CRISTO RAUL.ORG ' |
THE UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY |
FROM JUSTINIAN TO LUTHER. AD 518-1517
CHAPTER
VII.
THE SLAVS AND THEIR MISSIONS
BEFORE considering the conversion of the Slavs, it is
necessary to bring before our minds the map of central and eastern Europe from
the seventh to the ninth century, as well as the modern divisions of the
Slavonic races. These modern divisions are: (1) the great north-eastern branch,
the Slavs of Russia; (2) the north-western branch, which includes the Poles,
the Czecho-Slovaks of Bohemia and Moravia, and some broken fragments in the
east of Germany, known as the Sorbs or Wends, Kashubians, and others; (3) the
southern branch, which includes the Slovenes of Carinthia to the north-east of
the Adriatic, the Croats, who come close to the Adriatic, and the Serbs, whose
language is almost identical with that of the Croats. In spite of the
traditional hostility which exists between the Bulgarians and the Serbs, the
Bulgarians, a Turanian race by origin, are, in their language and civilization,
Southern Slavs.
The original home of the Slavs was probably near the
Vistula and the Pripet marshes, from which they spread in all directions. By
about 700 they had reached their extreme western limits. The broken fragments
of Slavonic races in modern Germany are the remains of tribes which then
extended nearly as far west as Hamburg. They followed the course of the Elbe
southward to Magdeburg, past Halle. Not only were Gnesen, Breslau, and Leipzig
Slavonic, but Slavs also covered districts such as Brandenburg and Pomerania,
now typically German. The eastern part of East Prussia was occupied by the
Lithuanians, primitive cousins of the Slavs, and the heart of East Prussia
belonged to a warlike and barbarous tribe akin to the Lithuanians. These were
the Pruzi, who were not converted until the
thirteenth century. Their language was understood by a few people as late as
1684. When George I came to England from Hanover in 1714, a Slavonic language, Polabish, still lingered in his Hanoverian territory.
The above facts indicate that a vast Slavonic region,
now called by German names, was left untouched by St. Boniface and other
missionaries of Teutonic speech. And south-east of this great region, the
settlement near the Danube of the Southern Slavs, and of Ural-Altaic tribes
such as the Avars and Huns, had erected a thick wall of paganism between the
Latin and the Byzantine provinces of the Christian Church.
The Southern Slavs, strictly so-called, must first
claim our attention, and then the Moravians and the Bulgarians.
The Croats, moving towards Dalmatia, were the most
western of the three great streams of Slavs which penetrated into the Balkan
peninsula early in the seventh century. The second stream moved in the
direction of Thessalonica, and the third towards Bulgaria, occupying districts
which had been previously laid waste by the Avars. In the eighth century large
numbers of the central horde of Slavs penetrated into the heart of Greece, and
threatened to confine the Greek language and the Christian religion to the cities,
just as the Teutonic tribes had threatened to shut up Roman civilization and
Catholicism in the cities of the West. The Slavs in Greece, however, became
quickly Hellenized, learning Greek as the Western barbarians learnt Latin, and
in the ninth century they became Christian, during the reigns of the Emperors
Michael III and Basil I.
The heroic defence of
Constantinople in 626, when the subjects of the Emperor Heraclius repelled the
huge forces of the Khagan of the Avars, secured the Balkans against future Avar
molestation. The Avars, who had become a coalition of different races, were by
this time a prey to internal dissensions, and among the peoples who were making
good their own independence of the Avars were the Slavs within the Empire. The
Croats and Serbs became in the time of Heraclius recognized and legalized
vassals of the emperor, and welcomed teachers of the Christian religion. Some
of the first converts were probably under the authority of the Bishop of
Salona, who resided at Spalato after Salona was sacked by Avars and Slavs early
in the seventh century. Others, farther east, were under the Bishop of Justiniana Prima, near the modern Skoplje,
and later under the Bishop of Thessalonica. All these bishoprics were subject
to Roman rule, though all did not employ the Western rite. Pope Gregory the
Great had asserted his authority even over Justiniana Prima, to which city, as being his own birthplace, the Emperor Justinian had
given primatial rights over northern Illyricum. The Croats, who were near to
the Dalmatian towns which were Roman in origin and speech and faith, began to
adopt Christianity in the seventh century, after the example of their Prince Porga.
