This Page Last Updated June 17^th, 2009 (new style reckoning)

 

Holy Rus’

 

The Third Rome

 

(and the fall from Grace of Tsardom and the State church)

 

The reputation of Russia was renowned around the entire world. Nobody doubted its place as the reports of its holy practice was undeniable. Moscow temporarily became the “New Constantinople” and the “New Jerusalem”. Such a time and place as the Third Rome will not ever return to this most unworthy world. For the few who would dare to spite the abounding wickedness I say stand up, and go and find what can be seen of this magnificent land, of what it once had. Here are a few references.

o       Avvakum’s cellmate recorded one of the reactions to the reforms around the time of 1666. The holy fathers and monks of the famous Solovetskii Monastery were so sorrowful that they spoke this way about Russia.

 

“Brothers, brothers! Alas, alas! Woe, woe! The faith of Christ has fallen in Russia, just as in other lands, through Christ’s two enemies, Nikon and Arsenii.”

“The Old Believers and the World of the Antichrist” pg. 10, Crummey, 1970

 

 

o       The historical record clearly shows that the Old Believers were not the only ones to understand that Moscow alone kept Orthodoxy. Nikon is often still remembered as making this quote below about Russia (though Nikon, together with the Tsar, later came to a different conclusion).

[The Faith and Practice of Old Russia is now] “the only currency in the economy of salvation.”

Ibid, pg. 12

 

 

o       From, “The Old Believers: ‘The Antichrist.’” As reproduced in Peter the Great, ed. Eugene Schuyler, vol. II (New York: Russell & Russell, 1884; 1967), 153-154.

 

“The Apostle says first comes a falling away, then is revealed the man of sin, the son of perdition, the Anti-Christ. First came the falling away from the holy faith by the Tsar Alexis in the year 666 [1666], the number of the beast thus fulfilling the prophecy. And after him there reigned on the throne his first-born son Peter, from his second and unlawful marriage. He was consecrated to the throne of all the Russians by the Jewish laws from head to foot, showing that he is the false Messiah and the false Christ, as the Sibyl prophesied about him that a Jewish Tsar will reign. And that false Christ began to set himself up and be called God by all, persecuting and tormenting all Orthodox Christians, destroying their memory from the face of the earth, spreading his new Jewish faith throughout all Russia. In the year 1700, to the accomplishment of his wickedness, and on the festival of the Circumcision of Christ, he called together a heathenish court and erected a temple to the heathen god Janus, and before all the people practiced all sorts of magic rites and all called out “vivat! vivat! the New Year,” and he sent to all parts of the realm the command to feast for the new year, thus breaking the laws of the Fathers, who in the first Ecumenical Council commanded the feast of the New Year to be on September 1. In the year 1721 he took upon himself the Patriarchal title, calling himself Father of the Country, Head of the Russian Church, and Autocrat, having no one on an equality with himself, taking craftily to himself not only the power of the Tsar, but also the authority of God, and claiming to be an autocratic pastor, a headless head over all the opponents of Christ, Anti-Christ. Therefore must we conceal ourselves in the deserts just as the Prophet Jeremiah ordered the children of God to flee from Babylon. The years of the Lord have passed; the years of Satan have come.”

 

 

o       From “RUSSIA” by Donald Macknzie Wallace, Chapter 18 (historical look at the year 1666)

“In the seventeenth century this superstitious, conservative spirit reached its climax. The civil wars and foreign invasions, accompanied by pillage, famine, and plagues with which that century opened, produced a wide-spread conviction that the end of all things was at hand. The mysterious number of the Beast was found to indicate the year 1666, and timid souls began to discover signs of that falling away from the Faith which is spoken of in the Apocalypse. The majority of the people did not perhaps share this notion, but they believed that the sufferings with which they had been visited were a Divine punishment for having forsaken the ancient customs. And it could not be denied that considerable changes had taken place. Orthodox Russia was now tainted with the presence of heretics. Foreigners who shaved their chins and smoked the accursed weed had been allowed to settle in Moscow, and the Tsar’s not only held converse with them, but had even adopted some of their “pagan” practices. Besides this, the Government had introduced innovations and reforms, many of which were displeasing to the people. In short, the country was polluted with “heresy”—a subtle, evil influence lurking in everything foreign, and very dangerous to the spiritual and temporal welfare of the Faithful— something of the nature of an epidemic, but infinitely more dangerous; for disease kills merely the body, whereas “heresy” kills the soul, and causes both soul and body to be cast into hell-fire.”

