Russian Bear
4th October 2025, 11:38
In continuation of the article, I want to add: The baptism of Rus into the Orthodox faith is the basis of the spiritual unity of the Slavic peoples
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?129834-Russian-articles-by-Russian-Bear&p=1687068&viewfull=1#post1687068
Epiphany: the choice of fate. The Prophecy
https://avatars.dzeninfra.ru/get-zen_doc/271828/pub_68542f57b015952bb2cd90cf_685434662916430030bc6731/scale_1200
Rus (Russia) was baptized more than a thousand years ago. It seemed that the choice had been made once and for all, but not everything was so clear. The long 70 years of Soviet state atheism eventually gave rise to very strange beliefs. Even today, if you type the words "Baptism of Rus" into an Internet search engine, you can see many texts negatively evaluating this event.
Most of them belong to the so-called neo-pagans. To those who today are trying to revive the cult of long—deposed deities, it is necessary to return the service to idols in the land of Holy Russia. But our country has already gone through something similar, and on a much more global scale: just recall the communist experiment in building a godless society. That is why it is so important not to get tired of talking about the significance of the Baptism of Russia, that our country itself, the people themselves, were born from the font of Prince Vladimir.
However, the word of Christ sounded in our open spaces before him. Even the Apostle Andrew, according to legend, sowed the seed of Faith in the land of Russia at a time when there was no such word. When the apostles chose who should go to which lands to preach, he got Scythia. This is how the vast territories lying north of the Black Sea were called in antiquity. Legend has it that during his journey to Scythia, the Apostle Andrew visited the place where Kiev and Veliky Novgorod were later built. Andrew the First-called prophesied that the grace of God would shine in these lands.
After returning from Scythia, he was martyred in the 67th year of Our Lord. Like his brother, the Apostle Peter, he was executed during the persecution launched against Christians by order of the Roman Emperor Nero. The Apostle Andrew ascended the cross to be with Christ forever. And the cross on which he was crucified, the oblique St. Andrew's Cross, became one of the symbols of the Russian Empire. An empire that was able to form out of many lands and many peoples only because in 988 Prince Vladimir fulfilled the prophecy of Andrew the First-Called. He led his people out of the darkness of paganism into the Light of Christ, but before that he himself renounced the worship of idols.
But at first the prince wanted to create a kind of pagan super-religion. Vladimir's experiment was impressive — he erected a temple in Kiev with idols of six main deities, each of which was worshipped by different tribes and different social groups. In this way, he wanted to unite them under his supreme authority. There is information that the prince did not disdain human sacrifices for this.
And this is not surprising. It is enough to recall the war of his father, Svyatoslav, with Byzantium. The imperial historian Lev Deacon wrote:
"After the battle, the soldiers of Prince Svyatoslav gathered their dead and burned them, stabbing at the same time, according to the custom of their ancestors, many prisoners, men and women. After making this bloody sacrifice, they strangled several babies and roosters, drowning them in the waters of Istra."
Nevertheless, Vladimir, following his father along this bloody path, suddenly renounced him. How and why did this happen?
https://avatars.dzeninfra.ru/get-zen_doc/271828/pub_6554af6d3a2cd66a5988b441_6554d3841a3e6f072a8bf0a4/scale_1200
The Byzantine Legacy
Vladimir faced a serious problem: the fact is that his state was an empire. Yes, that's right, Russia literally from the moment of its inception was immediately an empire, because it united many peoples and covered a vast territory: from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and from the upper reaches of the Vistula River to the Volga. This territory was inhabited by many tribes, not only Slavic, but also Baltic, Finno-Ugric. And he alone stood at the head of them all — Vladimir, the Grand Duke. That is, there were all the signs of an empire, except for one of the most important, fundamental — a single, common idea.
Apparently, Vladimir quickly realized that assembling a pantheon of various pagan gods was not an option. A single state needs a single faith. The legend of her choice, when the prince called Christians from the West and East, Muslims and Jews to him, was long considered by scientists to be a legend that has no real historical basis. However, it has been confirmed in Muslim sources. So, in them there is a mention of the embassy of "king Buladmir" to the distant Central Asian Khorezm. That is, the Russian chronicles seem to describe the situation close to what really happened. But how did the prince choose his faith in this difficult political situation? And by what criteria?
