Patriarch Nikon of Moscow

Nikon, born Nikita Minin, was the seventh Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus', serving from 1652 to 1666. He was known for his eloquence, energy, and piety, and maintained a close relationship with Tsar Alexis. His liturgical reforms, which conservatives strongly opposed, triggered a permanent division in the Russian Orthodox Church called the Raskol. For years, his political influence rivaled or surpassed that of the tsar. In December 1667, a synod of church officials tried him, stripped him of all priestly functions, and demoted him to a simple monk.

Nikon was born on 7 May 1605 in the village of Veldemanovo, about 96 kilometers from Nizhny Novgorod, to a Mordvin peasant father named Mina. His mother died shortly after his birth, and his father remarried; his stepmother treated him harshly. He learned to read and write from the local parish priest. At age twelve, he ran away to the Makaryev Monastery, where he stayed as a novice until 1624. He then returned home at his parents’ insistence, married, and became a parish priest in a nearby village. His speaking ability caught the attention of Moscow merchants visiting a trade fair at the Makaryev Monastery grounds, and through them he was invited to serve at a large parish in the capital. He served there for about ten years. By 1635, his three children had died. Interpreting this as a divine sign, he decided to become a monk. He first persuaded his wife to take the veil, then withdrew to a remote hermitage on Anzersky Island in the White Sea, taking the monastic name Nikon. In 1639, after a quarrel with the father superior, he fled the monastery by boat. A storm drove his boat ashore on Kiy Island, where he later founded a major monastery. He eventually reached the Kozheozersky Monastery in the diocese of Novgorod, becoming its abbot in 1643.

In 1646, while visiting Moscow in his official capacity, he paid homage to the young Tsar Alexei I, as was customary. Alexei, a pious man, was deeply impressed and appointed Nikon archimandrite of the important Novospassky Monastery in Moscow, which was closely tied to the Romanov dynasty. At Novospassky, Nikon joined the circle of the Zealots of Piety, a group of clergy and laypeople that had formed in the late 1630s around Stefan Vonifatiyev, the tsar’s confessor. In the aftermath of the Time of Troubles, the group believed that Russia’s problems reflected God’s anger at the people’s lack of religiosity, and they called for a revival of Orthodox faith and piety. Members included Fyodor Rtishchev, Abbot Ivan Neronov, and Protopope Avvakum. In 1649, Nikon became metropolitan of Great Novgorod, where he received special privileges. During his tenure, a riot broke out in the city, and the mobs beat him severely. He still managed to calm the situation by leading a religious procession against the rioters.

Nikon was elected patriarch on 1 August 1652. Aware of his unpopularity among the nobility, he refused the position several times. He only accepted after the tsar and the boyars knelt and begged him, and after he made the entire assembly swear a solemn vow to obey him in all matters concerning the dogmas, canons, and observances of the Orthodox Church. By the time Nikon took office, ecclesiastical reform was already being discussed. A group of church dignitaries, the party of the protopopes, had taken responsibility for revising service-books begun under the late Patriarch Joasaph and for correcting a few ancient observances, but they lacked the boldness to make real changes. Nikon launched more aggressive reforms. He consulted learned Greek prelates abroad, invited them to Moscow, and was convinced by scholars from Constantinople and Kiev that the Muscovite service-books were heterodox and that the icons in use had strayed far from ancient Constantinopolitan models, often showing Frankish and Polish baroque influences. Nikon harshly criticized these new-style icons and ordered a house-to-house search for them. His soldiers and servants were instructed to gouge out the eyes of these heretical images and then parade them through the town in mockery. He also issued a decree threatening severe penalties for anyone who made or used such icons in the future. Recent research, such as that by Meyendorff, has shown that the Muscovite service-books actually belonged to a different recension than the Greek books used at Nikon’s time, and the unrevised Muscovite books were older and more venerable, while the Greek books had undergone several revisions and contained newer innovations. In 1654, Nikon convened a synod to re-examine the service-books revised by Patriarch Joasaph, and the majority decided that “the Greeks should be followed rather than our own ancients.” A second council followed.