Nikolai F. Kapterev started his study at the Church Institute of
Zvenigorod and continued his studies at the Vnifansky Church Academy. At this Academy, he took his first degree after having written a thesis on worldly assistants of Archbishops in ancient Russia. Then he was employed as a teacher at the history department of the Moscow Church Academy. At this time he did intensive research work in archives. In 1883 he started publishing his monography "The character of Russia's relationship with the orthodox East in the 16th and 17th century." In fact, he planned to write his second thesis on this subject. In this monography the author, referring to this elaborate research in archives, came to the conclusion that "the Russians... had... reasons to have a suspicious attitude towards the Greek piety of that time and even to Greek Orthodoxy itself" and that "
Patriarch Nikon should not have had so much faith in the Greek who arrived to Moscow and who advised him to correct our old rites and books." For that time, this was a sensational statement to make. Only after interference of Ioaniky, the metropolite of Moscow, Kapterev's monography could be published. Kapterev was granted a Doctor's degree, and in 1885 his monography was published in book form. Professor N.I. Subbotin (1827–1905), a defender of the "official" Russian Orthodoxy, informed the Chairman of the Holy Synod, K.P. Pobedonostsev, against Kapterev and his publication and his Doctor's degree was cancelled by the Holy Synod. In 1887 Kapterev started publishing "Patriarch Nikon as a Church reformer and his opponents" in the "Orthodox Digest." These publications met with fierce attacks of Prof. Subbotin, which were refuted by Kapterev, who pointed out many errors and deliberate falsities in Subbotin's argumentation. Kapterev tried to take his Doctor's degree, presenting this publication as a thesis, but this was declined by the Holy Synod. This may become understandable, given the fact that Kapterev actually destroyed the basis of the theory on the Schism of 1666-67, held by the official Russian Orthodox Church. He proved that the rites, anathemized as a result of the Church reforms, such as the
sign of the Cross with two fingers, the twice hallelujah, etc.), were in fact rites of the ancient universal Christian Church and that the new rites (the sign of the Cross with three fingers, thrice hallelujah, etc.) appeared among the Greek in the 15th-16th century. ==Career==