The establishment of the Synod in Russia (briefly). Synod is the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church

§ 9. The Holy Synod and the Church Policy of the Government (1817-1917)

Stories about Peter We have several early Christian books that tell stories about Peter. Their plots are almost completely invented by Christian authors unknown to us. In our system of definitions, these texts are not forgeries, since they are not

§ 35. Orthodoxy under Peter I The Council Code was continued under Peter I (1672-1725). Russia has become an empire. If earlier the state and the Church went together, now the Church found itself in a more subordinate position. In 1721, becoming emperor, Peter I abolished the position

XLVI Apostolic activity and martyrdom of St. Peter. Cathedral epistles. Peter. Activities of other apostles Simultaneously with ap. Paul suffered a martyr's death and St. Peter, who thus ended his apostolic work also in the capital

Introduction … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …… . . ... 3

Chapter 1. Historical background … … … … … … … … … … … …. .. .. .. 4

Chapter 2. Establishment of the Holy Synod … … … … … … … … … .. … . 9

Chapter 3 The Holy Synod under Peter II and Anna Ioannovna and Theophan's struggle with his enemies…… …. ….. …. ….. … … … … …. …. ….. ….. .. … .. 10

Chapter 4 Theophan's death and his meaning .. ... . . . .. .. .. … .. … …… … .. 17

Chapter 5 Holy Synod under Empress Elizabeth………………………… .. 19

Chapter 6 The Holy Synod under Empress Catherine II…. ….. …. …. 21

Chapter 7 The Holy Synod under Alexander I…. ………. . …. … … … . 27

Chapter 8 Holy Synod from the reign of Nicholas I. ... ... . . …. ………. …. …36

CONCLUSION …. …………………………….. ……………………… . …40

List of used literature.. … .. …………… …………………..43

Introduction:

The Petersburg period (1700-1917, 217 years) begins with the death of Patriarch Adrian (1700) and the approval by Emperor Peter of the Holy Synod (1721) in Petersburg. The period ends with the February coup (1917). With the advent of the reformer of Russia, Emperor Peter the Great (the Great), friction began with the Church, and at the first opportunity he abolished the patriarchate. Instead of the patriarch, the Holy Synod was established. Some believe that this had a negative impact on the Church and on society, and that the development of the Church was hindered.

The purpose of the work is to tell about the history of the Holy Synod, its general overview. To study the main trends and talk about the activities of the Holy Synod.

CHAPTER 1. Historical background.

The Russian Orthodox Church differs from all other local Orthodox and confessional Christian churches, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church, by the many millions of its members, the vastness of the space it occupies, the diversity of nationalities to which its members belong, the multitude of institutions included in its structure, and the many-sided independent activity and relationships with various local churches. The Russian Church was founded in 988. Having received its initial hierarchical structure from the Church of Constantinople, over the course of more than 9 centuries of its existence, it gradually increased in its composition, developed in its structure, acquired independence and independence from the Constantinople hierarchy, and in the 15th century became autocephalous. From 988 to 1589 it had a metropolitan structure, from 1589 to 1720 it had a patriarchal one, and since 1721 it had a synodal one. At the head of the structure of the Russian Church is His Holiness in St. Petersburg.

Governing Synod. It consists of the presence and the institutions attached to it. The Presence of the Holy Synod, composed of hierarchs of the highest degree, owns all types of authority of an independent, autocephalous Orthodox Church throughout the Russian Empire and the regions included in it, in all subjects, aspects, affairs and relations of the Orthodox Church organization, administration and court. Through the Holy Synod, the autocratic supreme power operates in the administration of the Orthodox Russian Church, having established it in canonical relations with the patriarchs of the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

In certain rules of the Universal Church, state laws of the country, goals and purpose Orthodox faith Within limits, the Holy Synod has legislative, regulatory, administrative, supervisory and judicial powers and is in touch with the administrations of local Orthodox churches. Acting under the supervision of a representative of the supreme state power - the Synodal chief prosecutor, he communicates directly with the ruling Senate, and with the supreme power and the highest state and central institutions through the mediation of the chief prosecutor. To exercise different types of authority in various subjects and aspects of church life (regarding teaching, worship, judgment, management and management of positions and institutions, educational institutions, property and others) at the Holy Synod in St. Petersburg there are:

The Synodal Chancellery, the Spiritual and Educational Committee, the Spiritual and School Councils, the economic management, control and management of the Synodal Printing Houses, the Chief Procurator and his office, two branches in Moscow and Tiflis, under the name of the Moscow and Georgian-Imeretian Synodal Offices. Consisting under the supreme authority of the Holy Synod and its institutions, as the main or central spiritual government, the Russian Orthodox Church is divided into dioceses, which have the significance of church administrative-judicial areas. Dioceses in Russia have been established and are being re-established by agreement between church and state authorities. The boundaries of the dioceses, as a general rule, coincide with the boundaries of the provinces and regions. The number of dioceses increased gradually. Now it extends to 66; of these, 64 within Russia, one (Aleutian) in America and one, under the name of the Japanese Orthodox Church, in Japan. Outside the diocese, as part of the church, they are mutually independent from one another and independent in administrative and judicial functions, and are directly under the jurisdiction of the Holy Synod. Each diocese is under the direct authority of the diocesan bishop and has a structure determined by the rules of the church and the laws of the state. The diocesan bishop is appointed, with the complicity of the Holy Synod, by the authority of the Sovereign. Russian diocesan bishops bear the titles of metropolitans (there are 4 of them), archbishops (an indefinite number) and bishops, but within their dioceses they have equal authority, regardless of the title. The diocesan bishop is the main teacher of faith and morality in the diocese, the main clergyman and ruler for all types of power, administrator, judge, overseer and leader in preaching the word of God, worship, managing all objects, institutions and officials. He has the right to enter the Holy Synod with ideas about the need for changes in existing laws and regulations on church subjects, to issue and approve, in accordance with the general rules and laws, and in their development, guiding rules and instructions for diocesan institutions and officials, to approve charters of parochial trustees, brotherhoods and societies for spiritual and educational purposes within the diocese. The composition of the general structure of the Russian diocese includes: a vicar bishop (in a few dioceses - 2 or even 3 each), as an assistant to the diocesan bishop, a cathedral church - for the priestly service of a bishop, a spiritual consistory (there are 60 of them) - for administration and court, a diocesan school council - for the management of parochial schools and schools of literacy, guardianship of the poor of the clergy - for the care of provincial clergymen, their widows and orphans, and for the guardianship of orphaned children of the clergy, theological academy (in 4 dioceses, with 900 students), theological seminary (58, with 19,000 students), theological schools (183, with 32,000 students), diocesan women's schools (49, with 13,300 students) and women's schools of the spiritual department (13, with 2,100 students), the bishop's house (there are 66 of them ) and temporary congresses of the diocesan clergy. Each district should consist of 15 to 35 parish churches. In the deanery district there are positions of dean, deputy of the clergy and confessor of the clergy, in most dioceses, on the orders of the diocesan bishop - deanery councils, and in some - congresses of the clergy. Outside the diocesan structure of the Russian Church are the churches and clergy of the court and military departments, as well as monasteries-lavras (4) and stauropegial monasteries(6). The churches and clergy of the court department are under the jurisdiction of the confessor of Their Majesties, the military - under the supervision of the protopresbyter of the military and naval clergy, the laurels and stauropegial monasteries - under the direct jurisdiction of the Holy Synod.

