ST. PHILIP.
Early in the reign of Ivan the Fourth (1539), a pilgrim, poor in garb
and purse, but of handsome presence, landed from a boat at the Convent
of Solovetsk. He came to pray; but after resting in the island for a
little while, he took the vows and became a monk. Under the name of
Philip, he lived for nine or ten years in his lowly cell. The monks,
his brethren, saw there was some mystery in his life; his taste, his
learning, and his manner, all announcing him as one of those men who
belong to the higher ranks. But the lowly brother held his peace. Nine
years after his arrival, the prior of his convent died, and he was
called by common assent to the vacant chair.
There was, in truth, a mystery in this monk. Among the proudest people
in Moscow lived, in those days, the family of Kolicheff; to whom a
son, Fedor, was born; the heir to a vast estate no less than to a
glorious name. A pious mother taught the child to be good, according
to her lights; to read about saints, to say long prayers, to listen
for church-bells, and run with ardor to the sacrifice of mass. But
being of noble birth, and having to serve his prince, Fedor was
trained to ride and fence, to hunt and shoot, as well as to manage his
father's forests, fisheries, and farms. At twenty-six he was
introduced to Ivan, then a child of four; and as the young prince took
a fancy for him, he was much at court, admired by all women, envied by
many men. It seemed as though Fedor Kolicheff had only to stay at
court in order to become a minister of state. But his heart was never
in the life he led; the Kremlin was a nest of intrigue; the country
round the city was troubled by a thousand crimes. Distressed by what
he saw going on, the favorite pined for a religious life; and quitting
the world in silence, giving up all he possessed, he wandered from
Moscow in a pilgrim's garb. Trudging on foot, a staff in his hand, a
wallet by his side, he found his way through the trackless forests of
the north; now stopping in a peasant's hut, where he toiled on the
land for his daily food; now dropping down the Dvina on a raft, and
tugging for his passage at the oars. Crossing over to the convent, he
became a monk, a priest, a prior, without betraying the secret of his
noble birth and his place at court.
On coming into power, he set his heart on bringing back the convent to
her ancient life. He wore the frock of Zosima, and set up an image
over Savatie's tomb. Taking these worthies as his guides, he
introduced the rule of assiduous work; invented forms of labor; making
wax and salt; improving the fisheries and farms; building stone
chapels; and teaching some of the fathers how to write and paint. Much
of what is best in the convent, in the way of chapel, shrine, and
picture, dates from his reign as prior. But Philip was called from his
cell in the Frozen Sea to occupy a loftier and more perilous throne.
Ivan, liking the old friend of his youth, consulted him on state
affairs, and called him to the Kremlin to give advice. On these
occasions, Philip was startled at the change in Ivan; who, from being
a paladin of the cross, had settled down in his middle age into a
mixture of the gloomy monk and the savage khan. The change came on him
with the death of his wife and the conquest of Kazan; after which
events in his life he married two women, dressed himself in Tartar
clothes, and adopted Asiatic ways. Like a chief of the Golden horde,
he went about the streets of Moscow, ordering this man to be beaten,
that man to be killed. The square in front of the Holy Gate was red
with blood; and every house in the city was filled with sighs and
groans.
Driving from their altars two aged prelates who rebuked his crimes,
Ivan (in 1566) selected the Prior of Solovetsk as a man who would shed
a light on his reign without disturbing him by personal reproof.
Philip tried to escape this perilous post, but the Tsar insisted on
his obedience; and with heavy heart he sailed from his asylum in the
islands, conscious of going to meet his martyr's crown.
Ivan had judged the monk in haste. Philip was no courtier; not a man
to say smooth things to princes; for under his monk's attire he
carried a heart to feel, an eye to see, and a tongue to speak. In
passing from Solovetsk to Moscow, he passed through Novgorod--a city
disliked by Ivan on account of her wealth, her freedom, and her laws;
when a crowd of burghers poured from the gates, fell on their knees
before him, and implored him, as a pastor of the poor, to plead their
cause before the Tsar, then threatening to ravage their district and
destroy their town. On reaching Moscow, he spoke to Ivan as to a son;
beseeching him to dismiss his guards, to put off his strange habits,
to live a holy life, and to rule his people in the spirit of their
ancient dukes.
