Some information about Paisius Ligarid, before his arrival in Russia

It is known what participation the Gaz Metropolitan Paisiy Ligarid took in the case of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow. But the history of this Greek native, before his arrival in Moscow, is not clear. Meanwhile, the circumstances of his previous life are of no small importance for the historian Patriarch Nikon, due to his unfavorable reviews of the Metropolitan of Gaza, which could easily irritate a stranger who was counting on establishing his well-being in Russia - Therefore, it would not be superfluous to offer some information about the life of Paisius before his arrival in Moscow. Paisios, before becoming a monk Pantaleon 1, Ligaridas was from the island of Chios. His compatriot and contemporary, the famous Leo Allatius, says that the Greeks who lived on this island, which was dependent on the Genoese for about two hundred and forty years, often sent their children to Rome and other Latin cities for education; The young men returning from there enjoyed special respect in their homeland and received permission from the Greek bishops to teach the sciences they had studied there. And Paisius, in his youth, followed the same path: he entered to study at the college newly opened by Pope Gregory XIII for the Greeks in Rome (1578), where the Jesuits taught. Here, under the guise of pure ancient Greek teaching, the teachings of the Roman Church were taught to Greek youth. From here at the same time came many of the first figures of the union in southwestern Russia, such as: Metropolitans of Kyiv Joseph Velyamin-Rutsky, Rafail Korsak, Anthony Selyava and Cyprian Zhokhovsky; Archbishops of Smolensk Lavrenty Krevsha and Andrey Zloty; - Polotsk Nikolai Losotsky and Nikifor Gozhonsky, bishops - Volyn Jerome Grokhovsky, Lutsk Jeremiah Pochapovsky, Pinsk Pachomius of Oransky, Turov Alexey Dubovich, and coadjutor of the Vilna bishop Markian Trizna. Among the latest graduates from the same school, Allatius mentions Pantaleon Ligarides of Chios 3 . The exact time of Pantaleon's studies in Rome is unknown: but we know the time when he left Rome. Leo Allatius in 1645 wrote to his friend Bartold Nigusius: “Pantaleon Ligarid, three years ago, retired from Rome to Constantinople, to visit his fatherland Chios, and to spread the Roman faith in that country.” But hopes for the favor of the then Patriarch of Constantinople, Cyril of Verria, were not justified. This patriarch was elevated to the place of Cyril Lukar, who was deposed with the assistance of the Latin party in Constantinople, and was considered favorable to the Latins, who even called him their student. But he soon had to give up his place to Parthenius. Therefore, Allatius added: “but, according to reliable news, the affairs of Pantaleon are wavering under the new patriarch, erected by heretics. Oh, if only he could succeed in this journey” 4! So Pantaleon left Rome, probably in 1642. At this time he was already known for several works. In 1637, he published, under the book of Neophyte Rodinus, his fellow student in Rome, his Apology for Peter Arcudius, known for his zealous works for the benefit of the union in southwestern Russia and among the Greeks. And with another composition by the same Neophyte: an interpretation of the hymn of the Virgin Mary: My soul magnifies the Lord, Pantaleon published his letter to the Archbishop of Neopolitan. This last letter, at least according to the inscription, was also known to Patriarch Nikon, who looked at it as suspicious, because here Pantaleon calls the Latin archbishop his most honest ruler 5 . Changes on the patriarchal throne of Constantinople, apparently, really did not favor the views of the pupil of the Jesuits. He left Constantinople. In the early fifties we see Pantaleon in the land of Ugrovlahia, with Metropolitan Stephen of Tergovishchi. Here he, together with his compatriot Hieromonk Ignatius Petritsi, was preparing for publication in Romanian the Kormcha, translated from Greek. As can be seen from the preface to it, Met. Stephen searched for a long time for a collection of rules of the Greek Church in the correct list, and even addressed his requests to the Patriarch of Constantinople; but finally he found a good list of rules from his spiritual son, George Caridi from the city of Triki, and, with the consent of the governor Matvey Bassarab and his council, he decided to translate them and print this translation in the governor’s printing house. This work was entrusted to the monk Daniel, but he himself, not having a sufficient grammatical education, invited the learned foreigners Hieromonk Ignatius and Pantaleon Ligaridas to participate in the work. - From the fact that with the name Ignatius his spiritual dignity is shown here, and Ligarid is named by his worldly name, we must conclude that then he did not belong to the monastic class and did not have any church degree. The Moldovan-Vlakhian and Ugrian-Vlakhian governors, with their generosity to the monastics, then attracted many Greeks, and in their country, higher educational institutions appeared and printing houses began to operate in their country earlier than among the Greeks themselves. They were not afraid to translate even Latin books into Slavic and print them. So in 1647, at