. . . It was precisely through Peter that the invasion of the Little Russians, which had halted during the last years of the seventeenth century, became an accomplished fact. No later than 1701 the Græco-Latin Slavonic School at Moscow was wholly remodelled on the lines of that of Kiev.
� Remodelled � Russia could least of all hope for its love to be requited at the hands of the Moscow clergy. The last Patriarch Adrian expressed himself thus with regard to shaving the beard : � To leave oneself only a moustache, God did not make men like that, but cats and dogs—only look frequently at the picture of the Last Judgment, you will see on the Saviour�s right all bearded men, while to His left stand the Basurmans (Musslumans), Heretics, Lutherans, and Poles, and other such shavers of the beard,� which same the Patriarch solemnly cursed, speaking in doing so from the hearts of all Moscow folk.
Peter turned to the men of Kiev, although even here disappointments were not spared him : first to Stephan Yavorsky, the pupil of the Jesuit and Kiev schools, their poet-laureate and ablest Latinist, with whom he had accidentally made acquaintance at a funeral sermon. The � Preachings of Sir Yavorsky � pleased Peter so extraordinarily that he named him Bishop and vicegerent of the Patriarch, and believed he had found in him the advocated and defender of all his measures. But when Peter did not appoint him Patriarch, and Yavorsky saw how the Church was held in subjection under him, and what burdens he laid upon it, exactly the reverse resulted and went on gathering way from year to year ; Peter�s defender became, as far as fear would allow of it, his accuser, and played him grievous tricks . . .
While this man of Kiev ended in joining in with the old Muscovites on the ground that church interests were endangered, Peter found in another an all the more pliant tool. Theophan Prokopovich was far more cultivated and clever, but at the same time crafty and cruel . . .
( pages 68 - 69 )
( Geschichte der russischen Litteratur, A. Brückner
Leipzig : C. F. Ameland 1905. )
Edited by Ellis H. Minns, Translated by Henry Havelock.
New York, C. Scribner's sons ; London, T. F. Unwin, 1908.