Historical and Culturological Reconstruction of Duchess Olga’s Pilgrimage to Holies in Tsargrad
The spiritual influence of Byzantium on Russian history and culture remains one of the topical themes in historical research in the conditions of the modern civilizational war. The search for a common and special in the civilizational foundations of the Byzantine Empire (Roman Empire) and Russia is an important indicator of the unity of the dominant values of the Orthodox spiritual cosmos, reinterpreted and adapted to Russian original historical and cultural conditions. This article is devoted to one of the aspects of this problem. It presents the results of the reconstruction of the pilgrimage of Duchess Olga to the Christian holies of Constantinople during her stay in the capital of the East Roman Empire. The author attracts different sources, both of the Byzantine and Russian origin, as well as the works by leading researchers of the early history of the Russian state. Based on the analysis of sources and materials she recreates the general view of Tsargrad in the X century, writes a brief history of the creation and describes the state of the main temples of the city, which Duchess Olga could visit, including the Cathedral of St. Sophia of God's Wisdom, St. Apostles, St. Sergius and Bacchus, St. Polyeuktos, St. Lawrence and St. Stephen the first Martyr, Studit monastery and others. This formulation of the research problem allows us to look at the image of the Russian Christian city through the prism of commonality with the appearance of Constantinople, its temples and holies, revealing their spiritual connection and socio-cultural unity of the Eastern Christian world.