The Stoglav Synod ( ‹See Tfd› Russian : Стоглавый Собор), also translated as the Hundred Chapter Synod or Council of a Hundred Chapters, was a church council (sobor) held in Moscow in 1551, with the participation of Tsar Ivan IV, Metropolitan Macarius (presiding), other higher clergymen, and possibly representatives of the Boyar Duma. It convened in January and February 1551, with some final sessions as late as May of that year. Its decrees are known as the Stoglav .
In 1542, Macarius was elected Metropolitan of Moscow and all Russia, and he later supported Ivan IV's coronation and marriage to Anastasia Romanovna. When Ivan left Moscow to campaign in Kazan, Macarius served as head of state. [2] In 1551, the Tsar summoned a synod of the Russian Church, led by Macarius, to resolve discrepancies and issues in the church, as well as address certain spiritual and existential issues of Russian society. [3] Ivan gave four speeches to the council, asking questions on church opinion concerning various rites and practices of the church, and the clergymen deliberated and presented a consensus to Ivan which would be later codified. [4]
There is some debate over the timeline of the council in 1551. The Stoglav document itself, the written church code produced by the council, states that the council began February 23rd and concluded May 11th. [4] However, no original copy of the code exists, and over a hundred different handwritten copies are known. [5] Most scholars, including Yevgeny Golubinsky, recognize the date in the Stoglav, February 23rd, as the beginning of the council. Others, such as Dmitry Stefanovich, suggest that the council begin in early January and ended in February, with the dates in the written code describing the period during which the clergymen compiled the code from their earlier deliberations. [4]
The Stoglav Synod proclaimed the inviolability of church properties and the exclusive jurisdiction of church courts over ecclesiastical matters. At the demand of the church hierarchy the government cancelled the tsar's jurisdiction over ecclesiastics. In exchange, members of the Stoglav Synod made concessions to the government in a number of other areas, such as a prohibition for monasteries to found new large villages in cities. By decisions of the Stoglav Synod, church ceremonies and duties in the whole territory of Russia were unified, and norms of church life were regulated with the purpose of increasing the educational and moral level of the clergy to ensure they would correctly fulfill their duties, such as creation of schools for preparation of priests. [6] In particular, the Sobor forbade the tradition of polyphony and other shortcuts in liturgy. [7] The church authorities' control over the activities of book writers, icon painters, and others, was firmly established. In particular, this was the council which declared Andrei Rublev's icon painting style to be ideal. [8]
The decrees issued by the Synod, the Stoglav, ruled that all traditional Russian rituals were correct, compared to the alternative Greek rites. This unilaterial decision shocked many of the Orthodox. The monks of Athos protested and the Russian monks there regarded the decisions of the synods as invalid. [9] The decisions of the Stoglav Synod that approved the native Russian rituals at the expense of those accepted in Greece and other Orthodox countries were cancelled by the Moscow Sobor of 1666–1667, [10] which furthered the great schism of the Russian church known as the Raskol.
The synod produced a church code named The Synodal Code of the Russian Orthodox Church Synod. It was phrased as a record of questions of the Tsar to the clergy with their answers. By the end of the 16th century the text of the Code was divided into one hundred chapters (or "sto glav" in Russian), and had become commonly referred to as the Stoglav . Accordingly, since these times the Sobor acquired the name "Stoglav Synod". [11] The Stoglav was the basic code of canon law as well as a guide to the everyday life of the Muscovite clergy. There are many hand-written editions of the "Stoglav". [12]
Year 1551 (MDLI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.
A synod is a council of a Christian denomination, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. The word synod comes from the Ancient Greek σύνοδος 'assembly, meeting'; the term is analogous with the Latin word concilium'council'. Originally, synods were meetings of bishops, and the word is still used in that sense in Catholicism, Oriental Orthodoxy and Eastern Orthodoxy. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not. It is also sometimes used to refer to a church that is governed by a synod.
Nikon, born Nikita Minin was the seventh Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' of the Russian Orthodox Church, serving officially from 1652 to 1666. He was renowned for his eloquence, energy, piety and close ties to Tsar Alexis of Russia. Nikon introduced many reforms, including liturgical reforms that were unpopular among conservatives. These divisions eventually led to a lasting schism known as Raskol (schism) in the Russian Orthodox Church. For many years, he was a dominant political figure, often equaling or even overshadowing the Tsar. In December 1667, Nikon was tried by a synod of church officials, deprived of all his sacerdotal functions, and reduced to the status of a simple monk.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1551.
