service-books as suggested by the first council, and anathematized the dissentient minority, which included the party of the protopopes and Paul, bishop of Kolomna. Heavily weighted with the fullest ecumenical authority, Nikon’s patriarchal staff descended with crushing force upon the heterodox. His scheme of reform included not only service-books and ceremonies but the use of the “new-fangled” ikons, for which he ordered a house-to-house search to be made. His soldiers and servants were charged first to gouge out the eyes of these “heretical counterfeits” and then carry them through the town in derision. He also issued a ukaz threatening with the severest penalties all who dared to make or use such ikons in future. This ruthlessness goes far to explain the unappeasable hatred with which the “Old Ritualists” and the “Old Believers,” as they now began to be called, ever afterwards regarded Nikon and all his works.
From 1652 to 1658, Nikon was not so much the minister as the colleague of the tsar. Both in public documents and in private letters he was permitted to use the sovereign title. Such a free use did he make of his vast power, that some Russian historians have suspected him of the design of establishing “a particular national papacy”; and he himself certainly maintained that the spiritual was superior to the temporal power. He enriched the numerous and splendid monasteries which he built with valuable libraries. His emissaries scoured Muscovy and the Orient for precious Greek and Slavonic MSS., both sacred and profane. But his severity raised up a whole host of enemies against him, and by the summer of 1658 they had convinced Alexius that the sovereign patriarch was eclipsing the sovereign tsar. Alexius suddenly grew cold towards his “own familiar friend.” Nikon thereupon publicly divested himself of the patriarchal vestments and shut himself up in the Voskresensky monastery (19th of July 1658). In February 1660 a synod was held at Moscow to terminate “the widowhood” of the Muscovite Church, which had now been without a pastor for nearly two years. The synod decided not only that a new patriarch should be appointed, but that Nikon had forfeited both his archiepiscopal rank and his priest’s orders. Against the second part of this decision, however, the great ecclesiastical expert Epifany Slavenitsky protested energetically, and ultimately the whole inquiry collapsed, the scrupulous tsar shrinking from the enforcement of the decrees of the synod for fear of committing mortal sin. For six years longer the Church of Muscovy remained without a patriarch. Every year the question of Nikon’s deposition became more complicated and confusing. Almost every contemporary orthodox scholar was consulted on the subject, and no two authorities agreed. At last the matter was submitted to an ecumenical council, or the nearest approach to it attainable in the circumstances, which opened its sessions on the 18th of November 1666 in the presence of the tsar. On the 12th of December the council pronounced Nikon guilty of reviling the tsar and the whole Muscovite Church, of deposing Paul, bishop of Kolomna, contrary to the canons, and of beating and torturing his dependants. His sentence was deprivation of all his sacerdotal functions; henceforth he was to be known simply as the monk Nikon. The same day he was put into a sledge and sent as a prisoner to the Therapontov Byelozersky monastery. Yet the very council which had deposed him confirmed all his reforms and anathematized all who should refuse to accept them. Nikon survived the tsar (with whom something of the old intimacy was resumed in 1671) five years, expiring on the 17th of August 1681.
See R. Nisbet Bain, The First Romanovs (London, 1905); S. M. Solovev, History of Russia (Rus.), vol. x. (St Petersburg, 1895, &c.); A. K. Borozdin, The Protopope Avvakum (Rus.) (St Petersburg, 1898); V. S. Ikonnikov, New Materials concerning the Patriarch Nikon (Rus.) (Kiev, 1888); William Palmer, The Patriarch and the Tsar (London, 1871–1876). (R. N. B.)
