Toward the close of his reign (in 1718) he desperately ordered his people to hold periodical receptions, or “drawing-room” entertainments, in their houses from four in the afternoon until ten. It is understood that his recent visit to Paris gave him the idea. Chess and smoking and dancing and drinking--but no cards or dice--were to be provided, and men and women were to mix socially. But social intercourse enforced by the knout is not apt to be genial. They were, as far as the law was obeyed, melancholy entertainments.
To all these reforms the clergy and monks were opposed, and he quickly attacked their power and wealth. In the December of 1699 he flouted the Church-calendar and decreed that henceforward, as in the rest of the civilised world, the year would begin on the First of January. An entire reform of the calendar was beyond even his audacity, and Russia still lingered behind the world. In 1700 he ordered the opening of apothecaries’ shops in Moscow, and, although the bulk of the messes sold in such places at the time were not much more efficacious than charms or the prayers of the monks, it was a healthy assault on tradition and the trade of the priests. In the same year he began his direct assault upon the ecclesiastical authorities.
The Patriarch of Moscow died in October, and Peter boldly refused to appoint a successor. It could not be pretended that such an institution was an essential part of the Russian tradition, as the patriarchate of Moscow had been founded only by Boris Godunoff, but the murmurs of the clergy may be imagined. Peter appointed instead a “Superintendent of the Patriarchal Throne,” and through this man he got control of the wealth and affairs of the Church. A separate department took control of the monasteries, and the Tsar made a bold attack upon this economic evil. Monasteries and convents were full of men and women who were religious only in name and dress. Frequently they took no vows, and their sole intention was to enjoy the immunities, the well-fed idleness, and the frequent dissoluteness of the religious institutions. As in other lands, centuries of ignorant piety had showered wealth upon an institution which at first had won sympathy by its austerity and now retained it by hypocrisy. Such a condition, when Peter sought for war-purposes every rouble he could get, stirred his wrath, and he had little piety to restrain him. He “regulated” the incomes of the monasteries and convents in such fashion that they became less attractive to economic parasites and sensual hypocrites. As time went on he increased the restrictions of monastic life, and tried to compel the monks to teach or work.