Nil Sorsky - The Novgorod Heresy Affair

The Novgorod Heresy Affair

Nil Sorsky was involved in the Novgorod heresy affair (see Sect of Skhariya the Jew for details), which had stirred a lot of minds in Russia at that time. It appears that Sorsky and his closest associate Paisiy Yaroslavov were much more tolerant towards the heretics than most of the Russian clergy, led by Gennady (Archbishop of Novgorod) and Joseph Volotsky.

In 1489, Archbishop Gennady embarked on the path of fighting the heretics and asked Archbishop of Rostov to consult with the elders Nil Sorsky and Paisiy Yaroslavov (who had been living in his eparchy) and seek their assistance in this matter. Historical accounts of that period do not shed any light on the outcome of these "negotiations", but from that time on there seems to have been no interaction between Sorsky and Yaroslavov on one side and Gennady and Joseph Volotsky on the other.

The two elders, however, did not treat heresy with indifference. They were both present at the Synod of 1490, which dealt with heresy, and exerted their influence upon its final decision. Initially, the clergy unanimously spoke in support of burning all the heretics at the stake. At the conclusion of the synod, however, only a few priests were condemned and then defrocked without being executed. Later in the decade, however, several heretics were burned in both Novgorod and Moscow.