Spiritual Regulation

…drawing up in 1720 the Spiritual Regulations, a new constitution for Orthodoxy. Appointed synodal first vice president, he was responsible for the legislative reform of the entire Russian church, subordinating it to the secular and spiritual authority of Tsar Peter, and for effecting a church-state relationship, sometimes termed a Protestantized…

Peter also issued a lengthy Spiritual Regulation (Dukhovny Reglament) that served as bylaws for all religious activities in Russia. Weakened by the schism of the Old Believers, the church found no spokesman to defend its rights and passively accepted the reforms.

The Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great remained in force until the very end of the Russian Empire (1917). Many Russian churchmen consistently complained against the submission of the church to the state, but there was little they could do except to lay plans for future…