Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/69

54 the steps of the altar, arrayed in his pontifical robes, a troop of armed men invaded the sanctuary; their leader proclaimed the primate's deposition, and the soldiers, with blows and insult, tore the sacred vestments from his back and dragged him to prison. Philip exulted in being permitted to suffer for the truth, and, turning on the steps of the Church, he gave his blessing to the horror-struck worshippers, with the single admonition, "Pray." Transferred to the Otroch monastery, he was strangled in his cell by the tsar's command, and died a martyr; to the honor of Russian monarchs, be it said, the only one the annals of the Church record.

After the death of Philip, weak and pusillanimous prelates, humbly submissive to the tyrant's will, occupied the metropolitan throne, and all attempts to check the tsar's excesses ceased. The Church sanctioned his frequent marriages, in scandalous violation of ecclesiastical canons, and, unable to protect even its own members, was a silent witness to scenes of atrocious cruelty and unbridled license. An imaginary conspiracy w.as Ivan's pretext for the destruction of Novgorod, still boasting the name of "Great," but sadly fallen from its ancient high estate. The unhappy city was given over to sack and pillage; churches and monasteries were sacrilegiously plundered; the miserable inhabitants led forth by thousands to be broken on the wheel, boiled in oil, sawn between planks, or flayed alive, while Ivan looked gleefully on, racking his hellish ingenuity to devise new tortures. Pskov was saved from a similar fate by the bold interposition of a religious fanatic named Nicholas, who, feigning insanity, dared upbraid the savage tyrant, and so aroused his superstitious fears that he left the