the expense of Matthew Bassarab’s wife Elena, a book by Thomas a à Kempis was published: on the imitation of Jesus Christ. And since the Slavic translations could not be understood by everyone, they began to publish books in Romanian. One of the first works of this kind was the publication of Helmsmen in 1652. Paisius’s constant subject of study in the Romanian countries, of course, was studying at the Iasi school. For the testimony of the Greek Demetrius Prokopiev in his “record about the learned Greeks of the 17th and partly 18th centuries” should be attributed to this time. 7. The scientist Demetrius, recognizing Paisius as “educated in all sciences and excellently familiar with the Divine Scriptures,” together calls him the didaskal of the Iasi school. This school was established by the then governor Vasily Lupul, according to a letter from the Patriarch of Constantinople Parthenius, along with the restoration of the rights of the throne of Constantinople over the Moldavian Church, whereas hitherto, since the time of the Council of Florence, the Moldavian Church recognized the authority of the Patriarch of Achrid over itself 8. What was Paisius’ attitude towards Orthodoxy in this period of his life? – In the Iasi school, as far as one can judge from the affairs of that time, there were no devotees of the Roman Church. In the well-known dispute about the Orthodoxy of the Patriarch of Constantinople Cyril Lucar, whom the Latin party tried to present as a determined Protestant, Iasi scientists did not follow such a judgment about him; and at the Council of Iasi, although the teaching presented as Kirill’s was condemned as contrary to the Eastern Church, the name of Kirill was not condemned. – Paisiy Ligarid knew how to adapt to any way of thinking. At the Orthodox school, he knew how to appear Orthodox, but did not interrupt relations with his former comrades at the Roman school, presenting himself to them as an adherent of Roman beliefs. Noteworthy in this regard is his letter to his compatriot, Lev Allatius, where he reports a story about a miracle that an Orthodox Russian Priest could not perform, but which the Uniate bishop Joasaphat Kuntsevich allegedly performed. The matter is presented in this form: “a Russian priest was called to resolve one person who died in excommunication, whose body, as a result, was found not decomposing in the ground. The priest allegedly began his prayer of permission in this way: if we reason correctly, abhorring the Azimites and Latinists, Lord our God, then... and so on. But no miracle followed. Josaphat Kuntsevich was invited. He prayed like this: if we correctly believe that the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and the Son, that the Archbishop of ancient Rome, according to the confession of the Florentine Council, is the father and teacher of all Christians and the vicar of Christ, and we believe as he believes then... and so on. “As soon as he finished this prayer,” Ligarid writes, “the corpse was resolved,” etc. This excerpt from the letter clearly shows on which side Ligarid’s sympathies were. Let us add to this that this letter belongs to Pantaleon, and not to Paisius, Ligarid 9. Taking monastic vows, of course, should have brought Ligarid closer to Orthodoxy. He knew how to win over the then Patriarch of Jerusalem Paisius, who lived for a long time in the lands of Moldovlachia and Ugrovlachia, having in Iasi itself four monasteries that belonged to the Holy Sepulcher 10. Ligarid was tonsured by him, and received from him a new name, which covered everything old. This was in Jerusalem. Our famous pilgrim of the 17th century, Arseny Sukhanov, was the adoptive father of Ligarid, and he himself mentions this in his “walk” in Jerusalem. Arseny was sent from Moscow to the east to observe the existing order of worship among the Greeks, and went together with Patriarch Paisius of Jerusalem, first to Moldavia, in May 1619. He arrived in Jerusalem no earlier than October 6, 1651; On the way, he spent several weeks (from June 26 to July 19) on the island. Chios, in the homeland of Ligarida, and described in detail the life of the Greeks and Latins there. – In Jerusalem, writes Arseny, “on November 16, the week of November, the patriarch served in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ. The same days after Matins, the Patriarch himself tonsured Ligarid and gave Arseny command, and calling on Arseny, he said to keep him firmly under command, as they keep him in the great monasteries in Moscow” 11 . But Arseny stayed in Jerusalem until Easter of the next year, and on April 27 he set off on the return journey, leaving his spiritual son to his own care for his salvation. In this era of his rapprochement with the life of Jerusalem and with the hierarchy of the holy city, Paisius, as a learned and inquisitive person, undertook to study the history of the Jerusalem patriarchs. In what spirit he began and carried out this business, and to what extent he succeeded, can be seen from the words of Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem, who, being a compatriot of Patriarch Paisios and serving with him from a young age, undoubtedly knew Ligaridas personally, and subsequently used the preparatory works of Paisios for his “History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem.” Listing