III. Held in the palace of the czar at Moscow in 1655, by the czar Alexis; Nikon, the patriarch of Moscow, presiding. The object of the council was the correction of the liturgy, etc., of the Russian Church. Nikon, soon after his appointment to the patriarchate, had his at- tention drawn to the great alterations which had crept into the service-books then in use, which in many places, and even in the creed itself, differed from the an- cient Greek and Slavonic copies; he therefore induced the czar to convoke this council, at which the following metropolitans, Macarius of Novgorod, Cornelius of Ka- zan, Jonah of Rostoff, Silvester of the Sttppes. and Mi- chael of Servia, were present, togct in r wiili three arch- bishops and one bishop. The unaninicjus di ei>i()n of the council was that " the new books should be correct- ed b_y the old Slavonic and Greek MSS., and that the primitive rule of the Church should in all things be ad- heretl to." This decision was confirmed in a council of Greek bishops, convened at Constantinople by the pa- triarch Paisius, whose judgment the Russian bishops had requested. Upon this the czar and the patriarch procured an immense number of JISS. and books from jMoiuit Athos, hj means of which and other assistance the revision of the Russian service-books was completed.
IV. Held in 1677 to select a successor to Nikon, the patriarch, who, having by intrigues of his enemies fallen into (li-^raic wirli the czar Alexis, who had formerly been his great I'lieiid and ])atron, had in a moment of irritation abrujitly renounced the patriarchate, and by this step had given rise to such disorders in the Churcli that Alexis, in order to re-establish peace, was obliged to invite the Eastern patriarchs to I'orm a court for his
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trial, ami if possihlc for liis dismissal, in order to make lci;al the appointment of a new inoumbont in the patri- archate. IJcsides the Kastern patriarchs, Macariiis of Antioch and Paisius of Alexandria, there were present at tliis rouneil four Russian metropolitans, viz. I'itirim of Novgorod, Laurent ills of Kazan, Jonah of llostoff,
and Paul of the Steppes; six Greek metropolitans, viz, those of Xica?a, Amasia, Iconiiini, 'IVehizond, Varna, and Scio; the metropolitans of Ceor^ia and Servia; six Kiissian and two other archliishops; and, l.islly, five bishops, and lifty archimandrites, he;;iimens. and arch- priests, besides monks and others. Before this couucU
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Nikon was solemnly cited to appear, " and thus it came to pass," says Stanley, " that the most august assembly of divines which Eussia had ever witnessed met for the condemnation of the greatest man whom the Eastern hierarchy had produced in modern times." The trial was in the hall of Nikon's own palace. He appeared before the council like a person having made every preparation dk for death, yet would he not brook treat- ment as^a cast-out, and went in his character of patri- arch, with his cross borne beibre him ; and hnding no place prepared for him upon a level with the seats of the Eastern patriarchs, he refused to sit at all, and dur- ing all his trial remained standing. His accusation was read, with tears, bj^ Alexis himself; it was to the effect that he had, by his unlawful retirement and capricious conduct, been the cause of grievous evils and disorders in the Church. A week was spent in deliberating upon his case, and in searching for precedents which had oc- curred in the Church of Constantinople; after which Nikon was summoned before the council in its third ses- sion. Having heard his accusation read, sentence was passed upon him, to the effect that he should be degrad- ed, retaining only the rank of a monk, and that he should pass the rest of his life in penance in a remote monastery. One voice only, that of an excellent bishop, Lazarus of Chernigoff, was raised in opposition to this cruel judgment. See Blackmore's Mouravieff, Hist, of the liussiaii Church, p. 92, 103, 204, 227 ; Stanley, Lect. on the East. Church, p. 480 sq. ; Strahl, Beitrdge zur Russischeii Kirchenr/esch. vol. iii and iv ; Landon, Diet, of Councils, s. v. See Nikon.
MOSCOW, Metropolitah See of, was established by St. Peter, the 25th metropolitan of Russia, in 1 320. As early as 891 a metropolitan had been appointed to that country, and until 1240 their episcopal centre was at Kief. I5ut the terrible invasion of the Tartars, which burst over the country at the beginning of the 13th century, caused the metropolitan see to be established at Vladimir in 1299, whence its final removal to Mos- cow. All this time the metropolitan was confirmed by the Oriental Church; yet until the middle of the loth century almost all the metropolitans of Moscow were members of the Church of Eome, and favorable towards a reunion of the Eastern and Western churches. Peter (1318-2G), Theognost (1326-53), and Alexis (1354-78) zealously labored for this end. Indeed, Alexis was orig- inally within the Romish communion, united himself with it, and edited a liturgy and form of service which obtained the endorsement of the pope. In 1380, how- ever, the metropolitan Pimen (called the pseudo-metro- politan) made strong efforts against the possibility of union with Rome, but failed to carry his point. His successor, Cyprian (1380-1406), than whom there was no more ardent friend of the Roman Church, undertook to unite the whole Russian Church with Rome. He had several conferences with Jagello, the king of Po- land, and Witout, the grand-duke of Lithuania, the re- sult of which was the reunion of the Lithuanian churches with the Roman Church. This reunion, however, nev- er obtained the assent of the people. After Cyprian's death. Photias tried again to dissever the Russian Church from Rome. But grand-duke Witout and the bishops of Southern Russia opposed him energetically, and at a meeting of a synod (1414) they denounced him as a heretic, and nominated Gregorj' Jamblak metropolitan of jNIoscow. At this same time also the metropolitan seat of Russia was divided into the metropolitanate of Kief and of Moscow, Kief ruling the southern episcopa- cies and jSIoscow the northern ones. The real reason for this division was the leaning of the Kief party to Rome ; and while in later years jNIoscow was decidedly opposed to the Church of Rome, Kief was its warm friend and ally. This division was brought to an end in 1437, ■\vhen Joseph, patriarch of Constantinople, consecrated the learned Isidore of Thessalonica metropolitan of all Russia. Isidore is well known in Church history as one of the principal movers of the Council of Florence