Editing Peter the Great (section)

==Religion==
[[File:Bronze Horseman and St'Isaac's cathedral 1890-1900.jpg|thumb|The 1782 statue of Peter I in Saint Petersburg, informally known as the ''[[Bronze Horseman]]''. [[Saint Isaac's Cathedral]] is in the background.|left]]

Peter had a great interest in [[dissenters]] and visited gatherings of Quakers and Mennonites. He did not believe in [[miracles]] and founded [[The All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Massie |first=Robert K. |author-link=Robert K. Massie |title=Peter the Great: His Life and World |date= 1981 |publisher=[[Ballantine Books]] |isbn=0-3452-9806-3 |location=[[New York City]]}}</ref> an organization that mocked the Orthodox and Catholic Church, when he was eighteen. In January 1695, Peter refused to partake in a traditional Russian Orthodox [[Epiphany (holiday)|Epiphany Ceremony]], and would often schedule events for The All-Joking, All-Drunken Synod of Fools and Jesters to directly conflict with the Church.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bushkovitch |first=Paul A. |date=January 1990 |title=The Epiphany Ceremony of the Russian Court in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries |journal=Russian Review |publisher=Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review |volume=49 |issue=1 |pages=1–17 |doi=10.2307/130080 |jstor=130080}}</ref> He often used the nickname ''Pakhom Mikhailov'' ({{langx|ru|Пахом Михайлов}}) among the ministers of religion who made up his relatively close circle of long-term drinking companions.

Peter was brought up in the Russian Orthodox faith, but he had low regard for the Church hierarchy, which he kept under tight governmental control. The traditional leader of the Church was the [[List of Metropolitans and Patriarchs of Moscow|Patriarch of Moscow]]. In 1700, when the office fell vacant, Peter refused to name a replacement, allowing the patriarch's coadjutor (or deputy) to discharge the duties of the office. Peter could not tolerate the patriarch exercising power superior to the tsar, as indeed had happened in the case of [[Patriarch Philaret of Moscow|Philaret]] (1619–1633) and [[Patriarch Nikon of Moscow|Nikon]] (1652–66). The [[Alexander Nevsky Lavra]] was constructed between 1710–1712; [[Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, Saint Petersburg|Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral]] between 1712–1733. In 1716 he invited [[Theophan Prokopovich]], a [[pietist]] and astronomer, to come to the capital.{{Sfn|Collis|2015|p=352}} The ''Ecclesiastical Regulations'' of 1721 are based on the ideas of [[August Hermann Francke]].{{Sfn|Collis|2015|p=340}} The [[Church reform of Peter the Great]] therefore abolished the [[patriarchate]], replacing it with a [[Holy Synod]] that was under the control of a [[Procurator (Russia)|Procurator]].

In 1721, Peter followed the advice of Prokopovich in designing the Holy Synod as a council of ten clergymen. For leadership in the Church, Peter turned increasingly to Ukrainians, who were more open to reform, but were not well loved by the Russian clergy. Peter implemented a law that stipulated that no Russian man could join a monastery before the age of fifty. He felt that too many able Russian men were being wasted on clerical work when they could be joining his new and improved army.{{Sfn|Dmytryshyn|1974|p=18}}<ref>James Cracraft, ''The church reform of Peter the Great'' (1971).</ref><!--A clerical career was not a route chosen by upper-class society. Most parish priests were sons of priests and were very poorly educated and paid. The monks in the monasteries had a slightly higher status; they were not allowed to marry. Politically, the Church was impotent.<ref>Lindsey Hughes, ''Russia in the Age of Peter the Great'' (1998) pp. 332–56.</ref>-->