2.4. Paul I (1796–1801) An idealist, an internally decent person, but with an extremely difficult character, without experience or skills in government, Paul ascended the Russian throne on November 6, 1796. The years of his stay on the throne were distinguished by great inconsistency.

Pavel was born in 1754. Immediately after his birth, Catherine 2 took him into her care in order to prepare Pavel to be a good manager for the country. However, Pavel did not love Catherine, and blamed her for separating him from his mother. This resentment will live in the heart of the future emperor for the rest of his life. As a result, feelings were born in Paul that forced him to do the opposite of what Catherine 2 did.

On November 5, 1796, Catherine 2 died, and Emperor Paul 1 led the country. Having come to power, the first thing Paul did was change the order of succession to the throne. From that time on, the throne belonged not to the one named by the previous ruler, but to a member of the royal dynasty in the male line in order of seniority. The next step taken by Emperor Paul 1 was the complete replacement of the entire top government of the country. The new emperor excommunicated from power all those who were loyal to Catherine 2. He himself appointed 35 senators and 500 officials.

Catherine 2 pursued an active policy of expanding Russian possessions. Emperor Paul 1, who did everything in defiance of Catherine, believed that aggressive campaigns were detrimental to Russia. In his opinion, the country should have limited itself to exclusively defensive wars. In foreign policy, cool relations with all countries remained for a long time. But soon Emperor Paul 1, believing in the sincerity of the friendship between England and Austria, joined the anti-French coalition. The Austrians by that time did not have a strong army, and could not fight Napoleon. The British have never been good at war. Russia and its gullible emperor had to take the rap for everyone. The allies demanded. For Russia to provide an army for a campaign in Italy, in order to liberate this region from Napoleon’s troops. The Russian army, numbering 45 thousand people, went to Italy. The army was led by the great commander Alexander Suvorov.

Suvorov won victory after victory. His army was truly invincible. Suvorov almost completely ousted all French forces from Italy and was preparing a campaign against France. The allies convinced Pavle 1 of the need to transfer Suvorov’s army to Switzerland in order to suppress the French resistance there too. Pavel 1, despite the protests of Suvorov, who, unlike the emperor, understood what was in store for him in the Swiss Alps, agreed and the Russian army went to Switzerland. The “Allies” sent this army to its death. Suvorov was given maps with non-existent routes. The Austrians completely withdrew their troops from Switzerland, which was overrun by French troops. Suvorov found himself among the French, without food and without support. This is what forced him to make the famous crossing of the Alps to save his army. Along the way, Suvorov won victories over the French, but the situation had already changed. It wasn't the victories that mattered. It was important to get out of Switzerland alive in order to save the army that the British and Austrians had sent to their deaths.

After these events, Emperor Paul 1 said that his “allies” had betrayed Russia and wanted to destroy its army. The Emperor broke off all diplomatic relations with England and Austria. Their ambassadors were expelled from Russia. After this, Paul's rapprochement with Napoleon began. The French emperor repeatedly said that he only wanted peace with Russia, that France and Russia were friendly countries that should dominate the world together.

However, the rapprochement of the countries was not destined to materialize. On the night of March 11-12, 1801, the conspirators broke into the emperor's bedroom and demanded that he abdicate the throne. When Emperor Paul 1 refused, he was killed. A few days earlier in France they tried to blow up the carriage in which Napoleon was traveling. The French emperor survived. After the death of Paul 1, Napoleon wrote the following about these events: “THEY missed me in Paris, but got me in Russia.” This is how the great French commander described the murder of Paul 1.

Reign of Paul I (1796-1801)

