The spirituality of the East Europe in the Middle Age

First part

 St. Basil - Moskow

An less known  aspect  of the medieval history  is the history of the East Europe. But we have to reckon with it, in view of the next  extension of the European Union  to the Eastern countries. East Europe  in Middle Age had a great state institution, the Eastern  Roman Emperor, also called Byzantine, that lived  until  the end of the Middle Age (29 May 1453), when it was conquered  by Turkishes of  Muhammad II. The Christian Eastern Church (orthodox) got separated from Rome before  867, under the Patriarch of Constantinople Fozio, then in 1054, with the Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerulario. The hearth of the matter  the pope ‘s primacy, and some theological and liturgical matters. All the same, the eastern peoples handed down us a very deep spirituality, a bit far to our technical and pragmatics mentality. The in discussed centre of the Eastern spirituality  was the monastery of Mount Athos, where, from 963, a monastic republic was formed. The Christian Orthodox Church often was subject also with violence to the power of the emperiors, as in the case of iconoclasm, with Leo the III Isauric  and Costantine  the V Copronime. Other typical phenomenon of the Orthodoxian spiritualità is the l'Hesychasm, a contemplative movement, bound to the Eastern monachism. The Orthodoxian spirituality, when  the Bizantine Emperor fell under the islamic power of the Turks, had as a new center Moskow, point of reference of the Orthodoxy still today.  Russia became also a production center of  icon’s art.

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