exerting all his influence to check the imposture. To add to the miseries of the time, the Poles ravaged the country, and seized and burnt its capital, deposed Hermogenes, and imprisoned him in a monastery, where he was starved to death (a.d. 1612). The Greek Ignatius, a follower of the pseudo-Dmitri, was now set up as patriarch of Russia. Meanwhile the monks and their supporters in the Trinity Monastery still held out. At length its devoted patriotism and loyalty to its Church were rewarded. Gradually the infection of heroism spread. A fast of purification was observed all over Russia. The new spirit now awakening in the people infused itself into an army of rescue. The Poles were defeated; the Kremlin was captured; and Philaret's young son Michael was elected tsar in the Trinity Monastery (a.d. 1613).
The new tsar showed his gratitude to the Church and his appreciation of its support by uniting a council of bishops to the council of the boyars. In this way the Church was represented in the government of Russia as it is in that of England by the presence of the bishops in the House of Lords. Much against his will, Philaret, now old and worn with the hardships he had endured, was elected patriarch; and thus father and son stood at the head of Church and State as patriarch and tsar. The two together effected several important administrative reforms both in civil and in ecclesiastical affairs. Centralisation was aimed at throughout. Courts were established at Moscow for trying affairs concerning the provincial towns, and even the governors were made subject to these courts. Similarly the archimandrites of the monasteries and the priests and deacons and other clerical officers were put under the jurisdiction of the patriarch in all except capital cases. On the other hand, Michael confirmed his father's edict forbidding the monasteries to acquire any more real property. By this time a large part of the land of Russia had come into the hands of the monks. The growth of the Church is seen in the continual increase in the number of dioceses. One addition, the bishopric of Astrachan, organised earlier,
