Archbishop of Novgorod - The Muscovite Period

The Muscovite Period

After the Muscovite conquest in 1478, the office fell somewhat into decline. The first three Muscovite archbishops were removed in disgrace, although the second one, Gennady (1484–1504), successfully suppressed the Judaizer Heresy (called the Zhidovstvuyuschiye in Russian) and compiled the first complete corpus of the Bible in Slavonic (the Gennady Bible, now housed in the State Historical Museum). His successor, Serapion was removed from office after only three years and the see sat vacant for seventeen years (1509–1526).

The office revived somewhat under Makarii (archbishop 1526-1542; Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus' 1542-1563), who built a number of churches in the city, patronized the writing of saints lives, and began a number of important literary works in Novgorod, which he completed in Moscow. Most notably among these are the Velikie Mineia Chet'ii (The Great Menion Reader), a twelve volume series of saint's lives and prayers divide up by months; and the Stepennaia Kniga (The Book of Degrees of Royal Genealogy), a genealogy of the tsar and his ancestors linking them to the Romans.

Like the rest of Russia, the archiepiscopal office suffered hardship during the reign of Ivan the Terrible and the subsequent Time of Troubles. Novgorod seems to have suffered more than most, as the Oprichnina massacred a number of the citizenry in the city in 1570 and looted the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom and other places in the city. At around the time of the massacre, Tsar Ivan the Terrible removed Archbishop Pimen from office and sent him to Aleksandrov where he was apparently tortured. Pimen died in 1572 under uncertain circumstances in the Monastery of St. Nicholas in Tula. His successor, Archbishop Leonid, was beheaded in Moscow on Cathedral Square in the Kremlin on the orders of the Tsar in October 1575. Leonid's successor, Aleksandr, was elevated to the metropolitan rank in 1589, becoming the "Metropolitan of Novgorod the Great and Velikie Luki". (Pskov became its own eparchy in 1589, hence Pskov could no longer be part of the Novgorodian archbishop's title.)

During the Time of Troubles, Novgorod was occupied by the Swedes, and Novgorodian Metropolitan Isidor played a key role in negotiating the city's hand over to the Swedesin 1611 and in administering the city under Swedish occupation. The city was not returned to Russia until several years after the establishment of the Romanov Dynasty, and Tsar Mikhail is said to have distrusted Isidor for his role in the city under Swedish control.