This article describes the sacralization of a Russian monarch’s person in the non‑Christian religious systems of the Russian Empire (Islam, Buddhism, traditional beliefs). It shows that in Christianizing subjects’ mythological worldview a tsar could play the role of a demiurge, replacing the pagan creator, and moreover, Russian Buddhists actually included the supreme rulers of the Empire in the pantheon of their faith.

The article analyzes two cases of borrowing Zoroastrian mythological motifs by Syriac-speaking Christians during the period of Late Antiquity. The first example, attested in the writings of Ephrem the Syrian (4th c.), concerns the case of reinterpretation of the traditional image of biblical Paradise as a cosmic mountain, encircling the whole world. Most probably, it developed under a direct influence of the Iranian cosmological traditions regarding the mountain Alburz.