NIKOPOL, a town of Russia, in the government of Ekaterinoslav, on the right bank of the Dnieper, 70 m. S.S.W. of the town of Ekaterinoslav. It was formerly called Nikitin Rog, and occupies an elongated peninsula between two arms of the Dnieper at a point where its banks are low and marshy, and has been for centuries one of the places where the middle Dnieper can most conveniently be crossed. Its inhabitants, 21,282 in 1900, are Little Russians, Jews and Mennonites, who carry on agriculture and shipbuilding. The old secha, or fortified camp of the Zaporogian Cossacks, brilliantly described in N. V. Gogol’s novel Taras Bulba (1834), was situated a little higher up the river. Numbers of graves in the vicinity recall the battles which were fought for the possession of this important strategic point. One of them, close to the town, contained, along with other Scythian antiquities, the well-known precious vase representing the capture of wild horses. Even now Nikopol, which is situated on the highway from Ekaterinoslav to Kherson, is the point where the “salt-highway” of the Chumaks (Little Russian salt-carriers) to the Crimea crosses the Dnieper. Nikopol is, further, one of the chief places on the lower Dnieper for the export of corn, linseed, hemp and wool.
NIKOPOLI, or Nicopolis (Turkish, Nighebolu or Nebul), the chief town of a sub-prefecture in the district of Plevna (Pleven), Bulgaria. Pop. (1908) 5236, including 3339 Turks and 1615 Bulgarians. Nikopoli is picturesquely situated on the south bank of the Danube, where it receives the Osem. Until the creation of a new port at Somovit, in the neighbourhood, Nikopoli served as an outlet for the trade of Plevna, Lovtcha and other towns in the interior, the principal export being cereals. The chief industries are tanning and fishing. As a military post the town has for centuries been important. A ruined castle still dominates the place, and fortifications stretch down to the river.
Nikopoli occupies the site of the ancient Asamus, but by some medieval confusion bears the name of Nicopolis ad Istrum, which was founded by Trajan several miles down the river, at the inflow of the Iatrus or Yantra, at the spot still called Nikup. The following are the chief points in the modern history of the place:—capture of the fortress by Sigismund of Hungary in 1392 and 1395; defeat of Sigismund and his hosts in 1396 by Bayezid I.; siege of the town by King Ladislaus I. of Hungary in 1444; defeat of the Turks by Bathori in 1595 and by Michael of Walachia in 1598; capture of the town by Pasvan-oglu in 1797; occupation of the fortress by the Russians under Kamensky in 1810; destruction of the Turkish flotilla and storming of the Turkish camp by Govarov in 1829; capture and burning of the town by the Russians under Krüdener on the 15th of June 1877.
NIKSHICH (also written Nikshitch and Nikshiti; Croatian, Nikšić), a town of Montenegro, lying in a flat plain enclosed by lofty mountains on the north-west, and watered by the river Zeta. Pop. (1900) about 3500. Owing to the prevalence of floods, a long viaduct, a gift from Russia, was raised between the town and the mountain road which leads to Podgoritsa, 60 m. S.E. Nikshich consists of a mass of white houses, dominated by the belfry and the pale yellow cupola of its cathedral, another gift from Russia. This building is chiefly Byzantine in style, and, though hardly beautiful, is the most impressive and by far the largest of Montenegrin churches. Close by stands a barrack-like royal palace; and a little beyond the town are the ruins of an old castle. As Nikshich possesses a brewery and a clothmill, besides being the chief mart of Western Montenegro for timber, hides, farm-produce and livestock, it ranks second in commercial importance to Podgoritsa. About 12 m. S.E. is the celebrated shrine of Ostrog (see Montenegro). Nikshich was included in the Turkish province of Herzegovina until 1876, in which year it was stormed by the Montenegrins, led by Prince Nicholas in person. In 1878 the Montenegrin possession was ratified by the treaty of Berlin.
NILE, the longest river of Africa, and second in length of all the rivers of the globe, draining a vast area in north-east Africa, from the East African lake plateau to the shores of the Mediterranean. Although falling short of the length of the Mississippi-Missouri (4194 m. according to the estimate of General Tillo[1]), the Nile is at the head of all rivers as regards the length of its basin, which extends through 35° of latitude or 2450 m. in a direct line, with a waterway of about 4000 m. The Nile proper, i.e. from the outlet at Victoria Nyanza to the sea, is 3473 m. long.
- ↑ General Alexi A. Tillo (1839–1900), Russian scientist and geographer, author of works on geodesy, meteorology, &c.
