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In [[1551]], while a council declared in favour of revision, its members made themselves ridiculous by neglecting the task, to fulminate articles against the heinous sins of shaving the beard, driving with one pole, and eating sausages. The canon against shaving is singularly expressed, as the final clause seems to assign a divine dignity to the beard. " Of all the heresies that are punished by excommunication, none is more damnable and criminal than to shave the beard. Even the blood of the martyrs is unable to redeem such a guilt; consequently, whoever shaves his beard for human considerations, violates the law, and is an enemy to God, who has created us after his own image." Philaretes, during the reign of his son Michael, took part in abortive attempts to reform the church books ; and under Alexis, the second of the Romanoffs, in [[1654]], a council of thirty-six bishops assembled at [[Moscow]], over which the patriarch Nicon [[Patriarch Nikon]] presided, and earnestly recommended the long-contemplated project to the attention of the czar. Macarius, the patriarch [[Patriarch of Antioch]], with his archdeacon, [[Paul of Aleppo]], and the head of the Servian church, were present upon this occasion. At length, under the auspices of another council in [[1667]], attended by the patriarchs [[Patriarch of Alexandria ]] and the [[Patriarch of Antioch]], with delegates from both the [[Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem ]] and the [[Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople]], the expurgation of the sacred books of the Sclavonic church was effected; and the revised texts were formally declared to be the only true, lawful, and authorised copies. Alexis in person presided over this conclave. By its voice the ambitious and turbulent Nicon [[Patriarch Nikon]] was deposed from the Russian patriarchate and the canon against shaving was repealed.

The effect of the above salutary measure in the [[Russian churchOrthodox Church]], and that of the nearly contemporaneous [[Act of Uniformity ]] in the English[[Anglican Church]], was in some degree similar. Dissent arose upon an extensive scale, and persecution was vigorously applied to reclaim or crush the nonconformists.

Internal dissensions troubled the Russo-Greek communion at an early period, leading to separation from its pale. The more ancient controversies referred to trifling or ridiculous points of difference, yet were none the less furious on account of the causes being trivial. There was warm contention whether the [[hallelujah ]] should be repeated two or three times at the end of the psalms, and whether the sign of the cross should be made with three fingers, symbolising the Trinity, according to the Greek ritual[[Byzantine Rite]], or with two fingers, in allusion to the two natures in the person of [[Christ]], as prescribed in the [[Armenian serviceRite]]. But in [[1375]], Karp Strigolnik, a citizen of [[Novgorod]], touched upon topics of greater moment. Accusing the clergy of [[simony ]] and abuse of the rite of confession, he raised a violent outcry against them, and proclaimed doctrines in which the fanatical blended with the sober.