Roman Catholic Polemicists, Russian Orthodox Publicists, and the Tsar-Pope Myth in France, 1842–1862

In the mid-nineteenth century it was typical for French Roman Catholic publicists to allege that the tsar was the supreme head or “pope” of the Russian Church and that consequently, the Russian Church was completely enslaved to the state. While this idea was largely created by Catholic publicists, some Russian Orthodox individuals contributed intentionally or unintentionally to exaggerated notions of the Russian emperor’s spiritual authority, demonstrating that the Orthodox publicists who wanted to defend Russian interests did not always agree about what those interests really were or about how best to defend them. Following Italy’s national unification (1859–1860), French public figures used these narratives about the Russian tsar-pope to promote specific policies towards Rome and the papacy. For French Roman Catholic publicists, the tsar-pope myth proved that it was vital to preserve unity between the French Church and Rome and to defend the papacy’s temporal power as a guarantor of the Roman Catholic Church’s independence

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