WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Ivan the Great threw off the rule of the Mongols, centralized power in Moscow, and expanded the Russian nation. Power was centralized in the hands of the tsar. The Orthodox Church influenced unification. control of the Holy Land from the Muslims.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Russian Orthodox Church’s greatest strength was in the spiritual power of its liturgy, prayerfulness, icons, and monastic life. But even as the Church consolidated its authority under its own metropolitan, and later patriarch, it came into conflict with political rulers who sought to undermine it.

Detailed explanation-3: -Essentially the Orthodox Church shares much with the other Christian Churches in the belief that God revealed himself in Jesus Christ, and a belief in the incarnation of Christ, his crucifixion and resurrection.

Detailed explanation-4: -In November 1917, following the collapse of the tsarist government, a council of the Russian Orthodox Church reestablished the patriarchate and elected the metropolitan Tikhon as patriarch. But the new Soviet government soon declared the separation of church and state and nationalized all church-held lands.

Detailed explanation-5: -The Russian Orthodox Church traces its origins to the time of Kievan Rus’, the first forerunner of the modern Russian state. In A.D. 988 Prince Vladimir made the Byzantine variant of Christianity the state religion of Russia (see The Golden Age of Kiev, ch. 1).