With question 5, the newborn synodals interrogated Peter on a point of great everyday significance, material interest and prestige of the church authorities, namely: about church patrimonies. Deeply rooted in the consciousness of the Russian priesthood and monasticism is the 700-year-old habit, which was also enshrined in the period of Mongol rule, to consider their landowning rights as an inalienable, sacred, ecclesiastical property, a pillar not only of satiety, but also of nobility and moral freedom in the face of the state. Prep. Joseph of Volokolamsk, as well as Pat. Nikon, being ascetics, enthusiastically defended the land rights of the church, seeing in them the armor of church freedom. Taken away by Peter in 1700 under the state jurisdiction of the resurrected Monastic Order, now these property, together with their economy and income, according to the plan of the new bureaucratic apparatus of the state, were under the jurisdiction of many collegiums and were managed with the usual state inefficiency. Now the Spirit itself. The collegium became a state body, not an autonomous one.

And in the Spiritual Regulations it is stipulated that such a government will be due to the Ecclesiastical Collegium?" This brief resolution marked the beginning of a major turn in the way of life of the church and monasteries. The Monastic Prikaz again became an organ of church government, i.e. the same patrimonial ministry, but no longer under the authority of the state bureaucracy, but under the ecclesiastical authority of the Spiritual Collegium, which became the Holy Synod. This is far from being a complete right of property in the old Moscow sense, but only management and use, but in practice, in comparison with the state of affairs that had just been abolished, it was something that both the hierarchs and the monasteries yearned for. This opened the way not only for the masters' use, although controlled by the state in the person of the Senate, of the economic resources of the patrimonies for their direct purpose for the needs of church life, but also for the master's creative initiative, which replaced the psychologically full right of ownership.

The Synod began and successfully carried out a plan to return and uproot from the depths of other Collegiums all patrimonial and ecclesiastical affairs and functions of the former expanded Monastic Order. It was not only a matter of administration, but also of the restoration, according to old laws and practice, of judicial cases over the people of the former tsarist department. Several hundred thousand patrimonial souls again became subject to the jurisdiction of the Synod not only in civil cases, but also in part of criminal cases related to the economy. All this logically began to contradict the bureaucratic system of Collegiums, which embodied the unity of state power. Auxiliary bodies subordinate to it began to grow up around the Synod, and the Collegiums, which were losing part of their competence, turned for help to the Senate, which, as far as possible, restrained this unstoppable growth of the broad competence of the Synod, which grew into a kind of double of the Senate. Such an equation was far from the consciousness of the Senate, and it began to openly "crush" the Synod, as if driving it into its collegial cradle. On this dialectical basis, the Synod began a long and stubborn competition with the Senate for its equality and, in any case, for incomparable superiority over the collegiums. In essence, he defended the very nature of church power, independent of the state. But, alas, he could motivate his rights only by state reasons allowed to him, for example, by referring to the title "Governing". And on the ladder of state institutions, after all, before the Synod and above all others, the Senate already stood. Disguised from the garb of the "Collegium" into the toga of the "Governing," the Synod could seem to the Senate to be only honorably exalted above the other collegiums, but, of course, not equal to it. As early as March 15, 1721, the Synod objected to the Senate's defense of the judicial competence of the Justits-Collegium with reference to the General Regulations: "When the General Regulations were composed, then, O Spirit. The government has not even had an initiative yet. And now... The Spiritual Government is excellent from the other Collegiums, as is the Senate." Peter felt that this confused the system of state unity of administration and court, but he partially made concessions, and the Synod gradually won the rights not provided for by the Spiritual Regulations and which really brought the synodal authority closer in the breadth of its jurisdiction to the former power of the patriarchs, violating the theoretically harmonious system of collegiums in general.

