Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/92

Rh and religion were triumphant, and, under the walls of the sacred fortress, a truce was finally concluded, though at costly sacrifice of territory, and the empire gained breathing-time in which to recruit its shattered strength.

The young tsar Michael, educated in a convent, under a pious mother's eye, was by natural inclination, as well as from early training, of a devout and religious character, and the interests and welfare of the Church were the earliest objects of his solicitude. The first step towards its reorganization was the election of a head to replace the fugitive Ignatius. Philaret Romanoff was the common choice of the tsar, the clergy, and the people. It was approved, also, by Theophanes of Jerusalem, who, sent by his brother-patriarchs of the East to the assistance of the Orthodox in Lithuania, visited Moscow, and gladly lent his aid to restore order and discipline in the Church of Russia.

Worn out by the hardships and misfortunes of his checkered life; in youth a victim of Godounov's tyranny, made a monk against his will, confined, banished, driven from his diocese by violence, long separated from friends and family, for nine years a captive in a Polish prison, now, in old age, restored to his native land, Philaret's only desire was to end his days in peace, and he yielded a reluctant consent to assume the high office and grave responsibilities pressed upon him. By his elevation to the ecclesiastical throne "the extraordinary spectacle, never before or since seen in the annals of the world, was presented of a father as patriarch and a son as sovereign governing the empire," an event most characteristic of the nation and typical of the indissoluble connection in Russia of the Church and State.