The book is the first attempt to make a systematic analysis of the Russian ecclesiastical policy in the diocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the period of 1878-1914. It is based mainly on unedited materials from the archives of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sofia, Athens, Belgrade and Istanbul. Using the existing publications on the political aspects of the Eastern question, the author presents a new understanding of the role of Russia in the East Mediterranean region at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries.

The Danube has been a border and a bridge for migrants and goods since antiquity. Between the 17th and the 19th centuries, commercial networks were formed between the Ottoman Empire and Central and Eastern Europe creating diaspora communities. This gradually led to economic and cultural transfers connecting the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Continental world of commerce. The contributors to the present volume offer different perspectives on commerce and entrepreneurship based on the interregional treaties of global significance, on cultural and ecclesiastical relations, population policy and demographical aspects. Questions of identity, family, and memory are in the centre of several chapters as they interact with the topographic and socio-anthropological territoriality of all the regions involved. Contributors are: Constantin Ardeleanu, Iannis Carras, Lidia Cotovanu, Lyubomir Georgiev, Olga Katsiardi-Hering, Dimitrios Kontogeorgis, Nenad Makuljević, Ikaros Mantouvalos, Anna Ransmayr, Vaso Seirinidou, Maria A. Stassinopoulou.

A pivotal period in Russian history, the Time of Troubles in the early seventeenth century has taken on new resonance in the country's post-Soviet search for new national narratives. The historical role of the Orthodox Church has emerged as a key theme in contemporary remembrances of this time—but what precisely was that role? The first comprehensive study of the Church during the Troubles, Orthodox Russia in Crisis reconstructs this tumultuous time, offering new interpretations of familiar episodes while delving deep into the archives to uncover a much fuller picture of the era. Analyzing these sources, Isaiah Gruber argues that the business activity of monasteries played a significant role in the origins and course of the Troubles and that frequent changes in power forced Church ideologues to innovate politically, for example inventing new justifications for power to be granted to the people and to royal women. These new ideas, Gruber contends, ultimately helped bring about a new age in Russian spiritual life and a crystallization of the national mentality.

An integrated collection of essays by leading scholars, Two Romes explores the changing roles and perceptions of Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity. This important examination of the "two Romes" in comparative perspective illuminates our understanding not just of both cities but of the whole late Roman world.