Most readers will answer this question: "Ivan IV the Terrible" and will be right in their own way. Because the coronation of the Tsar and Grand Duke Ivan IV, after whom he began to be called the “Tsar of All Russia”, took place on January 16, 1547. it passed in the famous Dormition Cathedral of the Kremlin, where Metropolitan Macarius put the signs of royal power on the seventeen-year-old youth: the cap of Monomakh, the barmas (wide shoulder stones, sewn on and part of the holy cross of Christ) the world, so that the Holy Spirit would give the father the wisdom to rule the country, and afterwards - blessed the young Ivan IV.
It would seem that the question is closed? No matter how it is! The chronicles claim that Ivan the Terrible's grandfather, Ivan III, was also called the autocrat, and the rite of coronation, or, as they said at the time, "wedding to the kingdom" was written for a relative of the Terrible - Dmitry Ivanovich, the grandson of Ivan III.
Moscow - new Tsargrad
By the end of the 15th century, when Byzantium fell under the onslaught of the Muslims, the question of continuity arose: for Russia, Byzantium, with its emperors crowned with God, was an example and a model. In order for Moscow to truly become the successor of Christian traditions, it was necessary, according to the Byzantine model, to endow the ruling persons with power "from God," and to make Moscow the new Constantinople. This idea was born at the court of Ivan III and forced his subordinates to rethink the approach to entering the rights of the next ruler.
At this time, a serious struggle was going on at the court over which branch of the Ivan III family would continue to rule the state. The Grand Duke was married twice: the first time to the Tver princess Maria Borisovna, the second - to Sophia Paleolog, the sister of the last emperor of the fallen Byzantium. From Maria Borisovna, Ivan III had an heir, Ivan Young (died in 1490) and his son, Ivan's grandson Dmitry (born in 1483); Of Sophia's children, Paleologue, the main contender for power was the son of Vasily, the eldest of Sophia's sons.
It is curious that the implementation of the idea of "Moscow - the new Constantinople" belongs not to Sophia Paleolog, but to her opponents - priests and scribes close to Dmitry and his mother Elena Voloshanka. Metropolitan Zosima, who was close to Elena, even composed The Passion Exposition, in which he put the idea of the continuity of power. In the work, Paleolog was not mentioned, and the continuity was based on the loyalty of Russia to God, Zosima called the autocrat a tsar and claimed that the Lord himself placed him over Russia. In addition to the clergy, Dmitry Vnuk was backed by the princes of Tver, who disliked Paleologue, considering her a stranger and associating the "disorder in Russia" with her appearance. Ivan III himself wanted to transfer the throne along the senior line and considered Dmitry's heir, and after the conspiracy against Dmitry failed in the fall of 1497, Sophia Paleolog and his son fell out of favor,Ivan III decided to marry Dminitriya on "the great reign of Vladimir, Moscow, Novgorod and all Russia", making him co-ruler.
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Power from God
A special "wedding rite" was also developed; the ceremony itself, which has not yet been equal in Russia, was held on February 4, 1498 in the Dormition Council. All the clergy, relatives and boyars came to the wedding, the square in front of the assembly was filled with people. The metropolitan solemnly laid on Dmitry the symbols of power: the cap of Monomax (this was done for the first time) and the mantle (bapma), then, as he writes, based on the chronicles, historian Vasily Klyuchevsky, anointed him with peace, and grandfather Ivan III blessed his fifteen-year-old grandson “for a great reign Vladimirskoe, Moskovskoe and Novgorodskoe ". The exarch urged the teenager to rule wisely, and upon leaving the cathedral, Dmitry was showered with coins.
The further fate of Dmitry is unenviable. He ruled with his grandfather for only a year, solving litigation in several districts, after which a new conspiracy arose, Dmitry's supporters were executed or exiled, and Vasily was pardoned by his grandfather and became the Grand Duke of Novgorod and Pskov; Sophia also came out from under the disgrace.
The fate of the anointed of God
Dmitry was pushed back from public affairs: his name in documents began to be written after the names of other sons of Ivan III, and in 1502 his grandfather himself imprisoned Dmitry and Elena in prison, forbidding even in prayers to remember their names and call Dmitry the Grand Duke. Why he did this is not clear.
Then Ivan III elevated Vasily and "put him on the great reign of Vladimir and Moscow and all Russia as an autocrat." As the Austrian diplomat Sigismund von Herberstein later recalled, before his death, his grandfather tried to alleviate the fate of his grandson and ordered his release, but Vasily III chained his nephew in iron, and he died in prison in 1509.
Herberstein names two possible reasons for Dmitry's death: he could choke on the smoke during the fire or die of hunger; and Prince Andrei Kurbsky wrote that he was strangled. The death of Dmitry is reported in the second edition of the annals of 1518, where it is written that he died "in need and in prison."
It turns out that even before the coronation of Ivan the Terrible in Russia, there was an anointed of God, Dmitry Ivanovich, who was Grozny's cousin. He was not called a tsar and was crowned for a great reign, but his power was consecrated by the metropolitan, and thus he became the first spiritual successor of the Byzantine monarchs. The rite of the wedding of Dmitry Vnuk was later used to develop the rite of the wedding to the kingdom of Ivan the Terrible.
Maya Novik