Vassian Patrikeyev

Vassian Patrikeyev, also known as Vassian Kosoy (Вассиан Патрикеев, Вассиан Косой in Russian; real name – knyaz Василий Иванович Патрикеев, or Vasili Ivanovich Patrikeyev) (c. 1470 – between 1531 and 1545) was a bishop of Rostov and confidant of Ivan III of Moscow. Vassian was an ecclesiastic and political figure and writer and an early member of the House of Golitsyn that traced its male-line descent to Duke Patrikas of Korela and to Gediminas, Grand Duke of Lithuania. Political action He was known to have been one of the leaders of the boyar party, which supported tsarevich Dmitry Ivanovich (grandson of Ivan III) in a struggle against Sophia Paleologue's son Vasili for succession to the throne. In ecclesiastic matters, the boyar party was generally closer to heretical and freedom-loving circles. Vassian wrote the "Epistle on the Ugra" (Poslanie na Ugru), which contains political propaganda about the so-called "Stand on the Ugra". It argued that Batu Khan had plundered and enslaved the land, usurping the title of tsar without being "of a tsarian family", alleging that his descendant Ahmed Khan bin Küchük was a mere "brigand and savage and fighter-of-God", while insisting Ivan III was the only real, legitimate, Orthodox tsar. Vassian wrote that the Tatar campaign (nakhozhdenie) had made the Muscovites afraid, but the Church released Ivan from any oath made to Ahmed Khan, as it was made under duress, and so he no longer owed his Golden Horde overlord any loyalty. The problem with this logic is that Rus' writers had traditionally translated both the Mongol title khan and the Greek Byzantine title basileus ("king, emperor") as tsar (originally from caesar), but Vassian was arguing only Christian Orthodox monarchs such as the Byzantine basileus and the Muscovite knyaz ("prince") should be called tsars. Therefore, Vassian resolved that he needed to elevate the prince of Moscow to the status of tsar, while claiming the Chingisid khans must have been imposters, stealing the tsar title they never deserved, even though Vassian thereby rejected the Pauline doctrine invoked in the Life of Alexander Nevsky and the vita of Michael of Chernigov. It is the first written political attempt to deny the legitimacy of the Golden Horde's supremacy over the Rus' principalities since the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' in 1237–1242, and also the first Muscovite attempt to portray the 1480 Stand on the Ugra as having major ideological significance.