“Some Minor Words” : The Debate on Symphonia at the Moscow Church Council of 1666/67

Pissis, Nikolas (2025) “Some Minor Words” : The Debate on Symphonia at the Moscow Church Council of 1666/67. RUSSIANSTUDIES.HU, 7 (1). pp. 97-119. ISSN 2677-0660

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Abstract

Although principles were, as a rule, not a matter of debate in Muscovite political culture, experiences of crisis, such as the Smuta or the conflict between Patriarch Nikon and Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, did instigate pertinent fervent discussions on how the God-given order was best to be perceived and restored. This paper outlines the debate on the relationship between and the mutual dependency of secular and ecclesiastical power that erupted a ter Nikon’s ambiguous abdication in 1658 and culminated at the Moscow Church Council of 1666/67. It focuses on a crucial but somewhat enigmatic episode during the Council, when two Russian bishops, Metropolitan Pavel of Krutitsy and Bishop Ilarion of Riazan, protested against the formulation included in the Tomos of the four Eastern patriarchs (1663) concerning the primacy of the emperor. Their objection led to the Council issuing a revised statement, reformulating the classical notion of symphonia (the emperor is responsible for political matters, the patriarch for spiritual ones), although the two prelates had to face disciplinary sanctions. The paper draws mainly on the writings of the debate’s main protagonist, the infamous Metropolitan of Gaza, Paisios Ligaridis, in order to clarify what we may reasonably deduce from the account of the self-righteous Greek prelate and certain further evidence concerning, on the one hand, the protagonists’ motives, and on the other, the whole episode’s actual significance.

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