After the Mongol invasion, the Russian Church answered to two authorities: Byzantium and the Golden Horde. Both the Byzantine emperor, or basileus, and the Qipchaq Khan served as models of divinely sanctioned rule, and thusly, were influential to the conception of the tsar. In addition to these two models, the early Russian Orthodox Church sought to associate Muscovy and the tsar with Kievan Rus’ and the Roman Empire, leading to a complex and inherited construction of power.
