The expression "Moscow is the third Rome" has long turned into a winged one. However, not everyone knows why Moscow was so called. In order to understand the origin of this statement, it is necessary to pay attention to some historical points related to the Russian capital.
Ancient Rome was considered eternal and invincible, and in 313, Christianity was recognized in this country as the official religion. The empire began to be called Christian, instead of one king two appeared - spiritual and secular. But, as you know, every great state must have its own enemies.
In 410, the barbarians came close to the gates of the Western Roman Empire and besieged it. And although the Roman warriors fought to the last, the city was captured and half destroyed. The glory and grandeur of the Roman state, which was considered the main bastion of Christianity, cracked.
The next attack on Rome occurred in the year 455. The vandal invasion was very destructive and cruel, it was one of the bloodiest pages in the history of the city. For the next two decades, the country was in agony, and in 476 the fall of Western Rome took place. The Great Holy Roman Empire - a symbol of the inviolability of the Christian world, has fallen.
In the process of dividing Great Rome into Eastern and Western empires in 395, a split occurred in the church. The Orthodox East and the Latin West began to confront each other. After the collapse of the Western Empire, Byzantium was the legitimate historical and cultural successor to Great Rome. The main representatives of the Christian church began to be considered the Patriarch of Constantinople. Constantinople has become the world center of Christianity. After a millennium, there was a decline of this power. This happened in 1453, when Constantinople, or Constantinople, as it was called in Russia, was captured by the Ottoman Turks.
The fact that the Two Romes fell, the third stands firmly, and the fourth does not happen, wrote in his letter the old man Filofei of the Pskov Eleazarov monastery. The message was addressed to Grand Duke Vasily III.
According to the popular historical theory of V.S. Ikonnikova, the idea that Moscow is the third Rome, was first expressed precisely in the letters of Philotheus. This idea was very close to Russia, considered the heiress of Byzantium. This statement has become the main political concept of the Russian state in the XV-XVI centuries.
The process of the formation of a new ideology was accompanied by the reign of Ivan the Terrible, then the transformation of the Russian Church into the Patriarchate. Belief in the spiritual invincibility of Holy Russia imposed on the state an important mission: to preserve Orthodoxy and protect it from the encroachments of enemies. Thus, the unshakable idea that Moscow is the third Rome has developed.
