Nicon

, an eminent Russian prelate, was born in a village under the government of Nishnei Novogorod, in 1613. His parents were so obscure that neither their names nor stations are known. He was educated under the care of a monk in the convent of St. Macarius, and here he imbibed a strong and increasing prejudice in fa*­vour of the monastic life. In compliance, however, with the wishes of his family, he married, and was ordained a secular priest. The loss of his children by death disgusted him with the world, and he persuaded his wife to take the veil, whilst he became a monk. He retired into an island in the White Sea, and instituted a society in this solitude remarkable for its great austerities. He had not been in this place many years before he was made, after a series of ecclesiastical dignities, archbishop of Novogorod; and, finally, patriarch of Russia. He was not only eminent as a priest, but discovered the great and energetic talents of a statesman; and to them he fell a victim. In 1658 he was compelled to abdicate his dignity of patriarch, on | which he returned to his cell, and lived over his former austerities; but his degradation did not satisfy the malice of his enemies, who procured his imprisonment. He obtained, after a number of years, his release, with permission to return to his favourite cell; but, whilst on the road to this spot, he expired in his 66th year, in 1681. Nicon did not spend his whole time in the performance of useless austerities, but occasionally employed himself in compiling a regular series of Russian annalists from Nestor, the earliest historian of that country, to the reign of Alexey Michaelovitch. This collection is sometimes called, from its author, “The Chronicle of Nicon,” and sometimes, from the place where it was begun and deposited, “The Chronicle of the Convent of Jerusalem.” It is considered as a work of authority. ¹