Echoes of Maksim Grek in Establishing the Moscow Patriarchate

• In Event: Global Conversations: Encounters, Exchanges, and Influences in Early Modern Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania

Abstract

Maksim Grek’s unfortunate turn of fate in Muscovy is well known, as well as his plunge from the status of honored guest to disgrace, excommunication, and prison. Pleas for clemency and demonstrations of innocence were lodged pointedly and repeatedly, both from Maksim himself and on his behalf from the hierarchs of his home institution, the Greek Church, but he was never released. He died in Muscovite exile, and the contention between the two national churches remained unresolved. At the time of Maksim’s death in 1556 the Russian authorities were clearly very aware of the Greek view of Maksim’s treatment. For some time the issue seems to disappear from the historical record. Then, in the 1590’s, some 40 plus years after Maksim’s death, just as the Russian church was seeking the blessing of the Greek Church in the establishment of an independent Moscow Patriarchate, documents begin appearing which strongly suggest new coordinated efforts to ”exhonerate” Maksim in Muscovy, a campaign evidently sponsored by high levels of church and state. It is this campaign and its possible connections to the establishment of the Pariarchate, which will be the focus of this presentation, including consideration of some new evidence.

Author

• Hugh M. Olmsted, Harvard U