Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/51

 sanction from the church, and from the patriarch, the head of the church.

It was the opposition of creed against the Asiatic east, and still more the opposition of creed against the west and the north-west, Catholic at first and subsequently Protestant, which developed so effectively the religious and ecclesiastical strength of Moscow, and concurrently its political strength. Ecclesiastical centralisation began with the establishment of the Kievic metropolitanate, and the centralising process was continued by Moscow when the metropolitanate was removed to that city.

. Centralisation against the foreign world signified at the same time a rigid centralisation at home. The grand princes became absolute monarchs, tsars. John the Terrible's new title denoted from the outlook of constitutional law that the state had been modified. This is shown by the fact that on the extinction of the Vladimir dynasty (1598) the new tsar was not chosen from the distinguished house of Rjurik, but was none the less readily able to acquire absolute power.

The minor princes had already weakened the strength of their boyars. In the petty state the ruler was able to take more energetic action, could have recourse to more directly forcible means, than could the grand prince, typical in this respect being the weakening of the boyars in Halicz. Moscow carried this process to its term. But even during the reign of John the Terrible the struggle between the two powers had not yet come to a close, as is indicated by the division of the state into boyarsland and tsarsland (zemščina and opriščina). | Kurbskii's revolt against John shows how the descendants of the princely families were inclined to regard themselves as the equals of the tsar. The final victory of the tsar over the boyars was due to the evolution of the great state and of its administrative needs. As long as the boyars still retained their old military importance, the prince, the grand prince, even the tsar, was no more than par inter pares. Owing to centralisation, the princely families in Moscow, as members of the dynasty, secured a position superior to that of the boyars. More stress was laid upon the boyars' obligation to service; and since it was no longer possible, as in the days of the petty princes, for a boyar to transfer his allegiance from one sovereign to another, service became less free. Primitively, the boyars not in service enjoyed higher prestige