Churches of the military department are portable and permanent; hieromonks are temporarily assigned to military ships. The number of the Orthodox population within the Russian Empire extends to 80 million of both sexes. It is distributed among churches - parish, cathedral, public and state institutions (educational and charitable institutions, regiments, prisons, etc.) and monasteries. There are now about 37,000 parishes in all dioceses; cathedral churches, with parishioners and without them - 720; churches at public and state institutions - about 2000.

There are 440 monasteries, full-time and freelance, male, with 8,000 monks and 7,500 novices, female - 250, with 7,000 nuns and about 17,000 novices. The churches belong to the laity and the white clergy; monastics are in monasteries and partly at bishops' houses and religious and educational institutions. The parishioners of parish and cathedral churches make up societies to participate in the management of the property and economy of churches and for charitable and spiritual educational activities.

Thus, among a fairly significant part of the Russian people, there is a religious ferment that does not correspond to the principles of Orthodoxy, to the appeasement of which the missionary activity of the Orthodox Church is directed and coreligionist churches and parishes have been established, with the permission of rites and worship according to old printed books. The Russian Orthodox Church is confronted not only with a "schism", but also with various and numerous denominations, Christian and non-Christian, protected or permitted by state legislation. In addition to the Orthodox, schismatics and sectarians, Christians of various faiths live in Russia (Roman Catholic, Evangelical Lutheran, Evangelical Augsburg, Reformed of various types, Armenian-Gregorian, Armenian-Atolic) and non-Christians, Jewish confessions (Talmudic and Karaites), Mohammedan (Sunnis and Shiites), Buddhist (Lamaites and shamanists),

The Holy Synod has at its disposal special funds, the annual total of which reaches 7,000,000 rubles. These funds are a percentage fee from the income of all the churches of the Empire, interest from printing and spiritual and educational capital, which was also drawn up from churches, and an allowance from the treasury for spiritual and educational institutions. These revenues are spent on religious educational institutions and printing houses.

CHAPTER 2. Establishment of the Holy Synod

From Greek. Σύνοδος - "assembly", "cathedral") - according to the current charter of the Russian Orthodox Church (Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church), the highest "governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church in the period between Bishops' Councils". During the synodal period, the Most Holy Governing Synod was the highest state body of church-administrative power in the Russian Empire.

In Russia, before Emperor Peter the Great, there were two heads: the tsar and the patriarch. They cooperated and helped each other and the Church had complete freedom. The Russian Church has always been in close connection with the people and the state, has never separated from them, and has always served their true good. Such cooperation between the Church and the state is called the Greek word "symphony" (in Russian "consent").

Emperor Peter the Great carried out reforms for the benefit of Russia, but not everyone agreed with him. He met from all sides, including the clergy, resistance and hostility. Therefore, after the death of Patriarch Adrian (1690-1700), no new patriarch was elected. Ryazan Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky was appointed Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne (1700-1721); that is, he temporarily replaced the patriarch. Until 1700, there were ten (10) patriarchs in the Russian Church. In 1721, Peter the Great established the Holy Synod, which replaced the patriarch. The synod was first called the Theological College.

This change in the administration of the Russian Church was approved and approved by the Eastern Patriarchs. They recognized the Holy Synod as their brother, having equal power and degree in the church hierarchy with them; that is, they recognized that the Holy Synod has the same power as the patriarch. Thus the Holy Synod replaced the patriarch.

The Holy Synod consisted of: (1) President, (2) Two Vice-Presidents, (3) Four Councilors and (4) Four Assessors. The first president of the Synod was Metropolitan Stefan Yavorsky. Later, the secular names were replaced by more appropriate titles: (1) preeminent member, (2) members of the Synod, and (3) present in the Synod.

By order of Emperor Peter the Great, Metropolitan Feofan Prokopovich issued the Spiritual Regulations. In it, the ancient church rules that remained in force were applied to the modern situation of the Russian Church. The Spiritual Collegium was subordinate to the tsar through a special official - the chief prosecutor (secular person). Thus the Russian Church lost its independence and independence.

Replacing the patriarch, the Holy Synod also took over the affairs of the patriarchal administration. Its main tasks were:

Observation of the purity of teaching and deanery in worship,

Election and appointment of worthy archpastors and pastors,

Supervision of spiritual and educational institutions,

Censorship of spiritual books,

Divorce cases and more.

Chapter 3 The Holy Synod under Peter II and Anna Ioannovna and Theophan's struggle with his enemies.