Pavel I Petrovich, the son of Catherine II and Peter III, inherited the royal throne according to the traditional unwritten law of the former Moscow kings. By repealing this firm law, Peter I almost “legitimized” a number of palace coups of the 18th century. The daughter of such a revolution was the mother of Paul I. Catherine II undoubtedly loved her son in childhood and dreamed of raising in him a certain “genius” on the throne. On this basis, she “opened” and elevated Met. Plato. But human feelings are not subject to simple logic. Over time, she began to see in Paul the banner of a coup against herself, alienated him from any acquaintance with state affairs, created for him a disguised prison in the Gatchina Palace and an offensive atmosphere of neglect on the part of the favorites surrounding her throne. This big, not only family, but also highly political drama, was one of the reasons for the long-term nervousness of his teacher, Metropolitan. Plato. A man of a straightforward soul, ready to serve entirely the legitimate government, Plato was confused and downright horrified by this political tragedy. And he was right in his premonitions. Plato very early, even during his Tver period (from 1770) and especially after the death (1771) of Archbishop. Ambrose Zertis-Kamensky and Pugachevsky uprising (1773-1774), began to be acutely afraid of the role of at least the synodal head of the church and the associated state responsibility. And while still in his prime, he began to think about taking advantage of the bishop’s privilege of retiring. Having learned about Plato’s submission of such a petition to Catherine, Pavel Petrovich, in solidarity with his wife Maria Feodorovna (and she, like Sophia Dorothea of ​​Württemberg, was also Plato’s student), wrote him a very friendly letter: “... This intention to leave my place is not only surprised me, but also saddened me, as someone who loves his fatherland and your friend... I don’t know whether I will succeed in my enterprise - to turn you away from your intention, but there cannot be anything else in me that is consistent with your goodness, for I love you and there is your faithful friend." And then all the time Pavel Petrovich appreciates and strengthens his friendship for his teacher of the law. Here is his letter from 1777: “I will tell you good news. The Lord heard on the day of sorrow, sent help from the saint and stood up from Zion. I have great hope about the pregnancy of my wife. Knowing your sentiments towards me and your patriotic dispositions, I tell you this so that you will rejoice with me "Continue not to doubt my friendship for you and be sure that I am and will be your faithful Paul." A few months later, Alexander Pavlovich is born. Paul again writes to Plato: “Share with me my joy, you who participate in everything that can concern me, you who know my feelings and, moreover, my disposition towards my fatherland.”

What thoughts did Met. Plato survived the death of Catherine II and the accession of the 42-year-old, but “minor” due to lack of government experience, Paul I; this is the secret of his heart. But Plato was aware of Paul's sincere religiosity, and he could be inspired by certain hopes for the best for the church.

At the coronation of Paul, the latter was in full military parade with a sword. But when Paul, already anointed, wanted to enter through the open royal doors into the altar for communion at the end of the liturgy, Plato commandingly stopped him with the words: “Here a bloodless sacrifice is being offered. Take away, pious Sovereign, the sword from your thigh.” And Pavel obediently surrendered his weapons.

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It was in vain that Plato expected from his reigning pupil particularly favorable changes in the sense of expanding the freedom of bishop's management. Taking it away was historically irrevocable. But the group of Great Russian bishops, who accepted the principle of secularization, psychologically had difficulty suppressing the economic instincts that were predominantly characteristic of them as Great Russians. They were irritated by the petty control in this matter, which emanated in a persistent and permanent form from the chief prosecutor's desk in the Synod. In the already quoted letter to Metropolitan. Metropolitan Ambrose of Kazan Plato sighs: “What do we care about them and what do they care about us? And why did they think that we should obey them even in this?” The exclamations are sentimental, but not sober. When a union of church and state is once accepted, each side always “has something to do with the other.”

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Even at the end of Catherine’s reign, 26.VII. 1791 Chief Prosecutor Naumov was dismissed upon request and a more active and closer to the Court was appointed in his place. Musin-Pushkin. He took into his own hands the entire synod office, all its staff and all its affairs, and to expand the entire apparatus he demanded additional allocations from the general budget of the Synod. Personal proximity to the empress freed Musin-Pushkin even from temporary control over economic affairs by the Senate, which was established temporarily after Chebyshev’s abuses. But Musin-Pushkin himself was a church man and therefore did not prevent members of the Synod from making personal reports to Catherine and receiving direct decrees from her.

With the accession of Paul I (1796), this closeness to the throne of the synod hierarchs was strengthened even more. Especially because Metropolitan, who was transferred after death. Gabriel (1794) to the St. Petersburg metropolis from Kazan, Ambrose (Podobedov) gained special favor from Paul. After Musin-Pushkin moved (1797) to the Senate, Prince was appointed Chief Prosecutor to the Synod. V. A. Khovansky. He introduced unprecedentedly strict bureaucratic procedures. For regular weekly reports to the emperor on the progress of Synod affairs, the new chief prosecutor ordered the chief secretary after each meeting of the Synod to make him a written report on the affairs and resolutions on them, on the members of the Synod present, even with a time stamp for the entry and departure of each member of the Synod.

