Each Russian Time of Troubles gives rise to the next, passing a kind of baton to the present day. Muscovite Rus' of the last Rurikovichs, according to M.I. Zarezin, is the first Russia we lost - a unique civilization that did not plunge into the ocean depths like Atlantis, but dissolved in the turbulent stream of time, in the endless Russian expanses. Muscovite Rus' is a special socio-political formation, different from both the appanage principality of the Danilovichs and the absolute monarchy of Godunov and the first Romanovs. The decline of the Rurikovichs was marked by a profound political, economic and moral crisis that shook the foundations of the Russian state. Its very existence came under threat during the Time of Troubles.

In the era of Muscovite Rus', there was a dispute about the free will of man, about whether the authorities - secular and ecclesiastical - trust a person to make a choice on his own, or do not trust, but This means she takes him under her harsh and annoying tutelage. The purpose of this book was precisely to show the struggle between two directions in the church and political life of that era in the broadest historical context.