And they heard the tsar, and were sad, and gave the following answer: “It does not behoove Christians to give in marriage to a pagan. If you will receive the baptism, you shall get her, and you will receive the kingdom of heaven, and will be of one faith with us. If you do not wish to do so, we cannot give you our sister.”
Hearing this, Vladímir said to the messengers of the Emperors: “Tell your Emperors that I will be baptised, that I have inquired before these days into your faith, and am pleased with your belief and divine service, from what the men that had been sent by us have told me.”
Which when the Emperors heard, they were glad and persuaded their sister, by the name of Anna, and sent to Vladímir saying: “Receive the baptism, and then we will send our sister to you.”
But Vladímir answered: “Let them come with your sister to baptise me!”
The Emperors obeyed, and sent their sister and a few high officers and presbyters. She did not want to go: “It is as if I were going into captivity,” she said. “It were better if I died here.” And her brothers said to her: “Perchance God will through you turn the Russian land to repentance, and free Greece from a dire war. Do you not see how much evil the Russians have caused to the Greeks? If you will not go, they will do even thus to us.” They persuaded her with difficulty. She boarded a boat, kissed her relatives under tears and went across the sea. She arrived at Korsún, and the Korsúnians met her with honours, and led her into the city and seated her in the palace.
By God’s will, Vladímir was at that time ailing with his eyes, and he could not see, and was much worried. The empress sent to him saying: “If you want to be rid of your disease, be baptised at once. If not, you will not be rid of it.”
Hearing this, Vladímir said: “If it will be so in truth, then indeed your Christian God is great.” And he ordered to baptise him. The bishop of Korsún with the priests of the empress received Vladímir as a catechumen and baptised him, and the moment he laid his hands upon him, he regained his eyesight. When Vladímir saw this sudden cure, he praised God and said: “Now have I for the first time found the real God!” When his druzhína perceived this, many were baptised. He was baptised in the church of St. Basil, and that church is situated in Korsún, there where the Korsúnians have their market-place. Vladímir’s palace by the church is standing up to the present day. The palace of the empress is beyond the altar. After the baptism he led the empress to the betrothal. Those who do not know right say that he was baptised in Kíev; others say in Vasilév; others again say otherwise.
After that, Vladímir took the empress and Nastás, and the Korsún priests with the holy relics of Clement and Phœbus, his disciple, and church vessels, and images, for his own use. He built a church in Korsún on the hill which they had thrown up in the middle of the city from the dirt they had carried away, and that church is still standing there. Going away, he took along with him two brass statues and four brass horses which stand to-day behind the church of the Holy Virgin, and which the ignorant think to be of marble. He gave as a marriage price Korsún back to the Greeks, for the sake of the empress, and went back to Kíev.
Upon his return, he ordered the idols to be cast down, and some to be cut to pieces, and others to be consumed by fire; but Perún he had tied to the tail of a horse, and dragged down the hill over the Boríchev[18] to the brook, and placed twelve men to strike him with rods, not as if the wood had any feeling, but as a scorn to the devil who had in that way seduced people, that he might receive his due punishment from men. As he was dragged along the brook to the Dnieper, the unbelievers wept over him, for they had not yet received the holy baptism, and he was cast into the Dnieper. Vladímir stood by, and said: “Should he be carried anywhere to the banks, push him off, until he has passed the rapids, when you may leave him!” They did as they were told. When he passed the rapids, and was let loose, the wind carried him on a sandbank, which is named from this “Perún’s Bank,” and is called so to this day.
After that Vladímir proclaimed throughout the whole city: “Whosoever will not appear to-morrow at the river, whether he be rich or poor, or a beggar, or a workingman, will be in my disfavour.” Hearing this, people came gladly and with joy, and said: “If this were not good, the Prince and boyárs would not have accepted it.” Next morning Vladímir went out with the priests of the empress and of Korsún to the Dnieper, and there came together people without number. They went into the water, and stood there up to their necks, and some up to their breasts, but the younger nearer the shore, and others held the younger ones, while the grown people waded into the water. And the priests stood there and said the prayers; and there was a joy in heaven and upon earth at the sight of so many saved souls, but the devil groaned, and said: “Woe to me! I am driven away from here. Here I had intended to have my habitation, for here are no apostolic teachings, and they do not know God, and I rejoiced in the worship with which they served me. And now I am conquered by ignorant people and not by apostles and martyrs. I shall no longer reign in these lands.”