Peter the Great
Tsar of Russia who in 1721 placed the Russian church under a board of clergy, the Most Holy Synod, in place of a patriarch, and required its members to swear to him as their supreme judge.
The manifesto that opens the Spiritual Regulation is issued in his name as Peter the First, tsar and sovereign of all Russia. In it he says that, having reformed the military and civil orders, he fears to seem ungrateful to God if he neglects the spiritual order, and that, after the example of pious kings in the Old and New Testaments, he takes its regulation upon himself (Spiritual Regulation, manifesto (pp. 3–5)). The members of the college he set up swore to be faithful to him and his heirs and acknowledged him as its supreme judge (Spiritual Regulation, oath of the members (p. 10)).
Thomas Consett, who translated the Regulation into English, wrote that the tsar had kept the patriarchate vacant after the death of Patriarch Adrian because he thought that a patriarch’s power would obstruct his designs (Spiritual Regulation, Consett’s preface, p. xv). The patriarch of Constantinople, recognising the Synod in 1723, calls him the “most pious and pacific Autocrat” (Muravyov, History of the Church of Russia, letter of Patriarch Jeremias, 23 September 1723 (pp. 287–288)). See Peter the Great Replaces the Patriarch with the Holy Synod.
In the timeline
- 25 January 1721 (Old Style), firm datePeter the Great Replaces the Patriarch with the Holy Synod
In January 1721 (Old Style) Tsar Peter I puts the Russian church under a board of clergy sworn to him as its supreme judge. It takes the patriarch’s place and the name of Most Holy Synod, and in 1723 the patriarch of Constantinople recognises it.