ve been very easily satisfied, and would have
made no objection to paying such a token of respect to the patriarch as
walking before him through the street once a year, and holding the
bridle of his horse, if this were all. But he saw very clearly that
these things were by no means to be considered as mere outward show.
The patriarch was at the head of a vast organization, which extended
throughout the empire, all the members of which were closely banded
together in a system the discipline of which made them dependent upon
and entirely devoted to their spiritual head. These priests, moreover,
exercised individually a vast influence over the people in the towns
and villages where they severally lived and performed their functions.
Thus the patriarch wielded a great and very extended power, almost
wholly independent of any control on the part of the Czar--a power
which had already been once turned against him, and which might at some
future day become very dangerous. Peter determined at once that he
would not allow such a state of things to continue.

He, however, resolved to proceed cautiously. So he waited quietly
until the patriarch who was then in office died. Then, instead of
allowing the bench of bishops, as usual, to elect another in his place,
he committed the administration of the Church to an ecclesiastic whom
he appointed for this purpose from among his own tried friends. He
instructed this officer, who was a very learned and a very devout man,
to go on as nearly as possible as his predecessors, the patriarchs, had
done, in the ordinary routine of duty, so as not to disturb the Church
by any apparent and outward change; but he directed him to consider
himself, the Czar, as the real head of the Church, and to refer all
important questions which might arise to him for decision. He thus, in
fact, abrogated the office of patriarch, and made himself the supreme
head of the Church.

The clergy throughout the empire, as soon as they understood this
arrangement, were greatly disturbed, and expressed their discontent and
dissatisfaction among themselves very freely. The Czar heard of this;
and, selecting one of the bishops, who had spoken more openly and
decidedly than the rest, he ordered him to be degraded from his office
for his contumacy. But this the other bishops objected to very
strongly. They did not see, in fact, they said, how it could be done.
It was a thing wholly unknown that a person of the rank