a common codification of civil and ecclesiastical law. This great work was carried out, however, by boyars and ministers of State.
By far the most famous of all the patriarchs of Moscow is Nicon, who followed Joseph after an interval. His long life extends over the whole of the patriarchal period. He was born before the first patriarch was appointed; and he lived to see the patriarchate superseded by the Holy Synod. The child of a peasant home at Nijgorod, he learned to read the Scriptures in early life, and he was so moved by them that he resolved to devote himself to the service of God. Following the custom of his age and Church, he understood this to mean becoming a monk. He left home secretly, and was about to commence his novitiate in the monastery of Jeltovodsky. But his father discovered him and persuaded him to return home, marry, and become a priest. It was against his own judgment, and he afterwards took the death of all his children as a call to return to his earlier aims. Nicon now induced his wife to enter a convent, and he himself retreated to the distant northern monastery of Solovetsky. After a time he sought still deeper seclusion in an island hermitage amid the ice of the White Sea. In the year 1646 he submitted to the urgent entreaty of the monks of Kojeozersky, and was appointed to the headship of their monastery. This position following on the fame of his asceticism led to his being regarded as a leader of the Church, and he had to visit Moscow in connection with ecclesiastical affairs (a.d. 1649). There he came under the notice of the new tsar. Michael had died in the year before Nicon's appointment to Kojeozersky and had been succeeded by his son Alexis (a.d. 1645), an intelligent, if not a strong ruler, anxious to promote moral reform, Western culture, and general progress. Attracted by the noble bearing and vigorous eloquence of Nicon, Alexis appointed him archimandrite of the Novospassky Monastery, where the members of the Romanoff family were buried. He was now brought into frequent contact with the tsar, who came to
