Moscow

(Russ. Moskwa), the ancient capital of Russia, and formerly the residence of the czars, and situated in a highly cultivated and fertile district on the Moskva, 400 miles south-east of St. Petersburg, is not only "the very personification of the ecclesiastical history of Russia," as Stanley speaks of it (East. Ch. page 424), but has acquired a stronger hold over the religious mind of a larger part of Christendom than is probably exercised by any other city except Jerusalem and Rome. It must, therefore, be briefly considered here. Just as the Jew delights to call Jerusalem "the holy Zion," the Russian points with pride to this central city of his empire as "our holy mother Moscow;" and the lower classes, not content with this, even go so far as to name the road which leads to it "our dear mother, the great road from Vladimir to Moscow" (Haxthausen, Researches in Russia, 3:151). In one word, Moscow is a very Russian Rome. Not that Christianity was first proclaimed here for the Russians (this was done at Kief), but because it is the ultimate and permanent seat of the Russian primates (since 1325), and contains within its walls the Kremlin (Russ. Kreml), "that fortress surrounded by its crusted towers and battlemented walls," in which are united all the elements of the ancient religious life of Russia. The city abounds in churches and convents. Of the former it is said to have 400, all of the orthodox Greek faith, with the exception of the English and Roman chapels, a German and a French chapel, two or three Armenian chapels, and a Turkish mosque. It has convents also by the hundreds, counting many of the "white clergy." See Scheutzler, Moscow (St. Petersb. and Par. 1834) ; Prime, The Ahambra and the Kremlin (N.Y. 1874, 12mo); Clarke, Travels in Russia, Tartary, and Turkey (Aberd. 1848, 12mo), chapter 4-9; Ackerman, Historical Sketch of Moscow; Harper's Monthly, volume 26; Blackwood's Magazine, 1855, January page 8. SEE RUSSIA. (J.H.W.)