Sailing from Byzantium (27 page)

By the time of Russia's subjection to the Golden Horde, however, in political terms Kiev was no longer the leading principality. So far, no other had emerged to replace it.

The Mongols preferred that no one did. Their grip was firmest in the northeast principalities, where political leadership went with the grand principality of Vladimir. The khan bestowed this honorific on whatever prince won his temporary favor, switching the grand principality of Vladimir back and forth so that no one local dynasty might become strong enough to pose a threat. For the first quarter of the fourteenth century, the honor was held by the prince of Tver, Moscow's rival. But Byzantium also had much to say about the focal
point of Russian political prestige. Once the patriarchal decision was taken to move the metropolitan's seat from Kiev, the choice of where to relocate it became a political question of the highest importance. And as with the Byzantine successor states, the principality that ended up with the prize, Moscow, also reaped the immeasurable reward of political legitimacy and ultimately came out on top.

By the early fourteenth century, a three-way entente had arisen among the Byzantines, the Golden Horde, and the Genoese, whose maritime empire now dominated the Black Sea trade. From the Byzantine point of view, one benefit of the Mongol invasion was that it shattered the power of the Seljuk Turks, who had been the biggest threat to Byzantium. For that reason, and then also because the Mongols never impinged directly on Byzantine territory or disrupted the business of the church in Russia, the Byzantines accepted the Golden Horde's presence without hostility. In time, close relations developed between the two governments, which actively cooperated in settling political (Golden Horde) and eccelesiastical (Byzantium) matters in Russia.

The Byzantine-Mongol
rapprochement
over Russia was one element in the status quo that had developed by the beginning of the fourteenth century. Another was the Byzantine government's frequent dependence upon Genoa, a major maritime power that—as Venice's rival—had assisted Michael VIII in recovering the capital from the Venetian-run Latin government. Genoa often called the shots in Constantinople under the early Paleologan emperors, though Venice (which dominated eastern Mediterranean trade) was always on the lookout for a pretender to support or some other form of leverage over the perennially shaky Byzantine ruling house. Finally, Genoa was also in bed with the Mongols, and
out of that alliance got rights to rich Black Sea trading ports such as Kaffa in the Crimean peninsula.

This comfortable status quo had two big fault lines.

Byzantine and Mongol interests ultimately diverged when it came to the question of Russian unity. The church in Russia was by its very nature a unifying force both institutionally and spiritually, and it stood to benefit if Russians looked to a single power center. In contrast, the Mongols had much to gain from Russian disunity and everything to lose if a single center arose to take the lead in Russian affairs. Genoa, anxious to protect its trade, fell in with the Mongols on this issue.

In addition, the Orthodox church in Russia took in more territory than answered to the Golden Horde. To the west, Lithuania was a major power (much larger than today's nation ofthat name), with large numbers of Orthodox Russians under an ethnic Lithuanian ruling house. In the far north, wealthy Lord Novgorod—that's how this feisty merchant republic styled itself—looked back on a proud tradition of independence but increasingly fell under the sway of either Moscow, Tver, or Lithuania. Both Lithuania and Novgorod looked nervously over their shoulders at the Germans of the Teutonic Order, who were fond of launching Catholic Crusades into Orthodox territory.

Thus things stood in the middle decades of the fourteenth century, when the Hesychast movement took over the resurgent Byzantine religious establishment.

n September 8, 1380, a rebellious Russian army commanded by grand prince Dimitri II of Moscow met and defeated a large Mongol force at a meadow called Kulikovo on the upper Don, about two hundred miles south of Moscow. The battle was long and bloody, with terrible losses on both sides. And in political terms, its significance was slight. The Mongols would return with a vengeance two years later, looting and burning Moscow and bringing the city once again under the “Tatar yoke.”

But the battle of Kulikovo immediately took on great symbolic significance. For the first time in a century and a half, a Russian army had stood up to and repulsed a concerted attack by the Mongol tsar. Dimitri himself would be accorded the status of a national hero, known forever after as Dimitri Donskoi (“of the Don”) in commemoration of the victory.

The prestige of Kulikovo cemented Moscow's claim to leadership of Russia's competing principalities. This is ironic because the city had risen to prominence earlier in the fourteenth century largely through opportunistic toadying
to the Mongols. Dimitri's rebellion represented an about-face in this long-standing policy.

Despite its vengeance on Moscow two years after the battle, the Golden Horde never achieved quite the same degree of control over the Russians as before, though at first that was due more to the Mongols’ internal problems than to Russian assertiveness. Within another fifty years or so Russia would finally shake off the Tatar yoke forever, again under Muscovite leadership. Moscow would then take its place as Russia's capital, the heir to Kievan greatness—and soon after that, to Byzantine greatness as well. So Kulikovo, even if lacking in immediate consequences, is still viewed as a major turning point in Russian history.