The position of the Holy Synod became even worse under the young Peter II, when all the affairs of the state were controlled exclusively by temporary workers - first Menshikov, then Dolgoruky. The reactionary nature of this reign contributed to an even greater rise in the importance of the Great Russian party of hierarchs. Georgy Dashkov promoted Lev Yurlov to the bishopric in the Voronezh diocese and managed to introduce to the Synod a new member from the Great Russians, the old disgraced Metropolitan Ignatius Smola, who was now called from his Nilovsky imprisonment to the Kolomna cathedra. All of them unanimously began to act against Feofan. Theophylact, the only scholarly member besides him, did not stick to them, but made Feofan a great nuisance by publishing in 1728, with the permission of the supreme council, Yavorsky's work, The Stone of Faith, which denounced the very heresies that Feofan was accused of by his enemies. In the circles of the ancient nobles and the clergy, they even started talking about the restoration of the patriarchate. The position of Theophan, who was now the only representative of Petrine ideas in the Synod, became extremely dangerous and forced him to strain all his strength and all resourcefulness in the heated struggle. The weapons in this struggle y his opponents were the same, with which he was met in Moscow back in 1718 under Stefan Yavorsky - this is an accusation of heresy. In the role of an accuser, very inconvenient for such bad theologians as George, one of the Kiev scientists, Archimandrite Yuryevsky Markell Rodyshevsky, who had known Feofan since the academy and at one time served with him in the Pskov diocese as a judge of the bishop's house, was put up. Back in 1726, he submitted to the Holy Synod a denunciation of Theophanes in 47 points, as if he, Theophanes, does not recognize church traditions and the teachings of the holy fathers, does not honor holy icons and relics, denies justification by works, laughs at church rites, akathists, the legends of Mena and Prologues, rejects some rules of the Pilots, blasphemes church singing, but praises Lutheran organs, wants to eradicate monasticism, etc. In this way, various passages from Theophan’s writings and oral speeches were interpreted in the denunciation, in which his really sometimes too heated polemics were expressed or against Catholicism, or against domestic Russian superstitions and rituals. This affair ended then with the imprisonment of Markell in Peter and Paul Fortress and a suggestion to Feofan on behalf of the empress that he would no longer create any opposition to the Orthodox Church, but live like all the “Great Russian” bishops live. Under Peter II, Markell attacked, as heretical, various writings of Theophanes - a primer, an interpretation of the beatitudes, on pouring baptism and others, asking the Synod for immediate condemnation of both them and their author. This time his denunciation no longer had any force; It was easy for Feofan to prove that all these works were written by him at the thought of Peter the Great and published with the permission of the Most Holy Synod, and to accuse the scammer himself of daring to blame the Synod itself for heresies and “tormenting the glory of such a monarch.” Having failed in the Synod, Markell turned to the secret office and informed her that Theophan had written “The Truth of the Will of the Monarchs” - an essay aimed at depriving the inheritance of the throne of Tsarevich Alexei, therefore, contrary to the reigning sovereign - the son of Alexei; but the secret office knew this well even without denunciation, as well as the fact that this essay was also written by the will of Peter the Great. The scammer was subjected to a new conclusion - in the Simonov Monastery. Theophan thus remained safe and sound; but his position was still very precarious - Dashkov was getting stronger, and Feofan could face the same fate ahead, which was recently experienced by another Cherkashenin Theodosius, unloved by the Great Russians. He was saved from grave anxiety by the unexpected death of Peter II (in January 1730), followed by the accession to the throne of Anna Ioannovna and the fall of the leaders. Having met with the confessor of Anna Ioannovna, Archimandrite Varlaam, Rodyshevsky wanted to continue his attacks on Feofan in her presence; in his Simonovsky imprisonment, he began to draw up new accusations against him, wrote several notebooks, in which, in addition to the above-mentioned writings, he sharply criticized the decree of 1724 on monasticism written by Theophan and the Spiritual Regulation itself. But under Empress Anna, other times came when not accusations of heresy, but political denunciations came into force, and Feofan knew how to wield these weapons better than his opponents. He found his strongest support in the German-Courland party that dominated the court, with the interests of which his own interests were connected by many threads. The same party of ancient people that recently threatened him was now a thunderstorm for the new Courland government. The latter vividly felt his non-nationality and weakness in Russia, knew well that the right to the throne, according to the will of Catherine I, did not belong to Anna Ioannovna, but to the daughters of Peter the Great with their offspring, and suspiciously listened to all sorts of statements in the popular and Orthodox spirit and to the rumors about Tsarina Elizabeth, about the son of the late Princess Anna, Peter of Holstein, and even about Tsarina Evdokia Lopukhina. Controversy against German heresies and the accusation of them in someone under such circumstances easily became a sign of the political unreliability of the accusers and polemists themselves and entailed inevitable interrogations in the secret office. The fall of the Supreme Leaders was soon followed by the fall of the Great Russian party supported by them in the Synod. Lev Yurlov was the first of the bishops to be caught in a political affair, who was reported from Voronezh that, upon receiving here the first Senate decree on the accession to the throne of Empress Anna, he did not serve a solemn prayer service, but began to wait for another special decree from the Holy Synod , in anticipation of this somewhat belated decree, he ordered to commemorate the reigning family in order of seniority, starting with Queen Evdokia. In the Synod, under the influence of George and Ignatius, they took this denunciation lightly and postponed its consideration until new explanations from Voronezh. But after this, all the members, except Theophan, were suddenly dismissed from the Synod and others were appointed to their places - Leonid Krutitsky, Joachim of Suzdal and Pitirim Nizhny Novgorod - all such bishops who were completely subordinate to Theophan; at the same time, in addition to the bishops, archimandrites and archpriests were again introduced into the Synod, as under Peter. In the case of Leo, an investigation began, to which his well-wishers, George and Ignatius, were drawn; all three were recognized as opponents of the reigning empress, accused, in addition, of various abuses in their dioceses and, after being defrocked, sent to different monasteries. In the same year, 1730, Varlaam Vonatovich Kievsky was deprived of his dignity and imprisoned in the Kirillov Monastery for the fact that, like Leo, he also did not serve a prayer service on time for the accession of the empress to the throne; but most of all, he was guilty of badly keeping his clergy from talking about Theophan's heresy and allowing himself in Kiev a new edition of the Stone of Faith. The following year, the bishop of the same Great Russian party, Sylvester Kazansky, was defrocked and imprisoned in the Vyborg fortress, who was reported that under Catherine he forbade the commemoration of the Holy Synod during worship, tore and ordered to rewrite petitions submitted to him in the Highest name in his name, he spoke nasty speeches about the Empress Anna, made unnecessary requisitions in the diocese, and so on.

At the beginning of 1737, Feofan took up Rodyshevsky and reported his notebooks to the cabinet of ministers: without dwelling on the theological side of Markell's accusations, he drew the cabinet's attention mainly to the fact that Markell's blasphemy against books published by decrees of the sovereign and the Holy Synod, even against the Spiritual Regulations, containing the current statute, there is a direct opposition to the authorities; then he exposed the author's attacks on Lutherans and Calvinists and on those who have friendship with him, and raised the significant question of whom Rodyshevsky and the brethren mean here. After that, the matter went, of course, through the secret office. The search for this case has entangled in its twists and turns and killed many people of all ranks, or those who read Markell's notebooks, or simply only heard about their existence. From that time on, political searches did not stop during the entire reign of Empress Anna. In the monasteries and in the y of various literate people they searched for all sorts of notebooks, notes, extracts in which something “nasty” was supposed, and all their readers and owners were drawn to the search. Feofan managed to convince the suspicious German government that there was a dangerous "villainous faction" in Russia, which must certainly be discovered and exterminated. The arrested were interrogated not about any particular subject, but about everything in general, who said anything, plotted or heard something “nasty”; looking for one, they suddenly wandered into another; unraveling one faction, they got entangled in another new one. In view of the torture, those interrogated in the secret office terribly racked their brains, remembering who had said or heard what over the past few years, confused themselves, confused others. The enormous investigation became more and more complicated with new episodes and dragged more and more new faces into its twists and turns. From Moscow, it spread to Tver, where Hieromonk Iosif Reshilov was arrested, suspected of compiling one anonymous letter with a libel against Feofan and censures of the German government, Archimandrite Ioasaph Maevsky from the scientists of Kiev and various persons of the Tver bishop's house, close to Feofilakt Lopatinsky, who himself was suspected of “opposites”, - then, it spread to Ustyug, Vologda, to many monasteries, the Sarov Desert, touched many secular persons, ranging from some almshouse literates and reaching very high-ranking people, even to the face of Princess Elizabeth, whom many wanted to see on the throne. Of the clergy, no one could be sure that one of the acquaintances would not remember his name during torture and that he himself would not be taken to the secret office. In 1735, Theophylact was also arrested, for whom an important fault was listed, the publication of the “Stone of Faith”, and who, in addition, due to his sincere frankness and gullibility to others, more than once allowed himself unnecessary speeches about the patriarchate, and about Theophanes, and about the Germans, and about the fact that Empress Anna sat on the throne, bypassing the princess.

