Philotheus of Pskov

Philotheus of Pskov was a monk of the Eleazarov Monastery near Pskov, known for letters written in the early sixteenth century to Grand Prince Vasily III and to the official Misyur Munekhin. In them he set out the idea of Moscow as the 'Third Rome': since Rome had fallen into heresy and Constantinople to the Turks, Moscow was the last true Christian empire, and 'a fourth there shall not be'. The idea later shaped Russian political and religious thought.