Coronations in the Russian Empire involved a highly developed religious ceremony in which the Emperor was crowned and invested with regalia, then anointed with chrism and formally blessed by the church to commence his reign. Although rulers of Muscovy had been crowned prior to the reign of Ivan III, their coronation rituals assumed overt Byzantine overtones as the result of the influence of Ivan's wife Sophia Paleologue, and the imperial ambitions of his grandson, Ivan IV.[15] The modern coronation, introducing "European-style" elements, replaced the previous "crowning" ceremony and was first used for Catherine I in 1724.[16][17] Since czarist Russia claimed to be the "Third Rome" and the replacement of Byzantium as the true Christian state,[18] the Russian rite was designed to link its rulers and prerogatives to those of the so-called "Second Rome" (Constantinople).[19]