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THE GREEK AND EASTERN CHURCHES

of his part of the proposed bargain till an œcumenical council had decided on the question of the union of the two Churches.

The post of metropolitan of Kiev had been vacant for ten years during the troubles of the times. This old political capital and ecclesiastical centre of Russia had been sacked, and its principal buildings, which had been used as fortresses during the siege—the cathedral of St. Sophia, the church of the Tithes, the monastery of St. Michael, and the great Pechersky Monastery—all captured one after the other and destroyed. Daniel now took steps to fill the vacancy. At the very time when he was carrying on his negotiations with the pope he was also in communication with the patriarch Manuel ii. He selected a patriotic Russian named Cyril to be metropolitan of Kiev, and sent him to Nicæa for consecration (a.d. 1250). Cyril proved to be a great bishop; it is to his energy that we must attribute in a large measure the rapid revival of the Church in Russia after the stunning blow it had received from the Mongol invasion. Cyril left the ruins of Kiev, passed through the desolate towns of Cheringoff and Riazan, and travelled on to Novgorod, which had escaped the scourge. There he consecrated an archbishop and met the Prince Alexander on his return from a journey to the horde to pay his homage to the khan. The camp of the nomadic Mongols had been moved from place to place during times of war; but now it was settled at Sarai. Since many Russians were actually resident there, or were at least compelled to go there from time to time to visit their foreign master, Cyril made it a bishopric, and consecrated Metrophanes, its first bishop. This see remained in being as long as the Mongol power existed; it was brought to an end when the horde was broken up.

In the year 1274, Cyril summoned a synod at Vladimir on the occasion of the consecration of Serapias, the archimandrite of the Pechersky Monastery, to the bishopric. The synod set about a reformation of Church discipline with a view to rooting out simony and other abuses, and