He quite consciously put all these qualities at the service of Peter's reforms, and as soon as after Peter's death the reforms began to change their character and even come to naught, this was reflected in the personal fate of Theophanes. The fact is, Pekarsky continued, that "Prokopovich remained in an isolated position, and his numerous enemies did not fail to renew with greater persistence their attacks on him, attacks that could have important consequences, because Theophan was accused of nothing more nor less than unorthodoxy. Prokopovich realized that after Peter the Great there came a time when neither his knowledge nor his talents could help him, and he threw himself into the squabbles of intrigues and intrigues with which our history of that era is so rich.

Pekarsky gives a concise and apt description of Theophan and the reasons that made him the most sincere and devoted collaborator of Peter. At the same time, the historian explains why it happened that in the last years of his life this highly gifted man turned into a low intriguer and egoist, to whom the bishop's vestments were so little suitable. These vestments undoubtedly played a huge role in the fate of Prokopovich. Had it not been for them, Theophanes' merits as a statesman would have enabled him to rise even higher. Had it not been for them, then perhaps his life, which in the end brought him so much sorrow, would have ended as tragically as the lives of many Russian dignitaries of the eighteenth century.

Theophan should be looked upon not as a bishop, according to I. Chistovich, who studied Theophanes' life and time, but "as a statesman, although his closest sphere was church affairs" [175]. Perhaps Theophan himself looked at himself in this way. However, the historian of the Russian Church has no right to forget that Theophan bore the rank of Orthodox bishop. Therefore, it will be permissible for us to look at his activity and its consequences only as the activity of a bishop and reformer, and not as a statesman.

In the fate of Theophan Prokopovich there are some features reminiscent of the life path of Stefan Yavorsky. However, they were very different people in their temperament, and when fate brought them together, they clearly felt it. It is no accident that they differed greatly in theological questions, and these differences also made them opponents. Theophanes was born on June 8, 1681 in the family of a Kiev merchant and was thus much younger than Stephen. At the time of his meeting with Peter, Theophanes' character had not yet been established to the extent that Stephen had. Therefore, it was easier for him to be imbued with the reforming plans of the tsar. Theophanes, in the world Eleazar (Elisha), became an orphan at an early age. His upbringing was supervised by his uncle, Theophan Prokopovich, rector of the Kiev Collegium and abbot of the Bratsk Monastery. Until 1698, Eleazar studied at the Kiev Collegium; then, like Stephen Yavorsky, he went abroad, went over to the Unia and accepted monasticism with the name Samuel. In the Basilian Order, to which Prokopovich now belonged, they paid attention to the young talented Uniate monk and sent him to Rome. Here he entered the College of St. Athanasius, whose task, with the blessing of Pope Gregory XIII, included missionary work. There he took a full course of Catholic scholastic theology. The collegium tried to persuade Prokopovich to stay in Italy, but he was drawn back to his homeland [176]. In 1702 he returned to Kiev with a stock of Catholic theological scholarship, but completely rejecting Catholicism itself. Thus, the consequences of studying abroad with Prokopovich and Yavorsky were different, which later manifested itself in their religious writings, the writings of the two opponents. Like Yavorsky, upon his arrival in Russia, Prokopovich returned to Orthodoxy and took the monastic name Theophan upon tonsure. Given his education, it would be natural to expect a teaching career from him, and indeed, already in 1704 we see Prokopovich among the lecturers of the Kiev Academy. He taught poetics, rhetoric (1706–1707), philosophy (1707–1711), and finally theology (1711–1715). At this time, his literary activity began, which will be discussed later. Prokopovich's first sermons and the improvement of his oratory belong to the same period. Here, in Kiev, the humble hieromonk and preacher attracted Peter's attention when Theophanes had the honor of addressing the tsar with a welcoming speech on the occasion of Peter's visit to the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral on July 5, 1706. Prokopovich's welcoming speech to the tsar was built precisely in accordance with these principles, which Peter greatly valued in his sermons. The speech was also successful in content: Prokopovich touched on contemporary events, skillfully and opportunely praising Peter's military successes. Three years later, on July 10, 1709, when the Tsar was passing through Kiev after the victory of Poltava, Theophan again gave him a eulogy in the same St. Sophia Cathedral, shining not only with the beauty of his style, but also with his political profundity: he understood how important the victory at Poltava was for Peter and what significance it could have for the future. Theophan also managed to attract the attention of Prince Menshikov. In 1711, Peter summoned Theophanes to his camp in Iasi, where he delivered a panegyric on the anniversary of the Poltava victory. This trip was the first step on the path of Theophanes' elevation. In 1711, Peter appointed him rector of the Kiev Academy and abbot of the Kiev-Brethren Monastery. At this time, Theophanes wrote "Dogmatics", in which he broke with the scholastic method. At the same time, the influence of Protestantism on him became apparent, expressed in the introduction of a scientific-historical approach to the teaching of theology at the Kiev Academy.

