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Holy Rus or Holy Russia (Russian: Святая Русь) - the Kingdom of Heaven, the eternal czardom of God in the Heaven and on the Earth, is an important religious and philosophical concept which appeared and developed from the 8th to the 21st centuries by people in East Europe and Central Eurasia. The meaning of the concept is close or almost the same as the concepts of Holy Israel or Kingdom of Heaven, known to the people of Western-European Civilization.
History
This religious concept developed through the ages in close connection with Orthodox Russian Christianity, which cannot be understood completely without the idea of Holy Rus.
The idea of Holy Rus can be explained as the idea of Kingdom of Heaven well-known to every Christian around the world, but developed in the realities of society of Central Eurasia under the strong influence of ancient East Slavic Orthodox Christian culture.
The idea made great impact on the emergence and development of many states and societies in East Europe and Central Eurasia through the centuries: the ancient principality of Rus (the Kievan Rus), the Russian principalities in the state structure of Mongol Empire, Empire of the Great Horde, the Russian Czardom and Russian Empire of the 16th to 20th centuries and even on the emergence and development of the Soviet Union which gave birth to the modern Russian, Ukrainian and Belarussian Republics:
"As sons and daughters of the Russian Orthodox Church, we are all citizens of Holy Russia. When we speak of Holy Russia, we are not talking about the Russian Federation or any civil society on earth; rather, it is a way of life that has been passed down to us through the centuries by such great saints of the Russian Land as the Holy Great Prince Vladimir and Great Princess Olga, Venerable Sergius of Radonezh, Job of Pochaev, Seraphim of Sarov, and more recently, the countless New Martyrs and Confessors of the 20th century. These saints are our ancestors, and we must look to them for instruction on how to bravely confess the Faith, even when facing persecution. There is no achievement in simply calling oneself "Russian:" in order to be a genuine Russian, one must first become Orthodox and live a life in the Church, as did our forebears, the founders of Holy Russia!" - Metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral) of New York.
