On August 31 (18), 1914, St. Petersburg, the City of St. Peter, was renamed Petrograd. This patriotic gesture, for some reason directed at the city’s generally Dutch—and by no means German—name, contained an unwitting prophecy of the Empire’s self-abolition and, at the same time, the return of the capital to the banks of the Moscow River. Non-theological factors carry theological meanings.
The relocation of Russia's capital from Petrograd to Moscow
Dr. Augustine Sokolovski
On March 12, 1918, the Soviet government moved the capital from St. Petersburg to Moscow. At the time, there were reasons for this decision that are not particularly relevant to us, whether as individuals or as members of the Church. During the Soviet era, especially in schools, this event was not given much attention either. Consequently, it has been largely overlooked even in the minds of Orthodox Christians. However, if we take a mental step back in time and examine church history, the relocation of the capital has always held special significance, even in biblical and church history.
Thus, after long wanderings, battles, and hardships, King and Prophet David established his capital in Jerusalem. Zion, the heart of Jerusalem, became a symbol of God’s kingdom and the fulfillment of the biblical word. It was in Jerusalem that our Lord Jesus Christ suffered. The fate of the Jewish people changed tragically with the destruction of Jerusalem in Roman times, following the Crucifixion, which Jesus Himself had prophesied.
In 330, Constantine the Great founded the capital—New Rome—on the Bosporus. For many centuries, the city of Constantinople was destined to become the stronghold and center of Orthodoxy. After ecclesiastical communion between the ancient capital, Rome on the Tiber, and New Rome—Constantinople—was severed forever, the idea of succession from Rome was successively adopted by various Orthodox peoples and embraced in Rus’ as well. This development played a colossal role in the Christian world.
It should be noted that the Ottoman rulers undoubtedly laid claim to the status of the Third Rome. They believed that the First Rome was pagan; the Second Rome was Christian; and the Third Rome was Constantinople under the rule of the Muslim Ottomans. By asserting the succession of the Orthodox kingdom, Moscow acted as a Katechon, a delaying force, for it literally halted this trend in the collective consciousness, which is undoubtedly very important. This should not be forgotten.
In May 1712, Saint Petersburg became the capital of the Russian Empire. It is possible that this date was chosen to coincide with the founding of Constantinople, traditionally considered to be May 11 (24). In contrast to the Greek tradition of celebrating this event, Bulgarian patriots in the nineteenth century proclaimed it a feast day of the Slavic apostles Cyril and Methodius. However, it did not claim any special sacredness; it did not call itself either the “Second Jerusalem,” as Kyiv once did, or the “New or Third Rome,” as Moscow did.
For two centuries, Moscow remained, as it were, in the shadows, but it was by no means abolished. Every stone in it was alive. Now, after seventy years of Soviet dismantling of sacred space, it is difficult to imagine just how sanctified—how “prayer-soaked,” as they say—it was. The return of the capital to Moscow occurred almost simultaneously with the restoration of the Patriarchate in Russia. The city of cities in the Russian lands and the Russian state, home to numerous holy sites, remains a center of Orthodox presence and, in the words of Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk regarding Constantinople, the City of Memories of the greatest Orthodox State in world history, one that cannot be restored.