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educated and devout young man with literary
aspirations, Feodor was in ill health for most of
his short reign. His mother's family, the Miloslav-
skys, initially dominated court politics, although
by the end of his reign the boyar Vasili
GOLITSYN
served as de facto ruler. Feodor continued his
father's main policies, especially with regard to
religion. Former Patriarch
NIKON
was allowed to
return from exile, but he died en route in 1681;
his rank of patriarch was posthumously restored.
Persecution of the
OLD BELIEVERS
, who had bro-
ken off from the church in resistance to Nikon's
reforms, continued unabated.
AVVAKUM
, their
leading spokesman, was condemned to death
and burned alive in 1682. An important change
that prefaced Peter's later reforms was the aboli-
tion of the policy of precedence (
mestnichestvo
) in
the army, under which the hierarchy of com-
mand was determined by ancestry rather than
ability. Feodor's government also abolished the
practice of cutting off the hands and feet of
thieves, substituting for it the penalty of deporta-
tion to Siberia. In foreign affairs, the Treaty of
Bachkisarai (1682) with Turkey recognized Mus-
covy's rule over the city of
KIEV
. Feodor's first
wife, Agafia Grushevskaia, gave birth to a son in
July 1681, but they both died within a few days.
The grieving czar was convinced to remarry for
dynastic reasons, but a few months after marry-
ing Marfa Apraksina, his health took a turn for
the worse and he died in April 1682, without
designating an heir. His brother Ivan and his half
brother Peter were designated as co-czars, with
his sister
SOPHIA
Alekseevna as regent, an
arrangement that lasted until 1689, when she
was forced to retire to a convent, and until 1696,
when
IVAN V
died, leaving Peter as sole ruler.
fled Moscow in the 1540s to the remote
Beloozero Monastery and became a monk. He
later settled in the Novoozero region and in 1551
started preaching what he called the “New
Teachings.” In 1553 he was arrested in connec-
tion with another case and imprisoned in a
Moscow monastery, but he escaped to Lithuania.
His New Teaching was an important influence in
the formation of a radical current among the
Polish-Lithuanian anti-Trinitarians. In his teach-
ings, Feodosii Kosoi repudiated the basic dogmas
of the Orthodox Church, including the divine
nature of Christ and the resurrection of the
dead; denied saints, miracles, and the need to
worship icons and the cross; and called for the
abolition of monasticism. He not only rejected
the feudal church and its hierarchy, dogmas, and
rituals, but the whole system of feudal exploita-
tion, spoke out against wars, and preached the
equality of all people. His New Teaching gave
voice to a developing peasant-heretical tradition
in Russia that would more fully express itself in
the following century during the Great Schism
of the Orthodox Church which gave birth to the
OLD BELIEVER
sect as well as other sectarian
groups in the following centuries.
Feofan Grek
(14th-15th century, dates
unknown)
artist
Also known as Theophanes the Greek, Feofan
Grek was a painter of Greek origin who came to
Russia from Constantinople in the late 14th cen-
tury. Known primarily for frescoes that adorn
churches, he was also an accomplished book
illustrator. He successfully adjusted the style of
the Byzantine Renaissance to the simpler, less
sophisticated Russian traditions of the time. His
frescoes are full of energy and dynamism, and
the holy images, although painted in laconic
brush strokes, possess deep psychological pene-
tration. Over the centuries Feofan Grek's work,
like that of Andrei
RUBLEV
, was forgotten until
the 20th century, when his frescoes were redis-
covered during renovation to the Church of the
Transfiguration in Novgorod. Feofan Grek's
Feodosii Kosoi
(16th century, dates
unknown)
heretic
Feodosii Kosoi was the head of one of the hereti-
cal movements that found support among the
peasantry and urban lower classes in the struggle
against the feudal order and the official church
in the mid-16th century. A slave, Feodosii Kosoi
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