For Theophanes, these years were filled with pedagogical work and concerns about the management of the Academy. This was the time of his all-round development [178]. At the height of his activity, at the end of 1715, he was summoned to the capital, where, however, due to illness, he was able to appear only on October 14, 1716. Theophanes, of course, understood that now the road to the rank of bishop was opening before him, but very soon it became clear to him how many obstacles there were on this path. It is impossible to say with certainty whether Stefan Yavorsky immediately saw his possible rival in the newly arrived thirty-year-old hieromonk. One thing was clear: with the cooling of relations between Peter and Stephen at that time, Theophan was summoned to St. Petersburg not only for the sake of preaching. Fortunately for Stephen, he had a weapon against Prokopovich, which, if necessary, he could use – the Protestant elements in Theophanes' Dogmatics, with the content of which, of course, Stephen was familiar. Theophanes, on the other hand, was most interested in the question of how to quickly and easily take up a position so strong that it could serve as a defense against all kinds of vicissitudes. Neither his scholarship nor his theological works gave such a guarantee, it was given only by one thing - active participation in the state reforms of Peter, which the tsar carried out with full conviction, but against the will of the majority of those around him. Therefore, it is not surprising that Theophan directed all his talent as a preacher to the defense of state reforms. Skillfully linking fundamental and personal moments, he knew how to turn things around in such a way that he always received Peter's approval. Theophan was one of the few contemporaries of Peter who knew what and how the tsar wanted to do. We must pay tribute to Theophanes' subtle intuition: he understood Peter perfectly, in a certain sense he even ran ahead of himself, thus creating in Peter a firm conviction that he was facing a man on whom he could rely. All this was the reason that Theophan received the task of developing a plan for the reorganization of church administration. His sermons of these pre-synodal years are characteristic: there is little concern for the religious needs of the faithful, and we have before us a secular orator who, from the historical, legal, and theological points of view, explains and justifies the practice of reforms. Theophan understood that the reforms could be carried out in full only by force, and only on the condition of complete subordination of everyone to the will of the tsar. In Theophanes' speeches, both ecclesiastical and secular, and in all his journalism and other writings, we find the idea of serving absolutism. No one before or after him put so much effort into substantiating this idea as Theophanes. It was also the core motif of his "Spiritual Regulations," because for Theophan the relationship between the Church and the state was conceivable only as the subordination and service of the Church to the state. With his religious convictions, which were strongly influenced by the Protestant idea of canonical territorialism (Landeskirche), such views contained nothing unnatural; he saw no other way out, because only with such relations between the Church and the state could the Church help the reforming work of Peter.

We believe that Theophanes' point of view, which took shape in the mainstream of contemporary Western science of the state, was sincere, and not only an expression of obedience to Peter. Already in one of his first sermons, delivered by him upon his arrival in St. Petersburg, on the occasion of the birth of Tsarevich Peter Petrovich (November 28, 1716), Prokopovich, in the presence of Peter, proved the advantages of absolute monarchy and its necessity and expediency in secular and ecclesiastical affairs (this "predicate" was published in a separate edition under the title "Hope for Good and Long Years of the Russian Monarchy"). He also spoke about the reforms of the tsar, extolling them in every possible way. Theophan brought special joy to the tsar with his sermon on the namesday of Catherine Alexeevna, November 24, 1717, and his speech on April 6, 1718, "On the Power and Honor of the Tsar," which became famous, is also intrinsically connected with his sermon on November 28, 1716, in which he formulated his views even more sharply [179].

Theophanes' sermons bore fruit, and Peter gave him the vacated Pskov diocese, despite the protests of Stephen, who accused Theophan of being infected with the "Calvinist plague" [180]. On June 2, 1718, Theophan was ordained bishop of Pskov. He retained this cathedra until the death of Peter. Theophan lived for the most part in St. Petersburg, helping Peter in the matter of church administration. When in 1718 the tsar first spoke about the need to introduce collegial leadership of the Church, it was clear that only Theophan Prokopovich could be entrusted with the development of the foundations of the future system.

§ 3. "Spiritual Regulations" and the Establishment of the Holy Synod

a) After the death of the last patriarch, Peter was at first content with temporary measures, and only from 1718, when the victory over the Swedes was already beyond doubt, he intensively engaged in the reorganization of state and church administration. According to Peter, both these problems were equally important and should be solved together, and the central state authorities should be entrusted with control over the Church. Such an attitude was unambiguously expressed already in the decree of March 2, 1717, which stated that the "spiritual rank" should be subordinate to the Governing Senate. The policy of the Senate soon placed the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne in a dependent position. After the establishment of collegiums (1718–1720), accountable to the Senate, and the reforms of local administration (1719), a new structure of the state apparatus was determined. Now the time has come to adapt the church leadership to the state mechanism, incorporating the former into the latter. The need for a collegial principle of governing the Church seemed to the tsar to be as self-evident as the subordination of the Church to his royal will. Nevertheless, it was clear to Peter that the introduction of this order looked like a decisive revolution in the eyes of the clergy and the people, and therefore he wanted to give his reform a motivated and intelligible justification [181].

