Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who had left Moscow with his family and those close to him for the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda (now the city of Aleksandrov, Vladimir region) a month earlier, sent two letters to the capital.
The first was addressed to Metropolitan Athanasius. In it, listing the abuses and betrayal of the boyars and accusing the clergy of intercession for the traitors, Ivan Vasilyevich announced that he was leaving his state and settling where God would tell him.
In another letter, addressed to the "Orthodox Christianity of the city of Moscow," Grozny wrote that he had no anger against them.
The society of that time was shocked. Envoys of all strata of the population begged the metropolitan to persuade the tsar not to abandon his state, his children. The Metropolitan equipped a deputation headed by Archbishop Pimen of Novgorod in the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda.
Ivan the Terrible accepted the deputation, repeated his reproaches to the boyars and in conclusion said that for the sake of Metropolitan Athanasius, the archbishops and bishops, he agreed to again take over the state, but on the condition that the clergy did not prevent him from executing the traitors.
The condition was accepted, and the tsar immediately announced the establishment of the oprichnina, in other words - divided the state into zemstvo and oprichnina. The oprichnina corps began to form from the people entrusted to the king. With a firm hand, the tsar began to resettle the boyars-princes to new distant regions, tearing them away from their homes and destroying their old ties, and on the princely clan lands he began to plant his artless guardsmen.
A large-scale reshuffling of land holdings took place, as a result of which all princely families who seemed suspicious to Ivan the Terrible were turned into service people.
Author: Sarukhan
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