In his study of late 17th — early 18th century Russian court culture, American historian Ernest Zitser offers an insightful analysis of the Most Comical and All-Drunken Council, and the phallocratic personality cult associated with Peter the Great. The company of believers in the new ‘Gospel of St. Peter’ was formed in the carnivalesque environment of would-be monarchs, knights and clerics. Exploring aspects of Petrine political theology which have hitherto been ignored by historians, the author shows that Muscovy’s transformation into imperial Russia was a matter not only of bureaucratic reorganization, but also of religious change. In other words, it was a transfiguration, as well as a transformation. Challenging many well-established ideas on Peter’s approach to religion and the appointment of state figures, the book promotes further study of his reign in a wider European context of Baroque court culture of the mid-17th century.