Moscow — the Third Rome? Between the Founding Myth and the Destructive Mirage

Thanks a new Italian and German historiography, the concept of the “Third Rome” is approached more critically than that applied by the historians of the 19th century. This idea is part of an eschatological historiosophy, born in Muscovy following the refusal of the union signed during the Council of Florence. The Russian princes and Church found themselves at the head of the Orthodox Ecumene and thus avoided positioning as successors to the Byzantine Empire. The theory of the Third Rome, developed by Philotheus, never became an official ideology; it was understood as translatio religionis and not as translatio imperii, with Holy Russia positioning itself as the home of the true faith.

A View from the East. The Council of Florence (1438—1439) in Russian Historiography and Theology of the 19th and20th Centuries

Sergius Bulgakov considered the Council of Florence as the theological and spiritual foundation for the real, though invisible, unity of the Churches of East and West. He was following in the footsteps of Vladimir Solovyev, who deemed the Council of Florence one of the historical preconditions for the reunion of the Churches. After a survey of Old Russian sources on the Council of Florence and a short discussion of codicological studies on them, the article offers a reconstruction of the events connected to Russian participation in the Council. In the second part, different historical-critical accounts and theological reinterpretations of the Council in Russian theology from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are analyzed.

The ‘Ceremonial Law’

Chapter 2 faces the challenge that previous Catholic teachings have implied that Jewish rituals are both dead and deadening. Through a close examination of the Council of Florence and other magisterial teachings, it is established that the conditions under which dead and deadening operated do not actually relate to contemporary Rabbinic Judaism as understood in Catholic teaching. If invincible ignorance of the truth of Christ is presupposed, then Jewish practices can be understood very positively. It is also established that earlier teachings did positively view the practice of Jewish rituals in the early Church and by Jesus and the apostles. This is significant for the concluding chapter.

Hilary of Poitiers on the inter-Trinitarian Relation of the Son and the Holy Spirit

Given the authority accorded to Hilary of Poitiers by ecumenical councils of the 1st millennium, it is of interest to determine his teaching about the disputed question of the eternal relation of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The question is complex, partly because it is one that Hilary in most cases touches upon only indirectly, when arguing for the divinity of the Son, and partly because the meaning of the relevant passages, even on the level of Latin syntax, is often hard to determine, and a matter of disagreement between different translators or editors. Y. Congar and A. E. Siecienski, in their surveys of the discussions of the inter-trinitarian relations of the Son and the Holy Spirit in the patristic age do not examine all these textual difficulties, nor do they discuss the Opus Historicum, which contains a highly relevant passage on this subject. The present article attempts to throw light on the question by examining the key texts and suggesting answers to the problems of translation and interpretation that they present. It concludes that Hilary’s position is substantially identical to that which would later be agreed by the Greek and Latin churches at the council of Florence, and enshrined in the decree Laetentur caeli.