During the period of the locum tenens (from 1700), the period of Peter's wariness against the church authorities, the tsar, in all cases of his administrative work, especially in the new capital and its region, entrusted all church affairs to the Senate and the newly opened collegiums. Such, for example, are the cases of schismatics, heresies, churches for foreigners, people of other faiths, schools and printing houses. Having created a new head over church affairs (1721), Peter naturally considered it necessary to exclude from the jurisdiction of both the Senate and the Foreign Collegium the former powers relating to religious affairs, and transferred all this to the jurisdiction of the Synod. The very essence of the matter inevitably extended the competence of the Synod far beyond the framework of the Spiritual Regulations, which were chained to the category of collegiums. The Synod conducted its struggle for equality with the Senate, which ended in victory, not without tension. Even the episcopal brethren close to the Synod needed an explanation of the position of the Synod, which was higher than the level of collegiums. In March 1721, Metropolitan Ignatius of Sarsk and Podonsk asked: on what basis should he now be in charge of the former patriarchal diocese – is it according to the Senate decree of 1718? The Synod explained that Ignatius did not understand the loftiness of the new Governing Synod: "And in the reports sent to the Governing Spiritual Synod, the honor given by the Tsar's Majesty to this Synod is to explain to it without any derogation and to obey it in everything without question, since this Synod has honor, power and authority of the Patriarch, or almost greater, since it is a council." Taking off his head, the Synod wept over his hair. Having indicated in the same lines that he received all his power from the head of state, he is already hiding in vain only with the beautiful word "council" without real content. It is not surprising that the Senate, in whose interests it was not in the interests of elevating the Synod, bent the line of returning the Synod to the rank of collegiums, if even the metropolitan close to the center did not understand the honor and rank of the newly-minted deputy patriarch.

In a number of conflicts over specific current affairs, the Synod lectured to the Senate about its legal state, if not ecclesiastical, competence, which at times it designated with a rude word of the Peter the Great era: "command." In its polemics, the Synod repeatedly developed several theses: 1) that it was "not subordinate to the Senate"; 2) that it is an "important and powerful government", which was also recognized by the Senate, having signed the Spiritual Regulations; 3) that the source of the Synod's loftiness and importance is the will of the monarch that gave rise to it, that it is the monarch who is the "highest" "power" for the Synod, its "ultimate judge," and no one else, including the Senate. Conducting a polemic with the Senate on the small question of the right to appoint officials (and in the collegium they were appointed by the Senate), the Synod fought off the lower rank of collegiums and apologized for its powers as equal to the Senate. In this peculiar construction of the theory of Synodal authority, the thought of the creator of the Synod, Theophanes, appears to us transparently. By elevating the Synod above the collegiums and equating it at least with the Senate, this "jurisdiction" of the Synod, not without the sophistic subterfuge characteristic of Theophanes, at the same time elevates the Synod above the former patriarchate. He admits that the patriarchal authority was "as if it were his own." This expression hints, of course, that the patriarchal authority considered itself to flow from its own, i.e., ecclesiastical source, and not from the tsar's, with which it was parallel, "symphonic." That is why the form of paperwork was created in the name of the patriarch alone. And now it is as if the power of the Synod (and this is a sophism) has become higher than that of the patriarch, for it does not claim to be "as if it were its own," but depends on the only truly supreme power of the monarch. For us, this conclusion is unconvincing, false. But then, from the point of view of the philosophy of "natural law", and under the fireworks of loud, attention-polluting words and epithets, this blocked the mouths of all objectors. The Synod wrote to the Senate: "And now the Spiritual Government, by the graceful discretion of His Imperial Majesty, has been established, not in a power similar (i.e., 'equal') to this patriarchal rule, but in an excellent (i.e., 'excellent') power, and consists not of one person, and corrects his office not in his own name, but in the lofty decrees of His Imperial Majesty, who, as the Most Pious Monarch, in the image of the ancient Christian kings, To Himself to this Holy Synod for the Supreme President and Judge, he presented the honor, power and authority of the Holy Synod. Ave. To the Synod of his own royal hand he confirmed by signing an equal agreement with Pr. Senate." For this reason, "the Synod, which was established after the General Regulations, was honored with an honor equal to that of the Senate... demands that all the importance be determined by the Ultimate Judge, His Imperial Majesty."

