to this central city of his empire as " our holy mother Moscow ;" and the lower classes, not content with this, even go so far as to name the road Mhich leads to it "our dear mother, the great road from Vladimir to Moscow" (Haxthausen, Reseui'ch- es in Russia, iii, 151). In one word, Moscow is a very Russian Rome. Not that Christianity Avas first pro- claimed here for tlie Russians (this was done at Kief), but because it is the ultimate and permanent seat of the Russian primates (since 1325), and contains within its walls the Kremlin (Russ. Kreinl), "that fortress sur- rounded by its crusted towers and battlemcnted walls," in which are united all the elements of the ancient re- ligious life of Russia. The city abounds in churches and convents. Of the former it is said to have 400, all of the orthodox Greek faith, with the exception of the English and Roman chapels, a (ierman and a French chapel, two or three Armenian chapels, and a Turkish mosque. It has convents also by the hundreds, count- ing mjnj' of the " white clergy." See Scheutzler, Mos- cow (St. Petersb. and Par. 1834) ; Prime, The A Uiambra and the Kremlin (N. Y. 1874, 12mo) ; Clarke, Travels in Russia, Tartar;/, and Turlceg (Aberd. 1848, 12mo), ch. iv-ix ; Ackerman, Historical Sketch of Moscow ; Har- pei's Monthh/, vol. xxvi ; Blachi-ood's Magazine, 1855, Jan. p. 8. See Russia. (J. H. W.)
jMOSCOW, Council of (Concilium Moscoriense). Several of these were held in the interests of the Rus- sian Church from time to time, ever since the estab- VL-U u
lishment of the metropolitan see of Moscow in 1320. (See below.) Of these councils, the most important are the following :
I. Held about 1500, and presided over by the metro- politan Simon, when it was decreed that monasteries for men and for women should be separated ; monks were forbidden to perform divine service, and widower clerks to consecrate the holy mysteries in the latter; unwor- thy clerks were sentenced to be degraded ; and all pay- ments on account of ordination were forbidden.
II. Held in 1551, under czar John the Terrible. It was attended by all the Russian bishops and the metro- politan of Moscow ; Macarius presided. The czar him- self opened the synod by a speech, in which he exhort- ed the bishops to use all the understanding, knowledge, and ability each one possessed in their deliberations; promising that he would be ready to join and support them in correcting what was amiss, or in confirming what Avas well established, according as the Holy Spirit' should direct them. He then put them in mind that in the year in which he was crowned he had charged all bishops and hegumens to collect the lives of the saints of their various dioceses or monasteries, and that twenty new names had been in consequence glorified as saints in the Church. The council then repeated and confirmed the decree, ordering that the memory of these saints should be celebrated in the Church. After this the czar required of the council a reply to vari- ous questions relating to the external and internal dis- cipline of the Church ; whereupon they delivered a long answer, divided into one hundred chapters, which caused this assembly to be known ever after by the name of " the Council of the Hmidred Chapters." These chap- ters appear not to have been signed by any Russian bishop, nor to liave been submitted to the oecumenical patriarch for approval ; and it is curious that Macarius himself, who presided at the council, makes no mention of it in his Books of the Genealogies, in which he relates the history of affairs both in Church and State. These chapters give countenance to some superstitious cus- toms and local errors, which in after-years produced lam- entable schisms. In this council, moreover, the cor- rection of the Church books, which was afterwards actually performed by the patriarch Nikon, was first proposed.