Moscow, third Rome

Defunct Moscow, third Rome (Russian: Москва — третий Рим; Moskva, tretiĭ Rim) is a theological and political concept asserting Moscow as the successor to ancient Rome, with the Russian world carrying forward the legacy of the Roman Empire.

In this concept, three interrelated and interpenetrating fields of ideas can be found: After the fall of Tǎrnovo to the Ottoman Turks in 1393, a number of Bulgarian clergymen sought shelter in the Russian lands and transferred the idea of the Third Rome there, which eventually resurfaced in Tver, during the reign of Boris of Tver, when the monk Foma (Thomas) of Tver had written The Eulogy of the Pious Grand Prince Boris Alexandrovich in 1453.

Even before the fall of Constantinople, the Eastern Orthodox Slavic states in the Balkans had fallen under Turkish rule.

"[10] Stirrings of this sentiment began during the reign of Ivan III of Russia, who styled himself Czar (cf.

Andreas died in 1502, having sold his titles and royal and imperial rights to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who would not act on them.

In 1547, for instance, when Ivan IV was crowned tsar, not only was he anointed as the Byzantine emperor had been after the late twelfth century, but he was also allowed to communicate in the sanctuary with the clergy.

In her conversations with him, Catherine II made it clear that she would renew the Byzantine empire and to use her one-year-old grandson Konstantin as Emperor of Constantinople.

[15] The Russian world is ecclesiastical in its form, but geopolitical in its essence; it is a concept that was put forward in a keynote speech on November 3, 2009, by Patriarch Kirill (Gundyayev) of Moscow which he described as a "common civilisational space" of countries sharing Eastern Orthodoxy, Russian culture and language, and a common historical memory.

[19] It has been suggested that Vladimir Putin envisions a recreation of Russia's "mission", at least in terms of the Slavic people,[20] although it has also been noted that this viewpoint may be highly exaggerated.