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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