p The process of uniting the Russian lands around Moscow was in fact finished in the late fifteenth century; in 1472- 1478 Great Novgorod was united to Moscow; in 1485 the principality of Tver was annexed; in 1486 the VereyaBelozersk independent principality was dissolved; and with the arrest in 1491 of Prince Andrei of Uglich and the death in 1494 of Boris of Volotsk, all of the central Russian lands had been made part of one state of Muscovy.

p “...The subjugation of the local princes went hand in hand with the liberation from the Tartar yoke and was finally brought about by Ivan III,” writes F. Engels.  [221•1 

p With the growth of the political, economic and military might of the centralised Muscovite state, the Tatar-Mongol yoke was finally thrown off in 1480.

p Consolidation of the centralised state involved a tense political and ideological struggle. A new feudal social stratum, the service nobility, the tradesmen and craftsmen and, in the final analysis, the working masses, had an interest in the centralisation of government. Old feudal structures 222 were supported by the hereditary nobility, the boyars and estate owners, who strove to the feudal right to uncontrolled power in their own appanage or on their own land.

In the struggle for the consolidation of a centralised state, the Church took an active role and in 1448 declared itself autocephalic and independent of the Constantinople Patriarchate.

Trends in the Church in the Late Fifteenth
and Early Sixteenth Centuries

p The significant growth of monasteries and their ownership of land in the second half of the fifteenth century disturbed Ivan III and advocates of consolidation of a centralised state. After Novgorod had been annexed to Muscovy, as mentioned earlier, the great prince confiscated a great part of land belonging to the Novgorod archbishop and major Novgorod monasteries, as well as land belonging to the major northern monastery, the Kirillo-Belozersky. This led to opposition on the part of the black clergy and the head of the Russian Church, Metropolitan Geronty, all the more so since the final split between Ivan III and the Patriarch of Constantinople, after the latter sanctioned the separation of the West Russian Orthodox Church from the Muscovite Metropolitanate at the request of King Casimir of Lithuania, placed the power of the Moscow metropolitan in direct dependence on the power of the great prince.

p Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod and losif Santn (1439-1515) spoke for the black clergy and the major ecclesiastical officials. In defense of the interests of the Church Militant, Gennady proposed the doctrine that the clergy was superior to the tsar, while losif attempted to show the tsars should be honoured only “ corporeally" and not spiritually, that they should be venerated as kings and not as God.

p Actively opposing both Novgorod and Muscovite heretics, losif saw his task in consolidating the authority of the Church Militant and the authority of 223 monasticism. In answer to detractors of monastic life—the Muscovite heretics—losif composed his Rule (the “short” redaction). The Rule suggested monasterial reforms, in essence the following: the necessity for communal life, personal renouncement of goods and property, a commitment to labour, and, most importantly, strict discipline and subordination to the hierarchy.

p In 1499 Ivan III made peace with his son Vasily and wife Sophia Paleologus. He banished supporters of his grandson Dmitry and that latter’s mother Elena Voloshanka, who shared the views of the Muscovite heretical circle. Militant clerics persuaded the tsar to convene special councils to judge heretics*in 1503 and 1504. The main denouncer of the heresies was losif of Volotsk who, in the end, got Ivan III to take harsh measures against the heretics: leaders of the heretical movement were executed and most of their followers exiled.

p Apparently at the initiative of Ivan III, the Holy Conclave of the Church of 1503 raised the question of lands held by monasteries; at the time, monasteries owned much more land than the state. At the council “Elder Nil began to speak against lands belonging to monasteries and urged the monks to live in the wilderness and feed themselves by their own labours”. Nil Sorsky was opposed by losif of Volotsk who referred to the authority of Scriptures and the Greek and Russian saints who founded the monasteries to show the need for such lands: “Church property is the property of the Lord.”

p The abbot of Volotsk was supported by Metropolitan Simon and most delegates to the Conclave. Advocates of property became known as the iosiflyane or styazhateli (grabbers); their opponents were called the nestyazhateli (non-covetous) or the Elders from beyond the Volga; Nil Sorsky represented them.

p In this way the Conclave of 1503 helped two ideological trends to crystallise in the Russian Church: the styazhateli and the nestyazhateli. Iosif’s followers prevailed at the council, but were obliged to compromise with secular authorities and agree not to extend their land holdings without the prior consent of the great prince. Former owners would be allowed to buy 224 back their own lands from the monastery if they so desired.

