“The Novgorodians are your enemies.  They have shamefully expelled Yaroslaf, and thus treated your authority with insolence.  They have deposed Yaroslaf, merely because he was faithful in collecting tribute for you.”

By such a crisis, republicanism was necessarily introduced in Novgorod.  The people, destitute of a prince, and threatened by an approaching army, made vigorous efforts for resistance.  The two armies soon met face to face, and they were on the eve of a terrible battle, when the worthy metropolitan bishop, Cyrille, interposed and succeeded in effecting a treaty which arrested the flow of torrents of blood.  The Novgorodians again accepted Yaroslaf, he making the most solemn promises of amendment.  The embassadors of the Tartar khan conducted Yaroslaf again to the throne.

The Tartars now embraced, almost simultaneously and universally, the Mohammedan religion, and were inspired with the most fanatic zeal for its extension.  Yaroslaf retained his throne only by employing all possible means to conciliate the Tartars.  He died in the year 1272, as he was also on his return journey from a visit to the Tartar court.

Vassali, a younger brother of Yaroslaf, now ascended the throne, establishing himself at Vladimir.  The grand duchy of Lithuania, extending over a region of sixty thousand square miles, was situated just north of Poland.  The Tartars, dissatisfied with the Lithuanians, prepared an expedition against them, and marching with a great army, compelled many of the Russian princes to follow their banners.  The Tartars spread desolation over the whole tract of country they traversed, and on their return took a careful census of the population of all the principalities of Russia, that they might decide upon the tribute to be imposed.  The Russians were so broken in spirit that they submitted to all these indignities without a murmur.  Still there were to be seen here and there indications of discontent.  An ecclesiastical council was held at Vladimir, in the year 1274.  All the bishops of the north of Russia were assembled to rectify certain abuses which had crept into the church.  A copy of the canons then adopted, written upon parchment, is still preserved in the Russian archives.

“What a chastisement,” exclaim the bishops, “have we received for our neglect of the true principles of Christianity!  God has scattered us over the whole surface of the globe.  Our cities have fallen into the hands of the enemy.  Our princes have perished on the field of battle.  Our families have been dragged into slavery.  Our temples have become the prey of destruction; and every day we groan more and more heavily beneath the yoke which is imposed upon us.”

It was decreed in this council of truly Christian men, that, as a public expression of the importance of a holy life, none should be introduced into the ranks of the clergy but those whose morals had been irreproachable from their earliest infancy.  “A single pastor,” said the decree of this council, “faithfully devoted to his Master’s service, is more precious than a thousand worldly priests.”