Tsar Alexis of Russia, finally wearying of…

Tsar Alexis of Russia, finally wearying of the authoritarian manner of the metropolitan Nikon, has the patriarch deposed on political grounds while fully endorsing his liturgical reforms.

A synod is held in February 1660 at Moscow to terminate the widowhood of the Muscovite Church, which has now been without a pastor for nearly two years.

The synod decides not only that a new patriarch should be appointed, but that Nikon has forfeited both his archiepiscopal rank and his priests orders.

Against the second part of this decision, however, the noted ecclesiastical expert Epifany Slavinetsky protests energetically, and ultimately the whole inquiry collapses, the scrupulous tsar shrinking from the enforcement of the decrees of the synod for fear of committing mortal sin.