Consideration of Russian-Venetian spiritual and cultural interaction provides convincing confirmation of the idea that the East and West of Europe are components of one civilizational field. Actions in the Italian direction became an element of a larger process of returning to the European family of Rus’-Russia, previously isolated by the Tatar-Mongol “Iron Curtain”, but which was once a full part of the Old World.

In Europe, the Russians found the support of peoples of the same faith – the Slavs and Greeks, who sought to serve the Moscow Tsar.

The reader is offered a documented history of relations between Europeans, Western Orthodox and Muscovites using the example of their contacts with the Republic of Venice.

The book is intended for everyone interested in the foreign policy of Petrine Russia, as well as church connections between Moscow/St. Petersburg and fellow believers in the West.

Archpriest Alexy (Alexey Olegovich) Yastrebov – candidate of theology at PSTGU, doctor of the Urabanian University in Rome (Italy). In 2018, he completed his doctoral course at the All-Church Postgraduate and Doctoral Studies named after Saints Cyril and Methodius. Since 2002, priest, rector of the parish of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women in Venice. Winner of the Metropolitan Macarius Prize (2011) for the book “Shrines of Venice. Orthodox historical and artistic guide to St. Mark’s Basilica and the churches of the city” (Padua 2010, 2013).