The political-religious duality of statements in the letters of the monk Philotheus
Contemporary engraving entitled "Vasily, Duke of Muscovy" (in French) from Volume 2 of André Thevet's book "Pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres grecz, latins et payens" ("Portraits and biographies of famous Greeks, Latins and pagans"), published in Paris in 1584.
Perhaps the most politicized monk of the Russian Orthodox Church was the monk Philotheus, well known to us from the school curriculum, who lived in the Spaso-Eleazarovsky Monastery in the Pskov region, which still exists. He became famous thanks to his two letters, written at about the same time, in 1523-1524, and which became monuments of ancient Russian literature and political and religious thought of the New Age.
Rereading these letters, which have come down to us under the titles “Message about unfavorable days and hours” to the Pskov clerk M. G. Misiur-Munekhin and “Message to the Grand Duke Vasily, in which about the correction of the sign of the cross and about Sodomite fornication,” I had the idea to point out the duality of Philotheus’ political and religious statements.
For clarity, we will cite four of the most interesting, in our opinion, excerpts from these letters, two from each. The text is cited from the book: Library of Literature of Ancient Rus. Vol. 9: Late 2006th – First Half of the XNUMXth Century. St. Petersburg, XNUMX. We have highlighted the passages of text necessary for further commentary and reasoning.
Excerpts from the messages of Elder Philotheus containing contradictions
(Translated by V.V. Kolesov)
(Translated by V.V. Kolesov)
MESSAGE ABOUT UNFAVORABLE DAYS AND HOURS
...The Evangelist says: “The soldiers of the procurator mocked him, bending their knees and saying: “Hail, king of the Jews!” The soldiers of the procurator are the servants of Pilate, but since Pilate was a Roman, from the city of Pontus in the Roman Empire, even now during prayer they do not bow their heads, but only slightly bend their knees. About such David, having foreseen them beforehand by the Holy Spirit, as if in the name of Jesus said: “You have given me as a reproach to a fool.” And truly people are foolish, and not wise, for although the walls, towers, and three-story buildings of great Rome were not captured, however their souls were captured by the devil because of unleavened bread. For although the grandsons of Hagar conquered the Greek kingdom, they did not damage the faith and do not force the Greeks to retreat from the faith, however the Roman kingdom is indestructible... [...]
...Let us say a few words about the current glorious reign of our most serene and highly enthroned sovereign, who in all the heavenly realms is the only one for Christians king and ruler of the holy thrones of God, the holy universal apostolic church, which arose in place of the Roman and Constantinopolitan and the church of the holy and glorious Dormition of the Most Pure Mother of God existing in the God-saved city of Moscow, which alone in the universe shines more beautifully than the sun. So know, lover of God and Christ, that all Christian kingdoms came to an end and came together in the one kingdom of our sovereign, according to the prophetic books, this is the Roman kingdom: for two Romes have fallen, but the third stands, and there will be no fourth.
MESSAGE TO THE GRAND PRINCE VASILY, IN WHICH ON THE CORRECTION OF THE SIGN OF THE CROSS AND ON THE FORNICATION OF SODOM
He who is from the highest and almighty, all-containing right hand of God, by whom kings reign and by whom the great are glorified and the mighty proclaim your righteousness, His Serene Highness and Highest Throne, Grand Duke, Orthodox Christian Tsar and the ruler of all, holding the reins of the holy thrones of God, the holy ecumenical cathedral apostolic church of the most pure Mother of God, her honorable and glorious Dormition, who shone in place of the Roman and Constantinople rulers, - because the church of old Rome fell due to the unbelief of the heresy of Apollinaris, and the grandsons of the Hagarenes cut down the church doors of the second Rome, the city of Constantine, with axes and hatchets, and this one now third, new Rome, your sovereign kingdom, the holy catholic apostolic church in all ends of the universe in the Orthodox Christian faith throughout the whole of the heavenly realm shines more than the sun, - so let your sovereignty know, pious king, that all the Orthodox kingdoms of the Christian faith have come together in your one kingdom: you alone are the king of Christians in all the heavenly realms. [...]
