The Synodicon of the Disgraced is not an acknowledgment of his guilt, but a recognition that those whom he had executed or otherwise caused to die (I think the actual cause of Met. Philip’s death is disputed) needed God’s mercy.

The fact that this man composed Church canons, convened Church councils, submitted to Church penances (as when the bishops excommunicated him for his wives beyond the third), built Churches, made war to subjugate lands to the Gospel, and did so many other things merits a serious historical review about what misdeeds we can actually verify that he did.

His ideas about the rights of the king certainly sound medieval and unenlightened to modern ears, but it was commonly believed that the Christian Ruler was the anointed of God to bear the sword, and had the power of life and death over all his subjects, as God’s viceroy. Such was the piety toward Christian emperors that, although many Byzantine Emperors were heretics, none of them were ever anathematized by the Church (except, I think, perhaps, for Julian the Apostate).

Very true! Lord have mercy!

Quote: ‘It was odd that there was no patriarch or Bishop that challenged his immoral actions”.
Thankfully, you are wrong.

Metropolitan Philip of Moscow (there were no patriarchs in Rus at that time) opposed Ivan the Terrible. For this he was killed.
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Philip_II_of_Moscow

And he was not the only one. As far as I know, only one man, st. Nicholas, was not executed after denouncing the tsar: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Nicholas_(Salos)_of_Pskov

I, a sinner, cannot and should not judge his life. Only the merciful God may do so, yet I am perplexed at how one might receive the life-giving Sacrament of the Eucharist and not be changed. How does this happen?

The best thing I can do for Ivan Grozny is to add his name to the list of deceased for whom I pray, realizing that I am equally worthy of condemnation for the many sins I committed before my conversion to the true faith.

Lord have mercy!

Thank you too. The whole story is very sad. The more details, the worse it gets. As was said in the article, this list with the names of the victims has not survived in its entirety. It is not known how many names were there originally.

The story of the oprichniks and the establishment of the oprichnik “monastery” was originally present in the article. I write articles in Russian, and then they are sent to translators. For this reason I need to stick to a certain length of text. The original article was too big to translate, so it had to be shortened.

Yes, the oprichniks deserve a separate article. But I am not sure it will be possible anytime soon.

An autopsy of Ivan the Terrible’s body revealed elevated levels of mercury. Mercury was part of many medicines. This includes drugs for syphilis, which Ivan the Terrible supposedly had. The theory of poisoning is not confirmed, but also not denied.