Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/58

Rh As Ivan still hesitated, and from his camp continued negotiations, Vassian again argued and earnestly besought him, in "the name of the metropolitan and of us all, representatives of Jesus Christ," to march against Akhmet, blessing "him and his son and his warriors, children of Christ."

A sudden and extraordinary panic spread through the hostile camps, and each fled from before the other, without striking a blow. The Russians were the first to rally, and Ivan reaped the fruits of the campaign.

The Tatar power, exhausted and broken by dissensions among its chiefs, was no longer formidable to the empire.

Victorious in war, Ivan was, in peace, a wise, enlightened, and magnificent prince. He assumed great state, embellished his capital, welcomed at his court scholars fleeing from the infidel conquerors of Byzantium, and endeavored, in Moscow, to revive the glories of Constantinople. He extended his favors to all members of the Greek communion; prelates came to the Russian metropolitan for consecration, and the patriarch of Jerusalem found refuge in Russia from the tyranny of the Sultan of Egypt. While solicitous for the national faith, he was tolerant of other religions. He protected Mahometans and Jews, and exhibited a leniency, extraordinary for the age, towards the dangerous and wide-spread heresy of the Judaizers, which, promulgated in secret, penetrated into high places of both State and Church.

The metropolitan Zosimos, whom Ivan, in the plenitude of his power, had arbitrarily appointed, was convicted of participation, but was simply deposed and relegated to a monastery without further punishment.