In the end, the Synod finally obtained from the Senate a formal receipt recognizing its formal equality with the Senate. But at what cost? At the cost of renouncing his ecclesiastical dignity and the ecclesiastical nature of his power. He reduced it to the source of the state, to the will of the Monarch. And this was logical for this immediate defensive target. But at the same time, the otherness, the incomparability of church power with state power was forgotten. A new scheme of administrative state dualism has emerged. Two supreme bodies under a single head of the sovereign, the "ultimate Judge", both for the Senate and for the Synod, both for state and ecclesiastical affairs. Through this, the church became only an "Department" in the state.

This dualism of equality violated the original supremacy of the Senate. And it was necessary to come up with some formal way out of the newly clarified situation. A special conciliation body was invented in case of disagreements between the two supreme, fundamentally equal state institutions. Namely, on 6/IX, 1721, the Highest Decree appeared on the so-called "Conferences of the Senate and the Synod". Such conferences took place, depending on the case and initiative, now in the Senate, now in the Synod, and at them two seconded members were representatives of the other side, depending on the place of the meeting. But no matter how much the Synod strove for equality, it could not be fully achieved. The original ideas of the two institutions were different, and this different nature of them constantly reminded of itself. It was impossible to obscure the essential feature of the Senate that it was established ten years earlier than the Synod for a special purpose: to replace the person of the Monarch in special extreme cases, when the orders of the Senate acquired the force of "nominal royal decrees". This alone made the Senate and the Synod incomparable. In addition, the specific essence of the Senate was that it was the guardian and interpreter of all the laws of the state. Later, in 1722, the decree on these exclusive powers of the Senate in all judicial and numerous higher and secondary administrative institutions stood in the form of a triangular gilded pedestal until the end of the days of the empire "like a mirror before the eyes of those who judge." It stood on green cloth in the Synod as well, reminding us of a certain exceptional superiority of the Senate. Being in Astrakhan on the occasion of the Persian campaign in 1722, Peter foresaw that in his absence the Synod would not be headless and unseized, and ordered that the Synod decide the most important affairs "in common with the Senate", but it did not occur to him to prescribe that any Senate affairs should be decided "in common with the Synod", since the Synod could in no way replace the person of the sovereign. Defending its dignity both from the Senate and from the lower instances (collegiums), the Synod could have the only refuge in the person of the sovereign. And all his paperwork, for all 200 years, proceeded under the stamp: "By decree of His Imperial Majesty." Peter himself personally sat in the Synod. Since then, the monumental symbol of the monarch's presence in the Synod has been the ceremonial gilded royal chair under the canopy in the chamber of meetings. Peter exercised his presidency in the Synod, handing over his personal decrees to it casually and everywhere: now in the church, now in the garden, now in the "summer palace", now in the village of Preobrazhenskoye, now in Shlisselburg, now in Kronstadt, now on a newly launched ship. Instead of the Helmsman's Book, the hierarchy got used to seeing its legislator in the living person of the monarch.