Old Believers, also called Old Ritualists, are Eastern Orthodox Christians who maintain the liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian Orthodox Church as they were before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow between 1652 and 1666. Resisting the accommodation of Russian piety to the contemporary forms of Greek Orthodox worship, these Christians were anathematized, together with their ritual, in a Synod of 1666–67, producing a division in Eastern Europe between the Old Believers and those who followed the state church in its condemnation of the Old Rite. Russian speakers refer to the schism itself as raskol (раскол), etymologically indicating a "cleaving-apart".
The Schism of the Russian Church, also known as Raskol, was the splitting of the Russian Orthodox Church into an official church and the Old Believers movement in the mid-17th century. It was triggered by the reforms of Patriarch Nikon in 1653, which aimed to establish uniformity between Greek and Russian church practices. Nikon had been a part of a group known as the Zealots of Piety in the 1630s and 1640s, a circle of church reformers whose acts included amending service books in accordance with the "correct" Russian tradition. When Nikon became Patriarch in 1652, he continued the practice of amending books under the guidance of Greek Orthodox advisors, now changing practices in the Russian Church to align with the Greek rite. This act, along with the acceptance of the Nikonian reforms by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and the state, led to the rupture between Old Believers and the newly reformed church and state.
In several of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, the patriarch or head bishop is elected by a group of bishops called the Holy Synod. For instance, the Holy Synod is a ruling body of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
The Book of One Hundred Chapters, also called Stoglav (Стоглав) in Russian, is a collection of decisions of the Russian church council of 1551 that regulated the canon law and ecclesiastical life in the Tsardom of Russia, especially the everyday life of the Russian clergy.
The Metropolis of Moscow and all Russia was a metropolis that was unilaterally erected by hierarchs of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1448. The first metropolitan was Jonah of Moscow; he was appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. The metropolis split from the Metropolis of Kiev and all Rus' because the previous metropolitan — Isidore of Kiev — had accepted the Union of Florence. Seventeen prelates succeeded Jonah until Moscow's canonical status was regularised in 1589 with the recognition of Job by the Ecumenical Patriarch. Job was also raised to the status of patriarch and was the first Patriarch of Moscow. The Moscow Patriarchate was a Caesaropapist entity that was under the control of the Russian state. The episcopal seat was the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow.
The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, also called Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia or ROCOR, or Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA), is a semi-autonomous part of the Russian Orthodox Church. Currently, the position of First-Hierarch of the ROCOR is occupied by Metropolitan Nicholas (Olhovsky).
Joasaphus I was the fifth Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (1634–1640).
Macarius was the Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus' from 1542 until 1563. He was the tenth metropolitan in Moscow to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as had been the norm.
The Russian Orthodox Church is traditionally said to have been founded by Andrew the Apostle, who is thought to have visited Scythia and Greek colonies along the northern coast of the Black Sea. According to one of the legends, St. Andrew reached the future location of Kiev and foretold the foundation of a great Christian city. The spot where he reportedly erected a cross is now marked by St. Andrew's Cathedral.
The Church Reform of Peter the Great was a set of changes Tsar Peter I introduced to the Russian Orthodox Church, especially to church government. Issued in the context of Peter's overall westernizing reform programme, it replaced the Patriarch of Moscow with the Holy Synod and made the church effectively a department of state.
The Great Moscow Synod was a Pan-Orthodox synod convened by Tsar Alexis of Russia in Moscow in April 1666 in order to depose Patriarch Nikon of Moscow.
Patriarch MacariusIII Ibn al-Za'im was Patriarch of Antioch from 1647 to 1672. He led a period of blossoming of his Church and is also remembered for his travels in Russia and for his involvement in the reforms of Russian Patriarch Nikon.
In the Russian Empire, government agencies exerted varying levels of control over the content and dissemination of books, periodicals, music, theatrical productions, works of art, and motion pictures. The agency in charge of censorship in the Russian Empire changed over time. In the early eighteenth century, the Russian emperor had direct control, but by the end of the eighteenth century, censorship was delegated to the Synod, the Senate, and the Academy of Sciences. Beginning in the nineteenth century, it fell under the charge of the Ministry of Education and finally the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The schism between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and part ofitsMetropolis of Kiev and all Rus occurred between approximately 1467 and 1560. This schism de facto ended supposedly around 1560.
The Accession of Kyiv Metropolis to Moscow Patriarchate was the transferance of the Metropolis of Kiev, Galicia and all Rus' in the Eastern Orthodox from the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to the Patriarchate of Moscow. The metropolis lay in the territory of the Cossack Hetmanate and of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.