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].

Yes, of course, society in the Muscovite state was extremely differentiated in its duties to the state and the tsar; however, in relation to the Church and its requirements, it was unified. In such conditions, the pastoral work of the Church was a relatively simple task. Unfortunately, this seeming problemlessness was fraught with grave negative consequences. The church hierarchy was inclined to completely overlook the fact that behind the statics of outwardly established traditions, perceived, so to speak, instinctively, there were many problems of a religious and moral nature that still had no satisfactory solution. This led to the fact that urgent issues, such as the school issue, were neglected or completely removed from the agenda. The view of traditional religious and ethical norms was optimistic, even with a degree of pride, for which we will find a lot of evidence, for example, in such a bright personality of the 17th century as Archpriest Avvakum. This circumstance played an important role in the history of the emergence of the Old Believer movement.

The main value was the liturgical nature of Russian Orthodoxy, which seemed unshakable and eternal. This peculiar character was preserved even in the Synodal period, when in many strata of society the signs of the disintegration of the former foundations were already making themselves felt. Here we should also look for the reasons for the contradictions that led to the schism in the second half of the 17th century. Throughout the entire synodal period, the followers of the schism zealously preserved the most important elements of the old Moscow tradition. However, the disintegration of church unity in no way meant that those who remained with the Church, unwilling to go into schism, were ready to sacrifice this liturgical character of their faith. On the contrary, it can be argued that the existence of the schism precisely strengthened the liturgical character of the Church itself, making it almost impossible to make any further improvements (for example, in divine services), although they were very desirable. And yet, for the next two centuries, the schism weighed heavily on the life of the Church, which soon after its emergence underwent a new and severe shock [20].

The reforms of Peter I, having dealt a blow to traditional ideas as a whole, thereby struck the Church. All the reforms of the tsar were imbued with the spirit of secularization, which shook the entire set of habitual norms of people's life. The contrast between old Moscow conservatism and secularizing Europeanization was particularly acute. For that part of Russian society that voluntarily or under compulsion accepted Europeanization, the old traditional order, rooted in the ecclesiastical worldview, very soon began to mean no more than the remnants of the past that had been overcome. The other part of the people tried to preserve their traditions in new living conditions. With each decade, the consequences of Europeanization became more and more sharply outlined, the spiritual division of the people and the lack of mutual understanding between its two parts deepened. It is also necessary to take into account the reorganization of society undertaken by Peter on the basis of new estates, each of which was specially influenced by European views and concepts. Under Catherine II, the process of legal and social division of the people into separate estates was finally completed. At the same time, the pace and degree of actual Europeanization for each of the estates could be different. Speaking of a worldview, it is important to know whether and to what extent new views found recognition and to what extent they determined the external behavior of people and their internal position. Here the radicalism and maximalism of the Russian character revealed themselves: just as fanatically as the Old Believers defended the "old faith", the other part of Russian society renounced its past, unconditionally following the new Western models. The influence of the latter was felt in Moscow as early as the 17th century, but at that time the religious-ecclesiastical criteria according to which these innovations were evaluated were still in full force, but now they were lost [21]. [

The different legal status of the isolated estates, first of all, the uneven and unfair distribution of the state burden between them, for example, taxes and military service, with each decade less and less corresponded to the ancient Russian moral ideas of justice and "truth". The Russian Church did not have the courage to draw the attention of the government to these facts. From the time of Peter I, the right of metropolitans or patriarchs to express their warnings and anxieties to the tsar, the right to grieve, which was an important factor in the relations between the Church and the tsar in the old Moscow period, was finally lost. The state now acted according to the will of the absolute autocrat, the emperor, and the Church helped him in this, unconditionally transferring her support for the church-rooted Moscow autocracy to the autocracy of the St. Petersburg emperors, who in the eyes of the Church remained the bearers of the royal title. The fact that the foundations of the old and new forms of government were different was not taken into account.

The social structure of Muscovite Rus included three main estates: service people, posad people and peasants. In their worldview, these estates constituted a unity, preserving the integrity of the people, since their position in relation to the state power and to each other was determined by their duties [22]. If the tsar was aware of and publicly proclaimed his attitude to the "Orthodox people entrusted to him by God" as a duty, then the estates viewed their attitude to state power from the same point of view. As a matter of fact, it was not so much about the attitude to abstract state power as to the personality of the tsar himself. Only Peter I brought to the fore the concept of the state as such and the idea of public service. Later it will be shown that Peter's church reform followed the same course. From now on, the Church was also obliged to state service. This, in essence, was the meaning of the inclusion of its collegial elite, the Holy Synod, in the state apparatus of administration. The Church, which had served the Kingdom of Heaven up to that time, was now supposed to serve the earthly kingdom as well, according to Peter. The salvation of the soul was what the Russian man strove for. Everything earthly was transitory, relative, had no value for him, and at best seemed to be a stepping stone to heaven. Peter, under the influence of Western ideas, gave the earthly an independent value, which was unknown to Muscovite Russia. The Church had to build this earthly life by educating good citizens, or, more precisely, good subjects of the tsar. The Church was, in a way, the inner side of the social system, it was entrusted with the task of creating a person oriented towards the interests of the state. The Church had to see to it that the Russian people voluntarily submitted to the new demands. In carrying out his reforms, Peter wanted the people to see in him, as in previous sovereigns, the executor of God's will, responsible for his actions before God.

Such a task presented great difficulties for the Church: it had to deal with a completely different flock than before. Peter the Great's reforms overthrew all traditional concepts and ideas. The process of transformation captured the entire structure of society [23]. The fate of the peasantry in this process is especially characteristic. Peter completed the enslavement of the peasants, the beginning of which was laid by the Code of 1649 (Chapter 11), which legally attached the peasants to their places of residence. The introduction of the poll tax created the prerequisites for the transformation of landowners-landlords into masters and owners of "souls" [24]. The dependence of the peasants on their landlords acquired its final forms under Empress Anna Ioannovna, when in 1731 she transferred the collection of the poll tax to the landlords, and in 1739 she issued a decree according to which only landlords, church institutions and factories had the right to own peasants. Later, the legislation and practice of the era of Catherine II led to the complete enslavement of the peasants [25]. [

While the peasants remained subordinate to the landlords and continued to perform duties in their favor, the landlords and the nobility as a whole were exempted from the duties of service that were imposed on them by Peter I. According to the decree of Peter the Great of March 23, 1714 on the inheritance of estates, the nobles who owned lands on the terms of service turned into unconditional owners of estates. This created a legal basis for the transfer of both land and the peasants living on these lands to their ownership. Under the successors of Peter the Great, a number of decrees followed, expanding the rights of landlords, although at first they still retained some duties of public service. But on February 18, 1762, Peter III issued a manifesto "On the Granting of Liberty and Freedom to the All Russian Nobility", which completely abolished these duties. Freed from the need for public service, the mass of nobles rushed to the provinces, where they settled on their estates. Catherine II completed this process with her decree of April 21, 1785 "On the Rights, Liberties and Privileges of the Russian Nobility", according to which the nobility became a privileged estate. Then, by a series of further decrees, the peasantry was finally transferred to his disposal, which remained in this position until the manifesto of Alexander II on the emancipation of the peasants of February 19, 1861 [26]