FILARET OF MOSCOW (1782–1867) was a metropolitan of Moscow and Russian Orthodox church leader. Filaret was born into the clerical "caste." He became a monk in 1808 and was ordained a priest in the following year. By 1812 he was rector of the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy. He became archbishop of Moscow (1821), then metropolitan of Moscow (1826); he served in the latter office until he died. Meanwhile Filaret had become a member of the Holy Synod (1819), the governing body of the Russian Orthodox church. Whether active participant or (from 1842) estranged consultant, he was to dominate its work for almost half a century. In the process he was able to demonstrate that the church need not be as subservient to the state as successive lay procurators-general of the synod expected it to be.

Filaret was barred from participation in the deliberations of the synod after 1842 largely because of the...