Church and State in Russia
J.H. Shennan offers a study of the relationship between Russian Orthodoxy and the secular power in the time of the Tsars.
Generations of students have learnt that Peter the Great (1682-1725) disapproved of the wearing of beards in his country, and that his efforts to eradicate the custom, like his introduction of western styles of dress, were intended to eliminate at least the external signs of Russian backwardness. But there was more than that to Peter’s much-publicized activities.
His reign marks a decisive stage in the relations between Church and State in Russia; for, with his coming, the secular power finally gained independence from the spiritual. The full significance of this fact can only be appreciated against the background of the unique relationship between the two powers that had developed in pre-Petrine Muscovy.
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