In the ninth century the work of their conversion was outwardly complete. Most
of them became, and have remained, firmly attached to Rome, and in certain
towns on the Adriatic Rome permitted the Roman mass to be celebrated in
Slavonic, the liturgical books being until recently printed in the ancient
Slavonic script known as Glagolitic. The Slovenes of Carinthia were under the
rule of the Franks and formed part of the East Frankish Empire. They were
reached by Latin priests who came from Salzburg and Passau in the eighth
century, partly in order to minister to Bavarian settlers and their dependents.
The vicissitudes of Christianity among the ancient
Serbs were more varied than among the Croats and Slovenes.
The first priests who labored among the Serbs were
apparently Latin. And not only do the names of some ancient Serbian princes and
the dedication of certain churches point to contact with the West, but a few
quasi-religious terms in Serbian still indicate the same origin. Such words are oltar (sanctuary = altare), pogan (unclean = paganus),
and raka (tomb or shrine = arca). The Latin priests
were replaced by Greek priests about 732, in the time of Leo the Isaurian, when
the region occupied by the Serbs was taken from Rome and attached to
Constantinople. The work of Latin and Greek missionaries failed to be
permanent, probably on account of their ignorance of Slavonic and their failure
to provide church services in a language understood by the people. In the first
half of the ninth century the Serbs to a great extent relapsed into paganism,
and their second conversion did not take place until the time of the Emperor
Basil the Macedonian (867-886). The first four years of Basil's reign were
occupied with military operations against the Saracens. His fleet helped to
free Ragusa, which was then being besieged by the Saracens, and he thereby
strengthened his influence on the shores of the Adriatic. Impressed by the
masterful energy of their benefactor, and alarmed by the threatening power of
the Bulgars, the Serbs placed themselves under the suzerainty of Basil and
accepted the religion of Byzantium. Missionaries were sent from Constantinople
and made Ragusa their headquarters. The Serbian bishopric of Raska was probably
founded about 870.
During the quarrel which broke out between Rome and
Constantinople in the matter of the rival patriarchs, Photius and Ignatius, Mutimir, the Prince of Serbia, appealed to Rome for the
royal crown and insignia. It is probable, but not certain, that this was the Mutimir 'dux Sclaviniae', to whom
Pope John VIII sent a letter about 873, asking him to follow the example of his
ancestors and to turn back to the ecclesiastical province of Pannonia, “where
now, by the help of God, the new metropolitan is appointed”. The result of
these negotiations with Rome is unknown, as Serbia hardly mattered at this
time, when the question whether Bulgaria should belong to the Pope or to the
Patriarch was hotly discussed between the two pontiffs. Serbia, from the time
of its second conversion to the beginning of the eleventh century, was governed
sometimes by the Greeks and sometimes by the Bulgarians, and in consequence was
sometimes under the spiritual authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople and
sometimes under that of the head of the Bulgarian Church. A little later, every
effort which the Serbs made to gain political freedom meant an approximation to
Rome; for to obtain support from the West in their struggle against the Greeks,
the Serbs were obliged to recognize the Pope as their spiritual head. They had
to choose between an Emperor and a Pope. They desired neither, but, owing to
their geographical position, they could not do without one or other of them.
The real master-builder of the Serbian Church was St.
Sava, whose life is full of dramatic movement and color. His original name was
Rastko, and he was the youngest son of the 'great chief' (veliki zupan) of Serbia, Stephen Nemanja. On a visit to his
father's court he met a monk who described with such fervor the monastic
'angelic' life on Mount Athos that the youth, under pretence of hunting, escaped to Athos and entered the Russian monastery of St.
Panteleimon. His father sent soldiers to pursue him and they discovered his
refuge. He met them, begged them to stay the night and return with him the next
day. He then persuaded them to attend the midnight service and they consented,
but tired with their journey they fell asleep in the church. In the meantime
Rastko took the monastic vows in the monastery tower and received the new name
of Sava, and when the morning came sent the soldiers away with his rich lay
clothes and a letter to his parents.
