and in general without the very core of traditional religious life: bishops were required for elevation to the priesthood, and no bishops joined the Old Belief. Some dissenters, the popovtsy, bent all their efforts to obtain priests by every possible means, for instance, by enticing them away from the established Church. The priestless, on the other hand, accepted the catastrophic logic of their situation and tried to organize their religious life along different lines. It is from the priestless Old Believers that most Russian sects derive. But all this takes us well beyond the Muscovite period of Russian history.
The raskol constituted the only major schism in the history of the Orthodox Church in Russia. It was in an important sense the opposite of the Reformation: in the West, Christians turned against their ecclesiastical authorities because they wanted changes; in Russia believers revolted because they refused to accept even minor modifications of the traditional religious usage. Many scholars have tried to explain the strange phenomenon of the raskol. Thus Shchapov and numerous others have stressed the social composition of the Old Believers and the social and economic reasons for their rebellion. The dissenters were originally and continued to be mostly well- established peasants and traders. Their action could, therefore, be interpreted as a protest against gentry domination and the entire oppressive Muscovite system. More immediately, they reacted against the increased ecclesiastical centralization under Nikon which led to the appointment of priests - formerly they had been elected in northern parishes - and to the loss of parish autonomy and democracy. In addition to being democrats - so certain historians have claimed - the Old Believers expressed the entrepreneurial and business acumen of the Russian people. Over a period of time they made a remarkable record for themselves in commerce. Some parallels have even been drawn with the Calvinists in the West. As to the other side, the drive for reform has been ascribed, in addition to the obvious reason, to the influence of the more learned Ukrainian clergy, and to the desire of the Muscovite Church and state to adapt their practices to include the Ukrainians and the White Russians, with a further view, according to S. Zenkovsky, to a possible expansion to the Balkans and Constantinople.
Even more rewarding as an explanation of the raskol has been the emphasis on the ritualism and formalism of Muscovite culture. The Old Believers were, characteristically, Great Russians, that is,. Muscovite Russians and not, for example, Ukrainians. To them the perfectly correct form and the untainted tradition in religion could not be compromised. This, and their arrogant but sincere belief in the superiority of the Muscovite Church and its practices, go far to explain the rebellion. The reformers exhibited a similar formalism. In spite of the advice of such high authorities as the
patriarch of Constantinople, Nikon and his followers refused to allow any local practice or insignificant variation to remain, thus on their part, too, confusing the letter with the spirit. As we have noted, the Russian Church had developed especially in the direction of religious ceremony, ritualism, and formalism, which for the believers served as a great unifying bond and a tangible basis for their daily life. It has been estimated, for instance, that the tsar often spent five hours or more a day in church. Even visiting Orthodox hierarchs complained of the length of Russian services. The appearance of the Old Belief, as well as the excessively narrow and violent reaction to it, indicated that in Muscovy religious content in certain respects lagged behind religious form. The raskol can thus be considered a tribute to the hold that Muscovite culture had on the people, and, as time made apparent, to its staying power. It also marked the dead end of that culture.
Miliukov and others have argued that, because of the split, the Russian Church lost its most devoted and active members and, in effect, its vitality: those who had the courage of their convictions joined the Old Belief; the cowardly and the listless remained in the establishment. Even if we allow for the exaggeration implicit in this view and note further that many of the most ignorant and fanatical must also have joined the dissenters, the loss remains great. It certainly made it easier for Peter the Great to treat the Church in a high-handed manner.
In addition to the issue of the true faith, the issue of the proper form of government preoccupied certain Muscovite minds. It concerned essentially the nature and the new role of autocracy, and discussion of it continued the intellectual trend clearly observable in the reigns of Ivan III and Basil III. Such publicists as Ivan Peresvetov, who wrote in the middle of the sixteenth century, upheld the new power and authority of the tsar, while the events of the Time of Troubles provided variations on this theme of proper government and seemed to offer to the Russians unwanted political experience. The most famous debate on the subject took place between Ivan the Terrible and Prince Andrew Kurbsky in two letters from the tsar and five from the fugitive nobleman, written between 1564 and 1579. The sovereign's brilliant letters strike the reader by the sweep of their assertions and their grandiose tone. Ivan the Terrible believed in the divine foundation of autocracy, and he declared that, even if he were a tyrant, Kurbsky's only alternative, as a Christian and a faithful subject, remained patient suffering. The prince, on his part, proved to be stronger in his criticism of the tsar's conduct and in personal invective than in political theory. Yet his views, too, represented a system of belief: they harkened back to an earlier
order of things, when no great gulf separated the ruler from his chief lieutenants, and when an aristocrat enjoyed more freedom and more respect than Ivan IV wanted to allow.
In foreign relations, as in domestic matters, Ivan the Terrible and other tsars reiterated the glory of autocracy and demanded full respect for it. They considered the Polish kings degraded because the latter had been put on their throne by others, and thus could not be regarded as hereditary or rooted rulers. They asked why Swedish monarchs treated their advisers as companions. Or, to quote the frequently mentioned bitter letter of Ivan the Terrible to Elizabeth of England, written in 1570: 'We had thought that you were sovereign in your state and ruled yourself, and that you saw to your sovereign honor and to the interests of the country. But it turns out that in your land people rule besides you, and not only people, but trading peasants…'
Passing on to the subject of Muscovite literature as a whole, one should note the development of the 'chancellery language,' based on the Muscovite spoken idiom, in which official documents were written, and also the gradual penetration of popular language into literature in place of the bookish Slavonic-Russian. Avvakum's autobiography, written in the racy spoken idiom, was a milestone in Russian literature. Religious writings continued and indeed flourished, especially in the seventeenth century. They included hagiography and, in particular, menologia, that is, calendars with the lives of saints arranged under the dates of their respective feasts, the most important of which was compiled by Metropolitan Macarius. They also included theological and polemical works, sermons, and other items. After Ukraine joined Muscovy, the more learned and less isolated Ukrainian clerics began to play a leading role in a Russian literary revival.
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Punish your son in his youth, and he will give you a quiet old age, and restfulness to your soul. Weaken not beating the boy, for he will not die from your striking him with the rod, but will be in better health: for while you strike his body, you save his soul from death. If you love your son, punish him frequently, that you may rejoice later.
If the