p Volokolamsk Monastery in 1507 was given by losif Sanin to the patronage of Vasily III; his enemies called him “the great prince’s courtier”. losif and his supporters began to actively back Vasily Ill’s policies aimed at consolidating the centralised state. They developed a theory of theocracy, with a doctrine that the imperial power was God-given: “For the tsar is of the same substance as all men, but in his power he is like God on high.” Thus the ideologist of the Church Militant became, in the end, the ideologist of the service nobility.

p Another trend in the Russian Church, beginning in the early sixteenth century, was headed by Nil Sorsky (1433-1508). He was born in Moscow and apparently belonged to the Maikovs, a family of major officials; he became a monk in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, journied to Constantinople and Mt. Athos and upon his return left the monastery “because it gave him no spiritual benefits”, and he was unhappy with the rules. After choosing a likely place on the River Sora “where children of the world did not often pass" in the late 1470’s and early 1480’s Nil founded a retreat. In 1490, at the suggestion of Novgorod Archbishop Gennady, Nil was persuaded to participate in the Holy Conclave of the Church condemning the Novgorod heretics. Like losif Sanin, Nil categorically condemned the heretics, their teachers and traditions.

p Ya. S. Lurye notes that at the time there was no conflict between Nil and his associate, the severe elder of the Kirill Monastery, Paissy of Yaroslavl, on the one hand, and losif of Volotsk and Archbishop Gennady, on the other. losif even used Nil’s “Epistle to a Brother" in the introduction to his discourse on the veneration of icons, later included in the Enlightener. Nil Sorsky’s fundamental writings were copied and preserved in the losif-Volokolamsk Monastery and were popular there.   [224•1 

p Nil Sorsky’s main works, his Rule (Ustav) written 225 after he returned from Mt. Athos and the Tradition of Small Retreats (Predanie o zhitelstve skitskom), were written in the late 1480’s and early 1490’s. They present a programme of moderate reforms in monastic life. In his Tradition, Nil justifies his preference for a secluded life to that of a large monasterial community, but his main call is for moderation in purchases and demands and in the acceptance of alms from those who love Christ. As Nil sees it, the basis of a moral monastic life should be labour. The Tradition forbids a monk to leave a monastery at his own will, the retention of valuable objects in cells, drinking and the presence of women or youths in the monastery.

p His Rule presents Nil’s teachings on “conscious acts”, necessary for a monk in his struggle against “lustful thoughts" and for the achievement of moral perfection. These teachings are based on the works of SS Nilus of Sinai and John Climacos, as well as Byzantine and Mt. Athos Hesychasts. At the same time they show Nil’s profound knowledge of man’s inner world.

p Nil Sorsky denied the political role of monasticism and emphasised its moral, spiritual meaning. Full of meditative, religious, mystical lyricism, his works, at first glance, seem far from worldly vanities. Their programme for the reorganisation of monastic life reflected the interests of the North Russian black clergy. North Russian monasteries constantly came into contact with peasants who were hostile to monastic colonisation and seizure of peasant lands. Nil’s programme for “ non-covetousness" proposed at the Conclave of 1503 was in the interests of peasants and the boyar aristocracy. The latter hoped to secularise monastic lands which would then revert to the great prince and be in turn distributed to the service nobility, which would allow them to retain their own estates intact. Thus after Nil Sorsky died, he was passionately supported by the “great nobles": prince and monk Vassian Patrikeyev, Ivan Okhlebinin and Grigory Tushin.

p Vassian Patrikeyev asserted that “monasteries should not keep lands”, and pointed out the interests of the peasants. His appeal to the people and defense of 226 their interests is remarkable, especially coming from a member of the boyar opposition.  [226•1 

p The fight between the followers of losif and the Elders from beyond the Volga culminated in the early sixteenth century; the losiflyans triumphed. Men from losifo-Volokolamsk Monastery stood at the helms of state and Church; among zealous followers of losif were Metropolitan Daniil, the Bishop of Krutitsa, and the Novgorod, Tver, Smolensk and Kolomna archbishops.

This polemic between losif’s and Nil’s followers, arising in the early sixteenth century, left an indelible mark on literature and led to the development of a polemical tradition that flowered in the mid-sixteenth century.