Topic: Nikon

Nikon , 1605-81, Russian churchman, patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church (1652-66). He undertook an extremely vigorous reform of church discipline and ritual with a view to purging accretions and eccentricities from the Russian rites. His reforms, particularly his correction of service books from the Greek (1654), created a schism in the church and inspired the formation of a major opposition sect, the Raskolniki, who retained the older usages banned by Nikon. Heterodox sects such as the Dukhobors formed and attached themselves to the Raskolniki to avoid persecution. By 1658, Nikon had... Read more