Byzantium and the Rise of Russia - Tapa blanda

The history of Russia is often considered as though that immense country had always been an isolated continent. However, at the time of its rise as a nation, it was politically a province of the Mongol Empire, whose capital was in Central Asia; ecclesiastically, it was a dependency of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, of Byzantium. This book describes the role of Byzantine (predominately ecclesiastical) diplomacy in the emergence of Moscow as the capital of Russia in the fourteenth century, and the cultural, religious, and political ties which connected the Northern periphery of the Byzantine Orthodox "Commonwealth" with its center in Constantinople.

Fr John Meyendorff (1926-1992) was a Professor of Church History and Patristics at SVOTS, and a professor of History at Fordham University, NY. He was a Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1976-77), and a Guggenheim Fellow. He held honorary doctorates from the University of Notre Dame and General Theological Seminary, was a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and a Senior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks. In 1990 The Diploma of Honorary Member of the Leningrad Theological Academy was bestowed upon him.