Peter's "Domestic" Reform and the Criterion of Ecumenism

Peter and Theophanes, who conspired to carry out church reform, in essence a canonical revolution from above, were not blind children, and, of course, when they decided to confront the fait accompli with the supreme authority of the Eastern Church, i.e., a council of all autocephalous hierarchs, they knew that they would have to bless their bold undertaking. Peter had no motive to revise the seniority of church authorities outside the Russian borders. On occasion, he paid tribute to tradition, i.e., he considered the Patriarch of Constantinople as the predominant patriarch in all Orthodoxy. In 1715, communicating with the Ecumenical Patriarch, he wrote: "I have recourse to a spiritual physician, that is, to our Holy Mother of the Eastern Church and to Your Holiness, as the most important administrator in the universe." In all the patriarchal and locum tenens periods, during the ceremonial liturgical exclamations, the names of the Eastern patriarchs were invariably commemorated publicly. Naturally, on the very day of the opening of the Synod, February 14, 1721, as the minutes say, "there was a conversation between certain people: is it proper in the Russian Church to commemorate the name of the Eastern Greek Patriarchs at a national assembly? Some condemned (i.e., affirmed positively), while others denied." The wait-and-see practice of silence came into force almost temporarily. The result was an inevitable confusion among the people from this silence. The Synod had to react. Theophanes wrote an agitational treatise corresponding to the task against the former practice of frequently commemorating the names of the Eastern patriarchs during divine services. If not so often (but only at patriarchal and locum tenens services) the names of the Eastern patriarchs were publicly commemorated, then the secret commemoration at the proskomedia was common. Theophanes considers this to be incorrect, for as far as the exaltation of the names manifest and eternal is concerned, it has the meaning of "confessing to persons thus remembered our subjection." The sophist Theophanes knows that at the patriarchal liturgies of the Greeks, after the Worthy of the Greeks, the archdeacon commemorates all four patriarchs. Moreover, this was done in our country. It is not a symbol of submission, but a symbol of Orthodox brotherhood and the unity of Orthodoxy. In order to confuse the reader's thought, Theophanes slips in an inadequate political analogy. In the acts of any sovereign, only his name appears, and the names of the heads of other allied states are not mentioned. But the union and friendship of sovereigns is not at all the same as the union of the Church and the unity of faith. Whatever form of government in a particular local church, it is still obliged to symbolize its edinoverie with other sister churches, and not to hush it up. The goal of Theophan is to accustom the Orthodox people to forgetting the very name of their patriarch, and even others, of the same faith. Here is his cunning syllogistic: "The explicit, proper and eternal name of the exalted shows the power of the exalted over the exalted. The Russian Church, however, became excommunicated from the power of the Patriarch, and at first had its own patriarchs, but now, by order of the Tsar's Majesty, the Governing Synod possesses." And to the possible objection that the names of the heads of the Churches of the same faith should be exalted simply by virtue of Christian love, Theophan replies with the abstract thesis that the love of the Gospel should not destroy order and law, just as the existing order and law do not encroach on the power of love. But in the end, Theophan also reveals his main practical motives. It is necessary to accustom the people to the absence of any supreme appellate instance except for their monarch and the Synod created by him: "Let us judge what can happen to us ourselves. Many are proud and disobedient, and they dream of themselves something immeasurable. Those who hear the name of the Patriarch exalted will think that the Governing Synod is subordinate to the pariarch or the patriarch. And when someone from such for an important fault falls before the synodal court, he can be rejected and refer the case to the supreme (in his opinion) patriarchal court. And although it is impossible for him, nevertheless the difficulty of making a stop and giving others an image of fearlessness." Hence the conclusion "that it is not appropriate for us to exalt the name of the Patriarch." But in order to defend his intention, Theophan made a small concession, which in his eyes was the safest: Only when the Liturgy was served by the President of the Synod himself, and only after the commemoration of the title of the Synod, could the Patriarchal names be commemorated. "Since among the Patriarchs, serving the Patriarch himself, the archdeacon at the same time exalts the names of the other Patriarchs, then it is fitting for us, serving the President of the Synod itself, at the same time according to the Worthy, through the protodeacon, after the name of the Synod, as his right authority and as the supreme judge of our Monarch himself in his name, to exalt the names of the patriarchs. But this is not to be done anywhere and from no one else in the Russian churches, for the sake of the wines described." In the end, it was this project of Theophanes that was put into practice. For 200 years, the names of the patriarch and patriarchs disappeared from the divine services of the Russian Church. And only in rare cases, and in general unknown to anyone from the general public, when the First Present member of the Synod served the Liturgy in the house Synodal church, was the only time since Worthily such an exaltation of the title of Orthodox Patriarchs was allowed. During the discussion of this question, at the beginning of the summer of 1721, the President of the Synod Stephen was not present due to illness, but on June 9 he sent in writing his separate opinion: "Your Eminences the hierarchs and other holy fathers and brethren! Since all the ranks of the College should have a free voice according to the rule, then give me a free voice, which is as it is: it seems to me that in the litanies and offerings of the Church it is clearly possible to contain both. For example, thus: "For the Most Holy Orthodox Patriarchs and for the Most Holy Governing Synod let us pray to the Lord in peace," or: May the Lord God remember His Holiness the Orthodox Patriarchs and the Most Holy Governing Synod in His Kingdom. What is the sin in this? What is the loss of glory and honor to the Holy Synod of Russia? What kind of revenge and indecency? Moreover, it would be pleasing to God and very pleasing to the people."

