Moscow: the Third Rome?

Several news articles in this issue, as well as the article this photo comes from, point to the question of authority among Orthodox Churches. In contrast to the Roman Catholic Church that is led by its Pope, the various national Orthodox Churches are each led by its own Patriarch or Metropolitan. When in the fourth century Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion, he built Constantinople, the new eastern capital city of the Roman Empire, as the center of his mighty realm. It was full of Christian cathedrals, and was called the "New Rome." But shortly after the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople in 1453, some Eastern Orthodox people began calling Muscovy the "Third Rome."

This idea came to the fore when Ivan III of Russia married Sophia Paleologue, a niece of Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor. Ivan III claimed that he and his descendants were heirs of the erstwhile Byzantine empire. The idea of Muscovy as heir to Rome crystallized with a panegyric letter composed by the Russian monk Philotheus (Filofey) of Pskov in 1510 to their son Grand Duke Vasili III, which proclaimed, "Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there will be no fourth. No one shall replace your Christian Tsardom!" (Wikipedia) Ever since then, the Russian political and religious leaders have made much of this idea that Moscow is the Third Rome.

But Moscow is not alone in making that claim: The Ottoman ruler Mehmet II also declared himself to be Kayser-i Rum, literally "Caesar of Rome," the first Rome being pagan, the second Rome being Christian, and the third Rome being Muslim. And in 800, Pope Leo III granted the title of Holy Roman Emperor to Charlemagne, after which the Habsburg dynasty of Austria for centuries kept that title. Later the German Empire laid claim to that title, naming its leader Kaiser - German for Caesar. Lastly, in the 20th century a certain struggling young artist in Vienna dreamed up the notion of a Third Roman Empire based in Austria and Germany - the Third Reich.

So we see that the mythology of a "Third Rome" has been floating around various political empires for centuries, using this idea as an ideological justification for political power. Constantinople is no longer the capital of a mighty empire; instead, it is now called Istanbul, and the head of its Orthodox Church, Patriarch Bartholomew, rules over only a few acres of land that the Turkish government permits him to live in. Yet the power struggle for claiming the seat of Eastern Christianity goes on, the Moscow Patriarchate at present being the largest contender for that title. But if all the Eastern Christian churches in Ukraine were to unite, it would form the largest Eastern Christian Church in the world. This is what Moscow is worried about.

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 25 May 2014.)