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he abolished the patriarchate and replaced it by one ofhis new collegiate boards of administration, the HolySynod (1721). The highest body in the Russian churchowed its very existence to the fiat of the tsar. Themembers of the Synod, appointed by him, were withone exception ecclesiastics, but they were expected toperform their duty—the moral education of obedientsubjects—in the same spirit and manner as members ofthe college of mines and manufactures.Henceforward the church became more and more apart of the administrative machinery of the state. Therewas a large element of truth in the accusation of anineteenth-century Old Believer: "So-called orthodoxfaith is an appurtenance of the Crown and Treasury,an official badge. It rests on no basis of real life orsincere conviction, but just does its duty as a Governmentweapon for the defence of order." The Synod,after numerous changes, from 1824 onwards was ruledby its lay member, the chief procurator, who was ineffect the tsar's minister for the state religion. UnderCatherine the Great and Alexander I a tolerant spiritprevailed, but from the reign of Nicholas I (1825-55) anyapproach to freedom of conscience was almost continuouslystultified by the policy of enforcing rigorouslythe old maxim that all Russians (including particularlyUkrainians) must belong to the Orthodox church, whileits corollary, previously on the whole observed, thatnon-Russians could practise their own religion undisturbedwas increasingly challenged, notably in Poland.The church became identified with reaction and itsofficial trinity of autocracy, orthodoxy, and nationalism.Thus all the nineteenth-century revolutionary or socialistmovements were, as in most European countries, bitterlyopposed to the church, and the liberal elements, whennot actively hostile, favoured sweeping reforms. Withinthe church the gulf between the upper and lower clergybecome a chasm, as in France before 1789. 1Moscow did indeed produce three remarkable metropolitans,and the eighteenth century produced a true1 For an understanding of the life of the provincial clergy readLyeskov's novel The Cathedral Folk (1872; English translation, 1924).194