 

 

This illumination is from the ancient manuscript book “Apocalypse Observations”

We see here New Jerusalem which is both in heaven and on earth.

 

 

Many attempt to say that the Greeks remained in communion with Russia after Constantinople fell.

To that type of statement I offer the following:

Maxim the Greek was sent by the Greeks to Russia, it is said he was under official excommunication by Russia during his visit.

My page on the Downfall of Constantinople gives several examples of preeminent Russian’s declaring the Greeks as apostates.

After Byzantium’s fall until Nikon Russians did not allow any foreigner to serve in church services. If any foreigner visited they 

were never allowed around without strictly supervised escort, their very words being guarded. There are reports of some

Russian’s going abroad and possibly communing while away, but that was always ridiculed by staunch Russian’s at

home who disapproved of such contacts, claiming all such as traitors. There are reports of the death penalty being

offered to many Russian who had gone abroad, the reasons having to do with matters of Faith and it being destroyed.

Since Russian converted they were always very Christian believing, thinking the best of people and having high hopes for Greeks.

After Constantinople fell the Greek metropolitan did return to Russia and was immediately imprisoned until death for his apostasy.

Russia elected their own metropolitan that was against the Greek/Latin “union” without bothering to get permission or approval

from the Greeks who no longer sent a metropolitan for Russia. Beyond that Russia was careful not to elevate themselves to

Patriarchal status, when the Greeks approved of it then Russia accepted their duty to uphold what would be the Third Rome.

The only contact the Russians had with other “Orthodox” was for small advices which were tested and proven over and over.

For this assistance Russia did pay monetary tribute. That is the extent of whatever communications Russia had with other lands.

The Patriarch of Jerusalem visited in the 17th century and was infuriated when he was told that Russian’s were truer to Christ

than the Greeks. Nikon was persuaded by the deviant Jerusalem Patriarch, things have never been the same in Russia ever since.

The Stoglav council, having anathematized all Latin practices, certainly anathematized and excommunicated the Greeks by

default, which is exactly what the Old Believers explain. If you believe there was no excommunication between

Russia and the Greeks after Constantinople’s fall, I would ask you where all the intercommunion was? There were no

ecumenical councils of any kind until the antichrist uncanonical council of 1666. I would really like to know where 

the Greeks had any good showing of faith since their downfall. When we use reasonable history, and temper that

with a strong dose of wisdom, there is no other conclusion that can be arrived at except that the Greeks have been in utter

apostasy ever since their fall. Now with the compromises of Nikon and 1666 Russia became corrupted by western reasoning’s,

with the exception of the good Old Believers. It is significant that the fall of Russia was not one year earlier or one year later

than 1666. The original council of 1666 is recorded separately from that of 1667.

 

This is a cover from a old 3 piece folding bronze travel icon.

Holy Rus’, the New Jerusalem, is seen behind the cross of Andrew.

 

o       On the back of the book titled “in the shadow of Antichrist” is this comment. “The Old Believers constitute the most conservative branch of Eastern Christendom; they remain the last guardians of the ideology of ‘Holy Russia’.”

 

One more reference from the book by Crummey quoted towards the top of this page is worth mentioning, from page 94: “…Denisov’s statement (in the Pomorsky Answers) of Russia’s special place within Christendom differs from the earlier proponents of the Third Rome doctrine in that the bearer of true Orthodoxy was not the Muscovite tsardom and its ruler, but rather the saints of the Russian church and the Russian people as a whole. ” [What Andrei Denisov clearly meant is that the Tsar and the “official” church departed the Third Rome during the time of Nikon. Andrei did not there in difine the idea further.]

 

 

Return to the Old Believer Distict Points of Faith and Practice page

 

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