the Greek writers of the 16th and 17th centuries, he says about Paisius: “Paisius Ligarides, a Chian, a Latin scholar. He wrote an explanation of the divine liturgy, but in favor of the innovations of the Roman church. I also wrote a historical essay about those who held the patriarchate in Jerusalem, in 73 notebooks. In this essay we also found a great guide for this story. He wrote about the patriarchs before Heraclius, but after Heraclius he said nothing sensible about them. The third work consists of narratives about ascetics and patriarchs; and two-thirds - against the Eastern Church, and especially against Saint Photius, and in defense of papal power. Patriarchs Methodius of Constantinople (1668 - 1671) and Nektarios of Jerusalem (1661 - 1669), having read this story and seeing in it an extreme blasphemy against Orthodoxy, cursed it, and Ligaridas himself was excommunicated as a heretic 12. Dositheus's successor at the Jerusalem department, Chrysanthus, publishing his history, does not refute this harsh remark about the scientific works of Paisius; but he thinks to defend him with his later writings, in which he sees his zeal for protecting Orthodoxy from Lutheran attacks 13 . This Paisiev story has not reached us in the form in which it was left by the author himself: we know only Dositheev’s story. And if that one sinned with inclination in favor of the Roman Church, then this one, transformed by Dositheus, is not so much history as a polemic against the papacy, on the basis of history. Patriarch Paisius was not so strict and picky in his attitude towards his tonsure; retaining his favor towards him, he elevated his fellow-name to the metropolitan of Gaza (between 1652 and 1656). But it seems that Ligarid found it more useful for himself to stick to the land of Voloshskaya than to his ruined see. Here, in the land of Voloshskaya, Patriarch Macarius of Antioch found him at the end of 1656 and 1657, on his way back from Moscow. The Makariev's companion, Archdeacon Pavel of Aleppo, who described the entire journey of his patriarch, talks about his meeting with Paisius, already the Metropolitan of Gaza, and about scientific relations with him. Syrian travelers found a Greek manuscript from one Voloshsky nobleman, Constantine Cantacuzinus, containing an interpretation of the psalms, collected in the 11th century from various interpreters by Nikitas, Metropolitan of Serres. At the same time, the Metropolitan of Gaza explained to them about himself that he had traveled a lot in Europe and lived for a long time in Rome, was familiar with the library there, which contains up to 72,000 volumes of religious content: but he had not seen another, as complete list of the interpretation of Nikita as the one found in Cantacuzene. The Patriarch of Antioch wished to copy this interpretation for himself, with the intention of publishing it “in the country of the Franks.” Moreover, they saw from Paisius a book of predictions he had collected about matters relating to Saracen rule in the east and about the fate of Constantinople. These predictions represented prophecies, some of which had already been fulfilled, some of which were still about to be fulfilled. The Syrian travelers expressed a strong desire to have this book on the list: but they encountered great difficulty on the part of the collector, and in no other way won him over to their side than through generous gifts. “Later,” adds Archdeacon Paul, “when we were already in our homeland, in Aleppo, the Metropolitan of Gaz wrote to us that during his trip to the country of the Magyars (i.e., to Hungary) he was robbed and lost this book.” This is why Paisius asked his Syrian acquaintances for copies of the list they had taken. - In addition to this information, in the news of the Aleppo archdeacon, it is important for us that Paisius, already at the time of Macarius’s departure from his country, was in the east, in Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem he came to Aleppo, and preached the word in the church there, as he himself reported this to the Patriarch of Antioch 14. Thus, from the notes of Makariev’s companion, Pavel, it is revealed that Paisiy was already the metropolitan of Gaza in 1656, and that shortly before Makariev’s arrival in the land of Voloshskaya, he was in Palestine, but did not stay there. We also see that later, however, even before his trip to Russia, for some reason he traveled to Hungary. We also know about Paisius’s acquaintance with ancient church literature and his love for rare books from his relations with the Belgian envoy in Moscow, Nicholas Gainsius, who received from him here a catalog of several words of the Patriarch of Constantinople Photius, hitherto unknown to scientists. Between these words were those two famous words that he spoke on the occasion of the Russian invasion of Constantinople, and which were only recently found on Athos 15. Gainsius, already upon returning from his trip, in March 1671, wrote about Paisius to one of his friends: once I called to me the Metropolitan of Gaz, Paisius Ligaridas, a Greek by birth, well educated, since he spent the best years of his life in Rome, a very courteous old man (senecem perhumanum). But the next day, by order of Afanasy-Lavrenty Nashchokin, who