2. Peter Moghila and his disciples
Peter Moghila and his disciples A controversial issue in Orthodoxy today is the extent to which Orthodoxy absorbed alien Western elements into its theology in the 17th and 18th centuries. Few would dispute that in trying to restate Orthodoxy for a contemporary constituency, some Orthodox (notably Cyril Lucaris) used
Protestant theological methods, terminology, and concepts, to stiffen Orthodoxy's resistance to Rome, nor that other Orthodox thinkers, by a parallel or reactive movement, used Rome's theological methods, terminology, and concepts to stave off Protestant influences. Some contemporary Orthodox have seen in these developments a virtual "fall of Orthodoxy", requiring a thoroughgoing reformation to purge out both
Protestant and Roman elements, and restore a pristine Orthodox faith.
Others have rejected this interpretation, emphasizing that the Church cannot defect from the faith. They see the Westernizing period as a perhaps unfortunate variation from the norm, but not in any sense having derailed
Orthodoxy; hence, no reformation is required, only a prudent and discerning attitude to those 17th and 18th century sources which veered too far towards either Protestantism or Rome.
We have already considered the rapprochement between Orthodoxy and Protestantism exemplified in the life and work of Cyril Lucaris. Now we must consider the opposite tendency, whereby Orthodoxy drew closer to Rome. This tendency, it has been argued, was itself exacerbated by the need to roll back the apparent inroads that Protestant thinking was making into Orthodoxy. Ready-made theological weapons for that purpose were to hand in the Jesuit-led armoury of anti-Protestant apologetics developed in the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
1. Peter Moghila The most successful Orthodox leader of this type was Peter Moghila
(1596–1646), metropolitan of Kiev. Born in Moldavia into an aristocratic family, he and his family fled from political upheaval in their homeland, taking refuge in Catholic Poland. Here (as we have seen) a large Orthodox minority lived, in the Ukraine region, then part of the Polish kingdom.
Moghila was educated in a Brotherhood school in Lviv (see previous section for the Orthodox Brotherhoods of Ukraine), and in the Sorbonne, the Roman Catholic theological college in Paris—the most illustrious
Catholic seminary in the world. This time at the Sorbonne did not necessarily indicate any sympathy on Moghila's part towards Rome; there was an established tradition of Orthodox men going to Western Catholic universities for an education unavailable to them in their own countries.
Moghila then served for a time as an officer in the Polish army, but his deepest attraction was to the life of an Orthodox monk. In pursuit of this calling, he entered Kiev's historic Monastery of the Caves in 1625.
Tonsured as a monk in 1627, he was later ordained to the priest hood, and then became archimandrite (head) of the monastery.
Here in the Monastery of the Caves, Moghila founded an influential Orthodox school. In 1632 this monastic school united with Kiev's
Brotherhood school to become the Kiev College. Moghila's religious and educational ideal, embodied in the College, was the opposite of Cyril
Lucaris's—Moghila wanted to "baptize" into Orthodoxy the methods and standards of the Jesuits, who stood at the cutting edge of Roman Catholic education. The College was thus modelled closely on Polish Jesuit academies. Historians have come to differing conclusions about Moghila's motives here. Did his policy spring from a desire for ultimate union with Rome? Or did it grow out of Moghila's conviction that in Catholic Poland, where Orthodox Ukraine was situated, Orthodoxy's best strategy for survival was to steal its Catholic enemy's armour and weapons? In assessing Moghila's intentions, interpreters have found him as controversial a figure as Cyril Lucaris. Whatever was driving Moghila, it is certainly true that his method paralleled Cyril's: where Cyril had used Protestant resources to give shape and vibrancy to Orthodoxy, Moghila would use
Rome's resources. Hence in his Kiev College, great attention was given to learning Latin, the language of Catholic thought, together with the most up-
to-date Catholic philosophy, based on Aristotle, and an Orthodox theology expressed in Latin-Catholic terms.20 Under Moghila's inspiration, the Kiev
College achieved a quality of academic excellence unique in 17th century Orthodoxy.
