Nikon

Nikon (1605-81), patriarch of Moscow and all Russia and initiator of a series of liturgical reforms that led to a major schism in the Russian Orthodox church. A married priest in Moscow for ten years, Nikon, after his wife died, became a monk and was eventually elevated to the positions of archbishop of Novgorod (1649) and patriarch (1652). Enjoying the friendship of Tsar Alexis I, he affirmed the absolute superiority of the church over the state and swore the tsar to obedience. Nikon proceeded to establish an opulent patriarchal court that rivaled the tsar's. At the same time, he undertook to make Russian liturgical practices conform to the contemporary usage of the Greek church. Through these reforms, which included a revision of all liturgical books, he believed that Russia would become the spiritual as well as the political bulwark of orthodoxy.

Several leading members of the clergy and millions of the faithful rejected the reforms, however, and the resulting schism of so-called Old Believers weakened the church in its relations with the government and led to the development of numerous anti-institutional sects. The opposition to Nikon's reforms was based in part on unenlightened conservatism, but also on the belief that Russia, after the Ottoman conquest (1453) of Constantinople (present-day İstanbul), should no longer be bound by the example of the Greek church. Nikon's authoritarian and arbitrary methods intensified the opposition. When the tsar was in Poland (1654-56), Nikon served as coruler and alienated the boyars and other state officials. The tsar was finally persuaded to depose him in 1658, and Nikon retired to a monastery, but his reforms were confirmed by the Great Council of Moscow (1666-67).