Byzantium and Russia were closely connected for several centuries. The Byzantine state was not just the heir to the culture of antiquity and the Roman Empire, it was independently enriched by the Orthodox faith and subsequently enriched the whole world with it. Orthodox culture came to Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania and many other countries, thanks to Byzantium.
The Russians, along with faith, also accepted its canons and dogmas, but to a greater extent, our ancestors adopted from the Greeks the beauty of worship - church singing, temple design, icon painting, as well as the principles of Christian ascetic life. Newly baptized Russia was most attracted by precisely these aspects of Orthodoxy, which, having fallen on fertile soil, developed independently and with high activity.
Christianity has become logical from a historical point of view, a replacement for Old Russian paganism, which was typical of a tribal society. Paganism filled the followers with fear and a consciousness of powerlessness before the power of nature. Christianity brought a directly opposite point of view, putting man in the center of nature and revealing the divine expediency of the latter. The very first monuments and cultural works of Orthodox Russia are filled with joy and admiration for the world and man.
Ancient Russia and Byzantium
The first books that appeared in Russia were delivered from Byzantium. The holy brothers Cyril and Methodius (one of the prominent figures of the Byzantine culture) became enlighteners of the Slavic people. The first schools that opened in Novgorod, Kiev and other cities were arranged according to Byzantine models. Russian masters studied the construction of temples, their decoration with frescoes and mosaics, studied icon painting, the creation of book miniatures from the Byzantine. Not only church terminology was borrowed, but also names from Orthodox clergy: a considerable part of the names common today in Russia are of Greek origin (Peter, Galina, Andrey, Irina, etc.).
Byzantium and Russia established particularly close relations after the trip of Grand Duchess Olga to Constantinople, which went there to receive baptism. Other events that strengthened the relationship between the two strong states include the Orthodox mission sent to Prince Vladimir, as well as the Russian embassy “to the Greeks”.
Byzantium and Russia: fruitful interaction
Having adopted Orthodoxy, Russia determined the main direction of the cultural and historical development of its territories for many centuries to come.
About 450 years (from 988 to 1448), the Russian Orthodox Church was the metropolis of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and most of the Kiev metropolitans were represented by the Greeks at that time, since they were elected and approved in Constantinople. Thus, the cultural and largely political influence of Byzantium on the territory of Russia strengthened church-administrative dependence.
Among the immigrants from Byzantium in Russia, icon painters, church builders, scholars, and writers were valued. The Likhud brothers, one of such figures, in 1685 at the request of Patriarch Joachim opened the first higher educational institution in the capital - the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy at the Zaikonospassky Monastery.
Byzantium was given its due in the second half of the 19th century, when Byzantology was taught at universities - a course in the history and literature of Byzantium. Ancient Greek became compulsory for study in grammar schools, academies, and seminaries, since the New Testament Holy Scriptures , liturgical texts, and most of the works that came out of the hands of the fathers of the Ancient Church were still preserved in their ancient Greek writing. Children in parish schools learned about Byzantium from the first years of schooling.
Thus, Byzantium and Russia are a great example of the positive influence of the culture of one state on another.