Tsar and Jesuit Debate the Faith
UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES it is remarkable that Ivan honored his commitment to Possevino to discuss religious questions at the end of the war. He cannot have been elated with the way the negotiations had gone; while Possevino, setting out for Moscow on January 23, 1582, made no effort to conceal his combative mood. At Novgorod he refused the archbishop’s ecumenical invitation to assist at an Orthodox liturgy, but insisted instead on seeing the uncorrupted bodies of two Russian saints. After the tombs were opened and shut very quickly, he exclaimed: “Statues of painted wood!”1 Twelve days later, on February 13, he was escorted into Moscow on a sleigh carpeted with the pelt of a polar bear.
This was the moment he had been waiting for – to dispute the faith with the tsar. He would have three opportunities to do so; Ivan was ready. Despite his miseries, he had been boning up on his theology, this time in consultation with a visiting Dutch Anabaptist and some Anglican merchants who had given him a book proving that the Pope was Antichrist.
The first encounter took place on February 21. Ivan warned the legate in advance that the whole thing was a bad idea and would only create ill will. “You see that I am now [past] fifty years old* and have not much longer to live,” he said. “I have been brought up in the true Christian religion, and I cannot change. The Day of Judgment is approaching when God will decide whether our faith or the Latin faith is the repository of truth. I am fully aware that Pope Gregory XIII sent you to champion the cause of the Roman faith, and you may say what you wish.”2
Possevino began:
Your Most Serene Highness.… I want you to know that under no circumstances is the Pope asking you to make changes in the most ancient Greek religion as taught by the Fathers and in the lawful Synods. He is simply urging you to acknowledge its pristine form, embrace it fully, and preserve it intact in your Kingdom…. His Holiness is highly attracted by the suggestions contained in your letter that he arrange for a treaty among the Christian rulers.
He is also impressed with the letter you wrote to King Stefan, in which you said that the Emperor of Constantinople and the whole of the East acknowledged the unity of the faith at the Council of Florence.… If you think that the decisions taken at the Council of Florence do not pertain to you, you should summon Greek interpreters… and I should be most happy to provide you with the chief citations from the Fathers found in the Greek edition of the proceedings…. Heaven will rejoice; you will have every reason to expect that your titles and distinctions will enjoy greater prestige than they have heretofore, and you will soon be called the Emperor of the East, if you advance the cause of the Orthodox Catholic faith there.3
Ivan replied: “I do not believe in the Greeks; I believe in Christ. As for any Empire of the East, it is for the Lord of His Own volition to assign realms to whomever he chooses…. We do not seek the earthly realm of the whole world, for this would be a sinful tendency.”4
When Possevino tried to argue that Catholicism was “the most true and Orthodox faith,”5 Ivan remarked: “We received our Christian faith from the early Church at the time when Andrew, the brother of the Apostle Peter, visited these lands on his way to Rome. Vladimir was converted to the faith, and Christianity spread far and wide among us. We received the Christian faith here in Muscovy at the same time you received it in Italy, and we have preserved it intact…. When all the Apostles [were sent forth], no man was greater than any other man, and they produced Bishops, Archbishops, Metropolitans and many others. It is from these men that the religious leaders of our country are descended.”6
To which Possevino said: “Christ sent all the Apostles forth into the world… with different degrees of power. But to Peter alone He entrusted the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, the strengthening of the brethren, and the care and feeding of the sheep…. If we grant that the bishops who are descended from the other Apostles retain their authority, we must also agree that the See of Peter retains much greater authority.”7
Ivan rejoined: “We acknowledge Peter as a saint, as well as a number of the Popes… but the later ones led evil lives.”8 This gave the repartee a new direction. Possevino bridled: “The power of the Sacraments and the administration of the Church conferred upon the Popes do not depend upon the lives they lead, but upon the inflexible precept of Christ.” But Ivan went in for the kill:
Our courier, Istoma Shevrigin, told us that Pope Gregory is carried about in a chair. The people kiss the shoes on his feet, and he has a Cross on his shoe.