Book Khovansky did not limit himself to the strictness of formal control of synod affairs in only two capitals. Diocesan office work was, as in appanage principalities, completely closed from the control of the center and the chief prosecutor, in particular. Khovansky reasoned consistently. If the supervision of the “Eye of the Sovereign” is established in the head, then why is it not in the whole body? On his own initiative, he ordered the secretaries of the consistories to report to him monthly on matters that had been resolved and those that remained unresolved. Seeing disorder from these reports, Khovansky encouraged the Synod to issue reprimands and corrections. In 1798, Khovansky proposed to the Synod to stop unauthorized trips of provincial clergy to St. Petersburg to complain. These unauthorized complainants, as you know, ruined the Tobolsk Metropolitan Pavel (Konyuskevich). The Synod willingly decided that no one would appear in St. Petersburg without a special passport from their diocesan bishop, but that such a complainant would be punished by being sent to military service. When the “restless” regional prosecutor Khovansky raised a protest against the distribution of some residual amounts between both synodal and diocesan bishops, the synodals through Metropolitan. Ambrose complained to the emperor. Pavel. The complaint was not only respected, but the sovereign even provided his revered Metropolitan. Ambrose, together with other members of the Synod, themselves elect a candidate they like for the position of Chief Prosecutor and submit it for the Highest approval. With this grace, Paul I testified to his complete misunderstanding of the controlling nature of this position. For the sake of decency, the Synod presented three candidates, but clearly wanted the first of them, Count Dm. Iv. Khvostova. It was approved on May 10, 1799. Khvostov voluntarily handed it over to Metropolitan. Ambrose the entirety of church administration, signing a minimum of papers only nominally. For three whole years, the position of Chief Prosecutor of the Synod became obsolete. Both the church and state sides showed a clear lack of understanding of the essence of this position. And this was just on the eve of the rise in power of the Chief Prosecutor on October 21. 1803 in the person of Prince. A. N. Golitsyn to an unprecedented height above the entire hierarchy.

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The general mentality of Paul I, in contrast to the Voltairean period of his mother’s reign, was favorable towards all kinds of improvement of the church. And the synod hierarchs managed to carry out a number of legislation favorable to the life of the church.

In 1797 and 1799 According to annual state estimates, regular salaries from the treasury for the ecclesiastical department have been doubled compared to the previous one. According to Catherine's states in 1764, only 462,868 rubles were allocated for all dioceses of Great Russia. And now another 519,729 rubles have been added to this amount, i.e. the government issue has reached almost one million rubles. In 1797, the plots of land for bishops' houses were doubled, and additionally allocated to bishops and monasteries: mills, fishing grounds and other lands.

At the request of the Synod, Emperor. Paul exempted clergy from corporal punishment for criminal offenses in civil courts until defrocking (if any), since their punishment, “inflicted in view of those very parishioners who received saving mysteries from them, disposes them to despise the sacred dignity.”

For the first time under Paul I (1799), measures were legalized to provide for widows and orphans of the clergy. For the heredity of the very places of clergy was supplanted by school diplomas. New people from other relatives and from other places were assigned. And the widows and orphans remained here. According to the new law, spiritual widows are given the advantage of occupying almshouse vacancies in monastic and bishop's houses. It is indicated that fine money, cemetery and stipend incomes should be used in favor of such widows and orphans.

Taking advantage of the attention of the new emperor, favorable for the church. Paul, at the very beginning of his reign, the leading synod hierarchs, which were Ambrose (Podobedov) and Metropolitan. Plato, achieved a significant increase in allocations for theological schools. From 1797 to 1800, the estimate kept increasing to 181,931 rubles. per annum. True, the number of full seminaries also increased significantly: Bethany was created, and Kolomenskaya was transferred and became Tula. Kaluzhskaya has also been added to the center. In the East: Penza, Perm and Orenburg. For the children of the army clergy, there is also a (temporarily existing) so-called. Army Seminary.

