Ivan the Terrible (8 page)

Maksim was summoned to Moscow from Mount Athos in 1518 at the age of about fifty to cooperate in revising Russian translations of the liturgy and the Psalms from the Greek, but he also wrote many other works. He was the first resident exponent in Russia of Italian Renaissance literary culture but was critical of humanism from the Orthodox standpoint. His knowledge of the works of Pico della Mirandola may well have introduced him to such unorthodox interests as Jewish Kabbalah.
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But Greek in origin and training, he also brought to Russia a concept of the Christian Church founded on the Greek Orthodox model of the ‘harmony’ or ‘symphony’ between Church and State, neither dominating the other; he believed that monasteries should not own vast wealth, that monks should live by cultivating the soil as on Mount Athos, and that what they did own should be used for the benefit of the faithful. He believed that the tsar was instituted by God to fulfil the duty of ruling Christian folk and ensuring their salvation, but he held that even the tsar was bound to act within the laws established by the Church. In this he was in agreement with the Abbot Iosif Volotsky
of Volokolamsk, though he specifically approved of conciliar government.
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From various of his writings it seems that Maksim Grek did not believe it was the duty of churchmen to advise rulers on constitutional forms. When asked how a ruler should plan his government, he is said to have replied: ‘You have the books and you know the rules, get on with it.’
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But he does seem to have favoured government by consensus among the élites. He admired the formula as expressed in the sixth novella of Justinian, which kept the religious and the political powers in equilibrium. Maksim could be critical of tsars – biblical and contemporary – who dispensed false justice and wasted their substance in festivities, but this did not lead him on to any statement of the right to rebel. There is nothing the least bit modern in this view of conciliar government, and no conception whatsoever of the representation of estates or interests.
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Although they were monks, Maksim Grek and Vassian Patrikeev received many visitors in their cells and seem for a while to have conducted what one might almost call an intellectual salon in which, according to at least one author,
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speech was remarkably, indeed dangerously, free. Vassian, of course, was extremely well connected: many of his relatives were members of the Boyar Council at one time or another and the most distinguished general, Daniel Shchenya, was his cousin. Judging by the evidence later at their trial for heresy and for altering liturgical texts, Maksim and Vassian held somewhat unorthodox views on religion, whether on the dual nature of Christ or the relationship of Church and State.
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The eventual fate of many of these people has to be disentangled from conflicting chronicle fragments, many of which are extremely tendentious. Moreover, discussion of their ideas often starts from the assumption that because they were eventually charged with offences against the Grand Prince, therefore they were in ‘opposition’ either to some of his policies or to the nature and extent of his powers. Both Ivan III and Vasily III may also have caused deep resentment by their practice of exacting oaths of suretyship from princes who entered grand-ducal service, that they would never use the right of departure, oaths that were backed up by financial bonds often involving large sums of money and large numbers of people, who were made responsible for each other. In the reign of Vasily III, the behaviour of a Shuisky prince was once guaranteed by twenty-nine wealthy service people each putting up 50 to 150 rubles.
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Both Maksim Grek and Vassian Patrikeev opposed Vasily's divorce on religious grounds, when he broached the subject in 1523, and this is probably what led to their eventual disgrace.
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Ever since the days of the
Emperor Leo VI the question of divorce and remarriage had been the subject of debate in the Orthodox Church in Constantinople, where divorce was in fact not infrequent. In Russia, however, it was a new problem, and the Russian clergy were more rigid and conventional than the clergy of Constantinople.