According to legend, when the Muslims told the prince about the ban on drinking wine, Vladimir replied with the famous phrase: "Russia has the joy of drinking" — and rejected Islam. Then, as they would say now, the "presentation" was made by the Pope's envoys. However, Vladimir sent them away, saying, "Go where you came from, for even our fathers did not accept this." Indeed, there is evidence that the mission of Western Christians was not successful in Russia at an earlier time. Vladimir asked the Jews who came from Khazaria: where is their land? Khazaria, as you know, was defeated by Vladimir's father, Prince Svyatoslav. And the Khazar Jews replied that God had scattered them in different countries. The prince, the collector of the empire, was, of course, not satisfied with such an answer.
And finally, it was the turn of the Byzantine monk, whom the Russian chronicler called a Philosopher for his wisdom. He not only told Vladimir about the faith of Christ, but also showed it. The Prince saw the icon of the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment. She amazed Vladimir. He said: "Good for those who stand to the right, and woe to those who stand to the left." The philosopher replied to this: "If you want to stand on the right side, then be baptized."
Despite the shock that the prince experienced, he did not rush, as he was a thorough man. Vladimir sent his embassies to different countries, ordering them to get acquainted with the rituals of various religions directly on the spot. Aesthetic perception, a sense of beauty that our ancestors seem to have been richly endowed with, played a crucial role.
After returning from Constantinople, the ambassadors, who attended the Orthodox service at St. Sophia's Church there, told the prince: "We did not know where we were — in heaven or on earth." The neighboring boyars also spoke in favor of Greek Orthodoxy: "If the Greek law were not the best of all, then your grandmother Princess Olga, the wisest of all people, would not accept it." Indeed, the example of Princess Olga certainly played a significant role. As confirmed by Byzantine sources, she actually visited Constantinople once — she was received with honor by the Byzantine emperor himself.
But while the prince was thinking and weighing the pros and cons, the course of events forced him to make an urgent choice: Basil, the emperor of Byzantium, turned to him for help. He needed Russian soldiers to suppress a dangerous rebellion in his country. Vladimir agreed, but put forward an unheard—of condition - the northern barbarian demanded the emperor's sister as his wife. And he had to agree, but, in turn, conditioned this marriage with Vladimir's baptism.
The princely warriors, seasoned in battles, went to distant Byzantium and played a decisive role in defeating the rebels. But having got rid of the pressing problem, the emperor did not rush to send his sister to Russia. However, Vladimir was not the kind of person who could be fooled.
His army went to the Crimea and besieged the main Byzantine city on the peninsula — Chersonesos, or Korsun, as the Russians called it then. And now we call it Sevastopol, the city of Russian glory.
After a stubborn siege, Chersonesos was taken, and Emperor Basil, in order to regain this pearl of his crown, was forced to send his sister Anna to the north. Nevertheless, it seems that Vladimir was in no hurry to fulfill his promise and be baptized. But suddenly something happened to him, similar to what happened to the persecutor of Christians Saul — Prince Vladimir went blind. Saul was transformed into the Apostle Paul, having seen the true God in a vision and accepted him with all his heart. The same thing happened with Vladimir.
Vladimir's fiancee, the Byzantine Princess Anna, then told the prince: "If you want to get rid of this disease, then be baptized as soon as possible; otherwise you will not recover." Thus, Prince Vladimir was not only baptized and regained his eyesight, but also received from above the ability to see reality in a new way, spiritually.
The Bishop of Korsunsky, along with the Tsaritsyn priests, announced and baptized Vladimir. And when he laid his hand on him, he immediately received his sight. Vladimir, feeling his sudden healing, glorified God: "Now I have recognized the true God." Many of the vigilantes saw this and crossed themselves. He was baptized in the church of St. Basil, and that church stands in the city of Korsun in the middle of the city, where the Korsunians gather to bargain; Vladimir's chamber stands from the edge of the church to this day, and Tsaritsyna's chamber is behind the altar. After the baptism, the queen was brought in to perform the marriage.
The Radzivil Chronicle, the end of the XV century
Returning to Kiev, Vladimir announced to its residents: anyone who does not come to the river on the appointed day to be Baptized is "not his friend." So the greatest event in the history of Russia happened — the choice of its fate.
Christ said:
"From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away."
