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Towards the end of his life Pakhomii wrote
his most important work, entitled "The Legend of the Princes of
Vladimir," in which he reviewed the life and genealogy of the world's
greatest emperors and rulers, pharaohs included. Pakhomii found that Russian
grand dukes were directly related to the first Roman emperor Augustus, and that
as such they qualified to become a possible successors. Then, to make the
entire picture more suitable for the occasion, he wrote that Byzantine Emperor
Constantine had sent his crown of laurel and cape to the Grand Duke of Kiev,
Vladimir Monomakh. In the Orthodox world, including Russia, Constantinople was
considered to be "New Rome." When the Turks ransacked the city and
put an end to the existence of the Byzantine Empire, the temptation of power
became great, and the grand dukes began to dream of the world-wide role that
they eventually could play. The image Pakhomii constructed was intended to
show, as he put it, the "Future unbounded splendor of Moscow" - the
"Third Rome." In his works Pakhomii called the Moscow Grand Duke
"Tsar and autocrat," and the Metropolitan Zosima regarded Ivan III
the "Sovereign and autocrat of all Russia," "A new Tsar
Constantine."
Pakhomii's discoveries found several practical applications during the reign of
Ivan the Terrible. His tent-shaped throne for the Cathedral of the Assumption
in the Kremlin was made in 1551 of finely carved walnut. Several receding tiers
of kokoshniki and steep gables form the octagonal canopy (khatior) above the
throne. It was named after Vladimir Monomakh because engraved reliefs depicted
major events of this life. One of them shows how Monomakh's crown (Shapka
Monomakha) reached Kiev from Constantinople, a detail clearly inspired by
Pakhomii's "Legend." Then in some official documents and letters sent
to foreign kings Ivan IV found it necessary o remind them of this imperial
ancestry by beginning them with: "We , descendant of Augustus Caesar
..."
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