Peter the Great Replaces the Patriarch with the Holy Synod

Adrian, the last patriarch of Moscow, was given no successor; Metropolitan Stephen of Ryazan filled his place “but without that Title”, as Thomas Consett, the English translator of these documents, noted (Spiritual Regulation, signatures, with Consett’s note (p. 113)). For the office itself see the founding of the patriarchate in 1589. Consett, who published the documents in 1729, wrote that Peter the Great had “prevented the Succession of Patriarchs” because he thought that their power would obstruct his designs (Spiritual Regulation, Consett’s preface, p. xv).

On 25 January 1721, by the Old Style calendar, Peter signed at Saint Petersburg a manifesto establishing a Spiritual College (Spiritual Regulation, manifesto, closing lines, in the Russian edition of 1904). He wrote that he saw much disorder among the clergy, feared to answer to God for neglecting it and found no better remedy than government by a council. All his subjects were to obey the college’s decrees, and it might add to its rules only with his consent. Its members were a president, two vice-presidents, four councillors and four assessors (Spiritual Regulation, manifesto (pp. 3–5)). Each swore an oath acknowledging that the monarch of all Russia “is the Supreme Judge of this Spiritual College” (Spiritual Regulation, oath of the members (p. 10)).

The first part of the Regulation argues the case for a council. It finds the truth better than one man can, its work does not stop when a member is absent or dies, and it leaves less room for partiality and bribes (Spiritual Regulation, part 1, reasons 1, 4 and 5 (pp. 15–18)). Above all, the common people do not know how the spiritual power differs from the sovereign’s. Seeing the honour paid to a single chief pastor, they take him for “a second Sovereign, equal in Power to the King himself, or above him”, and in a quarrel they side with him against their ruler (Spiritual Regulation, part 1, reason 7 (pp. 18–20)). Consett judged this section “particularly level’d against Patriarchal Power” (Spiritual Regulation, Consett’s preface, p. xv). Feofan Prokopovich, bishop of Pskov, signed the Regulation with the other bishops (Spiritual Regulation, signatures, with Consett’s note (p. 114)); Muravyov, a nineteenth-century official of the Synod, says that its composition had been entrusted to him (Muravyov, History of the Church of Russia, p. 283).

The college then put questions to the tsar. For the church services in which the patriarch used to be named it proposed a title of its own, and Peter wrote in his own hand: “the most holy Synod”. The college also asked that no orders be issued in the name of a patriarch, because it was “invested with the Patriarchal Honour, Power, and Dignity” (Spiritual Regulation, the college’s points with the tsar’s resolutions (pp. 124–126)).

On 23 September 1723 Patriarch Jeremias of Constantinople wrote that he confirmed the Synod instituted by Peter. It was to be called “our Brother in Christ, the Holy and Sacred Synod” and had authority to do all that the four patriarchal thrones do, and he charged it to keep the canons of the seven ecumenical councils (Muravyov, History of the Church of Russia, letter of Patriarch Jeremias, 23 September 1723 (pp. 287–288)). A council of the Russian church restored the patriarchate in November 1917 (Local Council of 1917–1918, Determinations, no. 1 (4 November 1917)); see the church in the Russian Revolution.