Prince Vladimir used force and even violence, but the purpose and meaning of everything that happened more than a thousand years ago was precisely the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Transformation
https://userpic.fishki.net/2020/01/18/1688289/9a8184bc5f330363e3427c8af84d90c3.jpg
People with liberal thinking cannot understand how Prince Vladimir can be considered a saint. After all, he did things that seem absolutely inexcusable to modern consciousness. Yes, he committed terrible crimes.
Vladimir's soldiers raised his brother Yaropolk to the swords when he trusted his word and went to negotiate. So, thanks to fratricide, he became the grand duke. Vladimir raped the Polotsk princess Rogneda, who rejected him, in front of her family, and then ordered them to be killed. He had five wives and hundreds of concubines. So he was some kind of monster? That's right, he was before Holy Baptism, and after it he was transformed. And together with the Grand Duke, the whole of Russia was transformed. What is the secret of this transformation? In Christian repentance, it is a word whose great meaning clearly escapes the moralists of the record.
The Radzivil chronicle of the XV century tells the story of Vladimir's overthrow of pagan idols, set up by himself a few years before:
"Having come to Kiev, Vladimir ordered the idols to be overthrown: some to be hacked down, and others to be burned. He ordered Perun to be tied to a horse's tail and dragged down the Mountain..."
The prince ordered the idols to be floated downstream along the Dnieper River, and to make sure that they did not stick to the shore until they passed the Dnieper rapids. So Russia renounced paganism. And then it seemed like forever and ever.
The adoption of Christianity radically changed Vladimir: he became a truly new man, as the New Testament demands of us. He was deeply imbued with the words of Scripture: "Blessed are the merciful, for they will have mercy." Vladimir ordered all the poor and needy to come to the prince's court and take whatever they needed. And when he learned that the sick and infirm could not reach his yard, he decided to transport food for them around the city on carts.
The monk Jacob, in his "Memory and Praise of Prince Vladimir," writes:
"And not in Kiev alone, but throughout the Russian land—both in cities and in villages—he gave alms everywhere, clothing the naked, satisfying the hungry, giving the thirsty to drink, bestowing mercy on pilgrims, honoring the churchmen, loving and merciful, giving what was required."
His deep understanding of Christian commandments was reflected in the fact that the prince abolished the death penalty — he said that he was afraid of angering God with an unfair trial. The prince changed in his personal life: after marrying Princess Anna, he gave his pagan wives complete freedom to choose their future.
All this taken together is called repentance. It is not for nothing that in Russian epics the prince remained not a harsh, merciless warrior, but a merciful Vladimir the Red Sun.
The prince, by his personal example, led the whole of Russia to the transformation. Very soon, this name ceased to be associated with the ferocious warriors attacking the Christian city of Constantinople. Russia became a Saint — she chose holiness as her ideal. And holiness is nothing but genuine freedom, freedom from sin. Vladimir, the great sinner in the past, sought to find it. Looking at his Christian deeds, we believe that he has found.
We can judge Prince Vladimir from the chronicles, although not much information has been preserved about him. But if we evaluate both his actions and his personality from an Orthodox perspective, then we just need to pay attention to the fact that before and after baptism they were literally two different people. A pagan with all his vices and a new man who converted to Christianity. The chronicles depict both. The path of righteous life for many saints, especially of the early period, shows a sinful person who realized his sins and repented. After all, repentance is a Transformation, a change of mind, a change of consciousness, the very transformation when a person becomes different. Thus, a convert to Christianity immediately acquires the ideal of holiness, which was not the case in paganism. This is the path that gives a person the opportunity to develop.
Epiphany: the choice of fate and how this choice influenced Russian history
https://avatars.dzeninfra.ru/get-zen_doc/271828/pub_686557ab5d73690b11140e08_686557de7804c20bd0d21a62/scale_1200
The Baptism of Rus is an event that predetermined the entire history of the country. It laid the foundation for the cultural code that defines our thoughts and actions, even if we are not aware of it. And even for those who do not consider themselves a believer.
Prince Vladimir's decision was one of the very important stages of the process that had developed before. After all, it was the penetration of Orthodox Christianity into Russia that began much earlier. And in this regard, it is very important that Russia adopted Christianity from Byzantium as an heir. She has absorbed religion, culture, and state continuity. These are the three elements that underlie European civilization in general — the biblical revelation, Roman law and the Greek tradition of philosophical thought.
