Sanctity of City or Sanctity of People? Maxim the Greek on Moscow and Russia as “Sacred Spaces” in “Tale of the Preservation of the Sanctity by the Reigning Cities”

Abstract. The article deals with Maxim the Greek’s attitude to the comparison of Moscow with Jerusalem, widespread in the Russian literature of the 16th century. The author analyses Maxim the Greek’s “Tale of the Preservation of Sanctity by the Reigning Cities” addressed to the archimandrite of the Simonov Monastery Gerasim Zamytsky, considering the work as a source of information about Maxim the Greek’s attitude to one of the key concepts of Russian religious and political thought in the 16th century “Moscow — New Jerusalem”. Special attention is paid to the ideological and cultural context of Maxim the Greek’s work. The author’s conclusion is that Maxim the Greek did not permit the desecration of the holiness of places that had been bestowed by God. Maximus’s concept of sanctity is that it “physically” permeates holy cities, sanctifying virtuous Christians who receive gifts from the God-given grace of the place. The Athonite, speaking on the holiness of Jerusalem and Moscow and refuting the “replacement” of old Jerusalem by the capital of Russia, builds the narrative in the context of moral edification, Christian teaching about the purity of faith. Discussing the sanctity of cities under the rule of foreigners, the Athonite gives a special place to Orthodox Christians who kept the faith under the rule of Muslims, which speaks of the moral and ascetic “nature” of Maxim the Greek’s self-consciousness.

Keywords: Holy Grace, Maxim the Greek, Moscow, New Jerusalem, New Israel, sacred spaces, holiness.