Khilandar Monastery on Mount Athos and Russian Diplomacy: on the History of Russian-Serbian Relations (1850–1870s)

Abstract

New materials from the Foreign Policy Archive of Imperial Russia and other Russian archives relating to the history of the Serbian spiritual presence on the Holy Mountain show the development of Russian-Serbian interchurch relations from 1850 to the 1870s. At this time, Athos became involved in the sphere of geopolitical interests of European powers that used the ethno-confessional factor as an instrument of political influence in the Middle East and the Balkans. One of the key tasks of Russian diplomacy, in order to strengthen Russian influence in the Orthodox East, was to provide material assistance to the Athonite monasteries, among which an important place belonged to the Serbian monastery of Khilandar. Study of the correspondence of Russian secular and ecclesiastical diplomats (Envoy to the Port N. Ignatiev and Consuls in Thessaloniki A. Lagovsky and A. Muravyov) and representatives of the highest spiritual authorities of Serbia and Russia (Metropolitan Mikhail of Serbia, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, and ober-Prosecutors of the Holy Synod) allows us to trace the decision-making process in Russian departments (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Holy Synod) regarding the financial support of the Khilandar monastery, which was negatively affected by the problems associated with the new political structure of the Transdanubian principalities and the anti-church policy of Alexander Kuza towards the monastic farmsteads of the Eastern Patriarchates. The key points of the correspondence relate to the issues of providing material assistance to Khilandar and diplomatic support from the MFA in resolving a ten-year dispute between Khilandar and Zograf monasteries over the land plots of two Slavic monasteries on Mount Athos, which was considered in a Turkish court and attracted the close attention of European diplomats. Special efforts by Russian diplomats were aimed at reconciling the Serbs and Bulgarians and overcoming the Greco-Russian crisis on Athos, which reached its apogee in the mid-1870s. The development of ethno-national (Russian-Serbian, Greek-Russian, and Bulgarian-Greek) relations is considered in the context of the Eastern Question in the third quarter of the 19th century.