Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/102

Rh task of pacifying and reorganizing the empire, still torn by intestine contentions and groaning under onerous, but necessary, taxation. He convened a national assembly for the formation of a code which should embody all the regulations requisite for the efficient government of both the State and the Church. While inheriting his father's pious and devout disposition, he felt the necessity of curbing the excessive power of the Church, which threatened to overshadow that of the crown. To this end he established the "Monastery Tribunal," consisting of lay members, which was empowered to deal with matters concerning the clergy and their estates, over which hitherto the patriarchal court had held jurisdiction. He further ordered that the domains and acquisitions of the Church and clergy, which had enormously increased, in violation of the ordinance of Ivan III., should be made the subject of investigation.

Then commenced in Russia the mighty struggle between the civil and ecclesiastical powers, in which the final victory was to remain with the State, and then appeared the great reformer and champion of the Church, a man destined to exercise a deep and lasting influence upon the Russian nation and the national Church.

Nikita, who subsequently bore the name of Nikon, was born of obscure parentage, in the district of Nijni-Novgorod, in 1613. In early life he felt an imperative call to enter the Church, and secretly left his home to become a monk. At his father's earnest entreaty he returned, married, and was ordained a parish priest; his children died in infancy, and this affliction seemed to him a summons from on high to renounce the world. He persuaded his wife to enter a convent, and took upon himself vows of strictest reclusion in the Solovetsk mon-