The Rise of Grand Prince Vladimir

The adoption of Christianity in Rus’ is inseparably linked to Prince Vladimir, whom the Church venerates as a “equal‑to‑the‑apostles” saint. People called this ruler the “Red Sun,” reflecting popular affection for Vladimir the Baptizer.

The Grand Prince belonged to the Rurikid dynasty; his grandfather Igor was the first of the line to sit on the Kiev throne and the grandson of the great Saint Princess Olga.

Vladimir’s father, Sviatoslav Igorevich, ruled the Rus’ state with its capital in Kiev. Sviatoslav had older sons by his lawful wives, while Vladimir was born to a maidservant who worked for Princess Olga. According to ancient Rus’ law, a son of a slave‑woman also had the right to inherit the throne, which he did in 980.

He ascended the throne at age 17 and spent the first six years on campaigns, gaining a reputation as a jovial reveler and favorite of the druzhina. After becoming Prince of Novgorod in 970, he seized power in Kiev in 978, and by 988 he selected Christianity as the state religion.

Pagan Reform

To keep his lands, Prince Vladimir could not rely on military force alone. A unified faith could serve as an important unifying factor. Paganism was a chaotic assortment of beliefs and objects of worship that varied across territories and tribes.

In 980 AD Vladimir attempted to use religion for state purposes. He ordered six wooden idols to be erected in Kiev, among them Perun with a silver head and golden beard—the supreme deity of the druzhina. The prince’s plan was for a single pagan cult to unite the tribes of early Rus’. However, this innovation did not achieve its goal: people were displeased with elevating Perun above the other deities worshipped by individual tribes, and paganism did not contribute to strengthening international relations.

The Martyrdom of Feodor & Ioann

A turning point in the prince’s life was the death of the Varangians Feodor and Ioann, who embraced martyrdom for the Christian faith.

According to legend, after a successful campaign in 983, Vladimir—then a staunch pagan—decided to offer a pagan sacrifice to his gods. The lot fell on the youth Ioann, whose Christian father Feodor refused to surrender his son and cursed the pagan idols. In retaliation, enraged pagans killed both Feodor and his son, shaking Vladimir’s belief in the old pagan beliefs.

The Choice of Faith

According to the Chronicle of the Years by the chronicler Nestor, dated to the 12th century, Prince Vladimir selected a religion to unify Rus’, sequentially receiving representatives of three world religions: Islam, Catholic Christianity, and Judaism.

In this account, various envoys came to the prince and spoke of their faiths. Between 986 and 987 AD, embassies from different peoples arrived at the Kiev court, urging Rus’ to adopt their religion. First came the Volga Bulgars, who praised the Muslim prophet Muhammad; Vladimir disliked the ascetic nature of their worship, their teachings about the afterlife, women, and the prohibition of wine. Next arrived Catholics from Rome and Jews from Khazaria, but their faiths also failed to captivate the prince.

Finally, an Orthodox preacher from Byzantium arrived. He appealed to Vladimir more than any other, yet to be certain, the prince sent nine envoys to all the lands from which the delegations had come. Returning from Constantinople, the Russian envoys—who had served in the Hagia Sophia—said, “We did not know whether we stood on earth or in heaven.” It was decided to adopt Christianity.

The Orthodox form of Christianity appealed to him the most, and the prince resolved to baptize Rus’ according to the Byzantine model. According to these sources, Prince Vladimir and his druzhina embraced Christianity in Chersonesus in 988 AD, and that same year the prince ordered the baptism of the Kievans.

The Korsun Legend

According to the “Korsun Legend” – a tradition that entered Old‑Russian chronicles in the 11th–12th centuries and later the Life of St. Vladimir – the prince received baptism in the city of Korsun (Kherson), the center of Byzantine rule in Crimea, in 988 AD (historically, the capture of Korsun most likely took place in 989). There the marriage ceremony of Vladimir with the Byzantine imperial sisters Basil II the Bulgar‑slayer and Constantine VIII’s Anna was performed.

The Chronicle of the Years relates that after converting to Christianity Vladimir did not want to become subordinate to the Greeks, so he went to war with them, seized the Greek city of Kherson (Korsun in Slavic), and demanded that Emperors Basil and Constantine give him their sister Anna as a wife. The emperors replied that they would marry Anna to Vladimir provided he be baptized. He agreed, but before Anna’s arrival and before his baptism Vladimir was stricken with illness and went blind. Immediately after his conversion he regained his sight and declared that “now for the first time I have truly seen God.” According to the chronicle, Anna nevertheless became the wife of the already‑baptized prince.

