The acceptance of George the Victorious as the patron saint of Moscow statehood is no less mysterious than the appearance in Russia of a two-headed eagle.
The first officially documented evidence of the appearance of Saint George as a state symbol dates back to 1497. Then the rider-serpent fighter appeared on the obverse of the seal of John III. By the way, the first appearance of the two-headed eagle, which was just depicted on the reverse side of the grand ducal seal, also belongs to this moment. It is interesting that up to this point, John III had a seal with a completely different plot - a lion fighting a snake. What made the Grand Duke change the image on the seal, and with him the patron saint of the state?
Archangel Michael
I must say that the spearman was identified on the seal as Saint George several centuries later - no modern indications in the era of John III that it was George the Victorious were found.
Many historians express doubts that Saint George is depicted on the seal of the Moscow sovereign in 1497. So, a number of researchers argue that, most likely, the horseman from the seal is the archangel Michael, who since the time of Ivan Kalita was the patron saint of Moscow princes.
It must be said that the iconographic plot "Archangel Michael, the formidable forces of the voivode", where the archangel tramples the devil on a spear, appeared in the Russian Orthodox tradition only at the end of the 16th century. Before that, in Russia, the archangel was depicted on foot with a sword or spear in hand. In addition, according to the canon, the archangel was depicted with wings and a halo (by the way, like St. George), but these attributes are absent on the seal of the grand duke.
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Unknown serpent fighter
The use of the horseman slaying the serpent was not pure innovation of John III. So, this image was used by the Prince of Moscow Vasily the Dark, John's father, in the first half of the 15th century. True, the prince minted a spearman on Moscow coins, while on the prince's seal a horseman with a falcon on his shoulder appeared. The image of the spearman on the coins also does not indicate that he is a saint. Moreover, if on one side of the coin the plot corresponds to the story of St. George the Victorious, striking a snake with a spear, then on the reverse side we already see a rider swinging a sword at the snake, which does not correspond to the iconographic canon. Who, then, is this rider if not St. George or the Archangel Michael? A number of historians insist that this is the prince himself. As in the case of the coins of Basil the Dark, so in the case of the seal of John III.
Revelation of Methodius of Patarsky
Almost the entire 15th century, the Grand Duchy of Moscow was in anticipation of the end of the World, which was supposed to come, according to legend, in 7000 from the Creation of the world (1492). At this time, the Byzantine Apocrypha, which was attributed to the Greek Hieromartyr Methodius of Patara, received tremendous popularity. The "Revelation" contained a presentation of world history, from the time of Adam to the seventh millennium from the Creation of the world - the coming of the Antichrist and the Last Judgment.
The story is based on the confrontation between the Israelites and the Ishmaelites, as well as the story of the "unclean" nations that Alexander the Great imprisoned in the inaccessible mountains. The Ishmaelite tribes, defeated by the Israeli leader Gideon and fled to the Etriva desert (this story goes back to the Bible), in the seventh millennium will leave the Etriva desert and enslave numerous countries. After their invasion, lawlessness will reign in the world, there will be a complete decline in morals. But over time, the righteous Greek king will defeat the rapists. The flowering of Christianity and general prosperity will come. And then the "unclean" peoples imprisoned by Alexander will come out and conquer almost the whole world. Then God will send his archangel, who will destroy all the invaders. After a while, the Antichrist will be born. After the reign of antichrist, the second coming of Christ and the last judgment will follow.
It is interesting that the Slavic translation of "Revelation", which was widespread in medieval Russia, was significantly revised and incorporated other popular apocrypha: "The Prophecy of Andrew the Fool", "The Legend of Tsar Michael", etc. The commentators of that time began to talk about the God's chosenness of the Russian Land, about the special role of the Grand Duke as the last Orthodox sovereign. Considering that Constantinople fell in 1453 under the onslaught of the Turks, with whom the Ishmaelites were associated from the prophecy, John III really appeared in the image of the last sovereign of the Orthodox world. In Reckoning, the denouement was described as follows:
“Then suddenly the King of Elinsky, or Greek, will rise up against them (the Ishmaelites) with great fury. Awaken more like a man from wine, you daring one, for him in the name of mankind, like a dead person and nothing else is needed. That ubo will go out to them from the Sea of Ethiopia and will erect weapons against them in Etriva, their fatherland, and will enslave their wives and their children And the yoke of the Greek King will be on them seventy weeks more than their yoke on Gretsekh. And there will be the wrath of the Greek King against those who rejected our Lord Jesus Christ, and the earth will pacify and there will be silence on the earth, Jacob will never be, there is no last one. And at the end of the century there will be merriment on earth and humankind merriment with the world.