St. Petersburg and Kazan in 1797 increased in title and were already named Academies. Together with the older Academies in Kyiv and Moscow, 4 Theological Academies appeared in Russia, with which the Russian Church survived until the 20th century, until the fall into the abyss of the revolution.

Imperial Paul, in his theocratic sentiments, was, so to speak, generally clerical, that is, he did not mechanically and conservatively follow the monopoly of hierarchical power and honor in the hands of only the monastic and bishop ranks. He willingly met the high-ranking leaders of the white clergy (Fr. Pamfilov and Alekseev) and boldly supported their ambitious aspirations for their bishop-like decorations. This is imp. Paul (at the prompting of the leaders of the white priesthood) willingly introduced the awarding of priests with crimson-velvet (rather than purple) skufs, kamilavkas, and pectoral crosses and miters. And for personal merit, Paul I introduced something unprecedented (and generally new for Russian life) - distribution for personal merit, also for the entire priesthood from top to bottom, state orders and ribbons. When Met. Plato received such an unusual award; he had the courage to beg the monarch to give him the opportunity to “die as a bishop, and not as a gentleman.” Archbishop Pskov Iriney (Klementyevsky) received from the emperor. Pavel was even awarded with aiguillettes. A portrait was painted from this decoration, which is kept in the portrait gallery of the St. Petersburg Hermitage.

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The religious-theocratic mood of Paul I opened his heart to a benevolent policy towards Roman Catholicism within the Russian Empire, which had expanded at the expense of the liquidated Poland. And even in relation to the papacy itself, humiliated by the French Revolution. Personally, Pavel suggested that dad move to Russia. And the Order of Malta, expelled by Napoleon from Malta, was sheltered by Paul in Russia. The Jesuit order, persecuted from everywhere, was equally established within Russia. He even brought the Jesuit Gruber especially close to himself and improved his sphere of activity. Having assumed the title of great master, that is, head of the Maltese, Paul put on a ritual robe and so on. clothes of the general of the order. He also created a special Roman Catholic chapel in the wing of the Corps of Pages building on Sadovaya Street.

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Inconsistent in the sense of any well-thought-out system of government and legislation, imp. Paul unwittingly nevertheless walked towards the inevitable brewing reforms. And Klyuchevsky even more unconditionally emphasizes the positive aspects of Paul’s reign. “At the heart of the government policy of Emperor Paul, external and internal,” he says, “were serious thoughts and principles that deserve our full sympathy”... “Paul was the first anti-noble king of this era”... The domination of the nobility, based on injustice, was a sore spot of Russian society in the second half of the 18th century. A sense of order, discipline, equality was the guiding impulse of the emperor’s activities, the fight against class privileges was his main goal.” “Humbling class aristocracy, Paul involuntarily turned his face to the ideal of a nation-wide monarch. He said: “In Russia, only the one with whom I speak is great, and only while I speak with him.” He also deprived the nobles of freedom from physical punishment for certain criminal offenses. He also protected the serfs from unlimited exploitation. Paul's Law (1797) limited corvee to only three days a week. The second half of the week is declared to belong to the free labor of the peasant for himself and his family. This was an experimental start and instilled a sense of freedom and even caused some peasant unrest. But at the same time, the same Paul gave more than half a million state peasants into private ownership of landowners, which was tantamount to the loss of relative personal freedom.

But Paul was ruined by the lack of system and inconsistency in foreign policy. Despite the almost miraculous exploits of Russian soldiers in the distant Alps of Europe under the leadership of the brilliant Suvorov, Pavel’s fancifully mixed maps of military coalitions carried him along the dangerous path of war with England, right up to a direct campaign against India. Here the English ambassador Vytautas directly came to an agreement with the heirs of the “Catherine’s eagles” about a coup.

By the murder of 03/11/1801 imp. Paul ended a series of palace coups that were painful and - seemingly - dangerous for the monarchy system of the 18th century. But biologically necessary for the imperially growing organism of a vast and diverse state, Russian military-monarchical power, without any violent tricks, resisted and provided Russia and the Russian Church with another new century of uncontrollable development and even prosperity, despite the gigantic difficulties of overcoming such organic defects as serfdom and class inequality. The Russian Church, which lived this century under the regime of an archaic form of unlimited monarchy, also despite all the hardships and difficulties, ascended to the highest stage of its development in all respects.