Henceforth Sava appears repeatedly as the leading
spirit amid his people. He was instrumental in founding the Serbian monastery
of Chilendar on Mount Athos and vigorously promoted
monasticism and learning. He took an equally active and useful part in
political affairs, which were imperiled by divisions at home and Hungarian
jealousy abroad. In the year 1219 he was consecrated the first (autonomous)
Archbishop of Serbia at Constantinople by the Patriarch. He divided the country
into eight dioceses, exclusive of his own see of and instructed the clergy in
their duties. In 1220 his brother Stephen was crowned as 'king' with a royal
crown which was procured from the Pope in order to weaken Hungarian and Latin
opposition. He visited the Holy Land, everywhere celebrating the liturgy and
distributing alms, and he bought from the Saracens the monastery of John the
Baptist in the Jordan valley. In 1233 he appointed his own successor and
afterwards again went to Jerusalem. On his way home he fell ill, stayed a few days
at Constantinople, and died at Trnovo in Bulgaria on
January the 13th, 1236. His body was taken to Serbia and buried at Milegevo. It was removed to Belgrad in March 1594 and a month later it was burnt by the Turks.
The conversion of the Moravians is an event of capital
importance in the religious history of central Europe. The Moravians had been
forced in 803 to pay tribute to the Franks, and missionaries were sent to them
from the sees from which evangelists had gone to the
Slovenes. Their success was very slight; the people disliked them as the
servants of foreign nobles and the comrades of greedy soldiers. In the middle
of the century the country became independent under the native prince Ratislav,
who desired to have a Christian Church independent of the Franks and in
connection with Constantinople rather than with Rome.
Ratislav visited Constantinople in person in 863 and
requested that Christian teachers should be sent to Moravia. The Emperor
Michael III (847-867) chose as these teachers Constantine (afterwards named
Cyril) and Methodius. These two brothers were natives of the district of
Thessalonica, a district which then abounded with Slavs. It is possible that
they were themselves Slavs, as many Slavs had by that time gained a high social
position. Methodius was governor of a Macedonian Slav district before he entered
the monastic order, a man of practical mind and skill in administration.
Constantine had been educated at the Imperial School, he was librarian of the
Patriarchate, and a lecturer in philosophy. He had already distinguished
himself as a missionary and preacher among the Jews and Muslims of the Khazars, a Finnish Ugrian race to the north of the Black
Sea. For the Slavs he invented the alphabet known as Glagolitic, which in later
times was replaced by the Greek alphabet with a few additional characters. The brothers
translated the Psalms, the liturgy, and parts of the New Testament into a
southern form of the Old Slavonic language, a rich language which at that
period was on the eve of breaking up into the different Slavonic languages of
later times.
In Moravia the brothers preached the Gospel for more
than four years. By using the vernacular language in the services of the
Church, they won a conspicuous success among the Moravians. The Frankish and
Italian priests having attacked them for their innovation, they went to Rome in
867 and showed to Pope Hadrian II the books which they used in their church
services. The Pope approved, and dismissed them with his blessing. Constantine,
who on his death-bed took the name of Cyril, died in Rome in 869, and Methodius
was then consecrated Bishop of Pannonia. He was thrown into prison as the
result of the action of the German clergy, but released at the request of Pope
John VIII in 873. He was then made Archbishop of Pannonia and Moravia, and
converted the Bohemian Prince Borivoy and his wife.
