Vasiliy III

Grand Prince of Moscow Vasily Ivanovich III (1505 - 1533, born in 1479) is most famous for the fact that in his reign the gathering of the fragmented areas of North-Eastern Russia into a single state was completed. Under Vasily III the Veche city of Pskov (1510) and the last appanage principalities - Ryazan (1517) and Chernigov-Seversk (1517-1523) were annexed to Moscow. Vasily continued the domestic and foreign policies of his father, Ivan III, whom he resembled by his stern, autocratic character. Of the two principal ecclesiastical parties of the time in the early years of his reign the Nestorians prevailed, but then it passed to the Iosiflans, whom Basil III supported until his death.