In 1633, the new Polish king, Vladislav IV (1632–48), recognized the legal right of the Ukrainian Orthodox to their own bishops (up till now, the Polish state had thrown its weight behind the Uniates or Greek Catholics, one-time Orthodox who had submitted to Rome, and persecuted the Orthodox who would not submit: see previous section). Moghila thereupon became metropolitan of Kiev, and thus leader of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. He used his new-found authority to stamp the Ukrainian Church with his own vision of reform. In the educational sphere, he introduced Latin as the language of all Orthodox schools in Ukraine, and began using Roman
Catholic theological textbooks in the training of his clergy. This Westernstyle teaching had two effects: it helped to disarm Catholic hostility to the Orthodox, and to equip the latter to understand Catholicism and respond intelligently to its claims.
It was in this context that Moghila's famous Orthodox Confession appeared in 1640. Written in Latin, its structure and spirit were based in large measure on Catholic systematic theologies. The Confession was approved by the joint Russian-Greek Synod that met at Jassy in Moldavia in 1642, whose chief purpose was to distance Orthodoxy from Cyril Lucaris's perceived quasi-Protestantism (see previous section). However, the Synod sanctioned Moghila's Confession only after it was translated into Greek and amended by the Greek theologian, Meletios Syrigos (another vocal critic of Cyril—see previous section). In the original draft of the Confession,
Moghila had accepted the Roman Catholic view of eucharistic consecration (that the bread and wine are made into Christ's body and blood by the words of institution spoken by the priest) and also a doctrine of purgatory.
Syrigos corrected these elements, reinstating the traditional Orthodox view of consecration (it is effected by the "epiclesis" prayer, when the priest prays that the Holy Spirit will consecrate the bread and wine), and rejecting purgatory.
There were some other strictly Orthodox non-Roman elements in the final text of the Confession: for example, the filioque clause was absent,
Christ not the pope was declared head of the Church, and primacy of honour among churches was given not to Rome but Jerusalem (not to
Constantinople, interestingly). Nonetheless, Moghila's Confession, even as revised by Syrigos, remained laced with heavy doses of Roman Catholic thought-patterns. It has been called the most Rome-leaning statement of belief ever sanctioned by an Orthodox council—it was adopted not only by the Synod of Jassy, but the Synod of Jerusalem too, in 1672. As a result of its quasi-Roman flavour, Orthodox theologians since the 19th century, no longer so close to Rome, have accorded the Confession only a relative authority; wherever it goes beyond the teachings of the seven ecumenical councils, they have felt no obligation to uphold it.
Moghila's Euchologion (a prayer book for use in services) also leaned significantly towards Roman forms; although lacking the sanction of a synod, it had widespread influence. Later Orthodox critics have highlighted its denial that the epiclesis prayer is essential to the eucharist, and its acceptance of purgatory (the same two elements that Syrigos struck out of Moghila's Confession). Further, Moghila added explanations before the text of each ritual; the explanations were couched in the style of Catholic scholastic theology.
2. Moghila's disciples Peter Moghila fathered a whole school of thought which, for over a hundred years, would pursue his vision of Orthodoxy. The extent to which this school was capable of veering Romeward was shown in its use of the writings of the great medieval Catholic scholastic theologians, Thomas
Aquinas and Duns Scotus, as textbooks for training Orthodox clergy.
Among Moghila's disciples, the most important were the following.
Simeon Polotski Simeon Polotski (1629–80) was born at Polotsk in Belarus (after which he is named). He studied at Moghila's Kiev College, and at the Jesuit college in Vilnius. He then became a monk in the Bogoyavlenie monastery in his native Polotsk in 1656, after it had been liberated from Polish Catholic rule by the Ukrainian Cossacks. Here his literary career began, with poetic and other works in Latin, Polish, and Slavonic. When some of these were presented in 1660 to the Russian tsar Alexei I (1645–76), he was deeply impressed. The tsar discerned in Polotski's writings an attractive statement of Russian imperial ideology—especially Moscow as the "third Rome", inheriting the authority of old apostate Rome and conquered Constantinople.
Polotski moved to Moscow in 1664, after Polish power had been restored in Polotsk, and established in that year Moscow's first Latin school. Tsar
Alexei also appointed Polotski tutor to his children; he became a powerful court preacher, helping to awaken a new popular taste for sermons, especially among the Russian nobility (two thick volumes of his sermons were published shortly after his death). He wrote a systematic theology, the Corona Fidei ("crown of faith"), which—as one would expect from a disciple of Moghila—framed Orthodoxy in a significantly Catholic way.