was in charge of relations with foreigners, I was given to know that the court did not like it, for which reason I, without asking the permission of the Tsar’s Majesty, invited a man standing so high in the clergy. They were sent with a remark to Paisius, for which he allowed me to do this. Thus, both of us have a barrier to rapprochement. Meanwhile, I have not seen a person who, through his conversations, could acquaint me more closely with the affairs of the Russians.” When Paisius Ligarid was still in the land of Voloshskaya, he attracted the attention of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow. Having a need for learned people to undertake the correction of church books, on the recommendation of Arseny, Nikon invited him to his place in Moscow, especially since he had heard about Paisius’s own desire to come to Russia. “We have heard about your wisdom,” he wrote to Ligarid, “from the monk Arseny, and as you wish to see us, the great sovereign: therefore we also want to accept you, as our child in spirit, with love. Therefore, welcome to this letter of ours, be diligent in traveling to the reigning city of Moscow.” At the same time, he wrote to the governor of the Moldavian land Stefan and to the governor of the Ugrovlahian Konstantin, also to the metropolitans of Sochava Gideon and the Ugrovlahian Stefan, so that they would facilitate his departure to Moscow 16. But it is unknown why Paisiy did not immediately follow this invitation, and only five years later he appeared in Moscow, when Nikon was in a completely different position - and he appeared, probably, at a different invitation, not to help the caring patriarch in his affairs useful for the church, but to aggravate his fate. Nikon looked at him differently then. Of course, under the influence of changed relationships, and as a result of new information about Paisius, received from people who were not disposed towards him, but who knew his affairs closely, Nikon wrote about him: “something tells about him that he is not an Orthodox saint of the Eastern Church, but of the Western Roman Church: the pope was a deacon for 30 years; and was in Mutyaneh (in Moldova) for a long time; and Velmi has sown many Roman heresies. He ordered widow priests to marry other wives, and young monks and monks to marry, and to eat meat. And the Metropolitan of Mutyansk wrote to the ecumenical patriarchs, and they cursed him, and ordered him to take off his dress. And he left Mutyany for Poland, and in Poland he was with the king for many things, and he conducted services in all the churches” 17. In these harsh reproaches one can hear not only the irritation of the offended patriarch, but, as can be seen from the evidence we have uncovered, in many ways the voice of bitter truth. The circumstances known to us: Paisius’s long stay in Rome and study at the Roman College, necessarily combined with a renunciation of Orthodoxy; his wrongheadedness in his writings and condemnation by the patriarchs; very likely relations with his former comrades and acquaintances from the Roman school, who were now acting in favor of a union within the limits of Polish rule - all this is not an invention of irritated vindictiveness. We cannot say anything about the validity of other accusations, due to the unknown circumstances; but we have no reason to completely deny them. Patriarch Dositheos of Jerusalem, in the History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, directly speaks of Paisios: “he is mentioned in the book Ταργά under the name of Pantaleon Ligaridas.” Book XI. Ch. II. § 7. Patriarch Nikon, in a letter to Patriarch Dionysius of Constantinople, also mentions that Paisios was formerly called Panteleimon. De Ecclesiae Occidentalis et Orientalis perpetua consensione. L.III. cap. 40. § 4. Philippi Cyprii Chronicon Eccles. Graecae. 1687. b. 437. 438. P. Nikon speaks about this both in his letter to Dionysius, mentioned above, and in his replies to Streshnev. In the last place it is said: “yes, the testimony of him (inclination towards the Roman heresy) was brought by the holy Mount Athos monastery of Constantine, Archimandrite Theophan, a book: interpretation of the magnification of my soul by the Lord, and that little book was written in Rome, and in it his name is written is secular,” Answer to question 26. Information about this publication of the Helmsman is borrowed from the Viennese magazine: Jahrbücher d. Litteratur. 1824. XXV Band. S. 158. Demetrii Procopii de eruditis Graecis ap. Fabricium. Biblioth. Graec. T. XI. p. 531. Book Cantemir's description of Moldova. M. 1789. p. 364 et seq. Nicolai Comneni Papadopulo Praenotiones mystagogicae. 1697, p. 245. 246. Dosithea, Patr. Jerusalem, history of the Jerusalem patriarchs. Book XII. Ch. 1. § 10. Namely: Galati, Burnuski, St. Savva and Nikoritsa. Rk. Moscow Synod. library No. 573. Proskinitarion Arsenia Sukhanova l. 104 Dosithea Histor. jerus. Patriarchs Prince XI. Ch. XI. §7. l. 1180. Travels of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, translated by F. C. Belfour. Vol. II. p. 342. Combefis. Auctuarium novissim. Bibl. Patr. T.I.p. 549. All letters were written dated December 1, 1657. Nikon's objections to Streshnev's questions and Paisiy's answers. Question 26. Rk. Moscow. D. Academy. You might be interested in: