NIKON [NIKITA MININ] 0605-1680, 6th patriarch of Mos cow, Russian reformer and statesman, son of a peasant farmer named Mina, was born on May 7, i6o5, in the village of Valma novo, 90 versts from Nijni-Novgorod. Misery pursued the child from his cradle, and prematurely hardened a character not naturally soft ; he ran away from home to save his life from an inhuman stepmother. He took orders, and became a popular preacher in Moscow, then, seeing in the loss of his three little children a providential warning to seek the higher life, he first persuaded his wife to take the veil, and then withdrew himself first to a desolate hermitage on the isle of Anzersky on the White Sea, and finally to the Kozhuzersky monastery, in the diocese of Novgorod, of which he became abbot in 1643. On becoming a monk he took the name of Nikon. In his official capacity he had frequently to visit Moscow, and in 1646 made the acquaint ance of the pious and impressionable Tsar Alexius, who fell en tirely under his influence. Alexius appointed Nikon archimandrite, or prior, of the wealthy Novospassky monastery at Moscow, and in 1648 metropolitan of Great Novgorod. Finally (Aug. 1, 1652) he was elected patriarch of Moscow. It was only with the utmost difficulty that Nikon could be persuaded to become the arch pastor of the Russian Church, and he only yielded after imposing upon the whole assembly a solemn oath of obedience to him in everything concerning the dogmas, canons and observances of the Orthodox Church.
Ecclesiastical reform was already in the air. A number of ecclesiastical dignitaries, known as the party of the protopopes (deans), had accepted the responsibility for the revision of the church service-books inaugurated by the late Patriarch Joasaf, and a few other very trivial rectifications of certain ancient ob servances. Nikon was bolder and more liberal. He consulted the most learned of the Greek prelates abroad ; invited them to a consultation at Moscow; and finally the scholars of Constanti nople and Kiev opened the eyes of Nikon to the fact that the Muscovite service-books were heterodox, and that the ikons ac tually in use had very widely departed from the ancient Constanti nopolitan models, being for the most part imitations of later Polish and Frankish (West European) models. He at once (1654) summoned a properly qualified synod of experts to re-examine the service-books revised by the Patriarch Joasaf, and the ma jority of the synod decided that "the Greeks should be followed rather than our own ancients." A second council, held at Moscow in 1656, sanctioned the revision of the service-books as suggested by the first council, and anathematized the dissentient minority, which included the party of the protopopes and Paul, bishop of Kolomna. Heavily weighted with the fullest oecumenical author ity, Nikon's patriarchal staff descended with crushing force upon the heterodox. His scheme of reform included not only service books and ceremonies but the use of the "newfangled" ikons, for which he ordered a house-to-house search to be made. His soldiers and servants were charged first to gouge out the eyes of these "heretical counterfeits" and then carry them through the town in derision. He also issued a ukaz threatening with the
severest penalties all who dared to make or use such ikons in future. This ruthlessness goes far to explain the unappeasable hatred with which the "Old Ritualists" and the "Old Believers," as they now began to be called, ever afterwards regarded Nikon and all his works.
From 1652 to 1658, Nikon was not so much the minister as the colleague of the tsar. Both in public documents and in private letters he was permitted to use the sovereign title. Such a free use did he make of his vast power, that some Russian historians have suspected him of the design of establishing "a particular national papacy"; and he himself certainly maintained that the spiritual was superior to the temporal power. He enriched the numerous and splendid monasteries which he built with valu able libraries. His emissaries scoured Muscovy and the Orient for precious Greek and Slavonic mss., both sacred and profane. But his severity raised up a whole host of enemies against him, and by the summer of 1658 they had convinced Alexius that the sovereign patriarch was eclipsing the sovereign tsar. Alexius sud denly grew cold towards his "own familiar friend." Nikon there upon publicly divested himself of the patriarchal vestments and shut himself up in the Voskresensky monastery (19th of July 1658). In February 166o a synod was held at Moscow to termi nate "the widowhood" of the Muscovite Church, which had now been without a pastor for nearly two years. The synod decided not only that a new patriarch should be appointed, but that Nikon had forfeited both his archiepiscopal rank and his priest's orders. Against the second part of this decision, however, the great ec clesiastical expert Epifany Slavenitsky protested energetically, and ultimately the whole inquiry collapsed, the scrupulous tsar shrinking from the enforcement of the decrees of the synod for fear of committing mortal sin.
For six years longer the Church of Muscovy remained without a patriarch. Every year the question of Nikon's deposition be came more complicated and confusing. At last the matter was submitted to an oecumenical council, which opened its sessions on Nov. 18, 1666, in the presence of the tsar. On Dec. 12 the council pronounced Nikon guilty of reviling the tsar and the whole Muscovite Church, of deposing Paul, bishop of Kolomna, con trary to the canons, and of beating and torturing his dependants. His sentence was deprivation of all his sacerdotal functions; henceforth he was to be known simply as the monk Nikon. The same day he was sent as a prisoner to the Therapontov Byelozer sky monastery. Yet the very council which had deposed him con firmed all his reforms and anathematized all who should refuse to accept them. Nikon survived the tsar (with whom something of the old intimacy was resumed in 1671) five years, expiring on Aug. 17, 1681.