Vladimir returned to Kiev accompanied by Byzantine clergy. First, Vladimir’s sons and his druzhina were baptized. The pagan idols standing in the city were destroyed and cast into the river.

Another tradition, also recorded as early as the 11th century, links Vladimir’s baptism to Kiev itself and places it two years before the capture of Korsun. This version attributes the conversion to events that occurred in the capital rather than to the later Crimean episode.

Personality of Prince Vladimir

Prince Vladimir’s character underwent radical changes after his conversion to Christianity. Before that pivotal moment he was a notorious “woman‑lover,” keeping countless concubines and raping young girls, and he killed people not only in warfare but also as sacrifices to pagan gods.

After baptism the prince became a different person. He released all his concubines, granted freedom to the Polotsk princess Rogneda, whom he had previously taken as a forced wife, began studying the Holy Scripture, and tried to live by it. Vladimir renounced capital punishment so as not to violate the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” He became a vivid example of a Christian for his contemporaries, and in the 13th century he was added to the roster of saints.

Baptism of Rus’ & Kiev

According to the Chronicle of the Years, Prince Vladimir was baptized in 988 AD on the Feast of the Nativity of Christ. From that moment Eastern Orthodoxy became the state religion of Kievan Rus’. Vladimir ordered the destruction of pagan shrines in the Rus’ towns, organized the baptism of the Kievans, and later of the rest of the population of the early Russian state.

It is also known that the Christianisation of Rus’ was a lengthy process that began long before 988. In the 860s the princes Askold and Dir were baptized; around 955 Princess Olga accepted baptism; and Prince Yaroslav, Vladimir’s elder brother, according to Tatishchev’s excerpt from the Ioakimov Chronicle, “gave great liberty to the Christians.” Thus, by 988 Christianity was no longer a brand‑new faith. Many members of the princely druzhina and the merchant class already considered themselves Christians, and churches already existed in Rus’.

The mass baptism in Keiv is commonly regarded as the “Baptism of Rus’.” The Chronicle of the Years states that Prince Vladimir baptized the Kievans in 988. The rite took place on the Pochaiv River, a tributary of the Dnieper. Legend says that many people were reluctant to undergo baptism voluntarily but had to submit to the prince’s will. The chronicle records that a great crowd gathered on the Dnieper and were baptized:

After Kiev, the same method was gradually used to baptise residents of other towns throughout Kievan Rus’. Nevertheless, the process faced resistance, and pagan customs and beliefs persisted for a long time, requiring continual effort by the church to eradicate them from the lands.

Preconditions & Significance of the Baptism

Vladimir was not the first Kiev prince to adopt Christianity; his grandmother, Princess Olga, preceded him. The Chronicle of the Years reports that Olga was baptized in Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Constantine VII. Upon returning to Kiev, the chronicle says she tried to persuade her son, Prince Sviatoslav Igorevich, to convert, but he remained a pagan, fearing ridicule from his druzhina.

It is known that Prince Vladimir wanted to unite the state and rule it alone. Therefore he fought tribal leaders for power and carried out administrative and legislative reforms.

Initially Vladimir Svyatoslavich tried to unite Rus’ on the basis of pagan worship. He became Grand Prince of Kiev in 978 AD after several years of internecine war for the throne with his brothers Yaroslav and Oleg. Vladimir became the sole ruler of Rus’, managing to bring Kiev, Novgorod and Polotsk under his authority.

The old pagan faith hindered his goals, because belief in many gods did not support the idea of a single strong ruler. Belief in one God implied obedience to one prince. Consequently Vladimir received envoys from various religions that professed monotheism: Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

This choice was not accidental; in the 10th century Byzantium was the most powerful and wealthy state in the region, and establishing solid ties with it was advantageous for Kievan Rus’. Moreover, the baptism of Rus’ finally secured the legitimacy of Kiev’s princes in the eyes of Byzantine rulers.

The baptism of Rus’ became a prerequisite for the emergence of a politically, ideologically and culturally unified group of tribes that constituted the population of Kievan Rus’. After adopting Christianity, diplomatic and cultural relations with Byzantium and the Christian countries of Western Europe expanded and strengthened. Rus’ gained a higher international status: its peoples were no longer regarded as barbarian.

