literacy, texts were less important than visual media—art and physical embodiment
in ritual and the built environment.
Religious ritual displayed the ruler’s piety, God’s blessing on his realm, and his
connection to his elite to the witnessing crowd (Figure 6.3). In the Kremlin, where
the audience was the elite, Muscovite rulers participated in an annual schedule of
liturgies on major Christian holy days from Epiphany in January through the Easter
and Christmas cycles. Rituals that took him and his entourage outside of the
Kremlin, such as cross processions in Moscow and annual pilgrimages around a
circuit of central monasteries, allowed grand princes to symbolically“take posses-
sion”of their realm. They distributed alms to the poor, offered amnesties to
prisoners, dined with local officials, and worshipped at local monasteries and
shrines. They thereby displayed their piety, devotion to the Church, and compas-
sion for the people. The ruler’s entourage demonstrated the political hierarchy,
from clerics to boyars to lesser servitors, and in their number and impressive
clothing demonstrated the ruler’s wealth and power. The impact on audience
Figure 6.3 The court artist traveling with Habsburg diplomats Augustin von Meyerberg
and Horatio Clavuccio to Moscow in 1661 sketched this stunning image of tsar and
patriarch re-enacting Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, one of several annual
religious rituals in which the tsar participated. General Research Division, The New York
Public Library.
140 The Russian Empire 1450– 1801