Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/90

64 revised their calculations, and fixed upon the year 1699. The final destruction was to take place in 1702. Peter returned from his first great journey to Europe a few days before the anticipated coming of antichrist, to be hailed as the expected one.

Peter, were it simply as guardian of Muscovite tradition, was anything but tolerant vis-à-vis the raskolniki. Their propaganda was made a capital offence. It was decreed that they must attend Orthodox churches and must have their children baptized in the Orthodox manner. They were excluded from all public offices, and were not allowed to take oaths. They were compelled to pay double taxes, had extra taxation for wearing a beard, and were forced to assume distinctive dress.

In one respect, a matter of form, Peter's conservative opponents were right. The establishment of the synod was uncanonical and autocratic. It was true that this body was composed of clergy, and that Peter had his ecclesiastical reforms confirmed by the Russian and the Greek hierarchs; but it is demonstrable that, as far as the Russians were concerned, the continuation was the fruit of compulsion, whilst in the case of the eastern patriarchs, no more than two visited St. Petersburg, and this was subsequently, when the synod had already exercised its functions.

HE reforms of Peter and his collaborators secularised theocratic Russia to a considerable extent, so that it is permissible to' speak of a contrast between the Russia of St. Petersburg and the Russia of Moscow. Moscow's civilisation and outlook were thoroughly clericalised and ecclesiasticised; Peter made the state the determinative organ of politics and civilisation. When Peter extolled army reform in the words, "We have emerged into light from darkness," he gave a fairly accurate characterisation of the significance of the new Russia. The medieval Russian theocracy acquired a new head, the state a new centre; St. Petersburg, the seaport capital, replacing Moscow, the midland capital.

A secular and non-theological character was likewise manifest in seventeenth-century literature, even theological literature. Peter had little time to spare for Russian literature,