The first, Orthodoxy, is a religious legitimation theory, and it resembles, therefore,
the religious legitimation theories that played a role in the early colonial expansion
of Western Europe, especially of Spain. In Russia religion played an important role
from an early stage. That role, however, was different from that in Western Europe,
where Protestantism and Catholicism were not the religions of one state, but of groups
of states. In 1453, after the fall of Constantinople, Russia had become the only Orthodox
country in the world. This led to a deep sense of Russian religious uniqueness. Moscow began to call itself the “Third Rome,” and a specific Russian messianism emerged:
Russia considered itself to be the only real source of salvation for mankind. The
resemblance here with the young Soviet Union is striking. In 1917 Russia became, again,
the only state in the world with its own creed: communism. As the only communist country
in the world, it considered itself to be a beacon for mankind. The messianism of the
early communist era, expressed in the phrase “socialism in one country” was, in fact,
a secularized version of the messianism of tsarist, Orthodox Russia, expressed in
the slogan svyataya Rus, “Holy Russia.” To call your country “holy” is an immense pretention. “To see oneself
as potentially ‘a holy nation’ is to link chosenness indissolubly with collective
sanctification.”[28] But Russia was not the first to call itself “holy.” In the West there existed a
precedent—and a competitor—in the Holy Roman Empire, headed by the emperor of Austria.[29] Both the emperor in Vienna and the tsar in Moscow pretended to be the legitimate
heirs of the late Christian Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire in the heart of Europe,
led by the Austrian emperor, however, was a weak and semifederal construction, a conglomerate
of German principalities that would finally be dissolved in 1806 under pressure from
Napoleon. The tsars, on the contrary, stood at the helm of a centralized and strong
military power, and they were able to conduct an uninterrupted policy of territorial
annexation.
The Symbiosis of Church and State
