ABSTRACT

The doctrine of the Third Rome, as represented here and emerging from the overall work for MMDCCLXXVII anniversary of the birth of Rome (Capitolium, April 21-22, 2024), has a tendentially unified value referable as much to the trajectory of the Three Rome’s (Vetus or Great Rome – Constantinople – Moscow) as to its eternity. The dream of Rome moreover never vanished with its so-called fall in 476 CE but continues in every part of the world, in the East as much as in the West. The salient novelty of this contribution consists in the connection of the historic meeting between the Holy Father Francis and the Patriarch of Moscow (Havana, Feb. 12, 2016) and the translation of some relics of St. Nicholas from Bari to the land of Russia (May 22, 2017) with «the cry of Rome, of Moscow, of Constantinople. It is the cry of all Christendom: of the Americas, of Africa, of Asia», recalled by John Paul II in the 1994 “Way of the Cross at the Colosseum” (Apostolic Letter “Orientale lumen”, May 2, 1995).