Chapter 4 Theophan's death and its significance

Theophan did not wait for the end of all these searches; he died in September 1736. Recently, he has reached such a height of power that no other bishop has reached since the patriarchs. He was a friend of Biron and Osterman and the richest dignitary in Russia. All the bishops of necessity bowed before him. His scientific reputation stood high not only in Russia, but also in the West; all Russian church literature was concentrated around him and depended on his approval; both Russians and foreign scientists and writers were looking for his acquaintances; he was a strong patron of young talents, including Kantemir and Lomonosov. On his deathbed, preparing to appear at the judgment of God, this greatest mind of his age, an object of surprise for some and hatred for others, exclaimed wistfully, turning to himself: “Head, head! Having drunk your mind, where will you bend yourself?” His memory is clouded by a connection with the secret office, with the horrors of Bironism; but in assessing his personality, one should not forget that his time was a time of constant upheavals in fate strong people, the time of “chance”, as contemporaries expressed it, when a person who had risen to a height often had to die somewhere in Berezov, Pelym, Okhotsk, or he himself destroyed others, when not law or morality acted in life, but the blind instinct of self-preservation; we must not forget that even in such an environment, he managed to remain a “wonderful high priest,” as Cantemir called him, he alone invariably and firmly defended the banner of reform and managed to inextricably link his personal interests with the interests of church reforms and enlightenment, which his opponents were unable to do . After his death, the search he raised continued as usual. Bishops Dositheus of Kursk (1736), Hilarion of Chernigov (1738), Varlaam of Pskov (1739) lost their chairs. The unfortunate Theophylact, who until now had been under synodal arrest, ended up in the secret office in 1738, exhausted by torture, deprived of his dignity and imprisoned in the Vyborg Castle. Many clerics were imprisoned in monasteries and fortresses and exiled to Siberia.

Chapter 5 Holy Synod under Empress Elizabeth.

The terrible time of the Bironovshchina ended with the accession to the throne of Elizabeth Petrovna, which was met with general enthusiasm both in the clergy and among the people. The preached word from the church pulpits glorified the new empress as the savior of Russia from the foreign yoke, the restorer of Orthodoxy and nationality. Everyone knew her Russian character, purely Russian piety, love for the clergy, spiritual books and sermons, for worship and the splendor of church rituals. She remained the same on the throne - she went on pilgrimages, went to the Trinity Lavra once on foot, observed all fasts, made donations to monasteries and churches. Her confessor Archpriest Theodore Dubyansky was an important force at court. The closest to her grandee, Alexei Grigorievich Razumovsky, was also of the Orthodox Church direction, a native of ordinary Little Russians. The return from imprisonment and exile of all the sufferers of Biron's time began. Of the people known to us, Lev Yurlov, M. Rodyshevsky and Ignatius Smola survived to this happiness (who, however, died just a month after the accession of Elizabeth); others are already dead. Theophylact also died in 1741 during the reign of Anna Leopoldovna, restored to his rank only 4 months before his death. In 1742, Elizabeth issued a very important general decree, by which the initial trial of clerics was granted to the Holy Synod and on political reservations. The Holy Synod itself, together with the Senate hitherto subordinated first to the supreme council, then to the cabinet of ministers, was restored with the abolition of the latter in its former dignity of the highest administrative place with the title of “governing”. Encouraged by the piety of Elizabeth, members of the Synod Ambrose Yushkevich of Novgorod (the successor of Feofan) and Arseniy Matseevich of Rostov, one of the most energetic bishops of that time, both Little Russians, submitted a report in which they wrote that if the empress did not want to directly restore the patriarchate, then let her at least gave the Synod a president and the Synod itself, as a church-governing one, arranged from some bishops without archimandrites and archpriests, would have abolished under him the position of chief prosecutor with a collegium of economy, for he bears the title of His Holiness and there is a spiritual government in which secular persons and there is nothing to do. But Elizabeth, who declared all the laws of Peter her own, did not agree to such a reform, she agreed only to the return of his estates to the clergy and to the subordination of the collegium of economy to the Synod. In the Synod, even a particularly strict chief prosecutor, Prince Ya. Shakhovsky, a strong zealot of the state interest and all legality. From the “Notes” about his life that remained after him, it is clear that such a person was especially needed then in the Synod, where in past reigns the order was upset and things were very neglected. He tells in these notes about how often he had to deal with the members of the Synod on questions about excessive spending of patrimonial sums, about the illegal increase in the salaries of members, about the punishment of clergy for misconduct, which, for fear of temptation, the Holy Synod tried not to detect, how difficult it was for him to defend his views as a result of the constant intercession for the members of the Synod of strong persons - Dubyansky and Razumovsky, but how sometimes the members themselves had to be burdened by the strength of these persons, their imperious interference in synodal affairs, and how in these cases he had to rescue them from a difficult positions by his bold representation and direct explanation of matters before the Empress.

Chapter 6 Holy Synod under Empress Catherine II.

After the brief reign of Elizabeth's successor, Peter III, saturated with German and Protestant concepts and threatening the Orthodox Church with a new dominance of the German spirit, came the reign of Catherine II, the empress-philosopher of the 18th century, and Russia began its own philosophical age. Like other sovereign philosophers of Europe of that time and their ministers, she tried to create her own governmental system on the foundations of the then fashionable French philosophy, which looked at religion as only a certain kind of “folk mentality” and a useful tool for governing peoples, whatever it was. inner content. All these sovereigns and politicians unanimously rebelled against the Catholic theory of two powers, trying to make the church an institution only of the state, and against all manifestations of clericalism, willingly participated in the development of the idea of ​​religious tolerance, considering the state essentially indifferent to any religion, in breaking the papal throne, inquisitorial tribunals, even clerical schools, in the weakening of monastic orders, the reduction in the number of monasteries, and especially in the secularization of church property, which is beneficial to the treasury. We have never had a papacy, no humiliation of state power before the spiritual, no inquisition, no monastic orders, not even systematic clericalism; but, in the absence of their own Russian point of view on the matter, the Western point of view was accepted as a guide by our politicians. We, too, started talking about religious fanaticism, and against the theory of two powers, and about the weakening of some dangerous power of the clergy, and about taking away church property from them. One of the first and most important deeds of the Empress, for which she was praised by all the wise men of Europe, was the secularization of church estates.

