15. The family of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich

Nicholas Zharkikh

Shortened text of the section. Full text in ukrainian version.

As easily as with the kings, one can understand the kin of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, recorded separately (pp. 20-21):

The family of the Tsar and Grand Duke Michael Feodorovich and all the Great and Lesser Russia Autocrat. Remember, Lord

The first thing that catches your eye is the title of the tsar: "all Russia is Great and Lesser", but not White. So, the record was made after the Pereiaslav Council (January 1654), but before the conquest of Smolensk (September 1654) and the addition to the royal title "and White Russia" (in general – 1655).

The list can be divided into two blocks: the first – No. 15-1 – 15-13 – the ancestors of the reigning Tsar Alexei (recorded in 1654); the second – No. 15-14 – 15-22 – was completed later, apparently near 1720, when the additions to the list of Chernihiv bishops were made (as noted above).

All the daughters of Tsar Aleksey and his second wife Natalya Naryshkina († 1694), Tsarevich Ilya Fedorovich (1681), Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich (1693 – but there are doubts that he was) were ignored when appending.

The source for the first part was, undoubtedly, the official tsarist synodikon, received from Moscow. It is even possible that it was the receipt of a large series of memorial records from Moscow that prompted the initiation of the Vvedensky synodikon. After all, the commemoration of the tsar in the church service is an important element for the manifestation of the new political situation (the supreme authority of the tsar over Kiev), and the remembrance of the tsar’s ancestors served the same purpose.