140 FOUitTH PEEIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
She did not succeed, however, in persuading her son, Svatoslav, to embrace the Christian faith.
The progress of Christianity among the Russians was slow until the grand-duke VLADIMIR (980-1015), a grandson of Olga, and revered as Isapostolos (" Equal to an Apostle ") with one sweep established it as the religion of the country. The narra tive of this event by Nestor is very dramatic. Envoys from the Greek and the Roman churches, from the Mohammedans and the Jews (settled among the Chazares) came to Vladimir to per suade him to leave his old gods. He hesitated and did not know which of the new religions he should choose. Finally he deter mined to send wise men from among his own people to the vari ous places to investigate the matter. The envoys were so power fully impressed by a picture of the last judgment and by the service in the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, that the question at once was settled in favor of the religion of the By zantine court.
Vladimir, however, would not introduce it without compensa tion, lie was staying at Cherson in the Crimea, which he had just taken and sacked, and thence he sent word to the emperor Basil, that he had determined either to adopt Christianity and receive the emperor's sister, Anne, in marriage, or to go to Con stantinople and do to that city as he had done to Cherson. He married Anne, and was baptized on the day of 'his wedding, A.D. 988.
As soon . as he was baptized preparations were made for the baptism of his people. The wooden image of Perun was dragged at a horse's tail through the country, soundly flogged by all passers-by, and finally thrown into the Dniepr. Next, at a given hour, all the people of Kieif, men, women and children, descended into the river, while the grand Duke kneeled, and the Christian priests read the prayers from the top of the cliffs on the shore. Nestor, the Russian monk and annalist, thus describes the scene : " Some stood in the water up to their necks, others up to their breasts, holding their young children in their arms; the priests
£ 37. THE dlRISTIANIZATIOX OF RUSSIA. 141
read the prayers from the shore, naming at once whole compa nies by the same name. It was a sight wonderfully curious and beautiful to behold ; and when the people were baptized, each returned to his own home."
Thus the Russian nation was converted in wholesale style to Christianity by despotic power. It is characteristic of the su preme influence of the ruler and the slavish submission of the subjects in that country. Nevertheless, at its first entrance in Russia, Christianity penetrated deeper into the life of the people than it did in any other country, without, however, bringing about a corresponding thorough moral transformation. Only a comparatively short period elapsed, before a complete union of the forms of religion and the nationality took place. Every event in the history of the nation, yea, every event in the life of the individual was looked upon from a religious point of view, and referred to some distinctly religious idea. The explanation of this striking phenomenon is due in part to Cyrill's translation of the Bible into the Slavic language, which had been driven out from Moravia and Bohemia by the Roman priests, and was now brought from Bulgaria into Russia, where it took root. While the Roman church always insisted upon the exclusive use of the Latin translation of the Bible and the Latin language in divine service, the Greek church always allowed the use of the vernacular. Under its auspices there were produced translations into the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, and Slavic lan guages, and the effects of this principle were, at least in Russia, most beneficial. During the reign of Vladimir's successor, Jaroslaif, 1010-1054, not only were churches and monasteries and schools built all over the country, but Greek theological books were translated, and the Russian church had, at an early date, a religious literature in the native tongue of the people. Jaroslaff, by his celebrated code of laws, became the Justinian of Russia.
The Czars and people of Russia have ever since faithfully adhered to the Oriental church which grew with the growth of the empire all along the Northern line of two Continents. As