Sergey Lvovich Khudiev, writer, journalist
Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev said wonderful words:
"Baptism gave our ancestors the ultimate freedom — the freedom to choose between Good and Evil, and the victory of Orthodoxy gave Russia a thousand-year history."
This is a very deep thought — it was true freedom that brought us Baptism, contrary to the claims of those who slander Christianity, calling it a slave religion. And the second part of this phrase is no less true — our history as a country is completely determined by the choice made by Vladimir the Baptist.
It is impossible to say that there was coercion on the part of Prince Vladimir in relation to his compatriots. It's like trying to persuade a baby to wash himself. He screams and resists because he doesn't understand that you're bathing for his own good. In the same way, Russia was cleansed and absorbed all the cultural wealth of the surrounding world in a short time. That's what the Baptism of Rus was like.
Evgeny Konstantinovich Nikiforov, Director of Radio Radonezh
The adoption of the Christian faith saved the Russian people from dissolving into historical oblivion.
Saved, and saves, and, I hope, will save. When Russia adopted Christianity, it was the moment of its highest development in its most ancient era. It is probably difficult to find in history such a historical period and such a state that would accept religion at the peak of its power. This is very important. Sometimes it is said that Russia adopted Christianity under duress or it was just an attempt to rely on a strong Byzantium. On the contrary, Byzantium was as weak as ever at that moment.
Prince Vladimir literally wrested Christianity from the proud Byzantines, who didn't really want to share this treasure with the barbarians. And I must say that Vladimir understood what a great gift he was receiving.
Pavel Vladimirovich Kuzenkov, PhD in History, Associate Professor at the Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University, specialist in the Byzantine Empire
THE BAPTISM OF RUSSIA. Episodes 1 -- 4. English Subtitles. Russian History.
58YXMW5sP5s
The film tells in detail what events accompanied the decision of Prince Vladimir, shows the history of this man, which has become the history of an entire nation. The most important task for us was to create a cognitive, educational, spectacular picture for a wide audience, reliably conveying historical reality
Type: historical reenactment
Genre: docudrama
Number of episodes: 4
Year of production: 2017
Directed by: Dmitry Ushakov
Written by: Maksim Bespalyi, Marina Bandilenko, Maksim Kalsin
Production designer: Maksim Bespalyi
Director of photography: Aleksandr Byrkov
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?129834-Russian-articles-by-Russian-Bear&p=1687068&viewfull=1#post1687068
Epiphany: the choice of fate. The Prophecy
https://avatars.dzeninfra.ru/get-zen_doc/271828/pub_68542f57b015952bb2cd90cf_685434662916430030bc6731/scale_1200
Rus (Russia) was baptized more than a thousand years ago. It seemed that the choice had been made once and for all, but not everything was so clear. The long 70 years of Soviet state atheism eventually gave rise to very strange beliefs. Even today, if you type the words "Baptism of Rus" into an Internet search engine, you can see many texts negatively evaluating this event.
Most of them belong to the so-called neo-pagans. To those who today are trying to revive the cult of long—deposed deities, it is necessary to return the service to idols in the land of Holy Russia. But our country has already gone through something similar, and on a much more global scale: just recall the communist experiment in building a godless society. That is why it is so important not to get tired of talking about the significance of the Baptism of Russia, that our country itself, the people themselves, were born from the font of Prince Vladimir.
However, the word of Christ sounded in our open spaces before him. Even the Apostle Andrew, according to legend, sowed the seed of Faith in the land of Russia at a time when there was no such word. When the apostles chose who should go to which lands to preach, he got Scythia. This is how the vast territories lying north of the Black Sea were called in antiquity. Legend has it that during his journey to Scythia, the Apostle Andrew visited the place where Kiev and Veliky Novgorod were later built. Andrew the First-called prophesied that the grace of God would shine in these lands.
After returning from Scythia, he was martyred in the 67th year of Our Lord. Like his brother, the Apostle Peter, he was executed during the persecution launched against Christians by order of the Roman Emperor Nero. The Apostle Andrew ascended the cross to be with Christ forever. And the cross on which he was crucified, the oblique St. Andrew's Cross, became one of the symbols of the Russian Empire. An empire that was able to form out of many lands and many peoples only because in 988 Prince Vladimir fulfilled the prophecy of Andrew the First-Called. He led his people out of the darkness of paganism into the Light of Christ, but before that he himself renounced the worship of idols.