And if you manage your kingdom well, you will be a son of light and an inhabitant of the heavenly Jerusalem, and as I wrote to you above, so now I say: keep and pay attention, pious king, to what all the Christian kingdoms have come together in your one, that two Romes have fallen, but the third stands, and there will be no fourth. And your Christian kingdom will not be replaced by another... [...] May God fill your sovereign reign with peace, love, long life and health, the prayers of the Most Pure Mother of God and the holy miracle workers and all the saints!
Notes and Comments on the Epistles of Philotheus
1) Unleavened bread is unleavened, i.e. unleavened baked goods. Only at the beginning of the XNUMXth century in the West, i.e. among Catholics, the practice of using unleavened bread to perform the sacrament of communion arose. By the XNUMXth century in the West, this practice had become widespread.
2) The grandchildren of Hagar, or Hagarians, is a medieval name for Muslims, here the Ottoman Turks. According to the Koran, it is forbidden to force non-believers to accept Islam: “There is no compulsion in faith” (Koran, 2:256).
3) Indeed, Apollinarianism, the teaching of Bishop Apollinaris of Laodice of Syria (present-day Latakia), who lived in the XNUMXth century, had many followers.
However, without going into theological subtleties, we note that this was one of the many heresies of that time, such as Arianism, Nestorianism, Sabellianism, Macedonianism, Eutychianism, etc., also rejected by the Ecumenical Councils. The fight against Apollinarianism began already at the Council of Alexandria in 362, the same one at which St. Athanasius the Great defended Orthodoxy, overthrowing Arianism.
Later, the heresy of Apollinaris was condemned by the Roman Councils of 376, 377 and 382 and by the Second Ecumenical Council in 381.
It remains unclear why Philotheus claims, no more and no less, that the fall of the Roman Church occurred precisely because of Apollinarianism.
4) The essence of Orthodoxy is the doctrine of the Trinity. In 325, at the First Ecumenical Council, the doctrine of the Trinity was voiced, in 362 at the Council of Alexandria it was confirmed, including due to the development of this doctrine that followed after 325, and in 381 it was confirmed by the status of the Second Ecumenical Council and the authority of the Orthodox Emperor Theodosius I the Great.
Catholicism became a derivative of Orthodoxy through St. Ambrose of Milan to St. Augustine of Hippo, who began to formulate the dogma of Catholicism.
Philotheus does not speak of the Filioque, that is, of the principle formulated at the beginning of the 15th century by St. Augustine in his work “XNUMX Books on the Trinity,” according to which the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from God the Father, but also from God the Son. This principle of Catholic theology at that time was and still is one of the main dogmatic differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism.
5) By the First, Second and Third Rome Philotheus means the imperial essence of the political power that was represented in them. This follows from the content of the policy carried out by these centers of power.
Let us consider what those three Romes were like that Philotheus speaks of, from the point of view of their attitude towards Christianity.
The First Rome was the Rome of the persecuting emperors (with rare exceptions), therefore during the times of the Roman Empire it could never play the role of a support for either Christianity in general or Orthodoxy in particular, especially as it appeared as a result of the Council of Alexandria in 362, when the political center of the Empire had already been moved to Constantinople in 330. Moreover, Rome itself ceased to be the capital back in 286 during the process of establishing the tetrarchy system (see below).
The Second Rome – Constantinople – the Rome of the patron emperors (also with rare exceptions) became the political center of the Orthodox world before Catholicism began its confrontation with Orthodoxy to establish hegemony in the Christian world through the forgery known as the “Donation of Constantine”, that is, before the 9th century.
The Third Rome is the political center of the Orthodox world with the acquisition of de facto autocephaly in 1448. However, before the legal formalization of autocephaly – the approval of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1589 – there was still more than a century and a half.
6) The capital of the Roman Empire in New Rome, that is, Constantinople, was moved from Nicomedia in 330. Rome ceased to be a political center back in 286, when, by decree of Emperor Diocletian, the tetrarchy system began to take shape, dividing the Empire into four parts. (See: Capitals of the Roman Empire).
The city of Rome itself had a relation to Orthodoxy in that in 381-395 it was part of the still united, but already Orthodox Roman Empire, and in the 536th-751th centuries (XNUMX-XNUMX), already being Catholic, it was part of the Eastern Roman Empire, which was, of course, Orthodox. At the same time, Catholicism was not abolished or banned, since the emperors were interested in political power, not religious.