He died on April the 6th, 885. For a time the Moravian Church was Eastern. But
the vigorous Moravian King Svatopluk (d. 894) from being a friend of Methodius
became his opponent, and a new Pope, Stephen V (d. 891) forbade the use of the
Slavonic liturgy. Under Svatopluk it seemed probable that the Southern Slavs
might be joined with the North-western Slavs in one great kingdom opposed to
the Germans. But early in the tenth century the Church and the kingdom both
disappeared in consequence of the invasion of the heathen Ural-Altaic tribe,
the Magyars. Then came Czech settlers from Bohemia, and in the next century
Moravia was simply a Bohemian province, connected with the Western Church. The
Slavonic liturgy, banished from Moravia, was destined to have incalculable
influence as the liturgy of the Serbs, Bulgarians, and Russians down to the
present day. The Rumanians also employed it until the seventeenth century, when
they began to use Rumanian translations of the Slavonic liturgical books. For a
long time the books of the Serbians and the Croats alike were written in the
language of Cyril and Methodius, though first the alphabet and then the
language underwent a change, and in the twelfth century we find Serbian
recensions of Old Slavonic books.
After the death of Svatopluk the disciples of Cyril
and Methodius in Moravia had to encounter a strong and bitter opposition, and
were expelled from Moravia at the instigation of the German clergy. Some went
to Serbia and Dalmatia. Others took refuge in Bulgaria, where they were well
received and did good work on the Macedonian borders of the Bulgarian kingdom.
The conversion of Bulgaria, like that of Moravia, may
be considered a jewel in the crown of the Church of Constantinople.
In the early years of the ninth century Christianity
had made some way among the Bulgars, and under King Boris I (d. 907) it became
the State religion of the country. Placed between the Christian Greek empire
and Christian Moravia, he saw that he could not safely remain a pagan.
Political motives did not exclude more pious incentives, and the arguments of
his Christian sister and a captive monk are said to have paved the way for his
conversion. He was baptized according to the Greek rite in 864, the Emperor
Michael III acting as his sponsor. Eastern missionaries flocked to Bulgaria,
and Boris crushed the opposition of his heathen nobility. Perplexed by small
religious differences and annoyed by the reluctance of the Patriarch Photius to
appoint a bishop for Bulgaria, he turned to Rome. Like Ratislav, he wished for
order in the Church, but preferred that the centre of
organization should not be too near himself. As Ratislav invoked the help of
Constantinople, so Boris invoked the help of Pope Nicholas I, asking him to
send a bishop and priests, and to give an authoritative answer to no less than
106 theological and social questions.
Pope Nicholas I then sent to Bulgaria Formosus,
afterwards Pope, with suitable replies to the questions, both serious and
ludicrous, devised by the brain of the Bulgarian prince. He promised that there
should be a bishop and later an archbishop. The Patriarch Photius denounced
this interference of Rome in Bulgaria; and as the new Pope Hadrian II would not
nominate as archbishop a priest recommended by Boris, the Bulgarian turned his
petitions again towards the East. An archbishop and ten bishops were the reward
of this request, and the wisdom of it was recommended to the nation by the
introduction of the Slavonic liturgy. Boris also sent his son Symeon to study
in Constantinople. A vigorous educational movement began under the influence of
Clement, a disciple of Cyril and Methodius, who founded a monastery at Achrida, which was made the seat of a bishopric in 879.
Boris himself retired to a monastery in 888. He left it temporarily to depose
his dissolute son Vladimir about four years afterwards, and died in the odour of sanctity after placing Symeon upon the throne.
Symeon's classical education, and his fondness for
translating the works of St. Athanasius and St. Chrysostom, proved no hindrance
to his military prowess. After some varying fortunes of war, he conquered the
Magyars and inflicted crushing defeats upon the Greeks. He was lord of both
Adrianople and Belgrad, and assumed the title of
'Tsar of the Bulgarians and Greeks'. As a natural corollary of this assumption
of an imperial title by the Bulgarian prince, the Bulgarian archbishop became
'Patriarch'. This patriarchate, which came to include about forty bishoprics,
was recognized by the Greek Emperor Romanus I in 927, the year of Symeon's
death.
