History of Russia (1721–96) mounting financial difficulties and Elizabeth's death in 1762. Her nephew and successor, Peter III (grandson of Peter I), took Russia out of the war. Peter III reigned for a mere six months before his wife, Catherine II, led a coup against him. He was born and raised in Germany in the court of his father, the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and did not come to live in Russia until he was fourteen. It is difficult to ascertain his character because there exist many contradictory accounts. Catherine's journals describe him as incompetent bordering on retarded, yet his acts as emperor illustrate a
Church reform of Peter the Great a committee of churchmen headed by a lay appointee of the Emperor. Monasteries lost territory and were more closely regulated, resulting in a reduction in the number of monks and nuns in Russia from roughly 25,000 in 1734 to around 14,000 in 1738. The Church — particularly monasteries — lost landed wealth gradually during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but under Empress Catherine II ("Catherine the Great", ruled 1762–1796) monastic lands were effectively nationalised, with some one million peasants on monastery land becoming state serfs practically overnight. A new ecclesiastic educational system was begun under Peter the Great and expanded