The relationship between the perspectives of the perennialist tradition of pluralistic thinking and the kind of apophaticism articulated in the patristic era by Gregory of Nyssa and in the modern era by Vladimir Lossky is examined, and parallels in Islamic thinking are noted. The kind of intuitive apprehension of divine realities associated with the ancient Greek concept of the nous is seen as central to this relationship. The perennialist distinction between esoteric and exoteric aspects of any faith tradition is examined in this context, and Lossky’s sense of the importance of antinomy is seen as significant for rejecting the kind of critique of pluralism that is based on the notion that the doctrinal statements of different faith traditions should be seen as philosophical ‘truth claims’.

In the medieval and early modern West succession to the throne of monarchs proceeded by primogeniture, with some explicit legal basis. In medieval Russia political theory as such did not exist. Monarchy was understood in the context of Orthodoxy. The main form of discussion was in texts that provided images of good and bad monarchs, primarily chronicles, world histories, and the lives of saintly princes. In Russia succession was frequently collateral, a system that caused many disputes until the middle of the fifteenth century.

The book opens with two historical scenes, separated in time by nearly a thousand years. In the first, Vladimir Putin makes a speech in front of a new sixty-foot monument of Saint Vladimir the Great, the baptizer of Rus. Looking into the television camera, the president retells the myth of Christian origins of Russian civilization—a sacred story that was first written down in the early twelfth century by the clerical authors of the Rus Primary Chronicle (Повесть временных лет). In the second scene, readers are transported to eleventh-century Constantinople, where the Byzantine emperor and the patriarch are celebrating the Feast of Saints Constantine and Helena. They lead a liturgical procession of thousands across the city, and along the route the clergy ritually retell the story of the conversion of the Roman Empire. There follows a brief narrative history of how Byzantine church books were translated and transported into late tenth-century Kiev. The chapter concludes with the principal argument of the book: that the myth of Saint Vladimir and his kin recorded in the Rus Primary Chronicle has its source in the liturgical services of the Byzantine Empire.