The Churches of Bulgaria and Serbia were soon
afflicted by a heresy which bore a considerable resemblance to Manichaeism. The
presbyter Kosma, who lived in the tenth century, ascribes the origin of the
heresy to one Bogumil (dear to God), who lived in the days of the Orthodox Tsar
Peter of Bulgaria. The heresy was strongly dualistic. The good God created the
spiritual world; the rebel Satanailo, the evil god,
created the material world in order to live in it. To save those men who had
not yielded to Satanailo God sent His Logos, Michael
the archangel, who assumed a phantom body and deceived Satanailo. Satanailo had deceived Moses when giving him the ten
commandments, so the Old Testament was rejected except the Psalms. The New
Testament was accepted, but the Church with its hierarchy and sacraments was
repudiated, together with the veneration of saints and icons. Prayers were said
in private houses. At first the Bogumili had no
regular ministry, though in the twelfth century they had a supreme ruler or
pope, called “Djed” (grandfather), and still later
they are known to have had elders. Every member of the sect might become a
teacher, and if a teacher he usually had twelve followers. Persons who
expressed a wish to enter the community were solemnly received after undergoing
a discipline of fasts, prayers, and confession. By preaching and by writing an
active propaganda was carried on, the whole system and organization of the
Greek Church was opposed, and the preachers of the 'new faith', by their
strongly democratic principles, and their advocacy of Slavonic nationalism,
gained a firm hold among the Slavs of the Balkan peninsula. They retained their
influence in Serbia for two centuries, until they were crushed by Stephen
Nemanja. In the meantime the Bogumili had carried
their teaching to the West. The so-called Cathari of Toulouse were in
communication with the Eastern Bogumili in 1223 and
the connection appears to date back two centuries earlier.
After mentioning the Southern Slavs and the
Bulgarians, it is necessary to say a little about the Rumanians and the
Magyars.
The origin of the Rumanians has been keenly debated
and it remains in considerable obscurity. They appear to be in the main the
descendants of a people Latin in speech, and partly Roman in origin, who dwelt
south of the Danube in the present Yugoslavia before the arrival of the Slavs.
Shattered by this invasion, some maintained a nomad life in the different
Balkan countries through which their descendants still wander, and are called
by their neighbors Vlachs. Others, after living among the Slavs long enough to
have their language loaded with Slavonic words, passed to the north of the
Danube some time before the twelfth century, and absorbed any remnants of their
Rumanian kinsmen who may possibly have survived the different waves of
barbarian conquerors which had crossed over the present country of Rumania.
There is no ancient Rumanian literature, and the language of the Church
services was, as we have noted, Slavonic until the seventeenth century. They
still retain some pagan Roman customs, but it can be assumed that south of the
Danube they were Christians before the Slavs arrived. It is remarkable that the
Rumanians are the only large body of Christians who speak a Romance language
but are outside the Roman communion.
The land now called Hungary was partly in the
possession of Slavs when, in 895, the Magyars, a fierce Ural-Altaic tribe akin
to the Finns, poured into its fertile plains. They were seeking a new country
after being heavily defeated by the Bulgarian Tsar Symeon. This intrusion of an
alien race had an immediate and permanent effect upon European history and
religion. It planted a new nation, heathen, but destined soon to become
Christian, in such a position as to divide the Southern Slavs from the Slavs of
Germany and Poland, and it caused the collapse of the Moravian kingdom. The
result was that all the Western Slavs were cut away from Constantinople and the
Eastern Church, and became impelled towards the influences of German
civilization and Western Catholicism. These two streams of influence, German
and Roman, became supreme within less than a hundred years after the Magyars
entered Hungary, and were united in the person of the great German Emperor Otto
I (d. 973). The Magyars were decisively defeated by him in 955, and then began
to turn their aspirations towards something better than constant raids of
savage warfare. Their Prince Geza, who had married a Christian wife, made
friendly overtures to Otto I. The result was the arrival of Christian
immigrants and missionaries, the most important of whom was Bishop Pilgrim of
Passau (d. 991). Geza was converted and also his young son and successor, who
was given the name of Stephen. Benedictine monks arrived in 995 and the work of
conversion and civilization made rapid progress. That the missionaries were
mostly Slavs, and probably Bohemian, is shown by the presence of Slavonic
ecclesiastical words in the Magyar language. King Stephen (d. 1038) occupies a
high rank in the band of Christian monarchs and won the title of saint. He is
said to have received from Pope Silvester II, in 1000, a royal crown, and he
obtained papal sanction for the ecclesiastical organization of his kingdom
under the metropolitan see of Gran. Out of a gang of freebooters he formed a
civilized state. In legislation and administration he followed German and, to a
less extent, Slavonic models, and by bringing the Magyars within the sphere of
Christianity he saved them from the ruin which overtook the once terrible race
of Avars.