The conflict with the heir to the throne was the last reason for the decisive measures taken by Peter against the opposition of the clergy, which was revealed in the course of the trial. At first, it was important for Peter to create a higher administration of the Church in order to then raise the educational level of the clergy. But it was also important that it was now, in peacetime, when Peter was embarking on the implementation of his program of reforms, that the clergy should work for the state. Therefore, Peter decided not only to reform the church administration by means of an official decree, but, moreover, to support it with a detailed justification [182].

When the idea of abolishing the patriarchate finally matured in Peter and the time came to issue a legislative act that would explain and justify this innovation, the only one to whom Peter could entrust this delicate and responsible matter was the young Pskov Archbishop Theophan Prokopovich [183]. Theophan was undoubtedly the most educated man in Peter's entourage, and perhaps even the most educated Russian man of the eighteenth century, with universal interests and knowledge in the fields of history, theology, philosophy, and linguistics. [ ] Theophanes was a European, he "shared and professed the typical doctrine of the century, repeated Pufendorf, Grotius, Hobbes... Theophanes almost believed in the absoluteness of the state... Theophanes is not only adherent, he belongs to the Protestant scholasticism of the seventeenth century... If Theophanes' "treatises" did not contain the name of the Russian bishop, it would be most natural to guess their author among the professors of some Protestant theological faculty. Everything here is permeated with the Western spirit, the air of the Reformation," writes one Russian theologian [185]. It was important to Peter not only that Theophan possessed all this knowledge, there was another good reason to entrust him with the justification of the planned restructuring of church administration: Peter was convinced of Theophanes' devotion to his reforms. Theophan understood this and fulfilled his task, sparing neither effort nor time, putting all of himself into the matter. He was a devoted adherent of Peter's reforms and an official apologist for government measures, which was manifested repeatedly, especially in his treatise "The Truth of the Monarch's Will". Theophanes' views on the relationship between the state and the Church fully coincided with the views of Peter: both sought a suitable model in the ecclesiastical institutions of Prussia and other Protestant countries [186].

It was natural for the tsar to entrust the writing of the "Spiritual Regulations" to Theophanes, just as it was natural for Theophan to await such an assignment [187]. Of course, Peter gave Theophan some directives, but on the whole the content of the "Regulations" reflects Theophanes' ecclesiastical and political views, while in the style one can see his unfettered temperament. The "Regulations" were conceived not only as a commentary on the law, but were themselves intended to contain the basic law of church administration. However, this goal was achieved only partially and in a far from the best way, since the written text does not contain clear legal definitions even of the structure and powers of the governing bodies [188]. On the other hand, it contains elements that give it the character of a political treatise, the author of which cannot conceal his personal views (one might say, the views of Peter) and his attitude to various phenomena of church life of the past seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century. In some places, the "Regulations" turns into an accusatory sermon or satire. "There is a lot of bile in the Regulations. This is an evil and malicious book" [189]. The author's argumentation is purely rationalistic. He has no sacred concept of the Church as the Body of Christ. Arguments in favor of a collegial system cannot hide the fact that the main meaning of the "Regulations" is not so much the abolition of the patriarchate as the revolutionary restructuring of relations between the state and the Church. With the publication of the "Spiritual Regulations," the Russian Church became an integral part of the state structure, and the Holy Synod became a state institution. The Russian Church is losing its close connection with universal Orthodoxy, with which it is now united only by dogmas and ritual. The Russian jurist A. D. Gradovsky defines it as follows: the Holy Governing Synod, formerly called the Spiritual Collegium, was established by a state act, and not by an ecclesiastical one, the "Spiritual Regulations"... In the view of the "Regulations", the Synod was to be a state institution dependent on the secular authorities" [190].

After the manuscript was presented to the tsar and some corrections were made by him personally (February 11, 1720), on February 23 or 24, the "Regulations" were read out in the Senate and signed by the tsar. On February 14, 1721, the establishment of the Ecclesiastical Collegium was celebrated with a solemn service. Theophan Prokopovich delivered a sermon in which he proclaimed the task of the new "church government" to improve the church and religious life of the Russian people, without going into the question of the abolition of the patriarchate. Theophanes appealed to the "civil and military rulers" with a request to support the activities of the "church government" [191].

In the tsar's manifesto of January 25, 1721, compiled by Theophanes, along with the reasons for the reform, it is indicated that the "Spiritual Regulations" are henceforth the basic law of the supreme church administration, and the reasons for the reform are set forth. This makes the manifesto a legislative act. "By the grace of God, We, Peter the Great, Tsar and Autocrat of All Russia, and so on and so forth...