Social Mobility and the Russian Parish Clergy in the Eighteenth Century release_v5ktwxuitfaynid66hdak5ha44

Abstract

The eighteenth century marked a crucial new period in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. In Muscovy the church had been an institution of paramount importance: it possessed enormous wealth, exercised considerable influence on the theocratic politics of Muscovy, and held a virtual monopoly over culture and art. During the eighteenth century, however, this awesome power and wealth all but vanished. The secularized state wrought fundamental changes in the church: it replaced the patriarch with a more tractable Synod, gradually exploited and finally sequestered the church's lands and peasants, and in general transformed the church into an "integral part of the Russian state structure and administration." The church's ascendancy was correspondingly weakened in both society and culture. The ecclesiastical leadership made little headway against the abiding problems of superstition and paganism, and it failed to stem the spread of the Old Belief and of secular culture throughout the population.
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