The Metropolitan Varlaam, in the circle of Vassian, was opposed to the annulment and Vasily III had to find a suitably pliable metropolitan; he removed Varlaam in a high-handed way in December 1522, without reference to the Patriarch of Constantinople, which distressed many of the hierarchy, and replaced him with Daniel of Volokolamsk, who had succeeded Iosif Volotsky in 1515 as abbot of his monastery. Maksim Grek was extremely unhappy about the appointment of a new metropolitan on the sole authority of a Russian Church Council, i.e. the Grand Prince, without the approval of the Patriarch of Constantinople. He clearly did not regard the more or less accidental declaration of independence of the Russian Church after the Council of Ferrara/Florence as permanent. Nor did he accept that the captivity of the Orthodox Church, now under Moslem rule, affected its supremacy as the universal Christian Church. Maksim did not hesitate to express his disapproval out loud and was denounced to Vasily III. He was also incautious in his expressions of contempt for the poor translation of Greek texts by Russian monks, which he was attempting to correct, and according to Herberstein he told Vasily in so many words that he was a schismatic who followed neither the Greek nor the Latin religion.
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As in the case of Henry VIII, Vasily's divorce became entangled in the conflict of ideas and interests over religion and property, though it did not lead to the assertion of the ruler's religious supremacy over the Church, the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, and the declaration of the king's right to appoint his heir (which already existed in Russia).
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Some of the controversy over clerical ownership of landed property had revived in the 1520s. The alleged spokesman for the retention of church and monastic lands, Iosif Volotsky, who had died in 1515, had, in his last years, been close to Vasily III, and in the writings of these years he placed more faith in the power of the Grand Prince and was less critical of a possible tyrant.
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If Vasily was to get his divorce, he had to work with the Church, which theologically at least was powerful enough to resist the onslaught of the royal will, unlike the Catholic Church in England, where Parliament provided not entirely disinterested support to the king. Whether a bargain was ever struck, who knows, but Maksim Grek and Vassian Patrikeev, together with Bersen' Beklemishev, were charged with heresy,
seditious speech and, in the case of Maksim, treasonable conversations with an Ottoman envoy, Skinder, then in Russia, in a trial conducted by Metropolitan Daniil in 1525. Maksim Grek was convicted and sentenced to close confinement, in chains, without access to books, pen or paper, in the Josephian monastery at Volokolamsk. It is unlikely that his talks with the Turkish envoy were treasonable in any modern sense of the word. He was probably hoping to secure Turkish support for his efforts to be allowed to return to Mount Athos. Vasily was unwilling to proceed to extremes against Vassian Patrikeev, who was exiled to the convent of Beloozero, but Bersen' Beklemishev and a clerk in the entourage of Maksim Grek were sentenced to death for treasonable speech by a boyar court, and executed.
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Tried again in 1531, probably as a means of getting at Vassian Patrikeev, who had been loud in his condemnation of the ‘possessors’, Maksim was again pronounced guilty. Vassian was imprisoned in the monastery of Volokolamsk, where he died soon after. But Maksim Grek, now charged also with black magic and falsifying liturgical books, was sent to a monastery in Tver', where he was fortunate in finding in Bishop Akaky a kind and tolerant soul who treated him with consideration. Nevertheless, with the crushing of the intellectual and spiritual trends which Maksim and Vassian stood for, the authoritarian elements latent in the Russian Orthodox Church, which Iosif Volotsky had come to represent, came to the fore. A new, narrower, intellectual climate prevailed in Moscow.

