From the eighteenth century onwards, Russia's southward expansion was closely linked to the so-called "Eastern Question"; in addition, ties with the Orthodox Churches of the Balkan Peninsula and with the Patriarchates of the Middle East were strengthened. In the policy of the tsarist government towards Turkey and the Orthodox Slavic peoples of the Balkans, purely political interests were intertwined with national and religious ideas. The manifold ties of the Russian Church with the kindred Churches of the East depended to a large extent on the foreign policy of the state.

The advance to the east, which had begun even before the XVIII century, intensified in the XVIII and XIX centuries. New territorial acquisitions in Asia, with their ethnically, linguistically, and religiously mixed populations, led the Church to the need for missionary activity among pagans and Muslims. Only a few settlements of Orthodox people, far separated from each other, could serve as strongholds for such work in this vast area [8].

The increase in the total population of the empire, now mixed in terms of religion, until the second half of the nineteenth century was determined by means of so-called revisions, and only in 1897 was a regular general census of population introduced. With some reservations, we can rely on the following data:

1722–1724 (1st revision) 14 million 1762 (3rd revision) 19 million 1812 (4th revision) 41 million 1858 (10th revision) 74 million 1862 (incomplete accounting) 82 172 022 [9] 1897 (1st Population Census) 128 239 000 [10] (fixed) 128 924 289 [11] 1910 (computed) 163 778 800 1914 (computed) 178 400 000 [12]

Thus, the total population of the state from 1722 to 1724 increased almost 12 times.

As early as 1870, the confessional diversity of the population and its distribution over the territory of the state were regarded from the national-political point of view as unfavorable factors: "Although the Orthodox make up the vast majority of the population of the empire, nevertheless, the religious composition of the population cannot be recognized as completely favorable from a political point of view. Thus, on the western outskirts, the Catholic population is concentrated, which is hostile not only to Orthodoxy, but to everything Russian in general. In the Baltic provinces and in Finland, Protestants dominate. The eastern provinces, starting from the Kama and the Volga, are inhabited almost entirely by Muslims; in the Caucasus, however, the religious fanaticism of the Muslims was the cause of a bloody and prolonged war. Moreover, one should not lose sight of the harmful influence exerted on Orthodoxy by the schism; although the schismatics, due to their fragmentation into many sects, often hostile to each other, do not represent anything whole, nevertheless they all look at Orthodoxy with hostility" [13].

The percentage distribution of the population by religion gives the following picture:

Muslims7,138,710,8310,83Pagans (according to official estimates)0,690,70,50,5 [14]

Religion 1858 1870 1897 1910 Orthodox (with fellow believers) 72,63 70,8 69,9 69,9 Old Believers (officially registered) 1,05 1,4 ? ? Armenian-Gregorians 0,68 0,8 ? ? Uniates (according to official data, absent) 0,31 0,3 ? 0,96 Roman Rite Catholics 9,05 7,9 9,91 8,9 Protestants 5,4 5,2 4,85 4,85 Other Christian denominations (mostly sects) — — 0,85 ? Judaists 3,06 3,2 4,5 4,5

These government data, especially with regard to Old Believers and sects, can by no means be considered completely reliable. According to the report of the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod for 1912, there were 99,166,662 Orthodox Christians in the empire [15]. But in view of the fact that the majority of Old Believers and sectarians officially presented themselves as Orthodox, approximately 15 million should be deducted from this number [16]

. Then it turns out that the number of Orthodox Christians was about half of the total population. If by the beginning of the Synodal period the "dominant" Orthodox Church had a significant numerical superiority in comparison with other confessions, then by the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century one can only speak of a quantitative balance between the two. From now on, the Orthodox Church was dominant only by virtue of the legal status that was given to it by the laws of the state, having lost the opportunity to refer to the number of believers. The "Russian Church" turned into the "Orthodox Church of the Russian Empire." Now the Church was not in a country that was practically homogeneous in confessional terms, but in a multi-confessional empire. In this we see a great difference from the pre-Petrine time.

These consequences of the territorial growth of the country in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries changed the position of the Church during the synodal period, not only in the religious, but also in the political sense. That internal connection between the Church and the state, which had a decisive and positive significance for Muscovite Russia, now became in a certain sense formal, declared by state laws, but no more (see § 5). The laws on religious tolerance issued after 1905, which established and expanded the rights of persons of other faiths and religions, although they did not deprive the Orthodox Church of the status of dominant, nevertheless significantly weakened the legal basis on which this status was based.

c) Along with the above-mentioned external difficulties that the Russian Church had to face during the Synodal period, it is impossible not to mention the internal difficulties associated primarily with the pastoral care of the Russian people. Under the influence of the reforms of Peter I, which affected all aspects of state and public life, as well as under the influence of the consequences of these reforms, the image of the Russian people changed greatly.

Up to the 18th century, the worldview and way of life of the Russian people were fully formed by the Church, and only by her. Family, social and state life was subject to church regulations. The people's perception of the world was developed exclusively on the basis of the teaching of the Orthodox Church and remained unshaken until the eighteenth century. All state legislation was guided by church norms. Even everyday life was regulated not so much by state regulations as by church statutes. Representatives of all estates (or rather, all strata of the people), from the tsar and boyars to the posad people and peasants, equally felt the need to obey these rules. In all strata of the people, the hierarchs and clergy dealt with people who not only recognized the religious and ethical requirements of the Church, but also strove to fulfill them as much as possible. The religious and moral ideas of the tsar and the poorest peasant were generally identical. The structure of social relations with all its contradictions and conflicts also fit into these ideas. Even when these contradictions resulted in riots and uprisings, as was the case, for example, in the seventeenth century, both sides remained within the framework of the traditional worldview formed by the Church, trying to coordinate their actions with its norms. Before issuing a new decree, the tsar consulted not only with his dignitaries, but also with the patriarch. In preparing the Code of 1649, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, as well as all his secular and spiritual advisers, considered it necessary, first of all, to bear in mind the "rules of the Holy Apostles and Holy Fathers" and the "city laws of the Greek kings" (i.e., the Byzantine emperors). The essential features of the Byzantine tradition were preserved in Muscovite Russia until the reforms of Peter the Great [17]. The first chapter of the Code is devoted to crimes against faith and church order, for the latter was the basis of state and public life. It happened that the tsar came into conflict with individual church hierarchs or exerted pressure on them [18], but it was in principle impossible for him to violate the church canon or any requirement of the church statute. The tsar felt himself to be the bearer of not only state-political, but also religious-ethical obligations. He had to not only rule the state, but also take care of the souls of the subjects entrusted to him by God. If, for example, the decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, in view of the approach of Great Lent, prescribed that the Orthodox people should observe themselves in accordance with church rules, then neither the tsar himself, nor the clergy, nor anyone from the people saw in this interference in the rights of the Church. The Orthodox tsar had to take care not only of the observance of the external order of the state, but also of the internal deanery of his people [19].