Early C18th Russian-Orthodox-Church sponsored map of

the world in a wood-cut.

New York Public Library, ‘Astor, Lenox & Tilden Foundations’,

and discussed in Robert Mathiesen’s ‘Cosmology and the

Puzzle of Early Printing in Old Cyrillic’, Solanus, 18 (2004), pp.

5-27 @ pp. 21-23, 27 (fig. 2); Cynthia Hyla Whittaker, Edward Kasinec, & Robert H. Davis, eds., Russia engages the World, 1453-1825, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003, pp. 4-5.

Icon: The Blessing of the Protective Veil (Покров) of our Lady (Богородица), the Mother of God (Богоматерь). Icon originating from Novgorod, 1550s or mid-C16th. Like the holy white cowl (белый клобук), the icon honours another legitimating relic: a holy veil which supposedly turned back a Slav [ironically!] siege of Constantinople in 860 or 944 . This veil was seen by St Andrei Iurodivyi (Holy Fool) in Blachernae Church in Constantinople around 1000, and then brought from Constantinople by Kievan prince Andrei Bogoliubskii to Rus’ in C12th.

The icon shows the Muscovite-Byzantine ideal of the harmony of Church and State; the Tsar is among clergy and saints. They keep him straight and true.

Покров Богородици or Покров Богоматери State Russian Museum, St Petersburg Государственный Русской Музей http://www.pravoslavie.ru/jurnal/4515.htm or http://hramznameniya.ru/photo/?id=160 detail bottom left Tsar (Ivan IV?) and Tsarina (Anastasiia?) in Church

The Tsar is elected by God; Богоизбранность Русского Царства

Tsar (Ivan IV?) and Tsarina (Anastasiia

Romanovna?)

Detail from the Pokrov Bogoroditsa Покров Богородица icon, first half of C16th, now in

State Russian Museum, St Petersburg.

On the holy day (prazdnik праздник) of the ‘Feast of

the Veil’, as Ivan IV was said to have prayed in his tent, the supposedly-impregnable city of Kazan’ was

stormed and seized in 1552.

from: Вера и власть: Эпоха Ивана Грозного / Faith and Power: The Age of Ivan the Terrible, Москва, Министерство культуры и массовых коммуникаций Российской Федерации, Федеральчое агентство по

культуре и кинематографии & Федеральное государственное учреждение культуры, Государственный истопикоькультурный

музейь-заповедник Московский Кремль» 2007, p. 22, citing М.Б. Плюханова, Сюжеты и символы Московсого царства, Санкт-

Петербург, 1995, pp. 29-31.

A Muscovite Peasant at work at the Trinity-St

Sergius Monastery named for Saint Sergius

of Radonezh

C17th Miniature from the Life of St Sergius of Radonezh (Жития Сергия

Радонежского), C14th founder of the Monastery and Fort of Zagorsk and

key clerical supporter of Grand Princely autocratic power in Muscovy.

http://annals.xlegio.ru/rus/zimin/rvig

_v1.jpg

A Muscovite Peasant at work at the Trinity-St

Sergius Monastery named for Saint Sergius

of Radonezh

C17th Miniature from the Life of St Sergius of Radonezh (Жития Сергия

Радонежского), C14th founder of the Monastery and Fort of Zagorsk and

key clerical supporter of Grand Princely autocratic power in Muscovy.

http://www.nkj.ru/upload/iblock/1fd/1fdd907907ab008e147afb61990b5d7

a.JPG

Iconostasis in a ‘traditional’ C17th to C18th timber Russian Orthodox Church in Lake Onega region of Karelia, northern European Russia: Church of the Blessing of the Protective Veil

(Покрова Богородции Церкв http://img1.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/b/2/24/538/24538335_ikonostas.jpg)

‘History’-form Icon Zhitiinii Житийнаий

The central image of the saint in the

centre unites you (the observer) and Him (the divine) in a 2-way

communication, but then episodes from his life are depicted as a kind of cartoon all around. This kind of

icon was more common in Old Russia and Old Serbia than in the

Byzantine Greek realms.

