Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/272

 248 bolt on her own head. Macarius himself had already come forward, very cautiously, but not unmeritoriously, in favour of several of the attainted adherents of the Church. He had pleaded for Vorontsov, and probably for Sylvester himself. His immediate successor, a monk from the monastery of Tchoudov, Athanasius by name, was more timid, and remained an impassive spectator of the first violent episodes of the Opritchnina. Falling ill, he resigned his see, in 1566, to the Archbishop of Kazan, Herman, who only held it for a very short time. Ivan's new favourites plotted his removal, and suggested a successor, the choice of whom would be quite inexplicable if, owing to the lack of any other information, we were to accept that reputation for savage brutality attributed to them.

Philip, abbot of the monastery of Solovki, a member of the illustrious Kolytchev family, who had been driven from Court by the disgrace into which his kinsfolk had fallen, and forced to become a monk, was noted for his great virtues and his remarkable powers of government: Ivan, it is said, had known and loved him in his youth. The metropolitan see was offered to him. He began by refusing to accept it unless the Opritchnina was done away with. Finally he yielded, and gave a written undertaking not to interfere in politics, nor in the Tsar's private life. This last, which was growing more and more irregular and dissolute, was beginning to cause general dissatisfaction. But at the same time, Ivan recognised the new pontiff's right of intercession: 'Your duty is not to go against the Sovereign's will, but to endeavour to turn his wrath aside.' In the result, the Tsar soon began to avoid seeing the Metropolitan. But they lived too near each other. Even when he was at the Sloboda at Alexandrov, Ivan was obliged to pay occasional visits to his capital, and put in an appearance in the churches there. On such occasions, meetings were inevitable.

One Sunday—it was on May 31, 1568—the Tsar entered the Cathedral of the Assumption, attended by his Opritchniki disguised as monks, and asked, as usual, for the Metropolitan's blessing. Philip held his peace. Three times Ivan returned to the charge, each time in vain. At last, when the boïars reproached him, the pontiff broke the silence, and before the astounded company a tragic dialogue between the two men ensued. In a long discourse Philip enumerated all the Sovereign's crimes and all his debauchery, the monarch vainly striving to interrupt him.

'If the living souls were to hold their peace,' said the priest, 'the very stones of this church would speak, and cry out against thee!'

'Hold thy peace!' said the Tsar over and over again