As was said above, the New Rome can not exist, unless the old Rome is baptized. This means that only the European Union can become Byzantium. Helmut Schmidt once said that “Byzantium and Novgorod, Krakow and Prague have also contributed to our old common civilization. And our concept of Europe will one day have to once again encompass the whole intellectual and artistic life of our Eastern European neighbors if we do not wish to become impoverished” (see H. Schmidt, Byzantium and the East Is Part of Europe and It Should Be).
If modern Europe realizes that all of the Eastern Europe, Russia included, should belong to a single union, and if, as happened in the fourth century with Constantine, the spiritual strength of this union, the source of its social cohesion, is understood to be in Orthodoxy, then the capital will be transferred to Moscow one way or another, provided that in the meantime Moscow will not have lost but on the contrary developed an Orthodox Ecumenical spirit.
Russia is the main responsible for our common Byzantine heritage, since Russia is the most powerful by far Orthodox nation, and Russia can be not a ‘third’, but the very New Rome, if the old Rome decides so, no matter if Rome is called now Brussels or otherwise. Until that blessed day comes (if at all), and in order to give that day a chance to happen, Russia has the task of cooperating with the only existing New Rome, the reminder of Rome’s older decision, that is with Constantinople, in order to promote the Orthodox spirit in the life of the nations. At one time or another bishops as politicians can be incompetent. Awareness of the way is enough, and human frailties won’t hinder, no matter how many obstacles may create.
