The Liturgical commemoration of the Byzantine Emperor in the context of the History of the Establishment of the Autocephaly of the Russian Church

Abstract

Significant attention in church historical science is traditionally paid to the event of the establishment of autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church (1589) among the important issues. Obviously, the fact of the official approval of the independent existence of Orthodoxy in Russia (without dependence of Constantinople) had its long prehistory. This applies to both church and interstate relations, including their liturgical component. The author of the article analyzes the process of gradual transition from the practice of liturgical commemoration of the Byzantine emperor, which was interpreted as entering the jurisdiction of the latter, to the practice of church prayer for their own princes on the basis of handwritten service books, as well as a number of other written monuments. The very transition to regular liturgical commemoration of local princes took place in Russia long before the fall of the Christian empire on the shores of the Bosphorus and even before the rupture of official church relations between Moscow and Constantinople due to the conclusion of the Ferraro-Florentine Union. It can be said that the liturgical commemoration of the Russian princes took place already from the turn of the XII-XIII centuries and this is based on the data of the handwritten service books. This allows us to take a fresh look at the process of Russian-Byzantine relations’ growing crisis.