TY - JOUR TI - A Brick of Ivan the Terrible or the Moscovite Variant of Symphony AU - Kuffel, Józef TI - A Brick of Ivan the Terrible or the Moscovite Variant of Symphony AB - The title refers to a legend about a brick that fell on Ivan IV head while exploring the newly built Cathedral Church of Vologda Kremlin. In this article is shown polemics and mixed responses – in environmental historians, publicists, writers and even monks – to the personality and the role of the first ruler to be crowned as Tsar of All the Russias. Especially the variety of views is presented in works of Stephan Veselovsky who is a researcher of Old Russian society and state.At the beginning of his reign Ivan IV confirmed the position of the Orthodox Church with the Council of the Hundred Chapters [The Stoglavy Sobor] that was held in Moscow in 1551. This event, with the participation of Tsar and Metropolitan Macarius, was an expression of the desire of Muscovite state to symphony of Orthodox Church and Tsarist power.Maximus the Greek, identified himself with the mystical-ascetic trend in the Orthodoxy monasticism called Hesychasm, came to Moscow in March 1518. Hagiorite Elder (Staretz) was a teacher of the Byzantine idea on Russia. He taught on the basis of The Holy Fathers of Eastern Christianity that true symphony is not possible without transformation of human nature. In the Byzantine and Old Russian tradition this state was termed as deification.Ivan IV in the correspondence to one of his advisors, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, who defected to the Lithuanians, expressed his own view about Orthodoxy Tsarist power. He rejected the Byzantine tradition. One expression of this was, among other things, the creation of the Oprichnina and the execution of Metropolitan Philip.The article promotes the thesis that the essence of personal tragedy and fulfillment of hopes pinned on Ivan IV is the result of disobedience to Saint Hagiorite Elder who warned that without transformation (gr. Metanoia) of each member of the body of the Orthodox Theocracy – the idea of the Third Rome is unachievable. VL - 2017 IS - Vol. XIII PY - 2018 SN - 2451-4985 C1 - 2543-9561 SP - 165 EP - 178 DO - 10.4467/25439561KSR.17.012.7882 UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/kultura-slowian/article/kirpich-ivana-groznogo-ili-moskovskii-variant-simfonii KW - symphony KW - Hesychasm KW - Maximus the Greek KW - Ivan the Terrible