Polotski was also a fierce enemy of the Old Believers (see section 3).
Dimitri Tuptalo Dimitri Tuptalo (1651–1709) was born at Makariv near Kiev, and studied at Moghila's Kiev College in 1662–5. He then embraced a monastic life in 1668 in the Saint Cyril Monastery of Kiev, and from 1675 he was in charge of several Ukrainian and Belarusian monasteries. Tsar Peter the Great
(1682–1725) appointed him metropolitan of Tobolsk in 1701, although
illness prevented him taking up his duties; the following year he became metropolitan of Rostov. In the internal controversies of Russian Orthodoxy,
Tuptalo opposed both the Old Believers and Peter the Great's subordination of church to state.
Tuptalo's major work was a collection of lives of the Russian saints, the Menaion, arranged for daily readings within the framework of the Church calendar.21 It was published in a series of volumes between 1689 and 1705, and became hugely popular among clergy, monks, and laity. Tuptalo was also a celebrated preacher, although it was only in the last century that a collected edition of his sermons was published. In addition to theological treatises (e.g. The Mirror of the Orthodox Faith), he also wrote religious plays which were staged (e.g. A Comedy on the Day of Christ's Birth); this
"baptism of the theatre" was another example of Jesuit influence on Moghila's disciples. (In the Jesuit-Jansenist controversy that dominated
17th century French Catholicism, the Jesuits championed the theatre, while Jansenists were stern critics.) Finally, Tuptalo produced musical versions of the penitential psalms which attained widespread popularity in Ukraine, entering into its folk tradition.
Stefan Yavorsky Stefan Yavorsky (1658–1722) has been called the greatest of Moghila's disciples. Born at Yavoriv in western Ukraine, he studied at the Kiev
College, and at several Polish Jesuit colleges—he temporarily became a Uniate or Greek Catholic to pursue these studies. After embracing the monastic life, he ended up back at the College in 1690 as a tutor, teaching rhetoric, philosophy, and theology. His philosophical and theological lectures were based on the Catholic scholasticism of Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. Tsar Peter the Great of Russia (see section 4 for Peter's reign) was impressed by his preaching and his Western outlook; he appointed Yavorsky metropolitan of Ryazan in 1700. When Patriarch
Adrian of Moscow died, and Peter decided to suppress the patriarchate, he made Yavorsky the "exarch" of Moscow (administering the affairs of the patriarchal throne, but without the rank of patriarch).
Yavorsky brought with him to Moscow many theologians from Kiev, in order to mould Moscow's Orthodoxy along Moghilan lines. Yavorsky himself was profoundly influenced by the Jesuits and their aggressive
Counter-Reformation Catholicism. This set him on a collision course with
Peter the Great, who had a strong admiration for Lutheranism. When Yavorsky wrote his theological masterpiece, Rock of Faith of the Orthodox
Catholic Eastern Church, in 1718, its vehement anti-Protestantism was an acute embarrassment to Peter, who had just granted religious freedom to Protestants throughout Russia. The tsar suppressed the treatise; it would be published at last after both Yavorsky's and Peter's deaths.
Yavorsky's militant hostility to Protestantism, as well as his opposition to Peter's plans for stripping the Russian Church of its autonomy from the state, had already cost Yavorsky the tsar's favour long before Rock of Faith.
In 1712, Peter prohibited him from preaching; in 1718 he was sent into "internal exile" in St Petersburg, where he was exposed to non-stop political harassment. When Peter replaced the Moscow patriarchate with the Holy
Synod in 1721 (see section 4), he appointed Yavorsky its first president, though Yavorsky detested the Synod as a tool of state control. He died the following year. It has been said that his troubled life embodied the contradictions of early 18th century Russia, as Yavorsky simultaneously promoted the Westernisation of Russian religion in one area (conforming it to Jesuit Counter-Reformation ideals), while opposing it in another
(resisting Western-style state control of the Church, which was just as pronounced in Catholic as in Protestant countries).