Farther north Otto I vigorously furthered the spread
of Christianity among the Slavonic tribes known as Wends, who covered a wide
extent of territory between the rivers Elbe, Saale, Oder, and Warthe. He made Magdeburg the seat of an archbishopric in
968 and it was in the monastery of Magdeburg that St. Adalbert of Prague, whose
Slavonic name was Voytech, received his education. He
was chosen to be the second bishop of Prague by the Emperor Otto II in 983, and
received from him his investiture at Verona, and was consecrated by Willigis,
Archbishop of Mainz, his metropolitan. He proved a strict censor of morals, and
exerted himself to put down concubinage, polygamy, and other heathen practices.
The Czechs were repelled by his severity and he left the country, taking refuge
in the calm devotion that prevailed in the Benedictine monastery of Monte
Cassino. After a while he returned to Prague and founded a Benedictine
monastery not far from the city. But his stay in his see was only brief. Many
of his family were murdered, being suspected on account of their connection
with the Poles and Germans, and he was treated with scorn. He therefore felt
himself free to undertake missionary work elsewhere, and departed with two
companions to preach the Gospel to the heathen Prussians in North Germany.
There he was killed in 997 by a heathen priest; and though he cannot be called
an apostle, he was an evangelist and martyr.
Bohemia aided the progress of Christianity among the
Poles. The Poles on the Vistula first learned Christianity in the tenth century
from monks of the Eastern Church. And late in that century Prince Mieszko, who
had married a Christian Bohemian wife, was baptized by her chaplain Jordan, who
became the first bishop of Posen. Mieszko's son Boleslaus Chrobry (d. 1025) combined his Christian convictions with very shrewd political
insight. He made Gnesen a metropolitan see, severing it from the jurisdiction
of Magdeburg, and transferred to it the relics of the martyr St. Adalbert of
Prague. Under Gnesen he placed the bishoprics of Cracow, Breslau, and Kohlberg.
None of these had been Polish cities, though all were Slavonic; the two former
being Czech, while Kohlberg was situated amid the Slays of Pomerania. Boleslaus
hoped to form a compact Polish Church which should be the Church of the large
empire which he was building to resist the German advance from the West. His
hopes were fruitless. Very soon after his death the enemies of Poland shattered
his empire and a violent pagan reaction attended its downfall. Poland was
reduced to a wilderness dotted with ruined churches. After much difficulty,
Duke Casimir consolidated Church and State for a time. Boleslaus II also
recovered some of Poland's lost provinces. But his lust, cruelty, and avarice
brought him into collision with the Church, and he was excommunicated by St.
Stanislaus, Bishop of Cracow, who placed the churches of the city under an
interdict. Having vainly urged his satellites to kill the bishop, Boleslaus
slew him with his own hand in the chapel of St. Michael, May the 8th, 1079.
Thus another Slavonic country had its own national martyr, and Stanislaus
became to Poland what Thomas Becket became to England.
The creation of Russia depended upon the union of two
different factors. The first was the migration, probably beginning in the
seventh century of the Christian era, which brought a body of Slays from the
south-west of modern Russia to the north and to the south-east. These Slavs
became simple agricultural people, making their little farms and villages amid
the forests. The second factor was the great river Dnieper, which with its
different branches formed a waterway connecting the Baltic with the Black Sea,
the Scandinavians with the Greeks. Along the river there were built trading
centers from which furs, honey, and wax could be sent to the South, and in the
ninth century Swedish companies, the so-called Varangians, travelled along the
Dnieper to Byzantium. Some of them remained in the Russian towns, and entered
the military service of the Russians. The name “Rus” was originally the name of
these hardy and adventurous Swedes, who first established themselves near
Novgorod. It can hardly be doubted that in some cases they were invited by
Slavonic and Finnish tribes to help them to settle their quarrels, but they
began before long to rule over their hosts. They extended their power in
different directions and they conquered Kiev. The importance of Kiev can be
proved by the fact that in 86o the Princes of Kiev sent, though they sent in
vain, a predatory fleet of two hundred ships to attack Constantinople. Another
expedition against Constantinople resulted in a treaty which conceded great
advantages to Russian merchants in Constantinople.
