RUSSIA CONTINUES THE BYZANTINE TRADITIONS

Greetings, you're watching Dugin's Guideline.

Today, we are witnesses to an historic event, the visit of Russian president Vladimir Putin and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill to the Holy Mountain Athos, to the St. Panteleimon Monastery, the heart of Russian monasticism. They’ve arrived to celebrate the millennial anniversary of the Russian Church’s presence at Athos.

The symbolism of this event is enormous. This is the first time the heads of the Russian State and Church have visited the Holy Mountain of Athos together. Athos is the core of Byzantine spirit.   

 
We are the heirs of Byzantium as a state and as an empire since the fall of Constantinople. We took up the mission of becoming the Third rome and the heirs of Pan-Orthodoxy, as the Russian Orthodox Church has preserved the Byzantine traditions. We are Byzantine in our soul, our roots, and in our identity. The Russian president and Patriarch’s visit to the Holy Mountain is a manifestation of the Byzantine tradition. It is a living fragment of Byzantium. On Athos, the monks still live as in the times of Byzantium. The old Byzantine calendar is still in use and the spiritual life of Byzantium flourishes.
In this cradle of Hesychasm and intellectual endeavor, the monks, just like thousands of years ago since the spread of Holy Orthodoxy in these lands in Greece, continue to live the same spiritual life.

The head of secular power, the head of the Russian State, and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church together are the Byzantine symphony of powers (which was born in Byzantium) - the union of political and spiritual authority. This is symphonia. This is consonance. The representatives of this symphony are today visiting Athos, the Russian St. Panteleimon Monastery, and will visit additional sites on the Holy Mountain.

It is hard to imagine something more graceful, something more symbolic. Perhaps the spiritual beginning of Rus and in some senses its political beginning are now meeting with the latest periods of this glorious spiritual history. We have had different times in our history, but the fact that today we are witnessing the two heads of the spiritual and secular states worship our Byzantine roots is of enormous importance. This means that our Rus recognizes its history destiny. We are ready for the “end times,” as the old monks of Athos called them.

Goodbye, you’ve watched the last Athos edition of Dugin’s Guideline, which could be called the Byzantine or symphonic Guideline.