Nikon, Patriarch (Nikita Minin, 1605–1681)

NIKON, PATRIARCH (Nikita Minin, 1605–1681)

NIKON, PATRIARCH (Nikita Minin, 1605–1681), patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' (1652–1666), best known for initiating liturgical reforms that were strongly opposed by the Old Believers. Nikon's quest for power and wealth generated hostility among the Kremlin elite and eventually led to his deposition by Tsar Alexis I Mikhailovich (ruled 1645–1676).

Nikon's meteoric rise from his peasant background began with his acceptance as a novice by the Makar'ev Monastery (outside Nizhniy Novgorod), which was then a vital center of the Orthodox revival favored by the Romanovs. Nikon met influential churchmen at the monastery who supported his promotion to the rank of hegumen (abbot) and probably also brought about his fateful encounter with Tsar Alexis at the Kremlin in 1646. Impressed with Nikon's bold vision of religious reform, the tsar appointed him to key church positions, first as archimandrite of the Novospasskii Monastery in Moscow and then as metropolitan of Novgorod.

After Nikon's election to the patriarchate in July 1652, he quickly embarked upon the revision of liturgical books that would bring Russian forms of worship into line with those of the Greek Orthodox world. Among Nikon's principal innovations were the three-finger sign of the cross (instead of the customary two-finger sign) and the printing of new liturgical books based on Greek and Ukrainian manuscripts. Under Nikon's orders, the church councils of 1654 and 1656 excommunicated Old Believers who refused to accept these innovations.

The boyars resented Nikon's close personal relationship with the tsar as well as the patriarch's growing secular ambitions, evidenced by his systematic accumulation of monastic estates, construction of luxurious palaces, and purchase of sumptuous vestments and carriages. Relations with the boyars became even more strained when Nikon ruled as regent in the tsar's absence during the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667). Boyar intrigues finally convinced the tsar that Nikon intended to expand church power at the Kremlin's expense. When Nikon retired from the patriarchal court to a monastery in July 1658, in protest of boyar insults, the tsar refused to allow his return to Moscow.

Nikon did not abdicate, however, and continued to rule as patriarch on his estates. When the Kremlin made preparations to depose him, Nikon argued in a nearly thousand-page "Refutation" (Vozrazhenie) that secular authority had no right to dictate ecclesiastical affairs. Even after his demotion to the rank of monk and his subsequent exile in December 1666, Nikon maintained his title and refused to recognize the legitimacy of his patriarchal successors.

Nikon captured the imagination of both his contemporaries and later generations. Old Believers denounced him as a precursor of the Antichrist or as the Antichrist himself. Popular rebels saw the exiled patriarch as a victim of Kremlin intrigues and dreamed of restoring him to power. And many ordinary Russians made pilgrimages to Nikon's grave. Historians have mostly viewed Nikon as a visionary leader who strove for the parity of church and state. Had he been successful, the abolition of the church's autonomy under Peter I (ruled 1682–1725) might have been prevented.

See also Alexis I (Russia) ; Avvakum Petrovich ; Old Believers ; Orthodoxy, Russian .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hemer, Christiane. Herrschaft und Legitimation im Russland des 17. Jahrhunderts: Staat und Kirche zur Zeit des Patriarchen Nikon. Frankfurt am Main, 1979.

Kapterev, N. F. Patriarkh Nikon i tsar' Aleksei Mikhailovich. 2 vols. Moscow, 1996.

Palmer, William. The Patriarch and the Tsar. 6 vols. London, 1871–1876.

Tumins, Valerie A., and George Vernadsky, trans. and ed. Patriarch Nikon on Church and State: Nikon's "Refutation." Berlin and New York, 1982.

Georg Michels