Vassian Patrikeyev - Ecclesiastic Career

Ecclesiastic Career

At the monastery, Patrikeyev became a student of Nil Sorsky and absorbed his philosophy. It appears that in 1503 Patrikeyev and Sorsky came to Moscow to attend a church council (sobor). During this ecclesiastic meeting, the two demanded leniency for the heretics and opposed Joseph Volotsky's views on this issue, subsequently inflaming a dispute between the two parties in the form of personal letters.

During the reign of Vasili III, Patrikeyev reached an important status. Due to his rising influence, many heretics escaped severe punishment. At some point, the tsar even forbade Volotsky to defame Patrikeyev. It appears that Varlaam, who had been close to Nil Sorsky and his followers, was elected Metropolitan bishop with some assistance from Vassian Patrikeyev.

In about 1517, Patrikeyev began his work on revision of the so-called Кормчая книга (Kormchaya kniga, or Book of guidelines; see Canon law), a code of ecclesiastic decrees and laws by the Byzantine emperors. In 1518, Maximus the Greek came from Mount Athos to take part in his work, gathering oppositionary people around him, including Vassian Patrikeyev.

In 1523, a Josephinian hegumen from Volokolamsk named Daniel was elected metropolitan. Soon after this, the church commenced prosecution of the opposition.

A few years later, Patrikeyev's influence began to weaken due to, among other things, his open disapproval of Vasili's divorce. In 1531, Vassian was summoned to appear before the church council as a defendant. Metropolitan Daniel accused Patrikeyev of unauthorized revision of the Kormchaya kniga; insertion of Hellenistic ideas; arbitrary removal of passages which had asserted the right of the monasteries to own patrimonies; revilement of miracle workers, e.g. Saint Makarius Kalyazinsky and Metropolitan Jonas; "heretic lines" in his translation of Simeon Metaphrastes' Life of St. Mary. The church council found Patrikeyev guilty and sent him to a hostile Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery, where he would die a decade later.

Patrikeyev’s date of death is uncertain. He died no later than 1545 and a violent death, if one is to believe Ivan the Terrible's closest associate Andrei Kurbsky.