Ivan waxed red and wroth; he wanted a priest to bless, and not to
curse. The tyrant grew more violent in his moods; but the new
Metropolite held out in patient and unyielding meekness for the
ancient ways. Once, when Philip was performing mass, the Tsar and his
guards, attired in their Tartar dress, came into his church, and took
up their ranks, while Ivan himself strode up to the royal gates. As
Philip went on with his service, taking no notice of the prince, a
boyar cried, "It is the Tsar!" "I do not recognize the Tsar," said
Philip, "in such a dress." The Tartar cap, the Tartar whip, were seen
in every public place. The Tartar guards were masters of the city, and
the streets were everywhere filled with the tumult of their evil
deeds. They felt no reverence for holy things, and hurt the popular
mind by treating the sacred images with disdain. In a procession, the
Metropolite noticed one of these courtiers insolently wearing his
Tartar cap. "Who is that man," asked Philip of the Tsar, "that he
should profane with his Tartar costume this holy day?" Doffing his
cap, the courtier denied that he was covered, and even charged the
Metropolite with saying what was false. As every man in trouble went
to his Metropolite for counsel, the boyars accused him of inciting the
people against their prince. When Ivan married his fourth wife, a
thing unlawful and unclean, the Metropolite refused to admit the
marriage, and bade the Tsar absent himself from mass. Rushing from his
palace into the Cathedral of the Annunciation, Ivan took his seat and
scowled. Instead of pausing to bless him, Philip went on with the
service, until one of the favorites strode up to the altar, looked him
boldly in the face, and said, in a saucy voice, "The Tsar demands thy
blessing, priest!" Paying no heed to the courtier, Philip turned round
to Ivan on his throne. "Pious Tsar!" he sighed; "why art thou here? In
this place we offer a bloodless sacrifice to God." Ivan threatened
him, by gesture and by word. "I am a stranger and a pilgrim on earth,"
said Philip; "I am ready to suffer for the truth."
He was made to suffer much, and soon. Dragged from his altar, stripped
of his robe, arrayed in rags, he was beaten with brooms, tossed into a
sledge, driven through the streets, mocked and hooted by armed men,
and thrown into a dungeon in one of the obscurest convents of the
town. Poor people knelt as the sledge drove past them, every eye being
wet with tears, and every throat being choked with sobs. Philip
blessed them as he went, saying, "Do not grieve; it is the will of
God; pray, pray!" The more patiently he bore his cross the more these
people sobbed and cried. Locked in his jail and laden with chains, not
only round his ankles but round his neck, he was left for seven days
and nights without food and drink, in the hope that he would die. A
courtier who came to see him was surprised to find him engaged in
prayer. His friends and kinsmen were arrested, judged, and put to
death, for no offense save that of sharing his name and blood.
"Sorcerer! dost thou know this head?" was one laconic message sent to
Philip from the Tsar. "Yea!" murmured the prisoner, sadly; "it is that
of my nephew Ivan." Day and night a crowd of people gathered round his
convent-door, until the Tsar, who feared a rising in his favor, caused
him to be secretly removed to a stronger prison in the town of Tver.
One year after this removal of Philip from Moscow (1569), Ivan,
setting out for Novgorod, and calling to mind the speech once made by
Philip in favor of that city, sent a ruffian to kill him. "Give me thy
blessing!" said the murderer, coming into his cell. "Do thy master's
work," replied the holy man; and the deed was quickly done.
The martyred saint remained a few years in Tver--whence he was removed
to Solovetsk, an incorruptible frame; and lay in that isle until 1660,
in the reign of Alexie, father of Peter the Great, in the days of
tribulation, when the country was tried by sickness, famine, and
foreign wars, his body was brought to Moscow, as a solemn and
penitential act, by which the ruler and his people hoped to appease
the wrath of heaven. The Tsar's penitent letter of recall was read
aloud before his tomb in Solovetsk, as though the saint could see and
hear. The body was found entire, as on the day of sepulture--a sweet
smell, as of herbs and flowers, coming out from beneath the
coffin-lid. A grand procession of monks and pilgrims marched with the
saint from Archangel to Moscow, where Alexie met them in the Kremlin
gate, and carried the sacred dust into the cathedral, where it was
laid, in the corner of glory, in a magnificent silver shrine.
On the day of his coronation, every Emperor of Russia has to kneel
before his shrine and kiss his feet.