Byzantine Legacy in Russia and Eastern Europe: The Third Rome

The Byzantine legacy in Russia and Eastern Europe is one of the most powerful and most enduring expressions of the Byzantine inheritance in the modern world. The conversion of the Rus to Orthodox Christianity in 988 inaugurated a millennium of cultural exchange in which Russia absorbed the religious, artistic, literary, and political traditions of Byzantium and adapted them to the conditions of the Slavic world. The result was the emergence of a distinctively Russian Orthodox civilization, with its own literary tradition, its own iconographic school, its own architecture, and its own political theology. The Russian claim to be the “Third Rome,” the heir of Byzantium after the fall of Constantinople, was the most striking expression of this inheritance.

This exploration of the Byzantine legacy in Russia and Eastern Europe traces the channels of transmission from Constantinople to Kiev, Novgorod, Moscow, and the wider Slavic world. It examines the religious, artistic, literary, and political dimensions of the inheritance, and it considers the role of the Byzantine legacy in the modern Orthodox world.

The Christianization of Rus

The Baptism of Vladimir

The Christianization of Rus was the work of the prince of Kiev, Vladimir I, who ruled from 980 to 1015. According to the famous account in the Russian Primary Chronicle, Vladimir considered the religions of his neighbors, including Islam, Judaism, and Latin Christianity, before deciding on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The account, which is more legendary than historical, tells of Vladimir’s envoys returning from Constantinople with reports of the splendor of the Hagia Sophia, the beauty of the liturgy, and the moral seriousness of the Greek clergy. Vladimir, the chronicle says, was so impressed that he chose Orthodox Christianity for himself and his people.

The historical reality was more complex. The Rus had been in contact with Christianity for centuries before Vladimir, and his grandmother, the princess Olga, had been baptized in Constantinople in the mid-tenth century. The Christianization of Rus was a political decision as much as a religious one, since Vladimir was looking for a religion that would unite his people, that would give him a prestige equal to that of the Byzantine emperor, and that would provide a network of ecclesiastical organization to support his state. The choice of Eastern Orthodox Christianity was a natural one, since the Rus had long-standing trade and diplomatic relations with Byzantium, and the prestige of the Byzantine church was unmatched in the medieval world.

The baptism of Vladimir and his people in 988 was followed by the systematic Christianization of the Rus territories. Churches were built, monasteries were founded, Greek and Bulgarian clergy were invited to Rus, and a hierarchy of bishops was established under the metropolitan of Kiev, who was appointed by the patriarch of Constantinople. The Slavic liturgical language, Old Church Slavonic, was the language of the church, and the Slavic literary tradition, which had been developed in Bulgaria and Moravia, became the basis of the Russian literary tradition.

The Kievan Period

The Russian Church under Constantinople

The Russian church was, from its foundation, under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. The metropolitan of Kiev was appointed by the patriarch, and the church of Rus was organized on the Byzantine model, with a hierarchy of bishops, the Divine Liturgy celebrated in Old Church Slavonic, the iconographic program based on Byzantine models, and the monastic tradition following the rule of St. Basil the Great.

The Kievan period, which lasted from the late tenth to the early twelfth century, was a time of remarkable cultural and artistic achievement. The great cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev, built by Yaroslav the Wise in the eleventh century, was a direct imitation of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, with its mosaic decoration and its five-domed structure. The monasteries of the Kievan Caves, the great monastic foundation near Kiev, became a center of learning and culture, and the chronicle of the Kievan Caves, the Paterikon of the Kiev Caves, is one of the great monuments of early Russian literature.

The Kievan period also saw the development of the Russian legal tradition. The Russkaya Pravda, the first Russian legal code, was compiled under the influence of Byzantine law, and it was an important element of the Russian legal heritage. The Russian code borrowed many principles from Byzantine law, including the law of marriage, the law of inheritance, and the law of contract, and it adapted them to the conditions of the Russian state.

