Father Filaret biography

Few people boast such a changeable fate. Unless those who happened to live in troubled times ... “It was a handsome man” Fedor Nikitich was born in the middle of X: the exact year of his birth is still causing disputes among researchers. The mother of the future Patriarch Evdokia Alexandrovna was the daughter of an outstanding commander-Prince Gorbatoy-Shuisky. Fedor in the family was senior and had six brothers and the same number of sisters.

As usual, not all children survived to adulthood, and in years-because of the Godunov Opala, the world left one at once four adults of the Romanov brothers. As a result, by the time of the reign of young Mikhail Fedorovich, only Filaret himself remained alive, his brother, boyar Ivan Nikitich nicknamed Kasha, and three of their sisters. In discharge books, the name of Fedor began to appear quite late.

The first mention of his service falls on the year, where he appears among the Lithuanian ambassador Leo Sapega. The following year, Fedor Nikitich, who became the head of the clan after the death of his father, was granted a boyar rank. His activity and a high position at that time is evidence of proximity to the sovereign Fedor Ioannovich, the son of Ivan the Terrible.

This is a stay at the court, and participation in the tsar’s trips to the pilgrimage. Military appointments were rare: it seems that the autocrat did not want to let go of his cousin for a long time. So the future patriarch did not acquire military glory and, apparently, did not very much seek to. According to the ideas of that time and with marriage, Fedor Nikitich was late.

His choice fell on the daughter of a poor Kostroma landowner - Ksenia Ivanovna Shestova. The circumstances of the late marriage are not entirely clear. The Englishman Jerome Gorsey in his notes noticed that the boyar “was forced” to marry the Shestovaya, who was the “servant” of his “sister, wife of Prince Boris Cherkassky”. Writers often beat the dark phrase “was forced” by the love of handsome boyar for the district young lady.

Whether it was so - the sources are silent, but their family union really seems successful. The spouses in separation were yearning for each other. It is appropriate to note that Fedor went to an unequal marriage, putting feelings above the difference in statuses. This testifies to his famous independence, the ability to act ... Fedor Romanov was popular among the people.

The Dutch merchant Isac Massa wrote about him: it was “a handsome man, very affectionate to everyone and so stately that in Moscow it entered the proverb from the tailors when the dress was sitting well:“ The second Fedor Nikitich ”. Under the name of Filaret, he, a native of the old -Moskovsk boyar family, was one undeniable advantage over titled representatives of primary clans and even to a certain extent to the royal Shurin Boris Godunov - kinship with the sovereign.

The rumor attributed to the childless king Fedor the intention to transfer the throne to the Nikitichs. However, this did not happen. Nevertheless, for Godunov, Senior Nikitich posed a constant threat. As a result, under the new king, the relatives of the former fell into disgrace. There was a formal occasion: the Romanovs were accused of the evil intent of the “lime of the sovereign”, about which the yard of the boyar Alexander Nikitich informed the authorities.

Tsar Boris decided to present everyone with a visual lesson in order to stop the very thought of encroach on Godunovs. The detective was “Kno -Bobyno”, with a wide net capturing the princes of Cherkasy, Sitsky, Shestunov, repnins and the nobles of the Karpovs close to Romanov. In June, a sentence was sentenced. And although Godunov himself was eliminated by the verdict of the Boyar Duma, the king’s intentions were obvious: the Romanovs should not be later ascended, and Fedor Nikitich - play the role that he played.

He was sent to the distant Antonia-Si monastery in the Arkhangelsk district and tonsured monks under the name Filaret. The same fate was waiting for Ksenia Ivanovna, who became Martha in foreign nation. Their children, daughter Tatyana and five -year -old son Mikhail, were exiled with the aunts in Beloozero the current Belozersk. Later, this link will be in the hands of young Mikhail Fedorovich when elevating to the kingdom: they will remember that he, being an innocent lad, suffered from the "villain of Boris." It was the shortest and most sad page of the biography of Filaret.

He lived in the monastery under the supervision of the bailiff. The regime was strict, without any contact with the outside world. It was difficult to get used to the situation of the “living dead man” to be a brilliant boyar, a pagar and a dandy, who had recently enjoyed all the benefits of life. Tormented by the unknown, he sighed about his wife: “Tea, where she is close to the same, where he will not come in”; He was sad about the children: “My dear children are small ...

Who to feed them and drink them? In moments of acute longing, he even prayed for death ... The House of the Boyars of the Romanovs in Varvarka. Unknown artist. The second half of the 19th century, however, soon in his behavior and mood there were changes. They became especially noticeable in the year. Filaret, as the bailiff reported, suddenly began to live “not according to the monastery rank”, laugh “unknown what” and even threaten the elders: “They will see what he will be ahead!

The most common version is the appearance of an impostor in Rus'.But could Filaret predict the victorious take -off of the adventurer, who was able to radically change his fate? Rather, before us is the cry of a person who has lost his enviable position, a family, relatives who dreamed of revenge and did not have the opportunity to take revenge. The scream of despair of the one who only has to laugh and hope for a miracle ...

In a vague in a stranger and a miracle happened. The victory of Grigory Otopieva opened a new page in the life of Filaret.

