International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

BYZANCE APRÈS BYZANCE – PART 1 
Chairs: 
Hediye Melek Delilbaşi, Aleksandar Fotić
Natalia Ziablitcyna
, 
Surroundings of Sophia Palaiologina: The Influence on the Russian Theological Thought
Aleksandar Fotić, 
Hilandar’s Monks from Kalamaria Metochion in the Service of
 vigla 
(17
th
C.)
Nikita Khrapunov
, 
Through Travellers’ Eyes: 
The Discovery, Interpretation, and Sacralization of Byzantine Crimea, 1783-1827
Anca Mihaela Sapovici
, 
The Parenetic Works within the Romanian Culture: Between Tradition and Innovation
Andrii Domanovskyi
, 
Byzantium after Byzantium in Ukrainian Perception
Jeroen Geurts
, 
The Pope and the Patriarchs. 
The Lifting of the Schism in Cuba and the Saving of the Byzantine Identity

---

246
Natalia Ziablitcyna
Russian Academy of Sciences,
Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation; 
[e-mail]
Surroundings of Sophia Palaiologina: 
The Influence on the Russian Theological Thought
The marriage between Byzantine princess Sophia Palaiologina and Grand Prince of Moscow 
Ivan III was arranged by a famous Greek scientist, Cardinal Bishop and the Latin Patriarch of 
Constantinople Basilios Bessarion. He was one of the representatives of the Eastern Orthodox 
Church in the Council of Florence who signed the union with the Roman Catholic Church in 1439. 
After the fall of Constantinople Cardinal Bessarion attempted to restore the Byzantine Empire, so he 
negotiated with Western princes a crusade against the Ottomans. The marriage of Sophia and Ivan 
III could make Russia accept the union of the Council of Florence and perhaps join the crusade. 
Some theologists who could exert the influence arrived in Russia in the retinue of Sophia in 1472.
At the turn of the 15
th
and the 16
th
centuries there existed a community of writers and translators 
headed by Archbishop Gennady Gonzov (so-called “Gennady circle”) in Novgorod the Great. It is 
known that there were links between the surroundings of Sophia Palaiologina and the participants 
of the “Gennady circle”. The question is how far the influence spread.
A. D. Sedel’nikov wrote directly about the Roman Catholic influence in Novgorod and noted 
that “the religious attack” on Russia left a lot of literary monuments. E. Wimmer opposed him that 
the influence is noticeable neither in the religious practice nor in the theory, so the members of the 
“Gennady circle” appealed the Roman Catholic experts for their needs, but a competent corrector 
defended them from the non-Orthodox confession.
M. B. Pl’ukhanova divides the activity of the direct surroundings of Sophia Palaiologina (the 
Greek and Italian group) and the Gennady group more strictly. In her opinion the first group exerted 
covert Uniate influence. She points out the translation of the “Disputatio contra Arium” by Pseudo-
Athanasius, which contained the phrase “Filioque” in the Creed and was used at the Council of 
Florence, other translations and a transmission of some topics as the results of their activity. But 
according to her, Gennady and his group didn’t take part in it consciously.
However, a linguistic observation on the Church Slavonic translation by a translator of the 
“Gennady circle” of the “Probatio adventus Christi” by Nicolaus de Lyra makes it possible to suppose 
the perception of the ideas of the Council of Florence in this community as well.

---

247