The Cross carries a representation of the Crucifixion of the Lord our God: now how can such a thing be right? Here is one of the prime differences between our Christian faith and the Roman faith. Our Christian faith considers the Cross of Christ the sign of victory over the Enemy; we revere the wood of the glorious Cross and esteem and honor it as enjoined by Holy Apostolic Tradition and the Holy Fathers in the General Councils. We are forbidden to wear a cross below the girdle; similarly, ikons of the Savior, the Virgin Mary and the Pious Saints must be placed in such a way that when viewed by spiritual eyes they uplift the soul to their source. It is unseemly to place them on the feet…. Antonio, you are saying that [Pope Gregory] is the Successor of Christ and the Apostle Peter and that it is incumbent upon all to honor him, and to fall at his feet and kiss them. But the words you utter are said out of cunning. Holy men should not give themselves such airs….
The period from the convocation of the First Council to the Seventh, created, to take the place of the Four Evangelists, the Sees of the Four Patriarchs, the Universal Teachers, [and] witnessed the consecration of innumerable Metropolitans in many places, including our Tsaric realm….
But Pope Gregory XIII does not walk upon the ground; he has himself carried in a chair, calls himself the Successor of Peter, and calls the Apostle Peter the Successor of Christ. But the Pope is not Christ; the chair in which the Pope is carried is not a cloud, and those who carry him are not angels. Pope Gregory has no business pretending to be Christ or His Successor….
The Pope who does not seek to live in accordance with Christ’s teaching and Apostolic Tradition is a wolf, and no shepherd.9
Possevino exclaimed: “If the Pope is a wolf, I have nothing further to say.”10
“I warned you,” said Ivan, endeavoring to calm both himself and the Jesuit, “that if we discussed the faith it would be impossible for us to avoid harsh words. I am not calling your Pope a wolf; only the Pope who refuses to follow Christ’s teaching and Apostolic Tradition do I call a wolf, not a shepherd. But let us terminate our discussion.”11
This awkward retraction is recorded in the official Kremlin transcript. In his own version, which dramatically diverges at this point, Possevino portrays himself in a heroic light:
Half rising from his seat, the Prince declared: “I would have you know that the Roman Pope is no shepherd.” I was highly offended at this insult, [which] effectively slammed the door on any serious discussion. I told my young interpreter, hesitating out of mortal fear, to ask: “Then why did you send to the Pope concerning your problems?”
The Prince flew into a rage and stood right up from his throne. Everyone was sure that he would strike and kill me, as he had others, including even his own son, with the iron-tipped staff he carries the way the Pope does his pastoral rod. “There are peasants outside,” he cried, “who would show you what it means to talk to me like a peasant!”
I heard these words impassively [!] and said: “Most Serene Prince, I know that I am speaking with a wise and good ruler.… I hope you will not be angry at any statements I make, because they are the words of Christ that I am uttering, and you yourself gave me permission to speak freely of those things.” In this way I managed to sooth the Prince, to the amazement of the boyars and the rest of the nobles.
When the Prince had once more resumed his seat, his speech was more moderate, but he kept on asking the same four questions: “Why is the Pope carried in a chair?” “Why does he wear a cross on his feet?” “Why does he
shave his beard?” “Why does he pretend to be God?” All [in the audience] were on their feet, for these extraneous issues and false calumnies, combined with their natural fear of the Prince’s power, had roused the nobles to such a pitch that a few were openly saying I should be drowned on the spot.12
But at length (so Possevino claimed), he was able to explain everything to the tsar in such a satisfactory way that “to the great astonishment of all present, the prince clasped me twice in full embrace… and dismissed me in a friendly manner.”13
Whichever version one cares to credit, Ivan was surely not about to acknowledge the primacy of the pope, either in religion or as the legal source of his imperial power, which would have annulled the theoretical foundations of the Orthodox tsardom and its claim to be the Third Rome. Possevino had called into question Ivan’s divine right to rule, and therefore his right to demand obedience from his subjects, whereas his whole reign had been devoted to asserting that authority, and he had stopped at nothing to enforce it. As for the Council of Florence, Possevino seemed not to realize that the Russians had rejected it independently of the Greeks.
The second encounter between the two men took place on February 23. Possevino (taking no chances with Ivan’s homicidal wrath) advised everyone in his party first “to make a full confession”14 and take Communion, but after a brief and cordial exchange in which Ivan either apologized for his earlier remarks about the pope (according to Possevino), or politely reminded the legate of his warning against religious disputations (Kremlin version), Possevino conferred with Ivan’s councilors concerning a prisoner exchange and the route papal envoys might take through Russia to Persia.