Organizationally, the adoption of Christianity was expressed in the establishment of church institutions modeled on Byzantine practice, the appearance of translations of liturgical and patristic literature, and the construction of churches and monasteries. More importantly, the baptism of Rus’ meant a transformation of moral‑ethical norms and societal values. Previously, pagan Rus’ practiced human sacrifice; after the conversion Vladimir even contemplated prohibiting capital punishment in order to observe the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” The core purpose of the baptism was the spiritual transformation of society.

From the 990s onward, wooden church building developed throughout Rus’. According to the “Praise to Prince Vladimir” (written in the 1040s by the future metropolitan Ilarion), the first monasteries were founded during Vladimir’s reign. In 995–996 AD the first stone “Church of the Tenth” was consecrated in Kiev; it is believed to have served the princely court’s ceremonies. By dedicating this church, early Rus’ sources link the measures of state power to the material support of the church organization: a tenth of the princely revenues—called the “tenth”—was to be allocated to the church’s needs, and this portion was collected at the “Tenth” treasury. As a consequence of the baptism of Rus’, the legal sphere acquired a division modeled on the Byzantine pattern of princely and ecclesiastical (metropolitan and episcopal) jurisdictions, a division that persisted throughout the period of Vladimir the Holy‑Glorious’s rule.

Acceptance of Christianity contributed to the internal strengthening of statehood. The Church taught people to be obedient to authority, while the state, in turn, ensured the prosperity and protection of the Church. To build churches and support the clergy, a special tax for the Church—tithes—was collected.

Baptism fostered a cultural renaissance: the spread of literacy and love of books, the development of iconography and other art forms, as well as architecture, since the late 10th century marked the beginning of the construction of the first stone and wooden churches in Rus’. Overall, the process of Ancient Rus’ conversion to Christianity was completed by the 12th–13th centuries.

The Flourishing of Literacy

The creation of the Slavic script by Cyril and Methodius, monks from Constantinople, in the second half of the 9th century played a decisive role in the Christianisation of Rus’, because the Orthodox faith is based on the written word, unlike paganism, which was transmitted orally. Southern‑Slavic literary traditions appeared in Rus’; the first books were church literature and translations of religious works, showing that Christianity also had an educational and cultural impact on the country.

The first preachers and bearers of the new culture for Rus’ were foreigners—Byzantines and Bulgarians—who had embraced Christianity slightly earlier. They brought the first alphabets—Cyrillic and Glagolitic—to Rus’, marking the beginning of Russian literacy. To strengthen the faith and new cultural traditions, literate and educated people were needed. Chronicles testify that after the baptism Vladimir ordered children from noble families to be selected for “learning the book.”

Along with literacy, a fairly sophisticated body of literature arrived in Rus’, addressing religious and philosophical questions, presenting world history and moral laws. Churches and monasteries, which became centres of learning, housed libraries containing not only translated works but also creations of local authors. Chroniclers began recording events. With the new culture came church art: architecture, iconography, chant. Initially borrowed from other Christian lands, the art quickly moved beyond simple copying, absorbed Slavic traditions and began developing along its own distinct path.

Prince Vladimir’s reign remained vivid in folk memory. In the 18th–19th centuries Russia recorded legends and epic tales (byliny) in which the Keiv prince Vladimir “the Red Sun” featured prominently. Heroes of these byliny—bogatyrs such as Ilya Muroyets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich—served Prince Vladimir, defended Rus’, and battled various embodiments of evil. From all these legends one can conclude that for contemporaries Vladimir’s era was filled with great achievements, the most significant event being Rus’ acceptance of Christianity.

The Process of Baptizing Rus’

After the official date when Christianity was established as the state religion, Rus’ did not become Christian overnight.

Naturally, the baptism of Rus’ could not happen instantly. The first to embrace the new faith was Prince Vladimir himself—according to the Chronicle of the Years, this occurred in Kherson in 988 AD (this date is taken as the primary reference point). In the same year, after returning to Kiev, the prince baptized all his sons; later the boyars and other close associates were baptized, and then a mass baptism of the townspeople took place at the mouth of the Pochaiv River where it flows into the Dnieper.

The official religion coexisted with pagan beliefs for a long time, and alongside Orthodox churches, pagan shrines (kapishche) continued to host idolatrous rites. For example, Christianity became firmly established in the Principality of Rostov only in the 12th century, and in some principalities even later. The Rus’ finally united around Christianity during the Mongol‑Tatar yoke in the 13th–14th centuries.

