Fundamental Research About Russian Political Ideology And MythologyJune 16, 2004On the 24th of June, 2004, one of the most revered icons in Russian Orthodoxy, the Icon of the Virgin of Tikhvin, will return to the place where, according to the legend, it miraculously appeared in 1383 and where it was worshipped till 1941, when its intricate way to Germany and then to the United States of America began. In the middle of the 16th century the Icon of the Virgin of Tikhvin was declared identical with one of the most revered icons of Constantinople, the Icon of the Virgin of Lydda and Rome ("Rimljanynja"), which according to legend had departed the capital of the Byzantine empire exactly 70 years before it was conquered, in 1453, by the Turkish "infidels", in order to find refuge in Russia. Besides the Icon of the Virgin of Vladimir, the Icon of Tikhvin became the second icon to migrate in the course of the Christian history of salvation from the Holy Land, where Christ had lived, to Byzantium, the capital of the universal Orthodox empire, only to migrate further to Russia, where the last truly Christian Tsardom of Moscow had replaced the fallen Byzantium, and where the Second Coming of Christ was expected to occur. Therefore the icon perfectly symbolized the three central aspects of the way Muscovite ruling circles conceptualized the Tsardom of Moscow. That self-image can be described by the equation Tsardom of Moscow = Holy Russia = New Israel = Third Rome. Though this idea was developed by the Muscovite church hierarchy, it was shared by Tsar Ivan IV from the beginning of his reign until the end. The fact that Ivan IV visited the Icon of the Virgin of Tikhvin only two weeks before his coronation as tsar in 1547 can be interpreted as a conscious decision to place the Tsardom of Moscow, and himself as its ruler, into the Byzantine legacy and tradition. This interpretation is confirmed by many other facts indicating to official tsarist support for the cult of the icon of Tikhvin during the reign of Ivan IV. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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