In the system of higher church administration, there were no major times under her, except for the closing of the college of economy under the Synod, which was in charge of church estates; but an important change was made in the personnel of this administration, which until now was filled with Little Russians, who did not correspond much to the types of the new government. Just as at one time Peter I, for the sake of reform, tried to replace the most important church places with new people from learned Little Russians, Catherine II, in view of the new reforms, was in a hurry to bring to the fore in the church administration new people from learned Great Russian monks, ready with all diligence to serve the authorities, which now graciously raised them from their former humiliation before the Little Russians. The administrative monopoly of the Little Russians already, however, was about to cease to exist. She had already done her service in Great Russia, having brought up a sufficient number of young local forces, and there was no need to support her longer, this only led to unnecessary grumbling of the Great Russian clergy. In 1754, Empress Elizabeth herself, who especially loved the Little Russians, found it necessary to issue a decree so that not only Little Russians, but also Great Russians were represented as bishops and archimandrites. The leading post in the Holy Synod during the accession of Catherine was held by the Great Russian Dimitri Sechenov, Archbishop of Novogorodsk; after him, even under Elizabeth, the archimandrite of the Trinity Lavra, the famous orator Gedeon Krinovsky, who received the Pskov cathedra under Catherine, rose to prominence. With their support, the pupils of the Moscow Academy later rose to the top: Gavriil Petrov, consecrated Bishop of Tver in 1763, and in 1770 made Archbishop of St. Petersburg, an ascetic bishop, wise, modest and diligent in business; Platon Levshin, who at the beginning of Catherine's reign was the rector of the academy, a lively, impressionable person who aroused general sympathy for him, a great orator and the first celebrity of his age; Catherine made him a court preacher and teacher of the law of the heir Pavel Petrovich; from 1768 he was a member of the Synod, and in 1770 - Bishop of Tver after Gabriel. In 1763, after the death of Gideon, Innokenty Nechaev, also a prominent Great Russian, was appointed bishop of Pskov. These persons participated in the execution of all the initial actions of the government on ecclesiastical matters. Demetrius and Gideon successfully carried out the case for the secularization of church estates; Gabriel, Innocent and Plato, on behalf of the government, in 1766 were engaged in drawing up an extensive project on the transformation of theological schools, which, however, was not carried out, and considered the order of the commission written by Catherine on the preparation of a new Code; Demetrius, and after his death († 1767) Gabriel were representatives of the Holy Synod in the commission itself. Meanwhile, the Little Russians fell more and more in the eyes of the Empress, and gradually left their posts. The most energetic of them, Arseniy of Rostov, died for protesting against the secularization of church estates; his work most of all damaged the reputation of the Little Russian party of hierarchs. Another prominent bishop of southern origin, Ambrose Zertis-Kamensky, first Krutitsky, then from 1767 Moscow, who managed to please the empress, armed the entire Moscow diocese against himself with his severity, reaching harshness, and was killed by mob during the well-known riot in Moscow on the occasion of the plague 1771. Plato was appointed in his place in 1775. Some Little Russian hierarchs were retired following complaints from the diocesan clergy about the severity of their administration, including in 1768 Metropolitan Pavel Konyushkevich of Tobolsk, a missionary zealot, corrector of the morals of the Siberian clergy and a man of holy life (he died in the Kiev Lavra in 1770). To what extent Catherine was suspicious of these bishops, shows the fate of Veniamin Putsek-Grigorovich of Kazan. Catherine found him the archbishop of St. Petersburg and immediately transferred him to Kazan, where he became especially famous for his missionary work. During the Pugachev rebellion, he was the first of the bishops to rebel against Pugachev, who took the name of Peter III, sending exhortation letters throughout his diocese, in which he denounced the impostor as a personal participant in the burial of the true Peter III. Despite such a service to the government, he was subjected to an insulting arrest on the basis of one unsubstantiated slander by some Pugachev nobleman that he himself was Pugachev's accomplice and sent money to the rebels. After Catherine was convinced of his innocence and hastened to comfort him with a gracious rescript and the rank of metropolitan, but this did not cure him of the paralysis that had broken him during his arrest. Since 1783, Ambrose IIodobedov, a Great Russian from the pupils of the Moscow Academy, was appointed his successor. Only two bishops from the Little Russian party enjoyed some attention from the Empress - Georgy Konissky of Belarus and Samuil Mislavsky of Kiev (since 1783), a reformer of the Kiev diocese on the model of the Great Russians.

The chief prosecutors were chosen people with the most fashionable ideas about religion and the church. Such was Melissino in the 1760s, known for his curious project of ordering a deputy of the Holy Synod to the commission on the Code; here the most liberal proposals were set out to reduce fasting, to weaken the veneration of icons and relics, to reduce worship, to abolish the maintenance of monks, to consecrate bishops without monasticism, to “decent” clothes for the clergy, to destroy the commemoration of the dead, to facilitate divorces, to allow marriages over three etc.; The Holy Synod rejected this project and made its own. After Milissino, the chief prosecutor was Chebyshev (1768-1774), who openly flaunted atheism and interfered with the publication of works directed against modern unbelief. Out of suspicion of the “fanaticism” of the clergy, in 1782 all cases of religious blasphemy, violation of ceremoniality in worship, witchcraft and, in general, superstitions were withdrawn from the spiritual department to the department of the secular court. The opinions of the members of the Synod were rarely respected, except for the opinions of the two members closest to the Empress - Gabriel and the confessor of the Empress, Archpriest John Pamfilov. The latter was a kind of temporary worker and, among other things, an intercessor for the white clergy against the monastic and the bishops; in 1786, the empress granted him a miter - a reward hitherto unheard of in the white clergy and aroused displeasure among monastics and bishops, who saw in it the humiliation of the miter. The members of the Synod did not hide their dissatisfaction with their position, especially the lively and frank Plato. Accustomed to the authority and reverence that the archpastoral dignity enjoyed in religious Moscow, every year he became more and more burdened by his trips to St. Petersburg for meetings in the Synod, and from 1782 he stopped going there altogether, even asked for retirement . The Empress did not dismiss him, but, apparently, lost interest in him and bypassed him with awards. Only in 1787 did she grant him metropolitan, while Gabriel and Samuel of Kiev received this dignity as early as 1783. Gabriel retained her favor until the end of his reign; always even, calm, always standing on a legitimate point of view, the “resonable husband,” as Catherine called him, knew how to show his zeal for the church in such a way that he never provoked irritation, and on occasion to say a weighty word that did not go to waste. The Empress constantly called him to her councils and ordered him to communicate with him on business of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Senate.

The position of Gabriel was shaken already under Emperor Paul I. The tough and impatiently hot-tempered sovereign did not like that the metropolitan did not sympathize with the newly introduced awarding of clergy with state orders and resolutely refused to award the cavalry of the (Catholic) Order of Malta, which the sovereign was extremely fond of. By the end of 1800, the metropolitan was retired and soon died; his place was taken by Ambrose of Kazan. At first, everyone predicted a high position in the new reign for Metropolitan Platon, as the teacher of the emperor, but he did not please the sovereign, because he was also against orders and begged to be allowed to him - an Orthodox bishop - to die as a bishop, and not as a knight; the sovereign forcibly put on him the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. Since 1797, when he was banned from leaving Moscow, he did not take any part in the highest church administration and remained in the shadows until his death, which followed in November 1812.

Chapter 7 The Holy Synod under Alexander I.

The reign of Emperor Alexander I began with a new transformational movement in the state, which also affected church life. Among the closest employees of the sovereign in the first years of the reign was a man who knew well the state and needs of the church; it was the famous Mich. Mich. Speransky, who himself came from the clergy, was a pupil and teacher of the St. Petersburg seminary. Almost on his initiative, in the circle of the closest employees of the sovereign (Kochubey, Strogonov, Novosiltsev, Chartoryzhsky), with the projects of new reforms, they started talking about raising the education and material resources of the clergy - at least from secular persons Speransky was the main figure in the development of this issue. Since 1803 Prince A.N. Golitsyn, a friend of the sovereign's youth and his most trusted person, was appointed Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod; he had a low religious education, initially he even had a negative direction in relation to religion, in the spirit of the 18th century, then, upon conversion, he became the patron of various mystical sects; but at first, when the matter concerned not questions of faith, but only the indicated practical question, it was of no use to synodal leaders. These figures were soon found. In addition to Mr. Ambrose, several new very prominent hierarchs appeared in the Holy Synod, which were: Methodius Smirnov of Tver, known for the good organization of spiritual and educational institutions in all dioceses (Voronezh, Kolomna, Tula, Tver), which he ruled, the famous Vitius Anastasius Bratanovsky of Belarus, then Astrakhansky († 1806), and since 1807 Feofilakt Rusanov of Kaluga, then Ryazansky, a classmate and friend of Speransky, a lively, secularly educated, brilliant preacher, who soon became more influential in the Synod than the Metropolitan himself. With the right hand of Mr. Ambrose was his vicar, Bishop of Starorussky Yevgeny Bolkhovitinov, a graduate of the Moscow Academy and University, who had previously served as a teacher and prefect at his native Voronezh seminary, then as an archpriest in the city of Pavlovsk; summoned to St. Petersburg after his widowhood (in 1810), he took the monastic vows here, was the prefect of the seminary, and finally, in 1804, he was consecrated to the bishop of Starorussky. He was entrusted with the preliminary development of the issue of improving theological schools, which he completed by 1805, having developed mainly the educational and administrative parts of the organization of theological education. In developing the economic part, Anastasy Bratanovsky is credited with a happy idea, which turned out to be very fruitful in practice, namely, about the appointment of maintenance for theological schools from the candle income of churches. After preliminary work at the end of 1807, in order to draw up a complete project on the transformation of theological schools and on improving the life of all the clergy, a special committee was formed from the spiritual (Metropolitan Ambrose, Theophylact, Protopresbyter S. Krasnopevkov and Chief Priest I. Derzhavin) and secular ( Prince Golitsyn and Speransky) persons. The fruit of his work, completed in July 1808, was: a) a new organization of all spiritual education in Russia with the establishment for it, too, of a completely new system of educational administration, and b) finding huge new capital for the spiritual department.