Early C15th icon of St Dmitri of Prilutsk attributed to Dionysii, the icon painter

http://www.pravenc.ru/text/155162.htm

l website of the Vologda and Ustiug Bishopric; A.M. Kleimola, ‘The Icon as Open Book’, Russian History, 33(2-4)

2006.

http://mappery.com/maps/Moscow-Kremlin-Map.gif

Map of Moscow in first half of

C16th

Commissioned by Holstein

envoy to Muscovy:

Adam Olearius (1603-71)

Collection of the New York Public Library

http://russia.nypl.org/maps2/17moscow.html

Cathedral of the Archangel Michael

Moscow Kremlin (1490s – 1508)

Архангельский Соборь

Early C15th icon: the Archangel Michael as victor

Old Testament Book of Joshua, ch. 5, verse 14 (as Joshua gets help in destroying the walls of Jericho): “as Captain (Voevoda

Воевода) of the host of the Lord am I now come”

Cathedral of Archangel Michael

(Архангельский Соборь) Moscow Kremlin (1490s – 1508)

Great War Banner of Ivan IV (Знамя великий стяг) 1560 The Archangel Michael (right) charges (Revelations 19: 11-18). Gold embroidered and embossed on imported Chinese silk. http://files.school-collection.edu.ru/dlrstore/ecdf9466-68f3-439b-9712-874bdb643c76/p13_zn_305.jpg and reconstructed at http://www.donego.netfirms.com/Intours/Russian/tcal/Russia/flag/2.jpg.

From a C19th reconstruction: Историческое описание одежды и вооружения российских войск [as recorded by the C16th d’iak Ivan Viskovatov Иван Висковатов].

http://www.varvar.ru/arhiv/slovo/znamya_ioann4.html

Reconstruction of the Battle Standard of Ivan IV (Великий Стягь Ивана Грозного)

http://www.gerb.bel.ru/pages/russia/flag/f_ivan4_3.gif

Joshua, the Archangel Michael

and the Lord Sabaoth (the Host of Hosts) on the early

C17th Muscovite ‘Battle-Standard of Sapiega (Znamia

Sapega Знамя Сапега)’

Cathedral of Boris and

Gleb in Rostov Velikii on the mid-Volga

http://www.pravenc.ru/data/093/462/1234/i40

0.jpg

Battle Standard of the cossack leader in

Muscovite service, Ermak, conqueror of the Tatar Khanate of Siberia, shown kneeling before the Archangel Michael

Armoury Palace, Moscow Kremlin (Оружейная Палата)

http://museums.artyx.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000000/pic/0

00094.jpg

Archangel Michael helps Gideon expel the Midianites (Judges, 6-8) Cathedral of the Archangel Michael (Архангельский Соборь) Moscow Kremlin

(1490s – 1508)

1. Blagoveshchenskii Sobor’: Cathedral of the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin

3. Terem: Grand Princes’ Women’s Palace of Seclusion

9. Arkhangel’skii Sobor’: Grand Prince’s family Cathedral of the Archangel Michael

12. Granovitaia Palata: Facetted Reception Palace

14. Uspenskii Sobor’: Patriarch’s Cathedral of the Dormition of the Holy Virgin

Lines of Argument (1) William Craft Brumfield (Tulane University, New Orleans) A History of Russian Architecture, p. 92: ’Although Russian architecture remained far from integrating into the rapidly progressing art of building during the Renaissance, the architects of the [Italian] quattrocentro nevertheless endowed Moscow with the tools by which to pursue its own idiosyncratic identity – as it had every intention of doing. Indeed, it can be said that from 1475 until the end of the Sixteenth century, architecture became the primary mode of expression for Russian culture.’

Lines of Argument (2) William Craft Brumfield (Tulane University, New Orleans) A History of Russian Architecture, p. 102: ’Indeed, there was no possibility of transferring the classical system [of architecture] in any fundamental way to Muscovy. Russia’s legacy from the classical worls had been filtered through Byzantium, which provided the cross-domed church in an infinitely adaptable plan, but one narrowly focussed on religious architecture. The reinterpretation of Greco-Roman architecture during the Renaissance could only be applied selectively in Muscovy, which had yet to form the secular institutions that would require an architectural idiom expressive of the ideal of public life.’

Lines of Argument (3) Dmitri Shvidkovsky (Moscow Architectural Institute http://www.marhi.ru/) Russian Architecture and the West, p. 90: ’In [Aristotele] Fioravanti’s work [in late C15th Moscow ], a new artistic language was born, which combined rational elements of the Italian Renaissance with forms associated with early orthodox architecture. Here, on the foreign soil of the Muscovite state, the last renascence of Byzantium took place, the last rally of those true to the ideal of the fallen empire.’

