Archaeologists have found the grave of Elder Philotheus
It was reported on 14 August 2009 from Pskov in western Russia that archaeologists have found the grave of Elder Philotheus (c. 1465-1542). This Elder was famous as he was the first to formulate the concept that Moscow had become the Third Rome after the fall of Constantinople, the Second Rome, in 1453.
According to the senior archaeologist of the Pskov archaeological centre, Sergey Stepanov, the grave was found in the cemetery by the Cathedral of the Three Hierarchs in the Monastery of the Saviour and St Eleazar in Pskov.
The conception of Moscow the Third Rome was set out by the Elder in his correspondence with the royal courtier Mikhail Grigorevich Misiur-Munekhin and the Grand Duke Basil III Ivanovich. It was in this correspondence that the Elder made the famous statement that: ‘Two Romes have fallen, the third stands, a fourth there will not be’.