At the head of the entire spiritual and educational administration in the same year, a commission of theological schools from higher spiritual and some secular dignitaries (the same who also sat on the committee) was appointed to replace the committee, which under the Holy Synod constituted the first central institution for this important branch of church administration. , since until now all spiritual education was in the department of some diocesan bishops and even their consistories, and, with the exception of the synodal office of schools and printing houses that existed for a short time under Peter I (1721-1726), did not have a common higher center at all under the Synod. The district bodies of the commission created theological academies, for which purpose scientific conferences were established under them, composed of local learned persons - professors of each academy and outsiders from the local clergy; these conferences are granted in their districts the censorship of spiritual books, the production of academic degrees, and the administration of theological schools through a special external and district board of each academy. The immediate care of the schools was still given to the local bishops, but personally, without the participation of the consistories. New capital for the maintenance of theological schools and church clergy was created by the committee, one might say, out of nothing and without much burdening the state and people. It was based on: a) the economic amounts of all churches (up to 5,600,000 rubles), which were assigned to be placed in the bank for increment, b) the annual candle income of churches (up to 3,000,000 rubles), also assigned to be placed in the bank , and c) an annual allowance from the treasury of 1,353,000 rubles. for only 6 years. In these 6 years, all the above amounts, with increments of 5%, and with the exception of expenses for the transformation of academic educational districts, according to the calculation of the committee, were to amount to a capital of 24,949,000 rubles. assign. with an income of 1,247,450 rubles, which, together with the annual candle income, was supposed to give the Holy Synod an annual amount of 4,247,450. With careful savings, savings and new benefits from the treasury, the committee hoped to bring this amount over time to 8½ million, which is really required for the full provision of both theological schools and all church clergy (from 300 to 1000 rubles for each). But all these grandiose calculations were upset in the shortest possible time, partly due to the concealment of economic and candle sums by the arrivals, partly due to the disasters that soon befell Russia in 1812, during the invasion of Napoleon.

These disasters, together with Russia, were shared by the Orthodox Russian Church. Amid the extraordinary upsurge of religious and patriotic feelings during the invasion of a formidable enemy, it was as if that time in our history returned again when faith and the church stood guard over Orthodox Russia and rescued her from all the troubles that fell to her lot. Bishops and monasteries, as in the old days, donated their long-term savings to her salvation. From its new capital, the Holy Synod donated 1½ million. Then, when the enemy hordes of twelve tongues were already swept away from the face of the Russian land, a wide strip of terrible devastation remained along the entire path of their invasion; Moscow itself was also devastated, with its age-old shrines. Both in it and everywhere the enemy visited, many temples and monasteries had to be restored and the ruined clergy had to be helped. To meet these needs, the Holy Synod had to allocate another 3½ million from its funds. There were many other donations from the newly formed capital. All this, together with shortfalls in its very compilation, led to the fact that in 1815, when it was supposed to increase to 24 million, it barely grew to 15 - that is, such an amount, on the interest from which it was possible to support only one spiritual school. There was also nothing to count on an allowance from the treasury; In 1816, taking into account her difficult situation, after a difficult war, the commission of theological schools decided to refuse to receive even the government sum promised to her. After that, the new capital acquired the significance of exclusively educational capital; from the issuance of salaries from it for clerks had to be abandoned, and this part of the project of 1808 remained without execution.

The events of the Patriotic War also had another very important influence on the state of the church and the highest church administration. Terrible disasters were for Russia the crucible of purification from her recent Galloman passions. In her prayer of thanksgiving for salvation from her enemies, she expressed a bitter consciousness: “About their jealous instructions, these having violent and bestial enemies.” And a period of reaction began against the liberal movement of the 18th century. Unfortunately, our educated society, having lived for a whole century with a foreign mind, has completely lagged behind its Russian life, and therefore began to express its reaction in foreign forms: lagging behind someone else’s, French free-thinking, it turned for religion not to its own Russian Orthodoxy, but to the alien, Protestant mysticism of various Methodists, Quakers, Hernguters, etc. Western sectarians and teachers. The time has come for Bible societies that sought to replace the leadership of the church with the direct self-enlightenment of the Christian in the Bible and with the help of a whole mass of mystical books that were distributed throughout Russia. At the head of this movement stood Prince himself. Golitsyn, who surrounded himself with a whole staff of bibles and all kinds of mystics. Having set themselves the task of spreading the kingdom of God on earth, all these leaders of the new Christianity began to act with all the usual fanaticism of our social passions and caused the church almost more grief than even the leaders of the eighteenth century. Since 1813, the entire staff of the Holy Synod was replaced, except for Metr. Ambrose; - the former members did not meet the requirements of the new time. And the Metropolitan himself had to work hard to stay in place without violating his archpastoral duties. His dearest assistant and support at that time after Evgeny (appointed in 1808 to the Vologda department) was Filaret Drozdov, the new bright luminary of the church.

He was the son of a poor Kolomna deacon (after - a priest), was born in 1782, studied at the Kolomna and Lavra seminaries and, after completing the course, remained in last teacher; here he was noticed as an excellent preacher, Met. Plato and in 1808 persuaded him to accept monasticism. To the great chagrin of the aged saint, the very next year the young oracle was taken away from him as tutor of the reformed St. Petersburg academy. In Petersburg, Metropolitan Ambrose took Filaret under his special patronage and was not mistaken, finding in him an even more dear support for himself than the former vicar Eugene. Another strong member of the Synod, the rival of Ambrose, Theophylact, did not meet the young monk in such a way, who then took into his own hands both the commission of theological schools and the entire academy; for a whole year he did not allow Filaret to teach, then, when Filaret became known in the capital for his preaching talent, in 1811 for one sermon (on the day of the Holy Trinity on the gifts of the Holy Spirit) he almost accused him of pantheism. The matter reached the sovereign himself and ended with the highest award to the preacher and his elevation to the rank of archimandrite. In 1812, Filaret was appointed rector of the academy and was given the opportunity to force out of it the dominance of Theophylact, which was heavy and unpleasant for the metropolitan. Shortly thereafter, Theophylact began to rapidly lose his importance. In 1813 he was dismissed to the diocese (to Ryazan), and in 1817 he was honorably removed to Georgia as an exarch, where he remained until his death. The most prominent member of the commission after him was Filaret, who in 1814 was elevated to the degree of Doctor of Theology. At the opening of a new religious movement, the young archimandrite joyfully greeted him, finding in him much that was good for faith and fascinating for his exalted theological mind, and became an active member of the biblical society. That is why he was constantly on good terms with both Ambrose and Prince. Golitsyn, and for a long time served as a useful link between them, on the one hand, serving as support to the powerful prince of his archpastor, and on the other hand, by the power of his theological mind, moderating Golitsyn's mystical passions as much as possible. In 1817, he was ordained Bishop of Reval, Vicar of the Metropolitan. But this was already the last year, until which some kind of agreement between the zealots of mysticism and the church hierarchy was still maintained.