But at first the prince wanted to create a kind of pagan super-religion. Vladimir's experiment was impressive — he erected a temple in Kiev with idols of six main deities, each of which was worshipped by different tribes and different social groups. In this way, he wanted to unite them under his supreme authority. There is information that the prince did not disdain human sacrifices for this.
And this is not surprising. It is enough to recall the war of his father, Svyatoslav, with Byzantium. The imperial historian Lev Deacon wrote:
"After the battle, the soldiers of Prince Svyatoslav gathered their dead and burned them, stabbing at the same time, according to the custom of their ancestors, many prisoners, men and women. After making this bloody sacrifice, they strangled several babies and roosters, drowning them in the waters of Istra."
Nevertheless, Vladimir, following his father along this bloody path, suddenly renounced him. How and why did this happen?
https://avatars.dzeninfra.ru/get-zen_doc/271828/pub_6554af6d3a2cd66a5988b441_6554d3841a3e6f072a8bf0a4/scale_1200
The Byzantine Legacy
Vladimir faced a serious problem: the fact is that his state was an empire. Yes, that's right, Russia literally from the moment of its inception was immediately an empire, because it united many peoples and covered a vast territory: from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and from the upper reaches of the Vistula River to the Volga. This territory was inhabited by many tribes, not only Slavic, but also Baltic, Finno-Ugric. And he alone stood at the head of them all — Vladimir, the Grand Duke. That is, there were all the signs of an empire, except for one of the most important, fundamental — a single, common idea.
Apparently, Vladimir quickly realized that assembling a pantheon of various pagan gods was not an option. A single state needs a single faith. The legend of her choice, when the prince called Christians from the West and East, Muslims and Jews to him, was long considered by scientists to be a legend that has no real historical basis. However, it has been confirmed in Muslim sources. So, in them there is a mention of the embassy of "king Buladmir" to the distant Central Asian Khorezm. That is, the Russian chronicles seem to describe the situation close to what really happened. But how did the prince choose his faith in this difficult political situation? And by what criteria?
According to legend, when the Muslims told the prince about the ban on drinking wine, Vladimir replied with the famous phrase: "Russia has the joy of drinking" — and rejected Islam. Then, as they would say now, the "presentation" was made by the Pope's envoys. However, Vladimir sent them away, saying, "Go where you came from, for even our fathers did not accept this." Indeed, there is evidence that the mission of Western Christians was not successful in Russia at an earlier time. Vladimir asked the Jews who came from Khazaria: where is their land? Khazaria, as you know, was defeated by Vladimir's father, Prince Svyatoslav. And the Khazar Jews replied that God had scattered them in different countries. The prince, the collector of the empire, was, of course, not satisfied with such an answer.
And finally, it was the turn of the Byzantine monk, whom the Russian chronicler called a Philosopher for his wisdom. He not only told Vladimir about the faith of Christ, but also showed it. The Prince saw the icon of the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment. She amazed Vladimir. He said: "Good for those who stand to the right, and woe to those who stand to the left." The philosopher replied to this: "If you want to stand on the right side, then be baptized."
Despite the shock that the prince experienced, he did not rush, as he was a thorough man. Vladimir sent his embassies to different countries, ordering them to get acquainted with the rituals of various religions directly on the spot. Aesthetic perception, a sense of beauty that our ancestors seem to have been richly endowed with, played a crucial role.
After returning from Constantinople, the ambassadors, who attended the Orthodox service at St. Sophia's Church there, told the prince: "We did not know where we were — in heaven or on earth." The neighboring boyars also spoke in favor of Greek Orthodoxy: "If the Greek law were not the best of all, then your grandmother Princess Olga, the wisest of all people, would not accept it." Indeed, the example of Princess Olga certainly played a significant role. As confirmed by Byzantine sources, she actually visited Constantinople once — she was received with honor by the Byzantine emperor himself.
But while the prince was thinking and weighing the pros and cons, the course of events forced him to make an urgent choice: Basil, the emperor of Byzantium, turned to him for help. He needed Russian soldiers to suppress a dangerous rebellion in his country. Vladimir agreed, but put forward an unheard—of condition - the northern barbarian demanded the emperor's sister as his wife. And he had to agree, but, in turn, conditioned this marriage with Vladimir's baptism.
