PROKOPOVICH, FEOFAN (1681–1736) was a Russian Orthodox archbishop who collaborated with Peter the Great to subordinate the administration of the Russian Orthodox church to the imperial government. The instrument of subordination was the Dukhovnyi Reglament (Ecclesiastical Regulation), Prokopovich's most famous writing, which Peter had proclaimed on January 25, 1721.

The Ecclesiastical Regulation achieved the subordination of the church's administration to the tsarist state until the tsardom collapsed in 1917. It abolished the patriarchate of Moscow, replacing it with an Ecclesiastical College modeled on the collegial system that had just been introduced into the civilian administration of the Russian empire. The Ecclesiastical College immediately and successfully sought to rename itself the Most Holy Governing Synod. The change in name symbolized the beginning of a nearly two-hundred-year struggle by churchmen and supporters of the church to regain administrative autonomy for the church.

One of the more burdensome features of the Ecclesiastical Regulation...