OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

a numerous synod; disowned their representa-tives at Ferrara and Florence; condemned thecreed and council of the Latins; and threatenedthe emperor of Constantinople with the censuresof the Eastern church. Of the sectaries of theGreek communion, the Russians were the mostpowerful, ignorant, and superstitious. Theirprimate, the cardinal Isidore, hastened from Flo-rence to Moscow, ® to reduce the independent na-tion under the Roman yoke. But the Russian bishops had been educated at mount Athos ;and the prince and people embraced the theo-logy of their priests. They were scandalizedby the title, the pomp, the Latin cross, of thelegate, the friend of those impious men whoshaved their beards, and performed the divineoffice with gloves on their hands, and rings ontheir fingers: Isidore was condemned by asynod; his person was imprisoned in a monas-tery; and it was with extreme difficulty that thecardinal could escape from the hands of a fierceand fanatic people . 11 The Russians refused apassage to the missionaries of Rome who aspiredto convert the pagans beyond the Tanais , 1 and

e Isidore was metropolitan of Kiow; but the Greeks subject to Po-land have removed that see from the ruins of Kiow to Lemberg, orLeopold (Herbestein in Ramnsio, tom. ii, p. 127). On the other hand,the Russians transferred their spiritual obedience to the archbishop,who became, in 1588, the patriarch of Moscow (Levesque, Hist, deRussie, tom. iii, p. 188, 190, from a Greek manuscript at Turin , Iteret labores Archiepiscopi Arsenii).

h The curious narrative of Levesque (Hist, de Russie, tom. ii, p.242-247) is extracted from the patriarchal archives. The scenes of Fer-rara and Florence are described by ignorance and passion; but theRussians are credible in tbe account of their own prejudices.

1 The shamanism, the ancient religion of the Samanaeans and Gyra-VOL. XII, nosophists

145

CHAP.

LXVII.