The third and last encounter took place on March 4. Ivan said: “Antonio, my boyars have told me that you are anxious to visit our churches. I have ordered my nobles to take you to them, where you will see how reverently we adore the Most Holy Trinity, honor the Virgin Mary, and invoke the Saints. You will also perceive the exemplary piety we manifest before the holy icons, and you will behold the icon of the Virgin Mary which was made by St. Luke. But you will not see my Metropolitan or myself carried in a chair.”15
Possevino disclaimed any desire to witness a Russian Orthodox service as long as the Russians remained schismatics, and instead gave Ivan two treatises: one on “the Chief points in which the Greeks and the Muscovites differ from the Latins in the Faith”16 and another refuting the charge that the pope was Antichrist. The latter document injudiciously began with a diatribe against the promiscuity of Henry VIII, overlooking the fact that of all contemporary monarchs Ivan alone surpassed Henry in the number of his wives.
Ivan noted politely that Possevino was very fond of giving him things to read.
On the threshold of the Cathedral of the Assumption, which the legate refused to enter, the tsar mocked him: “Antonio, see that you do not take any Lutherans into church with you!” before disappearing into the parvis.
Nevertheless, Possevino managed to secure the release of 210 Lithuanian and Polish prisoners of war, several Livonian noblemen, and fourteen Spaniards and Italians who had recently escaped from a Turkish prison in Azov. However, he reportedly failed to lobby for the release of any Lutherans because “there were already too many Lutherans in Livonia.”17
Perhaps Ivan had been mocking this discrimination in his charity.
No man had come to Moscow with more enthusiasm; and none was so eager to leave. Setting out on March 14, “without stopping day or night,”18 he traveled the 400 miles to Smolensk in four days, where he waited impatiently for Ivan’s embassy to Rome. Continuing on through Courland, he saw many magnificent buildings – now “filled with dirt, their windows broken, their interiors exposed to the elements”19 – vandalized by the Muscovites in the raid of 1579. As the Russian suite paused to rest in little improvised wooden huts erected beside the still-imposing ruins, Possevino was reminded of the Goths “squatting in the Coliseum, amid the triumphal arches, after their sack of Eternal Rome. And I was no longer surprised at what lurked in the heart of a race that is unable to endure the splendor and majesty of other peoples.”20
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* He was fifty-two.
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Aftermath
THE TREATY OF Yam Zapolsky notwithstanding, Ivan still hoped to settle accounts with the Swedes. After taking Narva, de la Gardie had occupied Ingria, and was poised to strike at Novgorod. Meanwhile, he had built up a large army of mercenaries in Finland. Only two Russian strongholds, Oreshek and Ladoga, remained to break the crescent sweep of his drive. The looming catastrophe was accelerated by developments on the eastern frontier, where a general uprising by the Cheremis was followed by Great Nogay raids as far west as Kolomna. The whole region of Kazan was in turmoil. All of Ivan’s early accomplishments were disintegrating. He could scarcely hope to recover any losses; he could only hope to hold on to what remained.
The Swedes surrounded Oreshek – an island fortress in the middle of the Neva and (as it would prove) the heroic equivalent of Pskov in the northern zone. To de la Gardie’s astonishment, it withstood a fierce, sustained, month-long bombardment begun in early September 1582, and in mid-October, when he twice tried to take the fortress by storm, an inspired garrison crushed the assaults with such heavy casualties that the Swedes abandoned the siege.
Throughout the northwest, both armies dug in as negotiations were conducted on the River Plyussa near Gdov. But Sweden could bargain from strength, and by a three-year armistice, signed on August 5, 1583, secured every one of its conquests – and was destined to stand between Russia and the Baltic until the reign of Peter the Great.
