Metropoliet Isodoor van Moskou en het russische cesaropapisme

Abstract

Metropolitan Isidor of Moscow and Russian Caesaropapism Moscovian Russia inherited the caesaropapism in the church-state relations from the Byzantine empire. This caesaropapism appeared for the first time when grand-duke Vasili II of Moscow deposed metropolitan Isidor after his return from the council in Florence. The later Russian sources on this council are highly tendentious. Unpartial study of the primary sources shows that Isidor was not the only Russian in favour of the union. Neither was the union as such the direct reason for his deposition. The reading of the bull in the Uspensky cathedral was quietly listened to by Vasili II, who of course knew of the result of the council. It was the insertion of the name of the pope in the Orthodox liturgy which aroused the anger of the people and the grand-duke. The author deplores the failure of the union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches. This union is a necessary condition for the survival of christianity in the modern world and for an authentic religious revival in Russia. In the commentary to the article of V. Nikitin, W. van den Bercken deals with the criticism which Nikitinʼs pro-Catholic article, originally published in Russkaya Mysl, received in conservative media, inclusive in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, of which Nikitin was a collaborator. Now the author is working at the more ecumenically oriented Department for Religious Education and Catechesis of the Moscow Patriarchate.