This week in Christian history: RC Sproul dies, Russian Patriarch exiled, Canterbury Archbishop appointed
Russian Church patriarch removed from power – Dec. 12, 1666
This week marks the anniversary of when Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Nikon, whose efforts to reform the religious body led to a schism, was removed from his position of power.
Nikon became the first metropolitan, or head of an ecclesiastical region, of Novgorod in the 1640s and later rose to the position of patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1652.
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However, his efforts to change the practices of the Church to make it more in line with Greek Orthodoxy and his attempts to exert greater power in Moscow led to his being removed.
“Nikon was found guilty of abandoning the patriarchal throne; of slandering the tsar, the Russian Church, and all the Russian people as heretics; of insulting the Eastern patriarchs; and of deposing and exiling bishops without a church council,” according to Encyclopedia.com.
“He was removed officially as patriarch, stripped of his priestly functions, demoted to the rank of a simple monk, and exiled to the Ferapontov monastery in the far north.”
Nikon would not be allowed back to Moscow until 1681, with him dying while on the journey back.
