Church reform of Peter I
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Previously, the Russian Tsars had exerted some influence on church operations; however, until Peter's reforms the church had been relatively free in its internal governance. Following the model of the Byzantine Empire, the Tsar was considered to be the "Defender of Orthodoxy". In this capacity he had the right of veto over the election of new bishops, and upon the consecration of new bishops he would often be the one to present the crozier to them. The Tsar would also be involved in major ecclesiastical decisions. In 1551, Tsar Ivan IV summoned the Synod of a Hundred Chapters (Стоглавый Собор), which confirmed the inviolability of church properties and the exclusive jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts over clergy, and the norms of church life were regulated. The Great Synod of Moscow in 1666-1667 was also presided over by the Tsar.
Peter I, known as "Peter the Great" (ruled 1682–1725), ushered in an era in which the church government was fundamentally transformed: instead of being governed by a patriarch or metropolitan, the government of the church came under the control of a committee known as the Holy Governing Synod, which was composed both of bishops and lay bureaucrats appointed by the Emperor.
Tsar Peter inflicted numerous reforms on his country that were designed to create and pay for a new government and a military and naval system that would enable Russia to trade with, compete with, and, as necessary defend Russia's European interests by force of arms. The ruthlessness with which he implemented his governmental and tax collection reforms, and the forced buildup of his new capital city, St. Petersburg, augured poorly for the independence of the church.
When Patriarch Adrian (in office 1690–1700) died in 1700, Peter prevented the election of a new patriarch, and instead appointed Stephen Yavorsky as patriarchal "exarch", or locum tenens. Yavorskii was a young professor from the Kiev Orthodox Academy who had trained at a Jesuit academy in Poland, and who argued in favor of a strong patriarchate and the independence of the church. Gradually, Peter came to favor another professor from the Kiev Academy, Theofan Prokopovich, whose 1719 Spiritual Regulation supported the concept of a Russian national church under the authority of the Tsar as "supreme bishop", and argued that an ecclesiastical council would be more appropriate to govern the church than a single patriarch.
In 1721, Peter established the Ecclesiastical College to govern the church ("college", or kollegia, a word borrowed from the Swedish governmental system, was the term Peter used for his government ministries, each one headed by a committee instead of a single minister). The Ecclesiastical College was soon renamed the Holy Governing Synod, and was administered by a lay director, or Oberprokurator. The synod changed in composition over time, but basically it remained a committee of churchmen headed by a lay appointee of the Emperor.
The Russian patriarchate was not restored until Tsar Nicholas II gave his permission for the calling on an All-Russian Sobor (Council) for the purpose of electing a new patriarch. Plans for the Sobor were made before the February Revolution and the Tsar's subsequent abdication on 15 March of that year. However, the assembly met despite the onset of the revolution, and on 21 June 1917, the Sobor elected St. Tikhon as Patriarch of Moscow.
[edit] Legacy
Under imperial state regulation, the church became less recognizably Muscovite. Most bishops and metropolitans appointed under Peter were from Little Russia. Monasteries lost territory and were more closely regulated, resulting in a reduction in monks and nuns numbers from twenty-five thousand in 1734 to fourteen thousand in 1738.
The church—particularly monasteries—lost landed wealth gradually during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but under Empress Catherine II ("Catherine the Great") (ruled 1762–1796) monastic lands were effectively nationalized, and some one million peasants on monastery land overnight became state peasants. A new ecclesiastic educational system was begun under Peter the Great and expanded to the point that by the end of the century there was a seminary in each eparchy (diocese). However, the curriculum for the clergy heavily emphasized Latin language and subjects, close to the curriculum of Jesuit academies in Poland, and light on the Greek language and the Eastern Church Fathers, and still lighter on the Russian and Church Slavonic languages. The result was that more monks and priests were formally educated than before, but their training was poor preparation for their ministry to a Russian-speaking population steeped in the traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy. Catherine even saw that the salaries of all ranks of the clergy were paid not through the church but by the state, with the result that the clergy became effectively employees of the state.
