Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/88

Rh terests to those of Poland, broke out into open rebellion.

The usurper was slain, his foreign favorites and priests were massacred, and a council of boyars proclaimed Vassili Shouesky as tsar. The Church ratified and blessed the choice. It deposed the foreign intruder, Ignatius, and placed Hermogenes, a prelate of unblemished character and exemplary piety, on the patriarchal throne.

The new tsar professed ardent devotion to the Church, and, to conciliate its powerful influence, as well as gratify the religious sentiments of his subjects, he craved for himself and the whole people absolution for the crimes of treason to the son of Godounov and of submission to an impostor. The venerable Job was summoned for the last time from his convent cell for this solemn ceremony. Blind and infirm, tottering on the brink of the grave, he stood by the side of Hermogenes, clad in the simple black gown of a monk, and received the confession of national repentance. As former patriarch and head of the Church, he pronounced the pardon and remission of the nation's sin, and invoked the blessing of God on the tsar and on Holy Orthodox Russia.

Vassili Shouesky's reign, thus auspiciously commenced, was doomed to end in disaster and ruin.

A second and a third Dimitri, and an impostor pretending to be Peter, son of Feodor, appeared to claim the throne. Intestine strife and foreign invasions by Poles, Cossacks, and Swedes brought the empire to the verge of destruction. "Mounds of graves," says an ancient chronicle, "dotted the land of Russia." The Church throughout remained loyal to Shouesky, the legitimate tsar, and faithful to the cause of national independence.

At Tver the archbishop roused the people against the insurgent bands, and was slain; at Pskov the bishop,