> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Shaving in the Russian state before Peter I and the protests of Patriarchs Joachim and Adrian
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/nezadolgo-do-petra-i-neprimirimo-borovshegosia-protiv-nosheniia-borody-bradobritie-v-russkom-gosudarstve-schitalos-odnim-iz-zlostnykh-porokov/
- Published: 2023-07-04T11:32:20.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:01:18.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Faith, Monarchies, Mores

Shortly before Peter I, that implacable foe of the beard, shaving was reckoned in the Russian state among the most pernicious of vices. The fashion for the razor was condemned by the clergy and restricted by the secular authorities.

Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich forbade the shaving of beards outright, together with the wearing of European dress.

But with the accession of Fyodor Alexeyevich manners gradually softened. Here and there European attire makes its appearance, chiefly Polish, of course, and before long Patriarch Joachim, in his «Proclamation», is lamenting the revival of that Hellenic, fornicatory, abominable custom, so often forbidden in ages past and utterly rooted out under Alexey Mikhailovich:

«Once more the youthful frenzied have begun to destroy the image given to man by God».

Joachim states plainly that such dandies, and their friends, ought to be excommunicated for shaving the beard.

The young Tsar, however, looks through his fingers at his subjects' shaving. His Polish wife, Tsaritsa Agafya Grushetskaya, encourages European fashions, hairstyles and the razor. Clean-shaven grandees appear in the royal entourage, setting an example to the whole court.

The Church authorities cannot reconcile themselves to the patronage of this lewd barbering. And Patriarch Adrian issues the epistle «To All the Orthodox on Not Shaving the Beard and Moustache», in which he explains that God grew beards on men as masters over their wives, who are imperfect and subordinate. And the wife, «beholding the beauty of her husband, and herself deprived of this beauty and perfection, shall be ever meek and obedient».