he was
devoted to the hair on his face. The beard was doomed by the czar. He
could not play barber to all his subjects, but he imposed a heavy tax
upon unshaven faces. Owners of beards paid from thirty to one hundred
rubles, and moujiks had to pay two pence for theirs every time they
entered a city or town.

The reform which had the most lasting influence upon Russia, was the
abolition of the landed nobility as a separate class. They would be
known as "_tchin_" or gentlemen, and any one who entered the service
of the government, regardless of birth, was at once entitled to be
classed among the _tchinovnik_. From that time the terms gentleman and
officer, became synonymous. Every service, civil, military, naval, or
ecclesiastic, was divided into fourteen grades. The lowest grade in
the civil service was held by the registrar of a college, the highest
by the Chancellor of the Empire; the cornet was at the bottom, the
field marshal at the top in the army; and the deacon in a church was
fourteen degrees removed from the Patriarch,--but all were _tchin_.

When, in 1700, the Patriarch Adrian died, the dignity was abolished by
Peter who did not relish the idea of a rival power in the State.
Instead he created the Holy Synod together with the office of
Superintendent of the Patriarchal Throne. He gives his reasons in the
ukase wherein the change is announced. "The simple people," this
document reads, "are not quick to seize the distinction between (p. 165)
the spiritual and imperial power; struck with the virtue and the
splendor of the supreme pastor of the Church, they imagine that he is
a second sovereign, equal and even superior in power to the Autocrat."

The Holy Synod consisted of bishops and a Procurator-general who
represented the czar and as such could veto any resolution. This
official was often a general. Every bishop had to keep a school in his
palace, and the sons of priests who refused to attend were taken as
soldiers. Autocrat though he was, Peter dared not confiscate the
property of the monasteries, but he forbade any person to enter a
convent before his thirtieth year. The monks were ordered to work at
some trade, or to teach in the schools and colleges. At this time, the
Protestant and Catholic churches of the West tried to make converts,
and the _raskols_ were hostile to the national church. As a rule Peter
did not favor persecution; so long as the church did not interfere
with his authority, there was