In 945 another treaty with the Greeks was made by
Igor, the first historical Russian prince who is mentioned in contemporary
foreign sources. This treaty shows that there were Christians among the
followers of Igor; and we find from the Russian Chronicle that there was a
cathedral at Kiev dedicated to St. Elias. Igor's widow, Olga, was already a
Christian before she visited Constantinople in 957. She was the first Christian
princess in Russia. Olga's grandson Vladimir I, a great prince and warrior, was
destined to be the Clovis of his country. He invaded Byzantine territory, took
Cherson, threatened Constantinople with his fleet, and obtained in marriage
Anna, a sister of the Emperor Basil II, on condition of his accepting
Christianity and sending an army to assist Basil. A story as picturesque as
some of the stories of the introduction of Christianity among the English,
tells how he received emissaries from various religions, Muslims, Jews, Western
Christians, and at last a monk from Greece, and was deeply moved when the monk
showed to him a picture of the Last Judgment. The story continues that he sent
delegates to visit these religions in their various homes. They went last to
Constantinople, and were so much overwhelmed with the beauty of the service in the
majestic church of St. Sophia that they declared, “No man who has once tasted
what is sweet will afterwards take what is bitter”.
Vladimir was baptized in 988, and after his return to
Kiev hurled the idol of the thunder god into the Dnieper, and declared that he
would treat as his enemy anyone who refused to be baptized. His people did not
refuse; and they were baptized by the Greek clergy, who named them in droves. A
metropolitan came from Constantinople in 991 to be the head of the Russian
Church. After 1040 Kiev was the seat of the metropolitans. For more than two
hundred years they were almost always Greeks, though in 1051 Hilarion, a native
Russian, was appointed. His discourse 'On Grace and the Law' is one of the most
ancient monuments of Russian literature and is written in the style of the
later Greek rhetoricians. In spite of their Greek nationality the metropolitans
formed a permanent and civilizing element in the midst of the quarrelsome
independent principalities into which the country was divided. Kiev, as the
home of the grand-prince, the head of a great family of princes, and as the centre of clerical and monastic life, did something to
arrest Russian disintegration until the death of Yaroslav the Great, in 1054.
After that year, the year of the fatal division of the Eastern and Western
Churches, Kiev was repeatedly pillaged, and for a time the centre of political and commercial activities was Novgorod.
A few years earlier than 1054 there was built the
stately cathedral of St. Sophia at Kiev. Not only does its name recall the
great church at Constantinople which excited the wonder of Vladimir's
emissaries. It is itself a noble monument of Greek Byzantine art, a square
church with five apses and many domes. The great fresco of the head of Christ
the Almighty, and the mosaic of His mother with her hands raised in prayer, are
among the masterpieces of the eleventh century. These and the pictures of Greek
fathers of the Church are of dignified severity. But the Greek artists allowed
themselves some freedom on the staircase of the church, which they adorned with
scenes from the hippodrome. The church is an embodiment on Russian soil of
Byzantine tradition, a tradition that was never wholly lost amid the exuberant
fantasies of later Russian art. In fact this tradition really enabled Russia to
be herself. The Russian people while in its youth was grafted into the tree of
a rich and ancient culture. It needed the support of this culture. In time to
come Russia was to experience the influence of Poland and Italy, Germany,
Holland, and France. Under these various influences it could not have developed
its own spiritual life and consciousness if it had not possessed something
which protected it from within, and this something was the orthodox faith. It
is because of this faith that the good Russian believes, in spite of all
obstacles, in 'holy Russia', a land beloved by God and with a vocation to
fulfill.
CHAPTER VIII.
ROME AND GERMANY : EAST AND WEST SEPARATE
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