Ancient Rome was considered eternal and invincible, but in the year 313 Christianity was recognized as the country's official religion. The Empire became Christian, instead of one king there were two – the spiritual and the secular. But as you know, behind every great state are their enemies.
In the year 410 the barbarians approached the gates of the Western Roman Empire and besieged it. Although the Roman soldiers fought to the last, the city was conquered and half destroyed. The glory and greatness of the Roman state, which was considered the main Bastion of Christianity, has cracked.
Following the attack on Rome occurred in the year 455. The invasion of the vandals was very destructive and cruel, it was one of the bloodiest pages in the history of the city. The next two decades, the country was in agony, and in 476 and the fall of Western Rome. The great Holy Roman Empire – a symbol of the inviolability of the Christian world, fell.
In the process of division of the Great Roman Empire into Eastern and Western Empire in 395 was a split in the Church. The Orthodox East and the Latin West began to oppose each other. After the fall of the Western Empire, Byzantium was the legitimate historical and cultural successor of Rome the Great. The dominant members of the Christian Church came to be considered patriarchs of Constantinople. Constantinople became the world center of Christianity. After a Millennium has been the sunset of this power. It happened in 1453 when Constantinople, or Constantinople, as it was called in Russia, was captured by the Ottoman Turks.
That Two Rome have fallen, the third stands firmly, and the fourth will not happen, wrote in his letter, elder Philotheus of Pskov Eleazar monastery. The message was addressed to Grand Prince Vasily III.
According to the popular historical theory V. S. Ikonnikov idea, saying that Moscow is the third Rome, was expressed first in the letters of Philotheus. This idea was very close to Russia, is considered the heir of Byzantium. This statement became the main political concept of the Russian state in XV-XVI centuries.
The process of forming a new ideology was accompanied by the reign of Ivan the terrible, then the transformation of the Russian Church to a Patriarchate. Faith in the spiritual invincibility of Holy Russia has imposed on the state an important mission: to preserve Orthodoxy and to defend it from attacks of enemies. Thus was formed the unshakable notion that Moscow is the third Rome.
