page_title: Coronation of the Russian monarch
section_title: Symbolism
hierarchical_section_title: Coronation of the Russian monarch / Symbolism
caption_attribution_description: "Вдруг в одно мгновение все стихает — и музыка, и колокола, и клики народа, — и среди благоговейной тишины у южных дверей собора митрополит Московский Сергий приветствует Их Величество речью. Предшествуемые тремя митрополитами, архиереями и духовенством, при пении величественного псалма входят Их Величества в собор, где около 10 часов начинается тот торжественный чин венчания и помазания на царство, в который Православная Церковь влагает столько глубокого смысла, исполненный такого важного значения для каждого русского, понимающего свою историю."
context_page_description: Coronations in Russia involved a highly developed religious ceremony in which the Emperor of Russia was crowned and invested with regalia, then anointed with chrism and formally blessed by the church to commence his reign. Although rulers of Muscovy had been crowned prior to the reign of Ivan III, their coronation rituals assumed overt Byzantine overtones as the result of the influence of Ivan's wife Sophia Paleologue, and the imperial ambitions of his grandson, Ivan IV. The modern coronation, introducing "Western European-style" elements, replaced the previous "crowning" ceremony and was first used for Catherine I in 1724. Since czarist Russia claimed to be the "Third Rome" and the replacement of Byzantium as the true Christian state, the Russian rite was designed to link its rulers and prerogatives to those of the so-called "Second Rome".
  While months or even years could pass between the initial accession of the sovereign and the performance of this ritual, church policy held that the monarch must be anointed and crowned according to the Orthodox rite to have a successful tenure.
context_section_description: In medieval Europe, the anointed Christian ruler was viewed as a mixta persona, part priest and part layman, but never wholly either. The Russian Orthodox Church considered the Tsar to be "wedded" to his subjects in the Orthodox coronation service.
  The Orthodox concept on this subject was explained by Russian bishop Nektarios (Kontzevich), a prelate of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad:
  The Tsar was and is anointed by God. This mystery is performed by the Church during the coronation, and the Anointed of God enters the Royal Doors into the altar, goes to the altar table and receives the Holy Mysteries as does the priest, with the Body and Blood taken separately. Thus the Holy Church emphasises the great spiritual significance of the podvig (struggle) of ruling as a monarch, equalling this to the holy sacrament of the priesthood... He (the Tsar) is the sacramental image, the carrier of the special power of the Grace of the Holy Spirit."
  Since no Orthodox layperson, regardless of societal or political rank, was ever permitted to pass through the Royal Doors or partake of communion in both kinds separately, the permission given to the Tsar to do both during his coronation ritual was intended to demonstrate both the solemn nature of the ritual, and the spiritual duties and authority devolving upon the new monarch.  Sacred and secular, church and state, God and government were all welded together by the coronation service in the person of the anointed Tsar—or so many Russians believed.
  Since the newly ascended sovereign was permitted all the privileges of rule immediately upon his accession, coronations were not necessarily held right away.  Instead, one or more years might be permitted to elapse between the initial accession of a Tsar and the ceremony itself.  This allowed the court to finish its mourning for the new sovereign's predecessor, and permitted completion of the immense arrangements involved in staging the ritual.
caption: Anointing of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia during his coronation in 1896
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