The Mongol Period

The Survival of Orthodoxy

The Mongol invasion of Rus in the thirteenth century disrupted the cultural and political life of the country, and it isolated the Russian church from the Byzantine world for almost two centuries. Yet the Russian church survived the Mongol invasion, and it preserved the Orthodox tradition through the difficult years of the Tatar yoke.

The metropolitan of Kiev, who had been appointed by the patriarch of Constantinople, continued to be the head of the Russian church, but the political center of Rus gradually moved from Kiev to the northeast, to Vladimir, and then to Moscow. The metropolitan eventually moved to Moscow, and the new metropolitan of Moscow became the de facto head of the Russian church, although his canonical relationship to the patriarch of Constantinople remained.

The Mongol period also saw the development of a distinctively Russian monastic tradition. The most important figure was St. Sergius of Radonezh, the founder of the Trinity Monastery near Moscow, who was the leading Russian monastic of the fourteenth century. St. Sergius and his disciples founded monasteries throughout northern and central Russia, and the monastic revival of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was one of the most important developments of the period.

The Mongol period also saw the development of a Russian iconographic school, which began to emerge in the fourteenth century. The most important of the early Russian icon painters was Theophanes the Greek, who worked in Novgorod and Moscow and whose style combined Byzantine, Macedonian, and Russian elements. The school of icon painting that Theophanes founded in Moscow produced some of the greatest Russian icons, including the work of his most famous student, Andrei Rublev.

The Rise of Moscow and the Third Rome

The Autocephaly of the Russian Church

The rise of Moscow as the new center of the Russian state in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was closely tied to the development of the Russian church. The metropolitan of Moscow, supported by the grand prince of Moscow, gradually became the dominant figure in the Russian church, and the appointment of the metropolitan became a matter of dispute between Moscow and Constantinople. In 1448, the Russian bishops, without the consent of the patriarch of Constantinople, appointed their own metropolitan, and this act marked the de facto autocephaly of the Russian church.

The de facto autocephaly was followed by the de jure autocephaly in 1589, when the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, under pressure from the Ottoman sultan and the Russian tsar, recognized the Russian church as a patriarchate. The Russian patriarchate was the fifth in the Orthodox world, after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and its creation was an important step in the development of the Russian church as an independent institution.

The rise of Moscow was accompanied by the development of a new political theology. The Russian church and the Russian state developed the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome, the successor to Rome and Constantinople, the defender of the true faith, the center of the Orthodox world. The idea was articulated most famously by the monk Philotheus of Pskov in the early sixteenth century: “Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there shall be no fourth.”

The doctrine of the Third Rome was the basis of the Russian claim to be the heir of the Byzantine Empire. The Russian tsars, beginning with Ivan III, who married Sophia Palaiologina, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, claimed to be the successors of the Byzantine emperors, and they adopted the title of Caesar (Tsar) to indicate the continuity. The doctrine of the Third Rome remained an important element of Russian political thought well into the modern period, and it has been revived in the rhetoric of the contemporary Russian state.

The Russian Liturgical Tradition

The Translation of the Liturgy

The Russian liturgical tradition was a direct continuation of the Byzantine tradition, but with several important Russian adaptations. The most important was the translation of the liturgical texts from Greek into Old Church Slavonic, the Slavic literary language developed in the ninth century by the followers of Saints Cyril and Methodius. The translation was an enormous undertaking, and it required the development of a sophisticated Slavic literary language that could express the theological and liturgical concepts of the Greek original.

The Slavic liturgical language was the basis of the Russian literary tradition, and it was the language in which most of the great works of early Russian literature were composed. The Russian chronicles, the saints’ lives, the homilies, the legal codes, and the religious poetry of the Kievan and Muscovite periods were all composed in a form of Old Church Slavonic, often with Russian linguistic features. The Slavic literary tradition was one of the most important elements of the Byzantine legacy in Russia, and it is one of the great literary traditions of the Orthodox world.

