Alexander Schmemann

6. Russian Orthodoxy (41 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 18

The tragedy of Muscovite Orthodoxy reached its final limit under Ivan, whose reign completed the development of Russian theocracy. In 1547 he was anointed Grand Prince — after the example, he claimed, of the Greek emperors and his ancestor Vladimir Monomakh — and became the first born tsar, “by God’s mercy.” In 1557 he received confirmation of this rank from the Eastern hierarchs. His reign began with the memorable, promising introduction in which the Church again appeared to have a voice, the voice of conscience, the call to Christian “construction.” This was the period of Metropolitan Makari and the Council of the Hundred Chapters, the period when Russian Orthodoxy reached perfection in its own national self-affirmation, although its “well-being” was mostly only external.
But even this was broken off when a terrible reaction set in in the decade of the 1560’s, covering the whole state with the malevolent shadow of the oprichnina.[59] The victory of autocracy was stained with the martyr’s blood of Metropolitan Philip (1569); his accusation against Ivan the Terrible was the last general open accusation against the empire by the Church. “I am a stranger upon the earth and am ready to suffer for the truth. Where is my faith if I am silent?”

 After him the Church kept silent for a long time. His successors, Cyril and Antony, were mute witnesses to Ivan’s acts, “Where are the faces of the prophets, who could accuse the kings of injustice? Where is Ambrose, who restrained Theodosius? Where is John Chrysostom, who exposed the avaricious Empress? Who defends his offended brother?” To Kurbsky’s questions[60] the Russian Church had no answer. Under the weak Tsar Theodore, Metropolitan Dionisi was cloistered for daring to bring accusations against the powerful Godunov; it is true that he was criticized not only for an ecclesiastical matter but for a political alliance with his rival Shuisky as well. But when the patriarch of Constantinople, Jeremiah, solemnly elevated Metropolitan Job to the patriarchate on January 26, 1589, and two years later a decree reached Moscow of the establishment of a patriarchate in Russia, the Russian Church was no longer even in captivity to the state. Together they composed a single united world, forged together in a sacral way of life.

 

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