biography
| name: |
Nikon
|
| |
originally Nikita Minin
|
pronunciation:
[neekon]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1605–81)
|
| biography:
| Patriarch of Moscow (1652–8), born in Veldemanovo, near Nizhni Novgorod, W Russia. He married and entered the clergy, but the death of his three children moved him to seek solitude in the Solovetski monastery on the White Sea. While visiting Moscow, he greatly impressed the young Tsar Alexey and Patriarch Joseph, who appointed him abbot of the Novospassky monastery there. His good works gained his appointment as Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia in 1652. The chief event of his reign was the enforced reform of church service books and rites, wishing to restore conformity with the Greek originals. He met much opposition and excommunicated any who failed to adopt the reforms. Relations with Alexey became strained, and in 1666 the tsar convened a council attended by the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria. Nikon was deprived of his office and exiled, although his reforms were retained. Tsar Fyodor III recalled Nikon from exile, but he died en route to Mosow. |
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