False Dmitry I made his "relative" by Metropolitan Rostov. It is difficult to say what Filaret felt in these months, who knew well who actually occupied the throne of the Rurikovich. But he, like many, played his role, remaining outwardly loyal to the “sovereign” that has established in Moscow ... Who knows what was hidden behind this loyalty? But a year later, False Dmitry I was overthrown.

The measure of the participation of Filaret in the conspiracy of Vasily Shuisky is an unknown value. On the one hand, it was hardly Rostov Vladyka who was delighted with concessions to the Catholics made under the impostor. On the other hand, he owed Otrepyev his return from oblivion. Most likely, the metropolitan was aware of the conspiracy, but exactly so much so that, depending on its outcome, join the winner or disown the vanquished.

The disasters made Filaret to be careful, and the prudence in Troubles meant the art of being for all of his own. At the beginning of the reign of Shuisky, he went to Uglich to search and examine the relics of the deceased Tsarevich Dmitry. The new king was in a hurry to forever bury the legend of the miraculous salvation of the young son of the Terrible. For this, Shuisky seemed to promise Filaret a patriarchate.

He fulfilled the entrusted person, but the place of the high -reader was not given to him, but to the Kazan Metropolitan Hermogenes. Shuisky chose not to bring Nikitich closer, which means he was afraid of him ... Portrait of Patriarch Filaret Fedor Nikitich Romanov. Removing from the Moscow court was tantamount to excommunication from active politics. In m, with the advent of the second impostor, cities and counties lying north of Moscow were drawn into turmoil.

Shuisky suffered one failure after another. Many cities of "retreating" from the unpopular king. But Rostov remained faithful to him: here they refused to kiss the cross of Tushinsky thief, as False Dmitry II was called. Apparently, this “strong state” of Rostovtsev was associated with the refusal of their Metropolitan to leave the diocese and go to the camp of the impostor.

The militias even set out to free Suzdal from the “thief”, but were defeated. Tushins on the shoulders of retreating broke into Rostov and made a bloody massacre there. Filaret, which shut up with the inhabitants in the cathedral, was captured, clothed in “Riza Paganically”, crowned with a Tatar hat and with a shame was taken to the impostor camp. Under Tsar Boris Godunov on the left, Fedor Nikitich Romanov was tonsured monks and exiled to the distant monastery, and False Dmitry I returned him from exile and made Metropolitan Rostov in troubled times.

Filaret in haste was “named by the Patriarch of Moscow”, despite the fact that in Moscow the Patriarch remained the hermogen. It is noteworthy that the stay of Filaret in the Tushinsky camp subsequently played an important role in the election of his son, Mikhail Romanov, to the kingdom of his son. Former Cossacks former Tushins, who later participated in the liberation of Moscow from the interventionists reasonably reasoned that Mikhail Fedorovich would not pursue for the Tushino past, since his father was in the camp of the second impostor.

The voice of the Cossacks shot down in the village was then very weight. Meanwhile, the “Tushino captivity” of Filaret was slightly reflected in the sources. Kelar Trinity-Sergius Monastery Abrahami Palitsyn later testified that the Tushins were holding their patriarch in captivity, "they were always in strong guard." But most likely, Abraham deliberately distorted the picture, wanting to please Filaret with a “crown of martyr”.

In reality, Vladyka, apparently, behaved very carefully, trying, on the one hand, not to compromise himself with a close communication with a “thief”, and on the other, not to annoy him. Whatever the apologists of the Patriarch would write later, he nevertheless preferred a compromise with False Dmitry II, but not his denunciation. Filaret, by definition of the same Abraham, "was intelligent, was not inclined to right or left." On the eve of the collapse of the Tushinsky camp, Filaret joined those who suggested getting out of the crisis, inviting the son of the Polish king Vladislav to the Moscow throne of Sigismund III.

The noble origin of the king was supposed to put an end to the rivalry of the boyar clans within the country, and the kinship with the king - the war with Poland. The idea was widespread among the Russian elite, but Filaret had to be aged for it already in Moscow. In the spring of the year, he was released by the Shuisky detachment and delivered to the capital.

Tsar Vasily accepted him with honor and without any reproaches. However, this did not matter much. Shuisky's time has expired: after the defeat at Klushin in June, he was reduced from the kingdom and tonsured monks. In August of the same year, Semiboyarshchina entered into an agreement with the Polish hetman Stanislav Zholkevsky on the election of King of Queen Vladislav to the kingdom.The Embassy “tightness”, the Zholkevsky, who was plunging in Moscow, understood how fragile here is the position of Vladislav, whose father, the lecture of the Jesuits, was not going to let his son go and was against the change of faith by his transition to Orthodoxy was one of the clauses of the contract.

Moreover, Sigismund III spoke about the oath of Russian people not to the king, but to himself. It is not surprising that in Moscow again thought about the election of the king from their own. Zholkevsky, just in case, decided to get ahead of the events - to remove Vladislav from the capital of the most dangerous rivals, including ... Filaret. In this case, his father suffered for his son: it was then that the name of Mikhail Romanov was first named as a probable candidate for the throne, but the Rostov lord had to pay.