Cathedral of the Archangel Michael

Moscow Kremlin (1490s – 1508)

Архангельский Соборь

Blagoveshchenskii Sobor’: Cathedral of the Annunciation to

the Holy Virgin

Cathedral of the Dormition (1508)

Uspenskii Sobor’

Успенский Соборь

The Patriarch’s Church in the Moscow Kremlin

Blessed is the Host (i.e. Army) of the Tsar anointed by Heaven Благословенно воинство небесного Царя

Muscovite mid-C16th Icon, nearly 2 metres long, Cathedral of the Dormition (Uspenskii Sobor’ Успенский Соборь, Moscow Kremlin.

The Tsar [Ivan IV?] rides [back from a burning Kazan’ in 1551] amid his infantry and he heads [not towards a ‘Third Rome’ but] toward a ‘New Jerusalem’ where the Mother of God awaits with the infant, Christ. The Tsar doesn’t wear a battle helmet (шлем) but rather the monarch’s

‘armour of truth (броня веры)’. Two great Bible tsars precede him on horseback, David and Solomon, assisted in the rear by saintly monarchs of Kiev Rus’: Vladimir, and the holy twins, Boris & Gleb. This ‘political’ icon is unique in Muscovy and may have been influenced by Orthodox anti-

Ottoman precedents in C15th and C16th Balkan churches (Ohrid in Macedonia and Petruca in Romania). http://www.uer.varvar.ru/uspenskiy16.htm and Daniel Rowland essay in Picturing Russia: Explorations in Visual Culture, New Haven, CN: Yale

University Press, 2008, ch. 6 & plate 6.3 .

http://www.uer.varvar.ru/uspenskiy16.htm

Icon (1550s) at ‘Cathedral of the Dormition

(Успенский Соборь)’, Moscow Kremlin: ‘Church Militant (Церковь Воинствующая)’: Blessed

is the Host of the Heavenly Tsar (Благословенно воинство небесного Царя).

See also: http://www.ic-xc-nika.ru/ikons/Ioann_Vasilevich_IV_Groznyi/000.html.

The Old Testament Book of Daniel, chapter 12, verse 1 (set in the era (539 BCE) when the Persian emperor, Cyrus captured

Nebuchadnezzar’s Assyrian capital of Babylon, and chose to release the Jewish from Babylonian exile and domination):

And at that time shall [the Archangel] Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people [Israel]: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be

delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

The New Testament Book of Revelations, chapter 19, verses 11 to 16 (written in a monastic community formed by or in the name of St

John the Apostle in the later part of the C1st CE, at least 60 years after the crucifixion of Christ):

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he [Christ] that sat upon Him was called Faithful and True and in

righteousness He doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame on fire and on his head were many crowns; and He had a name written that no man knew, but He himself. And He was

clothed with a vesture dripped in blood: and His name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven

followed Him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He would smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and

wrath of the Almighty God. And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, ‘Kind of Kings’ and ‘Lord or Lords’.

Revelations 19 St John reveals his dream

Verse 11 ff And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dripped in blood: and in this name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God…

Russian Orthodox (Mstera) icon of The Archangel Michael in full armour: C19th copy on C17th design principles. Collection of the British Museum, item AN104351001 © The Trustees of the British Museum @ http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/online_research_catalogues/russian_icons/catalogue_of_russian_icons.aspx.

‘Blessed is the Host of the Heavenly Tsar’: a second version of the icon, later C16th, now with the great Tsars labeled (Israelite: David & Solomon; Byzantine: Constantine & Leo; Rus’: St Vladimir and Boris & Gleb):

Tret’iakov Gallery, Moscow: http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/img/870000/870408.jpg.

Details of the icon

Музей-Заповедник Московского Кремля: Вера и Власть: Эпоxа Ивана Грозного

(Москва 2007), p. 10, and Daniel Rowland essay in Picturing Russia: Explorations in

Visual Culture, New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2008, ch. 6 & plate 6.3,

and illustration 10 at Ivan IV and http://www.ic-xc-

nika.ru/ikons/Ioann_Vasilevich_IV_Groznyi/000.html and Holy Monarchs of Kiev Rus’: St

Vladimir, St Boris and St Gleb http://www.pravenc.ru/text/159104.html.

Detail from Ivan IV’s throne (1551) in the Patriarch’s ‘Cathedral of the Dormition (Uspenskii Sobor Успенский Собор)’, Moscow Kremlin supposedly attributed (like the Crown) to the C12th Kievan prince, Vladimir Monomakh:

Ivan IV leads his crusading army. http://visualrian.ru/storage/PreviewWM/3107/23/310723.jpg?1

212993160

И.M. Соколова, Мономах Трон, Москва, Издательство Индрик, ‘Россия и Христианский Восток’ series, 2001.

