Information about Third Rome

The Third Rome idea is that Moscow, or the Moscovite state, is the successor to the legacy of the Roman Empire (the Second Rome being Constantinople, the first being Rome itself). This concept has been popular since the times of the early Russian Tsars.

Russia claims to be Rome's successor

Within decades after the Fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453, some were nominating Moscow as the "Third Rome", or new the "New Rome". Stirrings of this sentiment began during the reign of Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow who had married Sophia Paleologue. Sophia was a niece of Constantine XI, the last Eastern Roman Emperor and Ivan could claim to be the heir of the fallen Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire).

At the beginning, the notion of "Third Rome" was not necessarily imperial in nature, but rather apocalyptic. Its purpose was to point out the role of Russia as the last small remainder "in the wilderness", of the once-great Christian civilization, most of which had succumbed to heresy - both Roman Catholicism and Islam were considered heretical offshoots of the Judeo-Christian stem by many Orthodox believers. Thus Russia was seen as comparable to the seven thousand Israelites who had refused to worship Baal during the lifetime of the prophet Elijah, an immensly popular biblical figure in Orthodoxy.

It is noteworthy, that before Ivan III, Stefan Dušan, tsar of Serbia, and Ivan Alexander, tsar of Bulgaria, both related to the last Byzantine dynasty, facing the decline of the Byzantine empire in the 14th century, made similar claims. Bulgarian manuscripts advanced the idea that Turnovo, the capital of the Bulgarian empire, was the new Constantinople. These plans were never realized as the Ottomans defeated the Serbs at Kosovo Polje in 1389, and put an end to the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396 with the occupation of the Despotate of Vidin. However, the doctrine, which developed in this respect earlier in Turnovo, were imported to Moscow by Cyprian, a clergyman of Bulgarian origin, who became the Metropolitan of Moscow in 1381.



The idea crystallized with a panegyric letter composed by the Russian monk Philoteus (Filofey) in 1510 to their son Grand Duke Vasili III, which proclaimed, "Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there will not be a fourth. No one will replace your Christian Tsardom!" Contrary to the common misconception, Filofey explicitly identifies Third Rome with Russia (the country) rather than with Moscow (the city).

Further information: Moscow

Origin of Tsar title

Since Roman princesses had married the Grand Princes of Moscow, and, since Russia had become, with the fall of Byzantium, the most powerful Orthodox Christian state, the Tsars were thought of in Russia as succeeding the Byzantine Emperor as the rightful rulers of the (Christian) world. Like the Kaiser, the word "Czar," "Tsar," or "Tzar," is derived from the word "Caesar".

On 16 January 1547, Grand Duke Ivan IV was the first crowned Russian Tsar, though his father, Vasili III, and grandfather, Ivan III both had used the term before him (largely in correspondence) in reference to themselves.

On 2 November 1721, Peter I restyled himself as "Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia" as part of his course of modernization and westernization of the country. The new title was supposed to reflect both the traditional claims of his predecessors and his success in establishing Imperial Russia as a new European power.

Other uses

In his speeches, Benito Mussolini referred to his Fascist Italy as a "third Rome."^[1]

See also

• Byzantium after Byzantium
• Charlemagne
• Moscow
• New Rome

References

• Dmytryshyn, Basil (transl). 1991. Medieval Russia: A Source Book, 850-1700. 259-261. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Fort Worth, Texas.
• Poe, Marshall. “Moscow, the Third Rome: the Origins and Transformations of a ‘Pivotal Moment.’” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (2001) (In Russian: “Izobretenie kontseptsii “Moskva—Tretii Rim.” Ab Imperio. Teoriia i istoriia natsional’nostei i natsionalizma v postsovetskom prostranstve 1: 2 (2000), 61-86.)
• Martin, Janet. 1995. Medieval Russia: 980-1584. 293. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, UK.