dom of Moscow are illiterate," and deduces the
conclusion that the chief cause of all contemporary troubles in the
kingdom is excessive ignorance. He declares, "We must learn from
foreigners, and send our children abroad for instruction"--precisely
Peter the Great's policy, it will be observed.

Another writer, Yury Krizhanitz, must have exerted a very considerable
influence upon Peter the Great, as it is known that the latter owned his
work on "The Kingdom of Russia in the Middle of the Seventeenth
Century." This book contains a discussion as to the proper means for
changing the condition of affairs then prevailing; as to the degree in
which foreign influence should be permitted; and precisely what measures
should be adopted to combat this or that social abuse or defect. The
programme of reforms, which he therein laid down, was, to proceed from
the highest source, by administrative process, and without regard to the
opposition of the masses. This programme Peter the Great carried out
most effectually later on.

Battle was also waged with the old order of things in the spiritual
realm by the famous Patriarch Nikon (1605-1681), who, as a peasant lad
of twelve, ran away from his father's house to a monastery. Although
compelled by his parents to return home and to marry, he soon went back
and became a monk in a monastery in the White Sea. Eventually he rose
not only to the highest ecclesiastical post in the kingdom, but became
almost more powerful than the Tzar himself. He may be classed with the
great literary forces of the land, in that he caused the correction of
the Slavonic Church Service-books directly from the Greek originals, and
eliminated from them innumerable and gross errors, which the
carelessness and ignorance of scribes and proof-readers had allowed to
creep into them. The far-reaching effects of this necessary and
important step, the resulting schism in the church, which still endures,
Nikon's quarrels with the Tzar Alexei Mikhailovitch, Peter the Great's
father, are familiar matters of history; as is also the fact that the
power he won and the course he held were the decisive factors in Peter
the Great's resolve to have no more Patriarchs, and to intrust the
government of the church to a College, now the Most Holy Governing
Synod.

When Nikon passed from power, lesser men took up the battle. Chief among
these was Archimandrite Simeon Polotzky (already mentioned), who lived
from 1626-1681, and was the f