The Friars-Preachers in Russia II

Extract

II

The two centuries of Tartar domination brought on radical changes in Russia. Whilst the South or Ukraine, temporarily occupied by Lithuania and Poland, remained open to Western influence, a new Power was gradually and steadily growing and strengthening in the densely wooded territories of Central Russia. In the early fourteenth century the thrifty and hardy rulers of Moscow, an insignificant and poor principality, began slowly and laboriously to extend their domain at the expense of other impoverished principalities, to ‘gather the lands,’ according to old Russian chronicles, until towards the middle of the fifteenth century, Muscovy became an important State under Ivan III, who shook off the last vestige of the Tartar yoke. For centuries cut off from Western influence, Moscow was strongly conservative in every way, and considered herself the natural heir of By-zance, a belief which Ivan Ill’s marriage with Sophia Paleologue, descendant of the last Emperors, only strengthened. Moscow claimed to be the ‘Third Rome,’ and the depository of the sole true faith. Her attitude towards Catholicism and everything coming from Rome was uncompromisingly hostile. The Union of Florence was rejected by Vassili II, Ivan’s father, and the Metropolitan Issidore, who was charged by the Pope with the mission of obtaining Russia’s adherence, was imprisoned, but eventually succeeded in escaping and leaving Russia. This anti-Catholic hostility was actively fostered by the Greek clergy. Despite such a seemingly hopeless outlook the Popes repeatedly tried to enter into cordial relations with the Great Princes and Tsars of Muscovy, though all their efforts remained fruitless.