Towards the end of 1525 Vasily secured his divorce from a Russian Church Council and proceeded to get rid of his wife Solomonia, first by charging her with witchcraft, on evidence kindly supplied by her brother. If she were convicted he would have been able to repudiate her canonically as a witch, but he clearly did not want to go to extremes and instead removed her forcibly to a monastery where, struggling violently, she was shorn as a nun, Sofia, and, according to some accounts, finally forced to accept her fate by the lash of a whip wielded by one of Vasily's courtiers. She attempted to free herself by spreading the rumour that she was pregnant, but was promptly removed from Moscow to a convent in Suzdal'.
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Apparently Vasily held a bride-show and chose as his bride Elena Glinskaia, a girl of fifteen (he was in his late forties) of Lithuanian origin, and the marriage took place on 21 January 1526.
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But the circumstances of the bride's family make one wonder whether political considerations did not weigh more heavily in the balance than her looks. Elena's father, Vasily L'vovich Glinsky, was dead, but her uncle Mikhail L'vovich Glinsky had had a very unusual career. The family's origins
were somewhat obscure, but it was said to be descended from the Orthodox Hungarian family of the Petrovichi, who had held high rank in the Hungarian kingdom in the first half of the fifteenth century, and from a Lithuanian family descended from the Mongol warlord Mamay (not a Genghisid). Mikhail Glinsky had, in his youth, spent twelve years, in Italy, become a Catholic, and fought in the army of the Elector Albert of Saxony and then in that of Albert's son Frederick, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. In the 1490s he was very influential in the government of Lithuania but in 1506, after the death of King Alexander, he was disgraced, went over to the pro-Russian party, deserted Lithuania and entered Russian service in 1508 with his two brothers Ivan and Vasily (father of Elena). He received both estates on a service tenure and
kormlenie
, the allocation of the income of provinces or towns on a temporary basis. This was a new policy adopted with regard to incoming princes, which provided amply for their status and upkeep without granting them the sovereign rights inherent in an appanage. Mikhail Glinsky assisted Grand Prince Vasily in the conquest of Smolensk in 1514, which had allegedly been promised to him as an appanage, a promise which Vasily did not keep. The outraged Mikhail Glinsky then thought of returning to Lithuania but was suspected of secret talks with its king, Sigismund I, arrested and confined in a prison in chains. An indication of the regard in which Mikhail Glinsky was held is that the Emperor Maximilian I asked for his release through Herberstein, but Vasily III refused, though Glinsky had reverted to Orthodoxy, and he also at first refused his wife Elena's appeals to release her uncle. Mikhail Glinsky was finally freed in February 1527 and married into the Russian nobility. But a large number of boyars and nobles had to put up the enormous sum of five thousand rubles among them as a guarantee that he would not attempt to flee again.
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Glinsky knew both Latin and German, most likely Italian as well, and had more information about the world outside Russia than any other magnate at that time, which he no doubt communicated verbally to Vasily and the Russian courtiers when he was not in prison.
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Elena Glinskaia's mother was also well connected. She was Anna, a daughter of the Serbian
voevoda
Stefan Iakshich. She married the Lithuanian Prince Vasily L'vovich Glinsky. Her sister Elena married Jovan, the Despot of Serbia, and their daughter, also Elena, known as ‘despotitsa’, later married Peter Raresh, the bastard son of Stephen the Great of Moldavia, and
voevoda
of Moldavia.
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The two Elenas were thus first cousins. The Russian Grand Prince may have thought that maintaining the connexion with the Orthodox ruler of Moldavia might
be useful, and Peter Raresh sent an envoy to Moscow in 1538 to discuss an alliance against Poland–Lithuania.
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Russian relations with Orthodox Moldavia continued to play a part in Russian foreign policy under Vasily III and Ivan IV.

Vasily was unlike his father. He was not grim or forbidding and, though equally ruthless, could even be quite amiable. He was noble in appearance, with penetrating but not frightening eyes, and seems to have been slightly more moderate in his use of savage punishments than his father and his son. He welcomed foreigners to Russia, either as soldiers or as craftsmen, and though he personally enjoyed a country life, he kept up a magnificent court. He increased the numbers of court ranks and employees, and introduced the
ryndy
, young armed pages of good family and exceptional good looks, who stood around the Grand Prince and the throne in their white and gold robes, like a ‘guard of angels’. One cannot envisage angels with beards, and one might note here in passing that in the miniatures that enliven the illustrated Chronicles very many young, beardless, men appear to be fulfilling various functions from waiting on the Grand Prince to executing his enemies. One explanation for their shaven faces has been offered, namely that it indicates that they are too young to be allotted responsible tasks to perform. The
ryndy
surrounding the Grand Prince must have belonged to this group. He too is said to have shaved his beard occasionally to please his new wife.

Vasily also put on specially lavish shows to welcome visiting ambassadors, ordering the closure of shops and the ceasing of all work, so that the common people could attend the Kremlin in their best clothes and be impressed by the grand princely power. The foreign envoys were solemnly received by the Grand Prince sitting on his throne, surrounded by his boyars in their rich clothes embroidered with pearls and their high fur hats (often loaned by the Grand Prince – Henry VIII also lent clothes to his courtiers). At the ensuing banquet, which might well last several hours, the first course was invariably roast swan. The Grand Prince might personally send food as a sign of distinction to a guest who would rise and bow in acknowledgement. To pass the time during these lengthy ceremonies the guests were allowed to speak freely to each other, which makes one wonder what happened at other times.
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