Cathedral of the Dormition (1508)

Uspenskii Sobor’

Успенский Соборь

The Patriarch’s Church in the Moscow Kremlin

Massacre of Holy [African Christian] Fathers in Sinaï and Raitho.

Избиение Cвятых в Синае и в Раифе

Muscovite Clerical Crusader-ism This C17th Muscovite icon refers back to a C5th text by Armonius, an Orthodox monk from the famous monastery at Mt Sinaï in Egypt. Armonius looked back on pagan persections of Christian priests in the C3rd CE. Consider why Muscovite Orthodox folk troubled to remember this and prayed before this icon?

Stroganov School of Icon Painting attributed to the Master of Perush

C17th Muscovy State Russian Museum

Государтсвенный Руский Музей

Emerging Church discourse of the exalted religious status of the Tsar (1): Filofei of Pskov of Eleazar Monastery writes to

Muscovite Grand Prince Vasilii III Ivanovich (ca 1523). Fearing the whole Orthodox world will collapse and pleading with

the Grand Prince to retain monastic control of church lands in Pskov after Moscow took control in 1510 (control had been lost in Novgorod), the monk writes to the Grand Prince:

ако вся Христуянкая приидоша в конец, а сниигошашя во едино Царство государя по пророческим книгам, то есть росеиско Цартво; два Рима падоша, а третий стоит, а четвëртому не быти

Yea, according to the Prophets’ books, all [other] Christian states come to an end but there is still the one realm [left] united in our Sovereign in Rus’; two Romes have fallen [Rome, 476 & Constantinople, 1453], a third stands [still]; there will never be a fourth.

Andreas Ebbinghaus,”Reception and Ideology in the Literature of Muscovite Rus’” in Culture and Identity

in Muscovy, 1359-1584, eds. A.M. Kleimola & Gail Lenhoff, Moscow, ITZ-Garant,’ UCLA Slavic Studies # 3, 1997. Compare the Old Testament Book of Proverbs, ch. 30, verse 18: ‘There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not.’

Emerging Church discourse of the exalted religious status of the Tsar (2): Evidence from around the time of Ivan IV’s birth

(1533) to Vasilii III and 2nd wife, Elena Glinskaia.

Early C16th writers in Muscovy are still adapting Agapetos, a key Byzantine text from the era of Justinian (C6th), which came to Bulgaria (C14th) and Rus’ (C12th) in a compilation of Slavonic translations of Greek texts called ‘Тhe Bee (Pchela Пчела)’:

– Joseph of Volokolamsk (ca 1440-1515): Ivan IV Vasil’evich’s birth is ‘God-given (Bogo darovana Бого дарована)’

– Filofei of Pskov writes in 1523 of Vasilii III as ‘the One and Only Christian Tsar before the Vault of Heaven (егин мы во всей поднебесной Христянном Цар)’

Ihor Ševčenko, ‘A Neglected Byzantine Source of Muscovite Political ideology’ in his Byzantium and the Slavs in Letters and Culture, Cambridge, MA and Naples, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and Instituto Universitario Orientale, 1991.

Emerging Church discourse of the exalted religious status of the Tsar (3): Evidence from new coronation rituals of 1547

and 1584.

Unlike the old Grand Princes of Kiev Rus’ and Muscovy, Tsars Ivan IV Vasil’evich (1547) and Fëdor I Ivanovich (1584), once they receive the Eucharist (Prichashchenie Причащение) as Tsar are announced as ‘adopted by God (Priobshchenie Приобщение)’ or ‘named by God (Bogom pomazannyi Богом помазанный)’ and now have special liturgical status, preceding all Church hierarchs (except the Patriarch) as a ‘Noble Servitor of the Church (Sviashchennosluzhitel’ Cвященнослужитель)’

В.А. Успенский, 'Литургический статус в Русском церкви: Приобщение св.

Тайнам', Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 19 (1995), pp. 686-717; Keenan, ‘Muscovite Political Folkways’.

Comparable C17th murals from the throne room of the adjacent ‘Facetted Palace (Granovitaia Palata Грановитаиа палата), Moscow Kremlin.