The Russian liturgical tradition also developed its own musical forms, especially the so-called Znamenny chant, a distinctive form of Russian liturgical music that combined Byzantine melodic formulas with Russian folk elements. The Znamenny chant was the basis of Russian liturgical music for centuries, and it has been preserved in the Russian Orthodox Church to this day, alongside the more recent Kievan chant and the Russian settings of the common Orthodox chant.

Russian Iconography

The Theophanes School

The Russian iconographic tradition was founded in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries by Theophanes the Greek, a Byzantine master who came to Russia in the 1370s and who worked in Novgorod and Moscow. Theophanes brought with him the refined Palaiologan style of Byzantine icon painting, and he adapted it to the conditions of the Russian church, producing icons that combined Byzantine technique with Russian spiritual sensibility.

The most famous Russian icon painter was Andrei Rublev, a monk of the Trinity Monastery and a student of Theophanes. Rublev’s icons, including the famous Trinity (the icon of the three angels at Mamre, treated as a type of the Trinity) and the Christ in Glory, are among the greatest masterpieces of Orthodox iconography, and they have been recognized as such by the Russian Orthodox Church. The canonization of Rublev by the Russian church in 1988, on the thousandth anniversary of the Christianization of Rus, was a major event in Russian religious life.

The Russian iconographic tradition continued after Rublev, with the school of Dionysius and his followers in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and with the Stroganov school and the school of the czar Theodore in the seventeenth century. The Russian iconographic tradition is one of the most distinctive elements of the Russian cultural heritage, and it has been one of the most important elements of the Byzantine legacy in Russia.

Russian Architecture

The Churches of Vladimir and Novgorod

The Russian architectural tradition was also a continuation of the Byzantine tradition, with several important Russian adaptations. The first great stone churches of Russia, including the cathedral of St. Sophia in Kiev and the cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod, were built by Byzantine architects and were direct imitations of Byzantine models. The cathedrals were five-domed structures, with a central dome surrounded by four smaller domes, and they were decorated with frescoes and mosaics in the Byzantine style.

The Vladimir-Suzdal school of architecture, which flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, developed a distinctively Russian style that combined Byzantine elements with local Russian traditions. The most famous examples are the cathedral of the Dormition in Vladimir, the church of the Intercession on the Nerl, and the cathedral of St. Demetrios in Vladimir. These churches, with their white stone walls, their carved decoration, and their elegant proportions, are among the great monuments of medieval Russian architecture.

The Novgorod school of architecture, which flourished in the same period, developed a more austere style, with simple, massive forms and a distinctive type of helmet-shaped dome. The Novgorod churches, including the cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod and the church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on the Ilyn Street, are major monuments of the Russian architectural heritage, and they show the influence of the Byzantine tradition in a distinctively Russian form.

The Russian Tsardom

The Imperial Ideology

The rise of the Russian tsardom in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was accompanied by the development of a Russian imperial ideology that drew heavily on the Byzantine heritage. Ivan III, who married Sophia Palaiologina, adopted many elements of the Byzantine imperial ceremonial, including the double-headed eagle, the imperial regalia, and the elaborate court ritual. His grandson, Ivan IV (the Terrible), was the first Russian ruler to take the title of Tsar, derived from the Latin Caesar, and he explicitly presented himself as the successor of the Byzantine emperors.

The imperial ideology of the Russian tsardom was based on the doctrine of Moscow as the Third Rome, and it included the claim that the Russian tsar was the protector of the true faith, the defender of Orthodoxy, and the head of the Orthodox world. The doctrine was articulated in a series of texts, including the famous Tale of the Princes of Vladimir, which presented the history of the Russian state as a continuation of the history of the Byzantine Empire.

The imperial ideology of the Russian tsardom was a powerful force in Russian political life, and it shaped the foreign policy of the Russian state, especially in the relations with the Orthodox world. The Russian tsars intervened in the affairs of the Orthodox churches of the Ottoman Empire, especially in the Balkans, and they supported the construction of Orthodox churches and monasteries in the Holy Land. The Russian imperial ideology remained a powerful force in Russian politics well into the modern period, and it has been revived in the rhetoric of the contemporary Russian state.

