ABSTRACT
The grand prince of Moscow became the chief agent of the Mongol lord. He even at times oppressed his people to pay the Mongols. He acquired supreme autocratic power over them, but he meant ultimately to free them from the foreigner. At the head of the waterways and roadways connecting the trading communities of Novgorod with the steppes of Southern Russia lay the little township of Moscow. Towards the end of the fourteenth century Moscow felt strong enough to challenge the Golden Horde. Lithuania was forced to give up the Orthodox provinces of the west which had gone over to Rome. Thus to the east and west Moscow consolidated the new Russian state and later began to take her place in the affairs of Europe. The Russian Church saw its opportunity to proclaim that Christian orthodoxy was now centred in Russia, that Moscow had indeed become the Third Rome, and the Byzantine two-headed Eagle the symbol of Holy Russia.