By the 11th century the major cities of Kievan Rus’ had become centers of the new faith. Kiev, Novgorod, Chernihiv, South Pereyaslavl, Polotsk, Rostov, Yuriev each had their own bishops. The Patriarch of Constantinople assigned spiritual oversight of the Rus’ Church to the Metropolitan of Kiev. Until the 15th century, anyone who wished to become Metropolitan of Kiev had to travel to Constantinople to receive an official appointment. Occasionally, Constantinople sent a pre‑selected Greek metropolitan to Rus’. Thus, after the baptism of Rus’, the church became dependent on Byzantium.

The first bishops were Greeks. According to church tradition (which became codified only in the 16th century), the first Metropolitan of Kiev is traditionally considered to be Saint Michael; however, Byzantine sources suggest that the first metropolitan was Theophylact, who was transferred to Rus’ from the Sevastian metropolis (the north‑west foothills of Lesser Asia).

"Dvoeverie", or Dual Faith

In reality, the baptism of Rus’ stretched over several centuries—until Christianity finally triumphed over the pagan beliefs. Mass Christianisation took one to two centuries. However, dual faith persisted in Rus’ for a long time, up to the 16th–17th centuries; it was a phenomenon in which a person consciously prayed to two mutually exclusive deities simultaneously.

The adoption of Christianity did not eradicate paganism but transformed it. Instead of complete eradication, the ancient beliefs merged with the new religion. By the 13th century, a phenomenon had formed in Rus’ whereby baptized people continued to observe pagan traditions. This cultural synthesis has survived to the present day; many ancient Slavic customs live on in modern culture—for example, folk holidays such as Ivan Kupala, Maslenitsa, Easter traditions, etc.

Today Murmansk (Murom) is one of the most Orthodox cities in Russia, but the path to faith there was not easy. The first attempts at Christianisation yielded no result. Prince Gleb, who ruled the area only briefly, did not see the new faith prevail. After his death, the locals, under the influence of Muslim Bulgarians, stubbornly clung to paganism. The turning point came when Murmansk received Prince Konstantin Sviatoslavich. He sent his son Mikhail to the city with a mission of persuasion, but the son was killed. Konstantin then took the city by force and spent many years trying to bring the inhabitants to Christianity. The Murmansk Spaso‑Monastery is mentioned in the chronicles in 1092, indicating that it took almost a hundred years for Christianity to take root in those lands.

Christianisation of the North‑East of Rus’ was also a long and difficult process. Pagan traditions survived in remote corners of Rus’ even into the 12th century. Thus, the first bishops of Rostov—Feodor and Ilarion—were forced to flee from enraged pagans. The next bishop, Leontius, also faced fierce opposition; he was expelled from the city, but there he began teaching children, which sparked a new wave of discontent. Leontius suffered martyrdom at the hands of anti‑Christian opponents around 1070.

Pagan traditions remained resilient even in the era of Vladimir Monomakh. It is recorded that the venerable Abraham shattered the idol of Veles with a staff given to him in a vision by John the Theologian. Judging by Abraham’s rank and the mention of Prince Vladimir Monomakh, this event occurred no earlier than 1113–1125.

Forming Christian traditions also required much time and effort. In 1157, the townspeople of Rostov expelled Bishop Nestor because he forbade them to eat meat on Wednesdays, Fridays, and church holidays. Questions also arose about how to conduct the Eucharist. In remote villages it was not always possible to obtain a prosphora for every parishioner; consequently, the antidor—leftovers from the prosphora—were used as an alternative.

Celebration of the Day of the Baptism of Rus’

At the state level, the holiday was first celebrated in the Russian Empire in 1888 during the reign of Emperor Alexander III. The occasion marked the 900th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’. For the celebration, churches were restored and new ones built, schools distributed specially written lives of the equal‑to‑the‑apostles Saint Prince Vladimir, and icons were installed in his honor.

The jubilee was widely observed on the prince’s feast day—July 15 (Old Style) / July 28 (New Style). In Moscow, the morning began with a procession from the Church of Saint Prince Vladimir to the Assumption Cathedral; after the Divine Liturgy, the procession proceeded to a supplicatory service on Cathedral Square in the Kremlin. From there the march moved to the Moskva River for a rite of water‑blessing and then returned to the square.