In spite of pressures from Roman Catholic Europe in the West and from Islam in the East, a narrow corridor remained open to the north for Eastern Orthodoxy. In the ninth century Boris, king of the Bulgarians, was converted and in the tenth, Vladimir, grand prince of Kiev and of all Russia was also converted. Over the years Russia made the aesthetic glories of Orthodox Christianity her own. Gradually Moscow came to see herself as the leader of the Orthodox world. Some have called Moscow the third Rome.
[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Eastern-Orthodoxy, history, Russian-Orthodox-Church[/tags]