The Manifesto of October 24, 1817 created an extensive dual ministry of spiritual affairs and public education with Prince. Golitsyn at the head, filled with bibles and mystics. In the first of its two departments - the spiritual - the expression of modern views on the church was brought to the extreme: the Holy Synod was placed in his department in exactly the same position and significance as the evangelical consistory, the Catholic college, the spiritual administrations of Armenians, Jews and others. Gentiles. To top it off, Golitsyn transferred his chief prosecutor's office to another person, Prince. Meshchersky, placing him in direct subordination to himself, so that the chief prosecutor began to represent in the Synod the person not of the sovereign, but only of the minister. Ambrose's patience was finally exhausted, and he spoke out against the minister. After that, he was found to be inconsistent with his post and in March 1818 he was dismissed from St. Petersburg to Novgorod, leaving him with one Novgorod diocese. He died 2 months later. In his place was appointed Archbishop of Chernigov Mikhail Desnitsky, a kind and meek saint, known for his preaching from the time he served as a priest (until 1796) at the Moscow church of John the Warrior. When appointing him a lot, the party of the minister probably counted on his somewhat mystical direction, but the temptation and oppression of mysticism intensified so much that in 1821 they brought this meek metropolitan to a collision with the minister. He addressed the sovereign with a persuasive message, imploring him to save the Church of God "from the blind minister." This letter struck the emperor, especially since the metropolitan died just 2 weeks after it was sent. Since that time, a noticeable turn of affairs against Golitsyn began, supported, among other things, by another strong favorite of Alexander, Golitsyn's rival, Count Arakcheev. Seraphim (Glagolevsky) of Moscow, known among the hierarchs for his strictly conservative direction, was appointed metropolitan. From the very beginning, he spoke out against the Bible Society and entered into a struggle with it.

Archimandrite Fotiy Spassky, one of the half-educated students of the St. than unashamed accusatory eloquence. Arakcheev himself revered him. The richest countess, a philanthropist of monasteries, especially Yuryev, A. A. Orlova-Chesmenskaya was his reverent spiritual daughter and behaved towards him like the most servile novice. His struggle against mysticism began even earlier, when he was a teacher of the law in the cadet corps in St. Petersburg; in 1820 he was removed from St. Petersburg to be the abbot of the Derevyanitsky Monastery, where Count Arakcheev met him, who helped to transfer him to the Yuryev Monastery. Since 1822, summoned to St. Petersburg, he successfully preached against the mystics in various St. Petersburg drawing rooms, was with the sovereign himself, who became interested in his personality, and his sermon on the dangers threatening the church made a strong impression on him. Another active member of the anti-Golitsyn party, who was predicted to replace Golitsyn, was the president of the Russian Academy, Admiral Shishkov, the author of "Reasoning about the old and the new style", an ardent detractor of the translation of the Bible into the "common people", as he put it, dialect. In the spring of 1824, when everything was prepared for decisive action against the minister, Photius made an open and rude attack on him in the house of Countess Orlova: having met him here in front of the lectern, on which lay the cross, the Gospel and the monstrance, the zealous archimandrite demanded from him an immediate renunciation of false prophets and repentance for the harm done to the church. Golitsyn ran away from the house furious, and Fotiy shouted after him: "Anathema." After that, Photius submitted two reports to the sovereign, one after the other, in which he described in sharp terms all the harm that threatened not only Russia, but also all earthly kingdoms, laws and religions from mysticism, and insisted on the immediate overthrow of the minister. The metropolitan also supported these reports at a special audience. The sovereign relented, and Golitsyn was dismissed from both the chairmanship of the Bible Society and the ministry. The Bible Society itself was closed after the death of Alexander under Nicholas I. Shishkov was made a minister, but took over the management of the affairs of some non-Orthodox denominations; the Orthodox part of the ministry was again transferred to the chief prosecutor of the Synod on the same basis. The personnel of the Synod changed again; its Golitsyn members were dismissed to the dioceses, and new ones were called in to replace them, including Evgeny, then Metropolitan of Kiev (since 1822), to replace Filaret. The persecution against everything Golitsyn strongly hurt Filaret. Shishkov and Arakcheev demanded a ban on his catechisms (complete and short) on the grounds that in them not only the texts of Holy Scripture, but even the “prayers I Believe and Our Father and the commandments” were translated into “common dialect”. Agitated by this attack, the Moscow saint in a letter to Met. Seraphim forcefully pointed out that his catechisms were solemnly recognized by the Synod itself, and that such an attack on their dignity by uncalled people with confused ideas about church affairs, which the creed calls prayer, concerns the Synod itself and can shake the hierarchy. But the sale and publication of catechisms were nevertheless stopped; a new edition of them (already with Slavic texts) followed in 1827.

Chapter 8 Holy Synod from the reign of Nicholas I.