7) Constantinople after 1453 remained and remains one of the spiritual centers of Orthodoxy.
The residence of the Patriarch of Constantinople remained in the same city after 1453, unlike the residence of the Patriarch of Antioch, which was moved to Damascus in 1342 after the defeat and capture of Antioch by the Egyptian Mamluks in 1268.
Local councils continued to be held in Constantinople (1484, 1583, 1590, 1593, 1638, 1642-1643, 1672, 1691, 1719, 1722, 1727, 1755-1756, 1838, 1850, 1872).
In the diptych of the Russian Orthodox Church, before the notorious “tomos” requested by the former President of Ukraine Poroshenko from the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Constantinople Orthodox Church stood in the honorable first place.
8) Vasily III's mother was Sophia Palaeologus, the niece of the last emperor of the Byzantine Empire, Constantine XI Palaeologus. Her marriage to the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III, concluded in 1472, also had a symbolic meaning.
The coat of arms of Byzantium - the Double-Headed Eagle - became the coat of arms of Russia after Sophia became the wife of Ivan III, which symbolized the succession of royal power by Moscow from Constantinople.
This is only one of the reasons why Philotheus calls Vasily III “tsar” and his state “kingdom”, although the title “tsar” was officially adopted by his son Ivan IV in 1547, and Vasily III himself, like his father Ivan III, bore the titles “Grand Prince of Moscow” and “Sovereign of All Rus'”:
“In the charter to the Sultan of 1515, the title sounded like this: ‘The Great Sovereign, by the grace of God, the only right sovereign of all Rus' and of many other eastern and northern lands, the sovereign and grand prince of Vladimir, Moscow, Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, Tver, Yugorsk, Perm, Vyatka, Bulgaria and others’ (Filyushkin A.I. Titles of Russian sovereigns. Moscow-St. Petersburg, 2006, p. 68).
Here we cannot help but take into account that
After the annexation of Pskov, the Moscow ruler began minting coins there with the inscription “tsar”. Vasily III used the same title in the charters of grant to the Pskov monasteries, but not to the monasteries located in other territories (Filyushkin A.I. Vasily III. M., 2010, p. 87).
Europe at the beginning of the 16th century.
9) On her mother's side, Sophia Paleologue's ancestors were members of the noble Genoese Zaccaria family. This may have suggested the idea that formed the basis of the legend about the origin of the Moscow princes from the Roman Emperor Octavian Augustus through the Baltic Prince Prus, who was allegedly related to both Emperor Augustus and Prince Rurik.
Indirect confirmation of this is the absence of any information about this legend before the beginning of the 16th century, that is, the legend appeared after Sophia Paleologue arrived in Moscow.
The legend was first described in the "Message" of the church-publicistic writer Spiridon-Savva in the early 20s, which roughly coincides with the time of the appearance of Philotheus's messages. Based on the "Message" of Spiridon-Savva, at about the same time, a group of authors compiled the "Tale of the Princes of Vladimir". The authors of the "Tale" set themselves the goal of creating a work that could be used in political polemics. As a result, the ideas of the "Tale" were used as arguments in diplomatic disputes under Vasily III and Ivan IV.
10) From an examination of the political situation in Moscow at that time, an answer appears to the question of why the formula “Moscow is the third Rome” was not voiced by Philotheus earlier.
Firstly, the Pskov land itself, the birthplace of Philotheus, was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1510.
Secondly, it is possible that the successes of Vasily III (ruled 1505-1533) in the Russo-Kazan wars of 1505-1507 and 1521-1524 and in the Russo-Lithuanian wars of 1507-1508 and 1512-1522 inspired Filofey to compose his messages, especially since the result of the wars with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the annexation of Smolensk in 1514. Later, in 1521, the Grand Duchy of Ryazan was annexed. The latter date approximately coincides with the supposed date of the composition of the messages.
General conclusion
Obviously, Philotheus did not separate the political and religious principles in the existence of political centers of the Orthodox world. For him, they were inseparable. Hence his error in relation to the First Rome, which was never the center of Orthodoxy. But the memory of the political achievements of the First Rome resounded through the centuries, and if, in Philotheus's opinion, there were no heretical deviations, it would not have ceased to be the main city of the true faith.
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