To the new empire of Poland, victory was also sweet. Commemorative medals were struck, and there was public rejoicing, with parades and marching bands, throughout the land. In 1583, the marriage of Zamoysky to Batory’s niece furnished an occasion to celebrate the triumph in the capital in grand neoclassical style. Both Batory and Zamoysky were, after all, humanists, each in his own way a scholar and Latin stylist of renown; and though the wedding was Catholic, the revelry of the nuptial festivities certainly recalled their student days in Padua more than the stern Counterreformation to which the king was otherwise attached. In a cavalcade of floats, there were rockets and fireworks, a carriage pulled by children representing the hours “with clocks on their heads, and stars on their backs,”1 and a gray-bearded Saturn grasping a scythe. Another figure personified Time, and after him a couple representing the Sun and Moon. There was a contraption which emitted an horrific rumble, surmounted by Jove clutching his thunderbolt; Cupid sitting among choristers; Venus “drawn by a pair of whales, whose jaws, nostrils, and eyes emitted clouds of aromatic oil”; and “a bevy of goddesses dressed in gold” dragging Trojan Paris by a rope. A hunting party led by Diana signified “relaxation after the toils of war.” But the centerpiece was a “Victory Car”
displaying the effigies of hostile countries, and carrying prisoners of war and captured booty. A woman walked alongside representing the province of Livonia over which the war had been fought. At her feet lay the conquered foe. After that, four white horses pulled a chariot to which the Enemy was shackled, together with his defeated generals, officers and people at large. A placard made fun of the boastful epithets which he had used before the war had started. The whole float was surrounded by white-haired old men, carrying sweet-smelling censers. They represented the decline and lethargy of the Enemy’s power.
The cosmopolitan variety and Renaissance wit of this extravaganza contrasted strangely with the neo-medieval world of gloom and extreme privation into which Muscovy was now absolutely plunged. The “decline and lethargy of the Enemy” was as awesome as his once-vaunted might.
Incessant calamity, upheaval, and peasant flight had turned whole provinces into wastelands. The cumulative desolation was almost beyond belief. In the northwest, out of a total of 34,000 settlements listed in land registers of the 1580s, 83 percent were described as empty. The three main reasons g
iven in the census records were: military service, impoverishment, and death. In the central regions the average number of suburban houses had declined by almost half, and most of the remaining population consisted of untaxed clergy, dependents, and military personnel. In Kashira, for example, only 18 houses out of 315 remained inhabited; in Kolomna, only 34 out of 696; in Mozhaisk, roughly 400 out of 1778; in Murom, 111 out of 738.* The teeming villages which Chancellor had seen in 1553, “so well filled with people that it is a wonder to see them,”2 had become ghost towns. “No one lives in them,” wrote Possevino, “the fields are deserted, and the forest growth over them is fresh.” Moscow, despite a decade of rebuilding, was still no more than half its former size, and only 17 percent of the surrounding arable land remained under cultivation. Smolensk, Novgorod, and Pskov had been reduced by about a third. Nor were the monasteries exempt from this toll. Roughly 45 percent of the settlements owned by Trinity Monastery, for example, had been abandoned.
New farmsteads were seldom recorded in surveys except on the borderlands, ironically enough, especially in the twenty-six districts between the first and second fortified lines on the southern frontier. A kind of inversion had taken place, where the population preferred to live in the wilds or in areas vulnerable to Tatar attack rather than be exposed to the continuing horrors of the interior.
Against such a background Ivan’s substantive accomplishments appear futile. As enumerated by a contemporary, he had “mightely inlarged his country and kingdoms everie waye,” reformed the law, defined the faith, doctrine, and discipline of the Russian Orthodox Church, built 40 “faire stone churches,” more than 60 monasteries, 155 fortresses, 300 towns in the wilderness, a new stone bell tower in the Kremlin with 30 great “swaet soundinge bells,” and a stone wall around Moscow.3 But the law had been forgotten, the doctrine of the Church betrayed, the fortresses stocked with mercenaries and stained with civilian blood, the towns deserted, and the stone wall built too late. As for the 60 monasteries, the example he had set for his nation at the Bacchanalian cloister of Alexandrova Sloboda may be suggested by the continuing breakdown of discipline at the White Lake Monastery, once so renowned for its ascetic life. Ten years after humbling the unruly brethren with his ironic letter of rebuke, elders were “drinking wildly in the wine cellar,”4 and one had created a sort of Bower of Bliss for himself in the wilderness, financed with embezzled funds and fortified with muskets, like any secular stockade.
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