Prince Protasov, Ober-Procurator of the Most Holy Governing Synod, was born on this day in 1798. Prince Protasov was a natural choice for the post of a conduit between the “head of the Russian Church” (Emperor) and bishops. He grew up at a time of spiritual uncertainty in Russian society. Emperor Alexander I (r. 1801–1825) was out of his depth in ecclesiastical matters. The first book of the Holy Scripture that he read was the Book of Revelation and he read it in… in French, of course! Alexander could attend a Quaker silent assembly in London and then visit schema-monk Antipas at Valaam Monastery. Emperor Nicholas (r. 1825–1855) had no soft spot for mysticism. He studied Christianity within the framework of the Law of God. He had the idea that priests should be the first port of call for peasants. Therefore, during his time, basic medicine and agriculture were taught in seminaries. He opposed the “desacralization” of Holy Scripture and its translation into vernacular Russian. Prince Protasov was a Hussar officer in suppressing the Polish revolt against Russian imperial rule in 1831. Later, in 1839, as Ober-Procurator of the Synod (from 1836), he oversaw the suppression of the Greek Catholic Church in the western provinces of the Russian Empire. During his reign, Pochaev Monastery was returned to the Orthodox, along with all the buildings erected by the Uniates. Old Believers were deprived of their civil rights. They were encouraged to join the Old Ritualists, who were in union with the “official Church.” Priests of the official Church who escaped to the Old Believers were persecuted. During Nicholas’ reign, in 1847, the retired Metropolitan Ambrose (Popvovich) of Bosnia of the Ecumenical Patriarchate consecrated the first bishops for the Russian Old Believers in Austro-Hungary. During Protasov’s reign, the control of the office of the Ober-Procurator over the Church reached its pinnacle. According to one of his contemporaries, he treated the episcopal members of the Synod like a cavalry unit at military exercises. | 
