"I am not called a great sovereign by an impostor," answered Nikon, "so His Imperial Majesty wished and commanded me to be called and written. We have evidence of this: letters written by the Tsar's Majesty in hand.

"The Tsar's Majesty," retorted Prince Grigory, "revered you as a father and pastor, but you did not understand, and now the Tsar's Majesty has commanded me to tell you: henceforth let you not be written or called a great sovereign, and the Tsar will no longer revere you!"

It was then that Nikon ordered the cathedral to bring a simple monastic cassock, a klobuk and a stick, deciding to punish the autocrat and all the secular authorities in a rough way, according to the Gospel: "If they drive you out of the city, flee to another city." Having served the Liturgy, after the ambo prayer the Patriarch read a sermon to the people and began to speak of his patriarchal unworthiness, that he had not wanted to be a patriarch for more than three years, and only the Emperor persuaded him, and henceforth he did not wish to be patriarch in Moscow and went to a monastery after his death.

From such an unprecedented deed, the parishioners were greatly dismayed, the cathedral doors were locked, not letting Nikon out, and they themselves sent Metropolitan Pitirim of Krutitsa to the palace to inform the tsar about what had happened. Sitting in his poor clothes on the step of the patriarchal throne, Nikon imagined a commotion in the palace. Even now, he waited for the Tsar and his advisers to come to their senses and rush to beg the supreme bishop for forgiveness, that everything would still be restored.

And indeed, soon the most prominent boyar in the Duma, Alexei Nikitich Trubetskoy, entered the cathedral with the sovereign's conciliatory words: "Why does he leave the patriarchate without consulting the great sovereign, and from whose persecution, and who is persecuting him? And he, His Holiness, would not have left the patriarchate and would have remained as before."

But Nikon did not need reconciliation, but a decisive victory over the pride of the autocrat, and he replied with ostentatious meekness: "I have left the patriarchate to myself, and from no one's persecution, from any persecution, from the sovereign's wrath against me. And I had beaten my forehead to the Emperor about this before and informed him that I would not be on the patriarchate for more than three years." With these words, Nikon gave Trubetskoy a letter to the tsar and ordered him to ask Alexei Mikhailovich to give him a cell. Trubetskoy began to lose his temper, but restrained himself and, before leaving, asked the patriarch for his blessing.

"What blessing do you have from me?" Nikon answered. "I am not worthy to be a patriarch, if you want, I will confess my sins to you myself."

"I don't care if I hear your confession," Trubetskoy snapped, "it's none of my business!" He hurried to the palace, but soon returned. By the tsar's decree, Prince Alexei Nikitich ordered the cathedral gates to be opened and returned his letter to Nikon.

"The great Emperor has told you," Trubetskoy announced, "that you should not leave the patriarchate and remain as before. And there are many cells in the Patriarchal courtyard, in which you want to live!

"I will not change my word," replied Nikon, offended by such indifference of the Tsar, "I have long had a promise that I will not be Patriarch!" And he went out of the cathedral church.

Opposition

The world did not recognize Nikon, and he decided to renounce the world, secluding himself in the Resurrection Monastery. When soon a royal envoy, the same Prince Trubetskoy, came to him from Moscow, he saw Nikon in coarse rags and iron chains, mortifying his flesh by abstinence, fasting, prayer and great labors. "I was afraid," Nikon explained his departure from Moscow, "lest I, a sick man, die among the patriarchs; and henceforth I do not want to be a patriarch — if I want to be a patriarch, let me be cursed and anathematized!" Nikon ordered another patriarch to be chosen in his place, and in the meantime he blessed Metropolitan Pitirim of Krutitsa to be in charge of the church.

Nikon began to work according to the monastic custom: he himself carried bricks on his shoulders for the construction of a great church in New Jerusalem, began to dig ponds around the monastery and breed fish in them, also to build mills, vegetable gardens and gardens, to cut down forests and clear fields for arable land, to dig ditches in the swamps for the arrangement of hayfields in drained places, to work with a scythe and rake. sweep hay into stacks. In all his works, Nikon set an example for the monks, being the first to get up and the last to proceed from his labors.

Nikon's humility bore not only spiritual fruits. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, seeing him not claiming power and being touched by his ascetic labors, agreed to leave Nikon his possessions: the Resurrection, Iveron and Cross monasteries with all the attached monasteries, deserts, churches, lands and industries, where more than six thousand peasants worked at that time. In order to have enough income for the construction of the temple in New Jerusalem, the autocrat refused to collect state taxes and tributes from them. He himself now and then sent alms to Nikon in the amount of one thousand and two rubles, granted the brethren food from his table, and made deductions from the Kama salt pans in favor of the New Jerusalem Church.