This artless opinion of Stephen, of course, morally reflected the conciliar voice of the silent majority of the Russian Church. Theophanes sensed this with the instinct of a passionate political fighter and decided to immediately cauterize this threatening inflammation with lapis. At the meeting of the Synod on June 12, none other than he, in his typical police style, passed the following resolution: "Having considered them (i.e., Stephen's remarks)

And to him the Right Reverend Metropolitan to send from the Holy Synod. Ave. The Synod of His Imperial Majesty issued a decree that he should not communicate such questions and answers to anyone, as they were harmful and outrageous, and should not use them in the announcement. And if they have been communicated to anyone before this decree, he would immediately return them to himself, fearing that it will not be without difficulty, if he will show himself in this stubbornness, before His Imperial Majesty." With this characteristic act, Theophan opened a long, almost twenty-year period of his power, a period that merged with state terror in defense of the spirit and letter of Peter's reforms not only during Peter's lifetime, but also in subsequent reigns. In this case, the Synod acted against its president as a state-police institution. This discredited the very task of restoring normal canonical ties between the Russian Church and universal Orthodoxy as allegedly politically harmful. But this task, of course, was unavoidable and, after some unnatural delay and silence, it had to come to the fore and be somehow settled.

Recognition of the Synod by the Orthodox Patriarchs

In the middle of 1721, Theophanes, apparently in collusion with the emperor, prepared a draft letter in Latin to the Eastern patriarchs, which was supposed to explain the canonical reform that had taken place in Russia in order to obtain the consent of the Eastern churches. In the archives, this project has been preserved with a Russian translation by Theophan himself. Peter had the tact not to let this project go ahead. There is no request for recognition in it, but only curly literature around the main subject of information, about the reform carried out by the monarch, and not by the church authorities. Some canonical references, beginning with the Apostolic Council, are given only for the sake of eloquence. Peter is depicted as a divinely inspired beautifier of the church as an "anointed one" – "Christ" with a small letter. In the words of Theophanes, Peter "relied entirely on this, as if to invent the best image of church government. And he invented, truly by God's inspiration, such as is the middle ground between the rule of one man being useless and the convocation of frequent councils inconvenient." Consequently, neither the patriarch nor the council. "And I saw such a thing as the courts and councils of the Church, one eternal Assembly. And this assembly of 3 bishops, and with the rest of the brethren with them, archimandrites, abbots and protopresbyters, was formed. In the same way, by the laws and rules of the Senate, and of all the bishops and the most illustrious cynoviarchs, and, what is most important, by arming with his own hand, by signing the fortified ones, and by the title of the Most Holy Governing Synod, and by granting the authority of the Patriarch, he established and legitimized, and by his public decrees he ordered everywhere to be announced." Avoiding a direct request for the canonical recognition of such a new "middle" institution, Theophanes, as if admiring it and trying to infect the patriarchs with it, thus concludes his ornate exposition: "And he has his lawful ruler, Christ the Lord, our highest servant of God, a pious king of both times (V. and N. Testaments) and in this matter imitating himself, the image of the ancient Christian sovereigns, To our Holy Synod for the Supreme President and Judge... And this, among others, is a great blessing, since God proclaimed His Church in the heart of our autocrat... We beseech you with all earnestness, that you receive this gospel from us with all good will. And how pleasant it will be for you, we do not doubt... We also pray to you, brethren,... Help us to pray to God for us, that we may be delivered from those who oppose us, and that our service may be acceptable to the saints. Our Holy Synod confesses from the heart that it prefers to have nothing more than complete agreement with you in Orthodoxy."

This document, which vividly reflects the turmoil of Theophanes' impure canonical conscience, fortunately did not receive any movement. Upon mature reflection, it was replaced by another appeal to Jeremiah, Pat. This document was destined to be included in a series of constituent documents for the church reform of Peter the Great [13].