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10 PROBLEMS CONFRONTING RUSSIA
State government cannot be called " Caesaro-Papacy," as
it is sometimes erroneously styled ; but at any rate it was
a national State institution serving religious and political
purposes.
The father and predecessor of Peter the Great, Tsar
Alexis Michaelovitch, commanded the Patriarch Nikon to
correct mistakes in the translation of the Holy Books.
Nikon’s corrections, which were by no means a reform, but
were only meant to be an improvement of the texts which
had been transcribed, with many mistakes, by ignorant
monks, brought about a religious schism, by which those
who refused to accept the corrections of Nikon broke away
and formed a separate body called the " Old Believers."
These Old Believers had to endure many hardships until
the year 1905, when they were recognised by the Russian
Government. However, the Orthodox Church had up to
the Revolution still many prerogatives, for instance, that
of religious propaganda, while all other denominations were
forbidden to proselytise.
The religious mind of the Russian people has also found
expression in numerous religious sects, of which many bear
distinct traces of higher spiritual conceptions and purer
ethical principles.
The veneration of the numerous saints is another feature
of the same order. Lectures describing their pious life,
charity, Christian forbearance, and confidence in God, form
a most popular pastime among the peasants at village social
gatherings.
Up to the time of Peter the Great, the clergy were the
chief representatives of national culture. When the House
of Rurik, the founder of the Empire, had died out, the
nation turned to Philaret, Patriarch of Moscow, asking him
to crown his son, Michael Romanoff, Tsar of Russia.
Peter the Great, as already stated, revised the position
of the clergy in the State and gave precedence to the
nobility.
It fell to the lot of the Russian nobility to become the
chief factor of progress, of learning, and of intellectual
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