The Russian chroniclers who recorded the battle play up the religious angle, portraying the devout Dimitri as a defender of the Orthodox faith against the Muslim Mongols, whose khan Mamai they malign as an “accursed, godless, impious, and dastardly eater of uncooked flesh.” St. Sergius of Radonezh, who revived and expanded Russian monasticism in this period, is prominently associated with the victory: he is portrayed as exhorting Dimitri before the battle, thereby assuming the role of Russia's saint protector, for which he is still venerated.

Some accounts also claim that before the battle Dimitri was advised by Cyprian, metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia, the Byzantine-appointed head of the Orthodox church in Russia, enshrining him, too, as a national liberator in popular memory. This is interesting, since historians believe that Cyprian was nowhere near Moscow or Kulikovo at the time of the battle. In fact, until very shortly before it, he was in Constantinople, defending his claim to the metropolitanate. In the years leading up to Kulikovo, Cyprian had been embroiled in a bitter struggle with Dimitri, who had opposed
his accession as metropolitan and had tried to have his own candidate installed instead. Yet, shortly after the battle, Dimitri abruptly reversed himself and welcomed Cyprian to Moscow, fêting him with a celebratory banquet in the prince's palace and according him all honor and respect as metropolitan.

Behind this puzzling turn of events lies a tale of cynical intrigue, political backstabbing, and, on Cyprian's part, a gritty determination that survived years of adversity before its final vindication. That story begins around the middle of the century, with the rise of Hesychasm.

While for Byzantium's humanists the Hesychast victory felt like a tragedy, for the Hesychasts’ many supporters in the Byzantine mainstream it was a glorious affirmation of divine truth. The most immediate result of the Hesychasts’ victory was to give them and the monastic establishment they led control of the patriarchate and the invigorated official church structure.

The remarkable John VI Cantacuzenos—Byzantine statesman, regent turned emperor, bookworm, theological speculator, and finally historian and monk—was the main exponent of what can be described as the Hesychast political program. Among other things, that entailed opposition to Genoa, which supported the pro-Western empress Anne of Savoy against Cantacuzenos in the civil war that brought him to the throne.
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Instead, Cantacuzenos allied himself with the
nascent Asian power of the Ottoman Turks, whose soldiers helped Cantacuzenos against Anne and the Genoese. The Ottomans were not yet the threat they soon—partly because of Cantacuzenos’ policy—came to be.

Since the patriarchate was now the most potent means of projecting Byzantine power abroad, Cantacuzenos relied on his patriarchs to implement the foreign policy side of the Hesychast program. He had begun developing the basic principles of this foreign policy as early as 1328, when as a young man he helped engineer the succession of his friend Andro-nicus III, after which he served as Andronicus’ prime minister.

When it came to Russia, the watchword was unity. Cantacuzenos’ highest priority was to preserve the unity of the Russian metropolitanate, which essentially meant opposing any princes or grand princes who wished to establish a separate metropolitan for their own territory. Another aim was to preserve Byzantine control of the metropolitanate, which would be much easier if there was only one metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia. Other aspects of the policy included suspicion of Lithuania, whose imperialist rulers showed signs of both Western sympathies and Russian territorial ambition, and cooperation with the Golden Horde, at least for the time being.

Cantacuzenos’ Hesychast foreign policy was based on more than lofty abstract principles. Russia was big, rich, and populous, far more so now than the struggling Byzantine empire. Trade was no longer dominated by the Byzantines, but generous donations flowed through ecclesiastical channels in a steady stream to Constantinople, and there was always the hope of military help as well. Byzantines also found a reassuring ideological loyalty and solidarity in the rising Slavic world, and especially in Russia, during an otherwise frightening time.

In practice Hesychast policy in Russia translated into support for Moscow, which reciprocated by proving the most consistently loyal of all the Russian principalities. The relationship started almost by accident. In 1326 the metropolitan Peter, a Russian from Galicia, settled in Moscow, where he was buried after dying later that year. Despite the precedent of close Byzantine relations with Moscow's predecessor, Vladimir, Peter seems to have favored Moscow for the simple reason that the prince of Tver, Moscow's rival, had opposed Peter's nomination to the metropolitanate. But Peter's Greek successor Theognostos, appointed after Cantacuzenos’ government took over in 1328, upheld Peter's policy of support for Moscow, which in that year helped the Mongols sack rebellious Tver, no doubt with Byzantine approval. Theognostos’ long and successful metropolitanate (which lasted from 1328 to 1353) helped to cement Cantacuzenos’ policy in place.

During that time, under the patronage of both Constantinople and Sarai, Moscow grew in what we might call its “borrowed” prestige: ecclesiastical prestige as the seat of the metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia, political prestige as the seat of the grand prince of Vladimir. It grew in size and power, too. Perched on a bend in the placid Moscow River, the city resembles the cross-section of a tree, with concentric circles that can be counted inward from newest to oldest. Today, the outermost circles are ring roads that buzz with automobile traffic. But the inner rings were once fortifications—wooden palisades, stone walls, and earthen
ramparts, arranged target-like to protect the traders and merchandise within. The original central stockade was the log fortress or kremlin erected by Yuri Dolgoruky. In the early fourteenth century, grand prince Ivan I, called Kalita (“Moneybags”), replaced its relatively flimsy pine walls with thick oaken timbers—a privilege granted him by his master, the Mongol tsar.

