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Kyviv's Quest for God Tradition has it that the Rus (the people of the lands known today as Russia, Ukraine, and Byelorussia) were originally evangelized by the Apostle St. Andrew himself; the distinctive use of a slash at the bottom of Eastern style crosses, in fact, is in honor of the X-shaped cross on which St. Andrew was martyred. Later, the light of Christianity coming to these lands was filtered through Constantinople. First were the efforts of the brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, proto-missionaries to the Slavic lands in the 9th century, and then, more particularly, through the Princess St. Olga and her grandson Grand Prince St. Vladimir I of Kyivan Rus. Around the middle of the 10th century the ruling regent, Olga of Kyiv, visited Constantinople and was baptized either there or possibly back in Kyiv, becoming the first Rus ruler to embrace Christianity. Many of the Rus followed her example and became Christian at that time. St. Olga requested that a bishop and priests be sent from Rome. Her son Sviatoslav (963-972) remained a stubborn pagan all of his life, though, believing that his warriors would lose respect for him and mock him if he became a Christian. His son, the future Saint Vladimir, started out as a fervent pagan, too. During the first decade of Vladimir's reign, he made the pagan god Perun the supreme Slavic deity and placed his idol on a hill by the royal palace; human sacrifices were even reported in Kyiv. Eventually, however, Vladimir’s “religious reform” failed. By the late 980s he was sending emissaries to investigate the monotheistic religions (Judaism and Islam as well as Christianity) of neighboring countries. Ultimately Vladimir settled on Christianity. At the beautiful church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople his envoys found their ideal: “We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on earth,” they reported, “nor such beauty, and we know not how to tell of it.” Vladimir was baptized, taking the name Basil in honor of the emperor of Constantinople, who became his new brother-in-law when Vladimir exchanged the numerous wives and concubines of his pagan life for marriage to the Christian Greek Princess Anna. He chopped up and burned the wooden statues of Slavic pagan gods which he had put up just a few years earlier. The statue of Perun was tossed into the Dnieper River. In their place he erected many beautiful Christian churches, monasteries, and shrines. The acceptance of Byzantine Christianity as the state religion was marked by the mass Baptism of the people of Kyiv in 988, and then by other major cities of the Rus. All this took place shortly before the big East-West Schism of 1054, when the hierarchy of the Eastern Church definitively broke off from the Roman Catholic Church and formed the Orthodox Church. The Church in Kyivan Rus inherited the traditions of the Byzantine East and continued as part of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople. Though Constantinople and Rome had their disputes, the Kyivan hierarchy tried to work for Christian unity. Representatives from Rus participated in the Western Councils of Lyon (1245) and Constance (1418). Isidore, the Metropolitan of Kyiv, was himself one of the creators of the Union of Florence (1439). But the new Metropolia of Moscow did not accept the Union of Florence and separated from the ancient Metropolia in Kyiv, announcing its self-governance in 1448. In 1589, with Greek Orthodoxy and Constantinople subject to Turkish domination, the Church of Moscow became a patriarchate (today Ukraine has two distinct Orthodox Churches as well as the Ukranian Autocephylus Church which is similar to the other two). At the Council of Brest Poland in 1596 the Ukranian Greek Catholic Church was officially born. While in full communion with the Holy Father, this rite preserves the distinct ethnic, cultural and ecclesiastical identity dating back to the Christianity of St. Vladimir (known to them as St. Volodymir). St. Vladimir, the Prince from Kyiv, remains a point of unity among his people, equally revered by both Catholics and Orthodox as a great saint and apostle of the Rus. Both Churches observe his feast day with great festivity every July 15. |