Dimitry (secular name Daniil Andreyevich Sechenov; December 6, 1709, near Moscow — December 14, 1767, Moscow) — Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod and Alatyr from 1742 to 1748, head of the Office of Newly Baptized Affairs from 1740, later Archbishop and then Metropolitan of Novgorod and first-ranking member of the Synod. In the Nizhny Novgorod land, his name is associated above all with the baptism of the Mordva: according to his register, over five years the diocese recorded 50,430 newly baptized converts and 82 new churches — and with the Teryushevo Uprising, which began on May 18, 1743, following the desecration of a Mordva cemetery near the village of Sarley.[1][2][3]
Before Nizhny Novgorod
Daniil Sechenov was born on December 6, 1709, into a noble family near Moscow and studied at the Moscow Slavic-Latin Academy. Around the turn of 1729–1730 he took the ryasophor under the name Desiderius, was ordained a deacon, and became treasurer of the Zaikonospassky Monastery; his monastic tonsure and priestly ordination came on March 17 and November 24 — according to some sources in 1731, according to others in 1735. Upon completing his studies he was kept at the academy as a teacher of the junior class, and on September 29, 1738, was appointed the academy's preacher.[1]
On December 4, 1738, Sechenov was elevated to archimandrite and entrusted with the Sviyazhsk Assumption Monastery and the affairs of the newly baptized in the Kazan Diocese. On September 11, 1740, by decree of Empress Anna Ioannovna, he was appointed head of the Office of Newly Baptized Affairs established by that same decree, and became a missionary preacher among non-Christians in four dioceses — Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Astrakhan, and Voronezh. In 1741 and 1742, under his direction, more than seventeen thousand people were baptized and thirty churches were built.[1][4]
Peoples of various faiths, entire villages and whole districts… every last one of them was illumined by holy baptism[1]
The Nizhny Novgorod See
Dimitry was named Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod and Alatyr on September 10, 1742, consecrated on September 14, and arrived in Nizhny Novgorod on October 31. On January 24, 1743, the new hierarch performed the burial of his predecessor, Bishop Ioann (Dubinsky).[1]
He did not abandon the affairs of the newly baptized offices from his cathedra. According to a report sent to the Synod, from 1740 to 1744 the Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas Diocese recorded 50,430 newly baptized converts, and 82 churches were built for them: 14 in Nizhny Novgorod Uyezd, 49 in Alatyr Uyezd, 10 in Kurmysh Uyezd, and 9 in Yadrin Uyezd.[1]
At the same time, the hierarch was accused of forcing baptism, keeping the recalcitrant in chains and stocks, and baptizing people while they were bound. He himself, four years later, acknowledged that in many villages baptism had remained a purely outward affair.[1][3]
May 18, 1743
On that day, while making a circuit of the diocese, Dimitry ordered the burning of a Mordva cemetery with its wooden grave-frame structures near the church of the village of Uspenskoye, also known as Sarley, 60 versts south of Nizhny Novgorod. Peasants who came running attacked the bishop's convoy, and he himself took refuge in a barn belonging to the village priest; this was the beginning of the Teryushevskoe Uprising, which lasted nearly two years.[1][3]
The reasons behind this order are recounted differently by different sources. A promemoria from the ecclesiastical consistory explains it by reference to an inspection of church order and by the fact that the cemetery near the church served as a pretext for "large gatherings"; the manuscripts of Pavel Melnikov-Pechersky, published by Andrey Titov, cite as the background an altercation between the Mordva and the monks of Oransky Monastery during a religious procession. Titov notes the discrepancy explicitly.[3]
The matter reached the Senate: the owner of the volost, Georgian prince Bakar, secured the withdrawal of the military detachments. By a decree of July 8, 1744, the Senate directed the Synod to instruct the Nizhny Novgorod bishop that only willing converts were to be baptized.[3]
And by force and under compulsion, let no one be baptized into the Christian faith, lest from this there again arise any ill consequences[3]
The Seminary, the Cathedral, and the Monasteries
In 1743, at Dimitry's insistence, the theological seminary was moved out of the wooden buildings at the bishop's residence beyond the kremlin walls: a two-story stone mansion with outbuildings was purchased from the merchant widow Nastasya Pushnikova for the purpose. In 1744–1745, a church dedicated to the Venerable John of Damascus was built on the seminary grounds, new subjects were introduced into the curriculum — including philosophy — and the best students were for the first time sent to continue their studies in Moscow.[1][2][5]