Moscow commentators began to interpret the "Tsar of the Greek" as an Orthodox sovereign, and the "Sea of Ethiopia" as the Black Sea, which washed the shores of Constantinople. After the wedding of John III to the Byzantine princess Sophia Palaeologus, the connection between the Grand Duke of Moscow and the “victorious Greek king” from Revelation was even stronger. True, the apocrypha said that the tsar was supposed to bear the name of Michael, but, apparently, this did not bother the commentators in any way.
Based on the concept of the chosenness of John III that arose in Muscovy, researcher A. Yurganov gave an internal interpretation of the rider's symbol on the seal:
“The figure of the victorious tsar in the symbol of the Russian state marked the Russian tsar who was destined to give power to God on His Second Coming. In essence, this is a symbolic and heraldic embodiment of the idea of the Third Rome, a God-saved kingdom. Of particular importance is the fact that the horse in this composition is the Orthodox faith itself, which the tsar and sovereign must keep clean. The defeat of the serpent with the scepter-spear is confidence in the victory of good, the triumph of Christ in the final battle with evil. In this regard, a certain difference in tonality is revealed: if for the Greek legends the confrontation ends either with the squatting of the bitten horse, or the fall of the rider, then in the symbol of the Russian state we see a demonstration of confidence."
It must be admitted that the belief in the end times was so strong on the Russian land that many in 1491 did not sow the fields, which led to famine. But the presentation of light did not come, but this did not in any way affect the idea of the chosenness of John III.
It is interesting that the serpent fighter appears on the seal of the Moscow sovereign 5 years after the supposed end of the world. How can this be explained? A number of researchers argue that the Moscow elite was aware of the "Western forecast" of the end of the world. From the second half of the 15th century, the most prominent European astrologers gave their date for the presentation of light - 1524 (7032 from the Creation of the world). Therefore, it is likely that John III adhered to this particular date. True, they also saw in this the influence of the Jewish sect on the sovereign. We will not talk about all the intricacies of this heresy, but we will note that at this moment in Russia many books of occult, primarily astrological content appeared. For example, the famous Sixwing, the authorship of which was attributed to the Kiev rabbi-Kabbalist. The foundation of the heresy was attributed to a certain Skhariy, a Jew who came to Novgorod from the Lithuanian lands. The figure of Shariah is still controversial among historians. Some argue that Skhariya was invented by opponents of the Judaizers, others see him as one of the largest Kabbalists of that time in Europe, the Kiev rabbi Zachariah Ben Aaron ha-Kogen, and others call Skhariya the Genoese prince Tamani Zakkaria Gizolfi, whom John III invited several times to Moscow.
The figure of the latter is associated with the appearance in Russia of George the Victorious in the form of a horseman. The fact is that Taman was financed by the Genoese bank San Giorgio (Bank of St. George), and according to some sources, Gizolfi was a conductor of the interests of this financial structure in Muscovy. The bank's emblem was St. George piercing the serpent with a spear. This fact made some researchers say that the appearance of the Victorious on the tsarist seal may illustrate some important agreement between the Bank of San Giorgio and the Grand Duchy of Moscow.
Legitimization of Saint George
After the death of John III, the symbol of the horseman-serpentine was used by Vasily III, John IV, Fyodor Ioannovich, Boris Godunov, False Dmitry, Vasily Shuisky, Mikhail Fedorovich, Alexei Mikhailovich, Fedor Alekseevich, Peter I, but none of these monarchs had a spearman in their documents like George the Victorious. How the Russian tsars "personified" one of the main images of their power will remain a mystery to us. Only in 1730, when 88 coats of arms of Russian cities were approved, the nameless snake fighter received the name of St. George.
