“The Year-Counting from John” is a story about the sharpest moment in Russian history: the confrontation between Tsar Ivan the Terrible and Metropolitan Philip. It was the time of the reign of the Oprichnina, a time of cruel torture and executions. The tsar summons to Moscow an old childhood friend, the abbot of the Solovetsky Monastery Philip. Becoming a metropolitan, Philip sees his duty as standing up for the victims of the atrocities committed on the tsar’s orders by his henchmen.
The book “The Year-Counting from John” was written by Alexey Ivanov based on the initial version of the screenplay about Metropolitan Philip and Tsar Ivan IV “The Tsar” (idea and director Pavel Lungin; screenwriters Alexey Ivanov and Pavel Lungin).