On 29 March 1745, a heated cathedral in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" was consecrated in Nizhny Novgorod; it stood opposite the kremlin gates until 1835. According to another account, the consecration took place on 29 November of the same year.[1][3]
By a decree of 18 March 1743, Dimitry was charged with restoring the Arzamas Vysokogorskaya Voznesenskaya Pustyn, which the brotherhood had abandoned in the 1730s: the former monks were ordered to return, and upon their deaths the brotherhood was to be sent from the Spassky Monastery. The monastery was rebuilt entirely — not on its original site, but on the summit of a hill.[1][6]
After Nizhny Novgorod
In early August 1748, Dimitry was, at his own request and following an illness, retired to the Raifa Monastery. On 24 February 1752, he was summoned to St. Petersburg and appointed a member of the Synod; on 21 June of the same year he was made Bishop of Ryazan and Murom, and in October 1757 he was elevated to the rank of Archbishop of Novgorod and became the presiding member of the Synod.[1]
During the coup of 28 June 1762, he was the first to address Catherine as empress from the pulpit of the Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos on Nevsky Prospekt, and he drafted the manifesto removing Peter III. On 22 September 1762, Dimitry performed the coronation rite of the empress in Moscow, and on 8 October was elevated to Metropolitan of Novgorod and Velikiye Luki. In November he headed the Commission on Church Estates, whose work concluded with the manifesto on secularization.[1]
The metropolitan died on 14 December 1767 in Moscow, at the Zaborovsky Compound in the Kremlin, in the fifty-ninth year of his life. His funeral service was held on 18 December at the Zaikonospassky Monastery, and on 3 January 1768 he was buried in the Martyrievskaya porch of the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod.[1]
Stages of Service
The dates of the Nizhny Novgorod period differ slightly across sources: diocesan publications give 12 September 1742 as the date of consecration, documents of the Office of Newly Baptized Affairs give 1 September, while the Orthodox Encyclopedia distinguishes between the nomination and the consecration. The date of arrival in Nizhny Novgorod is the same in all accounts.[1][2][4]
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 4 December 1738 | Archimandrite of the Sviyazhsk Uspensky Monastery, administrator of the affairs of the newly baptized in the Kazan Diocese |
| 11 September 1740 | head of the Office of Newly Baptized Affairs |
| 10 and 14 September 1742 | nomination and consecration as Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod and Alatyr |
| 31 October 1742 | arrival in Nizhny Novgorod |
| 18 May 1743 | destruction of the Mordva cemetery near the selo of Sarley; beginning of the Teryushevsky Uprising |
| 29 March 1745 | consecration of the heated cathedral of "Joy of All Who Sorrow" |
| August 1748 | retirement to the Raifsky Monastery |
| 21 June 1752 | Bishop of Ryazan and Murom |
| October 1757 | Archbishop of Novgorod, presiding member of the Synod |
| 22 September 1762 | coronation of Empress Catherine II in Moscow |
| 8 October 1762 | Metropolitan of Novgorod and Velikiye Luki |
| 14 December 1767 | death in Moscow; buried on 3 January 1768 in the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod |
Legacy in Nizhny Novgorod Memory
In the Erzya tradition, the name of Dimitry is remembered above all as that of the bishop under whom prayer sites and cemeteries were destroyed and the volost was baptized under military escort. In the ecclesiastical tradition, he is remembered as the missionary who built up the diocese and its seminary. Both assessments rest on the same documents of the 1740s.[1][3]
Half a century later, in that same Teryushevskaya volost where the troops had been stationed, a serf named Alekseyev Kuzma, known as Kuzka-bog ("Kuzka-God"), began to preach — evidence that the memory of forced baptism proved long-lasting.[1]
Sources
- pravenc.ru — Orthodox Encyclopedia — DIMITRY (Sechenov Daniil Andreyevich), Metropolitan of Novgorod and Velikiye Luki. Vol. 15, p. 93 (archive)
- nne.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Metropolis — Bishop Dimitry (Sechenov) (archive)
- vostlit.info — Russkoye Obozreniye — A. Titov. The Teryushevsky Uprising. No. 8, 1893 (based on an 18th-century manuscript and papers of P. I. Melnikov-Pechersky) (archive)
- idmedina.ru — Medina Publishing House — I. Kh. Strelkova. The Activities of the Office for Newly Baptized Affairs in the Territory of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate in the 1740s–1750s (archive)
- pravenc.ru — Orthodox Encyclopedia — NIZHNY NOVGOROD AND ARZAMAS DIOCESE (archive)
- arzblag.ortox.ru — Arzamas Deanery — Vysokogorskaya Voznesenskaya Men's Hermitage (archive)