The article is devoted to the transformation of the image of Emperor Peter I in the Russian church panegyric literature and church history of the XVIII - XIX centuries. The paper notes the influence of the idea of patronalism and patronage on the genesis of ideas about the supreme secular power in Russia in the pre-Petrine period and the development of the title «Pater Patrium» (Father of the Fatherland), which was assigned to Tsar Peter Alekseevich along with the imperial title, and was often used in the panegyric literature of the XVIII - XIX centuries. At the same time, it is noted that paternalism and the associated titulature were the tools necessary to carry out a disciplinary revolution.