The Decline and Renewal of the Byzantine Legacy

The Synodal Period

The Byzantine legacy in Russia was severely tested by the reforms of Peter the Great, who abolished the patriarchate of Moscow in 1721 and replaced it with the Holy Synod, a state-controlled body of bishops. The reform was part of Peter’s program of Westernization, and it was accompanied by a series of measures designed to bring the Russian church under state control. The reform was a major break with the Byzantine tradition, in which the church had been an independent institution under its own patriarch.

The synodal period lasted from 1721 to 1917, and it was marked by a complex relationship between the church and the state. The church lost much of its independence, and the religious life of Russia was increasingly controlled by the imperial bureaucracy. Yet the church continued to be a major element of Russian cultural and religious life, and the Byzantine legacy was preserved in the liturgy, the iconography, the monastic tradition, and the religious literature of the Russian church.

The religious revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which included figures like the Slavophiles, the pochvennichestvo movement, and the Russian religious philosophers, gave new life to the Byzantine legacy in Russia. The great religious thinkers of the period, including Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergei Bulgakov, and Georges Florovsky, drew on the Byzantine theological tradition, and they developed a sophisticated understanding of the relationship between the Russian and the Byzantine inheritances.

The Russian Revolution and the Soviet Period

The Persecution of the Church

The Russian Revolution of 1917, and the subsequent Soviet period, was a catastrophe for the Russian Orthodox Church. The church lost its official position in 1918, and it was subjected to a sustained persecution that lasted for most of the twentieth century. The patriarchate of Moscow was abolished, the monasteries were closed, the churches were confiscated, and the clergy were arrested, exiled, or executed. The persecution reached its peak in the 1930s, when almost all the bishops and the great majority of the priests were killed.

The Russian Orthodox Church survived the Soviet period, although at enormous cost. The church continued to function in the catacombs and in the few surviving parishes, and it was a center of resistance to the Soviet regime. The church was partially rehabilitated during World War II, when Stalin revived the patriarchate of Moscow and allowed the church to function more openly, in part because of the importance of Russian religious sentiment in the war effort.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a major event for the Russian Orthodox Church. The church regained its freedom, and it was rapidly restored as a major element of Russian public life. The patriarchate of Moscow resumed its position as the head of the Russian church, and the monasteries were reopened, the churches were restored, and the religious life of the country was renewed. The Byzantine legacy was once again a central element of Russian cultural and religious life, and the doctrine of the Third Rome was revived in the rhetoric of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian state.

Conclusion

The Byzantine legacy in Russia and Eastern Europe is one of the most powerful and most enduring expressions of the Byzantine inheritance in the modern world. The conversion of Rus in 988 inaugurated a millennium of cultural exchange, and the Russian church, the Russian literary tradition, the Russian iconography, the Russian architecture, and the Russian political theology are all direct continuations of the Byzantine tradition. The Russian claim to be the Third Rome, the heir of Byzantium after the fall of Constantinople, was the most striking expression of this inheritance, and it remains a powerful element of Russian identity in the contemporary world. To study the Byzantine legacy in Russia is to study one of the most important and most enduring elements of the Byzantine inheritance, and to understand how a fallen empire helped to shape the civilization of the Slavic world.

Byzantine Legacy and Influence — the broader context
Byzantine Legacy in Modern Greece — the parallel inheritance in Greece
The Cyrillic Alphabet and Byzantine Missionaries — Saints Cyril and Methodius
The Great Schism of 1054 — the split with the West
The Macedonian Dynasty — the dynasty of the golden age
Byzantine Religion and the Orthodox Church — the religious tradition
The Donation of Constantine — the great forgery
The Macedonian Dynasty — the golden age of Byzantium