Genoa had concerns about Moscow's growing power, and problems for the Hesychast unity policy arose when Cantacuzenos was forced to abdicate in 1354. With Genoese assistance, John V Paleologos resumed the throne as sole emperor. Cantacuzenos’ patriarch, Philotheos, was deposed, and the new government installed his rival, Callistos.
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The new Genoese-controlled government in Constantinople now swung toward Olgerd, the powerful grand prince of Lithuania, as a counter to Moscow. Callistos offered Olgerd his own “metropolitan of the Lithuanians,” for which position the Lithuanian ruler nominated a Russian from Tver named Roman. The patriarchal archives record Byzantine impressions of Olgerd's motive: “to find a means, with Roman's help, of ruling Great Russia,” as the northeastern principalities were now called. Since he already ruled “Little Russia,” including Kiev, it was clear that Olgerd was making a bid to take over all of Russia.

In keeping with Olgerd's ambitions, Roman soon began styling himself metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia, moving his residence to Kiev and ignoring Callistos’ injunctions that he respect the claims of Alexis, the rightful metropolitan, whom Philotheos had installed before Cantacuzenos’
resignation, and who resided in Moscow. But Roman died in 1362, and Callistos—perhaps under Cantacuzenos’ renewed influence behind the scenes—reunified the Russian metropolitanate under Alexis.

Olgerd wasn't about to give up so easily. Over the next decade and a half, until his death in 1377, the energetic Lithuanian grand prince challenged Moscow for control of Russia. That struggle was a major watershed in Eastern European history. It reached its peak in his unsuccessful siege of Moscow in 1368, which was repelled by Moscow's grand prince Dimitri II, not yet the victor of the Don. Olgerd's campaign continued even after that defeat. It turned Alexis and the metropolitanate into political footballs, presenting Hesychast policy in Russia with grave challenges. Philotheos, not Callistos, had to face those challenges first, since Callistos died the year after Roman. By that time, Cantacuzenos had reasserted himself as an influence behind the throne, and Philotheos resumed the patriarchate.

Philotheos, whose surname Kokkinos means “the redhead,” proved the most influential of the Hesychast patriarchs, and the ablest promoter of Cantacuzenos’ foreign policy. Born in Thessalonica to a poor family (perhaps of Jewish converts), Philotheos was a few years younger than his fellow Thessalonican Gregory Palamas. As a boy Philotheos had worked in the kitchen of Thomas Magister, a humanist scholar and philologist, who had taken him on as a student. He had then entered a monastery at Mt. Athos, where he became initiated into Hesychasm, rising to become superior of the Great Lavra and then metropolitan of Heraclea.

During his second term as patriarch, Philotheos chose the brilliant Bulgarian monk Cyprian as his Hesychast “ambassador” in Russia. Some three decades Philotheos’ junior, Cyprian was coincidentally also the exact contemporary,
as near as anyone can tell, of Coluccio Salutati. The two offer mirror images of each other, embodying the different ways that Italians and Bulgarians acted as conduits for the two sides of the Byzantine legacy. While Salutati was discovering the allure of ancient Greek literature and organizing Chrysoloras’ teaching trip to Florence, Cyprian was serving as Philotheos’ agent in Russia, helping to establish what one scholar has called “Hesychast International.” By realizing the Hesychast foreign policy that Cantacuzenos and Philotheos had envisioned, this informal but cohesive network of monks and others would reshape the political and cultural landscape of the Byzantine Commonwealth.

Hesychasm's international headquarters was Mt. Athos, where sometime in the early fourteenth century a wandering monk named Gregory of Sinai had introduced the mystical technique of the “prayer of the heart.” It was based on the “Jesus prayer,” which he had picked up while studying in Jerusalem. The method consisted of constant repetition of the phrase “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” accompanied by controlled breathing in a continuous, imageless, mantra-like loop. If properly executed, the prayer allowed its performer to perceive a special light, which in his
Discourses on the Transfiguration
Gregory identifies with the light that bathed Christ at Mt. Tabor. This was the seed of Hesychasm, which was soon taken up by other monks on Athos and from there eventually spread throughout the Orthodox world.

One of the first places it spread was Bulgaria, for Gregory eventually left Athos and founded four monasteries at Paroria, on the Bulgarian-Byzantine border. Among his disciples there was the future patriarch Callistos I, as well as a number of Bulgarians.

Before the rise of Hesychasm, the Athonite monasteries
had often been associated with emperors, who had founded many of them and had generously supplied imperial patronage. With the religious resurgence that invigorated Athos after Hesychasm, the Holy Mountain became closely linked instead with the patriarchate of Constantinople. Many of the most powerful patriarchs of the fourteenth century, including Callistos and Philotheos, were among the thousands of men from all corners of the Orthodox world who trained in its Hesychast monasteries.