Due Process: The Moscow Council of 1660 and the Debate on Ecclesiastical Governance in Early Modern Russia

This essay deals with a seemingly minor episode in what is known as the affair of Patriarch Nikon (1605–1681). The affair began on July 10, 1658, when the patriarch left Moscow vowing never to return, and ended in December 1666 with Nikon, stripped of his holy orders and patriarchal dignity, banished to a remote monastery. Since the 1860s, the affair has been covered as a political crisis occasioned by a conflict between the tsar and the patriarch and deepened by the fallout from the liturgical reforms championed by Nikon. Yet it also unfolded as a church trial necessitated by the unprecedented situation that followed Nikon’s dramatic departure from the capital. The church council that met in 1660 has long appeared as a mere kangaroo court that failed to attain the putative goal of ridding the tsar of his own version of a “meddlesome priest.” It merits closer attention, however, as it raised fundamental questions of church governance and due process.