Emperor Nicholas I treated the Moscow saint with great respect, and on the day of his coronation (August 26, 1826) elevated him to the rank of metropolitan. After that, until 1842, Filaret constantly personally participated in the affairs of the Holy Synod. Other permanent members of the Synod, besides Seraphim, were Metropolitans of Kiev Eugene and after him († 1837) Filaret Amfiteatrov. The latter began his service as a teacher in his native Sevsk Seminary (born in 1779), then he was the rector of the Oryol, Orenburg and Tobolsk seminaries, the inspector of the transformed St. Petersburg Academy, where in 1814, together with Rector Filaret, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Theology, then Academy of Moscow, in 1819 he was ordained a bishop in Kaluga, then successively served as bishop in the dioceses of Ryazan, Kazan, Yaroslavl and Kiev; he was an ascetic saint, not so much a scholar as unshakable in Orthodoxy, and of a strictly conservative direction in all church affairs. All synodal affairs were conducted mainly by these members. Leading member of the Metropolitan Seraphim, due to his declining years, did not work much. All members, according to the state of 1819, were seven, along with those present on call from the dioceses. The structure of the Holy Synod remained without significant changes until the second half of the 1830s, when Count N. A. Protasov (1836-1855), very memorable for the synodal reforms, became chief prosecutor. Upon taking office, he was dissatisfied with the clerical part in the structure of the Synod, which until that time had been really weak and poor. All of it consisted of only two small departments with two chief secretaries. In addition to them, something like a special department under the Synod was also a commission of theological schools, which consisted in the majority of synodal members. At the initiative of the count, the composition of the clerical departments was expanded and reorganized along the lines of the offices of the ministries; of these, entire departments were organized like ministerial departments, each with a special director and several chief secretaries and secretaries: this is how two chancelleries appeared - the synodal and the chief prosecutor, the economic department, and the spiritual and educational department that replaced (in 1839) the commission of theological schools . The last replacement of the respected academic college by a clerical institution was the most unfortunate part of the Protasov reform, being an inappropriate manifestation of the count's modern fascination with clerical bureaucracy. In its general composition, Protasov's reform brought a lot of benefits to the synodal government, giving it greater harmony and completeness, and remained in its main features for many years; but her impression on the spiritual department at one time was completely spoiled by the arrogance and lust for power of her culprit, who tried to use her as a means to his own predominance over the members of the Synod. This predominance was felt especially hard when a powerful dignitary interfered in purely spiritual matters, in the solution of which, as a man of semi-Jesuit education, he was able, although perhaps unconsciously, to introduce a spirit alien to the Orthodox Church. For example, at the end of the 1830s, like Shishkov before, he raised the case for the correction of Filaret’s catechism, in which he saw an allegedly Protestant connotation in the concept of church tradition, in the absence of the teaching on 9 church commandments and in the presentation of the article on natural knowledge of God from the contemplation of the visible world; he preferred the book of P. Mohyla to the catechism in everything, introduced the study of it into all seminaries and stubbornly insisted that for some reason it be declared a “symbolic” book of the Orthodox Church. In 1839, the catechism, according to the definition of the Holy Synod, was supplemented and corrected, but not according to the thoughts of the count, but in the purely Orthodox form in which it still exists: for example, instead of the doctrine of church commandments, the doctrine of the beatitudes of the Gospel was inserted into it . In the 1840s, the count raised a new case about the Russian translation of our Slavic Bible, and he carried out the Catholic idea that the people should not be given free access to reading the Holy. Scripture, in addition, was included in the Synod with a proposal to announce the Slavonic translation of the Holy. The Scriptures are the only reliable and canonical for the Russian Church, the same as the Latin Church recognizes its Vulgate. The wise caution and firmness of the Metropolitan of Moscow delivered the Russian Church from such harmful definitions. But in 1842, both Filarets, who most interfered with Count Protasov, were removed from the Holy Synod to their dioceses.

Upon removal to the diocese, Filaret of Kiev no longer took part in the affairs of the highest church administration; he died in 1857, 10 years before his death, having secretly accepted the schema with the name Theodosius. But Mr. Filaret of Moscow, even at a distance from St. Petersburg, without leaving his diocese, continued to be, one might say, the main focus of all Russian church life. Tempted by severe trials, he became a wise and reliable leader of almost all Russian hierarchs of his time. Each of them, at every opportunity, considered it his most useful duty to visit him in Moscow in order to take advantage of his experienced instructions and advice in difficult matters, and in case of impossibility of personal communication with him, ask him for guidance in writing. His judgments in ecclesiastical matters were decisive; Count Protasov himself involuntarily listened to his opinions. Since the 1850s, its leadership and administrative significance manifested itself in amazingly wide proportions, which were not limited to the boundaries of one church department, but captured almost the entire Russian life. When looking at the multi-volume edition of his letters, opinions and reviews on the most diverse cases, it becomes even incomprehensible when this strong and versatile mind had time to think it all over. The Holy Synod, various state departments, and the supreme power itself turned to him, as to the last resort, to resolve any perplexities. During the troubled time of the various reforms of the 1860s, the cautious and prudent conservatism of the Moscow saint saved Russian life from many unnecessary hobbies of the reform movement and rendered services that are still difficult to evaluate. The famous saint died on November 19, 1867.

Of the recent changes in the structure of the Holy Synod, the following are remarkable: the establishment under him in 1867 of a control department, the establishment in the same year, instead of the spiritual and educational department, of a new focus for the spiritual and educational department - an educational committee, like the former commission of theological schools, in 1872 a publication for the synodal institutions of the new states and, finally, in 1885, the establishment of a school council to manage parochial schools.

CONCLUSION

In Russia, before Emperor Peter the Great, there were two heads: the tsar and the patriarch. They cooperated and helped each other and the Church had complete freedom. At the head of the structure of the Russian Church, His Holiness always stands. The ruling Synod owned all kinds of independent power. He possessed the power of legislative, administrative, supervisory and judicial. To exercise their power under the Holy Synod in St. Petersburg, there were: the Synodal Chancellery, the spiritual and educational committee, theological and school councils, economic management, control and management of the Synodal printing houses. The number of the Orthodox population within the Russian Empire stretched to 80 million.

The Russian Church has always been in close connection with the people and the state, has never separated from them, and has always served their true good. Emperor Peter the Great carried out reforms for the benefit of Russia, but not everyone agreed with him.

In 1721, Peter the Great established the Holy Synod, which replaced the patriarch. The synod was first called the Theological College. The Russian Church was deprived of independence and independence. From the time of the approval of the Holy Synod, the school business began to develop.

Main regulations The churches were enshrined in the Spiritual Regulations of 1721. During the church reforms of Emperor Peter I, the nature of the management and structure of the Russian Church was laid. The following socio-economic processes were observed in the Russian Church: the alienation by the state of land and other property from monasteries, the further separation of the clergy into a closed estate, the elimination of the practice of electing parish clergy. As a result, the Russian Church ceased to play the role of the most important subject of the socio-economic life of the country. The clergy lost financial independence

In the 1860s, the government took some steps that somewhat destroyed the isolation of the clergy: in 1863, graduates of theological seminaries were allowed to enter universities (in 1879 it was canceled); The charter of gymnasiums of 1864 allowed the sons of clerics to enter gymnasiums; in 1867 the practice of inheriting clerical positions was abolished;

In the field of foreign relations, there was an involvement of inter-church contacts in the mainstream of the foreign policy of the government.

At the end of this period, a number of radical nationalist and monarchist, so-called "Black Hundred" organizations emerged. Representatives of the black and white clergy participated in the monarchical movement, holding leadership positions in some organizations until 1913, when the Holy Synod issued a decree prohibiting the clergy from engaging in party political activities.

Through the establishment of the Synod, the Church becomes one of the state departments. But the Russian Church, in essence, in conscience, did not accept the Peter's reform, Bishop Andrei wrote, speaking of the general state of churchness in Russian society at the end of the synodal era: “Church society almost does not exist with us. In other words, there is no Church as a society, but there is only a crowd of Christians, and then only those who are considered Christians, but in fact they have no idea about the Church.

Upon the death of the leading member of the Synod Anthony in 1912

the political situation around the Synod escalated significantly, which was associated with the intrusion of G. Rasputin into the affairs of church administration.

A heavy atmosphere of distrust reigned in the Synod. The members of the Synod were afraid of each other, and not without reason: every word openly spoken within the walls of the Synod by Rasputin's opponents was immediately transmitted to Tsarskoe Selo

At the end of 1916, Rasputin's henchmen already actually held control of

On February 1 (14), 1918, in accordance with the decision of the Council of January 31, the powers of the Holy Synod were transferred to the patriarch and collegiate bodies.

List of used literature:

1. Professor P.V. Znamensky History of the Russian Church M., 2002

2. "Russian Orthodox Church" // Orthodox Encyclopedia. M., 2000 (zero volume).

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