The metropolitan bishop first offered a prayer.  Ivan IV. then, standing on a platform, addressed the bishop in the following terms: 

“Holy father!  Your zeal for religion, your love for our country are well known to me; aid me in my good intentions.  I lost, while an infant, my parents, and the nobles, who sought only their own aggrandizement, neglected entirely my education, and have usurped, in my name, wealth and power.  They have enriched themselves by injustice, and have crushed the poor without any one daring to check their ambition.  I was, as it were, both deaf and dumb in my deplorable ignorance, for I heard not the lamentations of the poor, and my words solaced them not in their sorrows.  Who can tell the tears which have been shed, the blood which has flowed?  For all these things the judgment of God is to be feared.”

Bowing then on all sides to the people, the monarch continuing, thus addressed them: 

“O, you my people, whom the All-powerful has entrusted to my care, I invoke this day, in my behalf, both your religion and the love you have for me.  It is impossible to repair past faults, but I will hereafter be your protector from oppression and all wrong.  Forget those griefs which shall never be renewed.  Lay aside every subject of discord, and let Christian love fraternize your hearts.  From this day I will be your judge and your defender.”

Religious ceremonies, simple yet imposing, closed this scene.  Alexis Adachef was appointed minister of justice, receiving special instructions to watch the empire with a vigilant eye, that the poor especially should be subject to no oppression.  From that moment all the actions of the sovereign were guided by the counsels of Sylvestre and Adachef.  Ivan IV. assembled around him a council of his wisest and best men, and ever presided in person over their meetings.  With great energy he entered upon the work of establishing a code of laws, which should be based upon the love of justice and good order.  In the year 1550 this important code was promulgated, which forms almost the basis of Russian civilization.

On the 23d of February, 1551, a large convention of the clergy, of the nobles and of the principal citizens of the empire, was assembled at the Kremlin, and the emperor presented to them, for their own consideration and approval, the code of laws which had been framed.  The mind of Ivan IV. expanded rapidly under these noble toils, and in a speech of great eloquence he urged them to examine these laws, to point out any defects and to cooeperate with him in every endeavor for the prosperity of Russia.

After having thus settled the affairs of the State, the monarch turned his attention to those of the Church, urging the clergy to devote themselves to the work of ecclesiastical reform; to add simplicity to the ceremonies of religion, to prepare books of piety for the people, to train up a thoroughly instructed clergy for the pulpits, to establish rules for the decorous observance of divine worship, to abolish useless monasteries, to purify the convents of all immorality, and to insist that ecclesiastics, of every grade, should be patterns of piety for their flocks.  The clergy eagerly engaged in this plan of reform, and vied with their Christian monarch in their efforts for the public weal.