The princely warriors, seasoned in battles, went to distant Byzantium and played a decisive role in defeating the rebels. But having got rid of the pressing problem, the emperor did not rush to send his sister to Russia. However, Vladimir was not the kind of person who could be fooled.
His army went to the Crimea and besieged the main Byzantine city on the peninsula — Chersonesos, or Korsun, as the Russians called it then. And now we call it Sevastopol, the city of Russian glory.
After a stubborn siege, Chersonesos was taken, and Emperor Basil, in order to regain this pearl of his crown, was forced to send his sister Anna to the north. Nevertheless, it seems that Vladimir was in no hurry to fulfill his promise and be baptized. But suddenly something happened to him, similar to what happened to the persecutor of Christians Saul — Prince Vladimir went blind. Saul was transformed into the Apostle Paul, having seen the true God in a vision and accepted him with all his heart. The same thing happened with Vladimir.
Vladimir's fiancee, the Byzantine Princess Anna, then told the prince: "If you want to get rid of this disease, then be baptized as soon as possible; otherwise you will not recover." Thus, Prince Vladimir was not only baptized and regained his eyesight, but also received from above the ability to see reality in a new way, spiritually.
The Bishop of Korsunsky, along with the Tsaritsyn priests, announced and baptized Vladimir. And when he laid his hand on him, he immediately received his sight. Vladimir, feeling his sudden healing, glorified God: "Now I have recognized the true God." Many of the vigilantes saw this and crossed themselves. He was baptized in the church of St. Basil, and that church stands in the city of Korsun in the middle of the city, where the Korsunians gather to bargain; Vladimir's chamber stands from the edge of the church to this day, and Tsaritsyna's chamber is behind the altar. After the baptism, the queen was brought in to perform the marriage.
The Radzivil Chronicle, the end of the XV century
Returning to Kiev, Vladimir announced to its residents: anyone who does not come to the river on the appointed day to be Baptized is "not his friend." So the greatest event in the history of Russia happened — the choice of its fate.
Christ said:
"From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away."
Prince Vladimir used force and even violence, but the purpose and meaning of everything that happened more than a thousand years ago was precisely the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Transformation
https://userpic.fishki.net/2020/01/18/1688289/9a8184bc5f330363e3427c8af84d90c3.jpg
People with liberal thinking cannot understand how Prince Vladimir can be considered a saint. After all, he did things that seem absolutely inexcusable to modern consciousness. Yes, he committed terrible crimes.
Vladimir's soldiers raised his brother Yaropolk to the swords when he trusted his word and went to negotiate. So, thanks to fratricide, he became the grand duke. Vladimir raped the Polotsk princess Rogneda, who rejected him, in front of her family, and then ordered them to be killed. He had five wives and hundreds of concubines. So he was some kind of monster? That's right, he was before Holy Baptism, and after it he was transformed. And together with the Grand Duke, the whole of Russia was transformed. What is the secret of this transformation? In Christian repentance, it is a word whose great meaning clearly escapes the moralists of the record.
The Radzivil chronicle of the XV century tells the story of Vladimir's overthrow of pagan idols, set up by himself a few years before:
"Having come to Kiev, Vladimir ordered the idols to be overthrown: some to be hacked down, and others to be burned. He ordered Perun to be tied to a horse's tail and dragged down the Mountain..."
The prince ordered the idols to be floated downstream along the Dnieper River, and to make sure that they did not stick to the shore until they passed the Dnieper rapids. So Russia renounced paganism. And then it seemed like forever and ever.
The adoption of Christianity radically changed Vladimir: he became a truly new man, as the New Testament demands of us. He was deeply imbued with the words of Scripture: "Blessed are the merciful, for they will have mercy." Vladimir ordered all the poor and needy to come to the prince's court and take whatever they needed. And when he learned that the sick and infirm could not reach his yard, he decided to transport food for them around the city on carts.
The monk Jacob, in his "Memory and Praise of Prince Vladimir," writes:
"And not in Kiev alone, but throughout the Russian land—both in cities and in villages—he gave alms everywhere, clothing the naked, satisfying the hungry, giving the thirsty to drink, bestowing mercy on pilgrims, honoring the churchmen, loving and merciful, giving what was required."
His deep understanding of Christian commandments was reflected in the fact that the prince abolished the death penalty — he said that he was afraid of angering God with an unfair trial. The prince changed in his personal life: after marrying Princess Anna, he gave his pagan wives complete freedom to choose their future.
