Section 128

archimandrite of the Novospasky convent at Moscow. A new career was thus suddenly opened to him : his in- fluence with the sovereign increased daily, and he took advantage of it to become the intercessor for poor widows, orplians, and the persecuted and oppressed. In 10-18 he acquired the dignity of metropolitan of Novgorod, and he attached the people of that city to him no less strongly than he had at Moscow. Thus in ItioO he appeased a violent popular insurrection at very imminent peril to his own person ; and when he had successfully bro- ken the uprising, he secured permission from the czar to go into the prisons, and to set at liberty not only those persons who had been unjustly confined, but also real criminals whom he found sincere in their repentance. Nikon was also a liberal distributor of alms to the poor ; he gave them provisions during the time of the famine which took place, and ordered the erection of many almshouses. On feast-days he always preached, and his sermons were attended bj' crowds of people from dis- tant parts, who were often moved to tears b}^ his elo- quence. It was about this time, too, that Nikon, per- ceiving the necessity of reformatory measures in the Church of Russia, opened his movement to that end with a revision of the liturgy. lie introduced into the churches the psalmody of the Greek service and of Kief, and gave a more costly fashion to the holy uten- sils and other furniture of the churches. He was anx- ious to increase the respectability of the clerical profes- sion, and caused divine service to be performed with more devotion. In 1652, after the death of the patri- arch Joseph, Nikon's services received further recog- nition from the government by his elevation to the va- cant patriarchate. He was thus enabled to carry on his philanthropical and reformatory works upon a still larger scale. He now took measures for the improvement of the Church books, and for making them more exact and faithfid copies of the Greek originals. He called on that account the general assembly of the Church in 1654 and 1655. By this council the old Sclavonic versions, some of which were over five centuries old, were com- pared with the Septuagint. The council declared the original Sclavonic version correct, and that the differ- ences observed in the copies then in general use result- ed from the carelessness of the copyists. A new edi- tion was made at Moscow, and signed by Nikon, so as to conform to the original. This, however, gave rise to a division in the Church; those who adhered to the old customs received the name of Ruskoluiki, and these schismatics remain to this day. See Raskolniki^ Russia. Nor were these the only measures. He set himself with stern severity and indomitable courage to root out all abuses of the Russian hierarchy, and even labored for the adoption of temperance principles. In his own person, as we have already seen, Nikon ex- hibited the doctrines he preached. He was noted for unbounded munificence, self-denial, and abstemious hab- its. In the furtherance of his object it is but natural to suppose that he broke through many practices of Church and State, to which long custom had probably givcn an almost religious consecration. Thus through his intervention the Oriental seclusion of the female sex was first infringed; at his injunction — still, it is true, fenced about by man}' precautions — the empress, who had before never entered a church except under cover of night, now appeared publicly by day. Sacked pictures to which, in his judgment, idolatrous veneration was paid, \vere taken away. The baptisms of the Western Church, of which the validity is to this day denied by the Church of Constantinople, were by his sanction first recognised in the Church of Russia. The advances in education, too, which were first introduced under Ivan the Terrible, and then interrupted by the wars of the pretenders, Nikon started anew with fresh vigor. The printing-press was again set to work. Greek and Latin were now first taught in the schools. In the Church ser- vice, however, his changes were most marked and far- reaching. The "gross and harsh intonations of the VII.— G