In an innovative study of Russian court culture of the late XVII - early XVIII centuries, the American historian Ernest Zitser comes up with a methodologically sophisticated interpretation of carnival acts associated with the "Most Quiet and Most Drunk Cathedral" and the phallocratic personality cult of Peter the Great. The "amusing" world of imaginary monarchs, knights and clergy appears to be the sphere where the "company" of those who believed in the new "Gospel of Peter" was created. Illuminating aspects of Peter's political theology, previously ignored by historians, this work proves that the transformation of Muscovy into imperial Russia was as much a subject of bureaucratic reorganization as a transition to a new faith, that is, as much a transformation as a transformation. The book disputes many of the common ideas about the religious and personnel policies of Peter I and stimulates further study of his rule in the pan-European context of the baroque court culture of the early modern era.