All this taken together is called repentance. It is not for nothing that in Russian epics the prince remained not a harsh, merciless warrior, but a merciful Vladimir the Red Sun.
The prince, by his personal example, led the whole of Russia to the transformation. Very soon, this name ceased to be associated with the ferocious warriors attacking the Christian city of Constantinople. Russia became a Saint — she chose holiness as her ideal. And holiness is nothing but genuine freedom, freedom from sin. Vladimir, the great sinner in the past, sought to find it. Looking at his Christian deeds, we believe that he has found.
We can judge Prince Vladimir from the chronicles, although not much information has been preserved about him. But if we evaluate both his actions and his personality from an Orthodox perspective, then we just need to pay attention to the fact that before and after baptism they were literally two different people. A pagan with all his vices and a new man who converted to Christianity. The chronicles depict both. The path of righteous life for many saints, especially of the early period, shows a sinful person who realized his sins and repented. After all, repentance is a Transformation, a change of mind, a change of consciousness, the very transformation when a person becomes different. Thus, a convert to Christianity immediately acquires the ideal of holiness, which was not the case in paganism. This is the path that gives a person the opportunity to develop.
Epiphany: the choice of fate and how this choice influenced Russian history
https://avatars.dzeninfra.ru/get-zen_doc/271828/pub_686557ab5d73690b11140e08_686557de7804c20bd0d21a62/scale_1200
The Baptism of Rus is an event that predetermined the entire history of the country. It laid the foundation for the cultural code that defines our thoughts and actions, even if we are not aware of it. And even for those who do not consider themselves a believer.
Prince Vladimir's decision was one of the very important stages of the process that had developed before. After all, it was the penetration of Orthodox Christianity into Russia that began much earlier. And in this regard, it is very important that Russia adopted Christianity from Byzantium as an heir. She has absorbed religion, culture, and state continuity. These are the three elements that underlie European civilization in general — the biblical revelation, Roman law and the Greek tradition of philosophical thought.
Sergey Lvovich Khudiev, writer, journalist
Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev said wonderful words:
"Baptism gave our ancestors the ultimate freedom — the freedom to choose between Good and Evil, and the victory of Orthodoxy gave Russia a thousand-year history."
This is a very deep thought — it was true freedom that brought us Baptism, contrary to the claims of those who slander Christianity, calling it a slave religion. And the second part of this phrase is no less true — our history as a country is completely determined by the choice made by Vladimir the Baptist.
It is impossible to say that there was coercion on the part of Prince Vladimir in relation to his compatriots. It's like trying to persuade a baby to wash himself. He screams and resists because he doesn't understand that you're bathing for his own good. In the same way, Russia was cleansed and absorbed all the cultural wealth of the surrounding world in a short time. That's what the Baptism of Rus was like.
Evgeny Konstantinovich Nikiforov, Director of Radio Radonezh
The adoption of the Christian faith saved the Russian people from dissolving into historical oblivion.
Saved, and saves, and, I hope, will save. When Russia adopted Christianity, it was the moment of its highest development in its most ancient era. It is probably difficult to find in history such a historical period and such a state that would accept religion at the peak of its power. This is very important. Sometimes it is said that Russia adopted Christianity under duress or it was just an attempt to rely on a strong Byzantium. On the contrary, Byzantium was as weak as ever at that moment.
Prince Vladimir literally wrested Christianity from the proud Byzantines, who didn't really want to share this treasure with the barbarians. And I must say that Vladimir understood what a great gift he was receiving.
Pavel Vladimirovich Kuzenkov, PhD in History, Associate Professor at the Faculty of History of Lomonosov Moscow State University, specialist in the Byzantine Empire
THE BAPTISM OF RUSSIA. Episodes 1 -- 4. English Subtitles. Russian History.
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The film tells in detail what events accompanied the decision of Prince Vladimir, shows the history of this man, which has become the history of an entire nation. The most important task for us was to create a cognitive, educational, spectacular picture for a wide audience, reliably conveying historical reality
Type: historical reenactment
Genre: docudrama
Number of episodes: 4
Year of production: 2017
Directed by: Dmitry Ushakov
Written by: Maksim Bespalyi, Marina Bandilenko, Maksim Kalsin
Production designer: Maksim Bespalyi
Director of photography: Aleksandr Byrkov