Renovated C17th Interior of the ‘Facetted Palace Грaновитая Палата’, Moscow Kremlin, 1490s

http://pics.livejournal.com/dinya_ss/pic/0004ex6s/s640x480

Lost Murals (coronation of Ivan IV, 1547?) from the Vestibule of the

Golden Hall (Золотая палата) (painted over in later 1670s, demolished in

1752) Moscow Kremlin, adjacent to the Facetted Palace and the square of

the [Patriarch’s] Cathedral of the Dormition (Uspenskii Sobor Успенский Собор) based on a 1672 description by

Semën Ushakov.

At one time, diplomats and boyars met the Tsar enthroned here, entering via Spasskii Gate, past

Voznesenski monastery going on to Cathedral square, thence to the Boyars’ Porch. The Golden Palace was once connected to the Facetted Palace (Грановитая

Палата).

Daniel Rowland’s ‘Two Cultures, One Throne Room’ in Orthodox Russia: Belief and Practice under the Tsars,

eds. Valerie Kivelson & Robert H. Greene, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003, ch. 2.

New Church Themes: 1. Political power comes from

God. 2. The Virgin Mother of God

protects Muscovy. 3. The [Riurikid] clan of the ruler

is important. 4. God safeguards the army of

Muscovy. 5. A Realm must have good

order. 6. A Tsar should be pious and

steadfast. 7. A Tsar takes advice from

courtiers.

Contrast: Two Ottoman Circles of Equity

Mustafa Naima, of Aleppo in Ottoman Syria (1665-1716), former state secretary (divan katibi), now Court chronicler (vaka’nüvis): ‘Circle of Equity’ (c.1700), written [sometimes] in a circle

• Neither Mülk (Sovereignty of God) nor Devlet (the Sultan’s State) exist without the military and without man-power.

• Men are to be found only by means of wealth (mal).

• Wealth is only to be garnered from the peasantry.

• The peasantry is to be maintained in prosperity only through justice (hak).

• Without mülk and devlet there can be no justice.

Kınalızâde ’Ali Çelebi Efendi (1510-72 or 1579), Greek-born religious scholar (ilmiye), teaching in schools of Islam (medreses) in Edirne, Bursa, Kütahya, Damascus and Süleymaniye mosque in Constantinople: ‘Ethics of Ala (Ahlak-ı Ala’i, 1564)’

• ‘There can be no royal authority without the military.

• There can be no military without wealth.

• The subjects produce the wealth.

• Justice preserves the subjects’ loyalty to the sovereign.

• Justice requires harmony in the world.

• The world is a garden, its walls are the state.

• The Holy Law (sharî’ah -- şeriat) orders the state.

• There is no support for the sharî’ah except through royal authority.

Two representations of the ‘Circle of Equity’ in Ottoman

Civilization

Leaf from ‘The Hundred Chapters (Stoglav Стоглав)’collection of 100 resolutions arising from a church

reform council (January to May 1551) summonsed by Ivan IV but organised by

Metropolitan Makarii.

Manuscript acquired by a Moscow merchant (officially designated as of senior status Почëтная

Гражданин) and book collector, F.F. Mazurin (1845-98). The MS is now in the Russian State Archive of

Ancient Documents (РГАДА http://www.rusarchives.ru/federal/rgada/), Moscow

ф.196, кн. 781, л. 1-441; Вера и власть: Эпоха Ивана Грозного / Faith and Power: The Age of Ivan

the Terrible, Москва, Министерство культуры и массовых коммуникаций Российской Федерации,

Федеральчое агентство по культуре и кинематографии & Федеральное государственное

учреждение культуры, Государственный истопикоькультурный музейь-заповедник

Московский Кремль» 2007, pp. 56-57; http://dic.academic.ru/pictures/wiki/files/83/Stoglav

.jpg .

The Holy Relics of the Holy Twin Princes of Kiev Rus’,

Sts Boris and Gleb arrive in the church.

Miniature from the Holy

Sil’vestr Manuscript Compilation (Sbornik

Сборник), Mid-to-Late C14th

Russian State Archive of

Ancient Documents (РГАДА http://www.rusarchives.ru/federal/rgada/), Moscow:

Ф. 381. Кн. 53. Л. 152 http://www.pravenc.ru/tex

t/153171.html

Official Deed-Decree (Ulozhennaia Gramota) [of

Boris Godunov] establishing a Patriarchate of Muscovy, 1590

(Уложенная грамота Вселенского собора об

установлении патриаршества в Москве)

Russian State Archive of Ancient Documents (РГАДА

http://www.rusarchives.ru/federal/rgada/), Moscow: http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/podshivka/8601.php &

http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/img/860000/860103.jpg