Having been baptised, the people went to their houses. Vladímir was happy for having, himself and his people, found God, and looking up to heaven he said: “God, Thou hast created heaven and earth! Guard these Thy new people, and let them, O Lord, find out the real God, such as the Christian people know Him. Strengthen the true and constant faith in them, and help me, O Lord, against my foe, that relying upon Thee and Thy power, I may escape his ambush!”
The people having been baptised, they all went to their homes, and Vladímir ordered churches to be built, and to place them there where formerly stood the idols. He built the church of St. Basil on the hill where stood the idol Perún and the others, to whom the Prince and others used to bring sacrifices. And he began to locate churches and priests over the towns, and to lead people to baptism in all towns and villages. He sent out men to take the children of noblemen, and to put them out for book instruction; but the mothers of those children wept for them, for they were not yet firm in their faith, and they wept for them as for the dead.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] The Khazars, a Tartar tribe that professed the Mosaic Law.
[17] The ancient Tauric Chersonese; this later city was not built on the ancient site, but near Sebastopol.
[18] A suburb of Kíev.
The Kíev Chronicle. (XII. century.)
The Kíev Chronicle is a continuation of Néstor’s Chronicle, from 1111-1201, and describes mainly the acts of the principality of Kíev. The best manuscript of this chronicle is from the monastery of St. Ipáti, near Kostromá, and dates from the end of the fourteenth, or the beginning of the fifteenth, century. The passage given below is selected to illustrate the historical account of the same incident contained in the Word of Ígor’s Armament.
THE EXPEDITION OF ÍGOR SVYATOSLÁVICH AGAINST THE PÓLOVTSES[19]
In the year 6693 (1185). At that time Ígor, the son of Svyatosláv, the grandson of Olég, rode out of Nóvgorod on the 23rd of April, which was on a Tuesday, having taken with him his brother Vsévolod from Trubétsk, and Svyatosláv Ólgovich, his nephew, from Rylsk, and Vladímir, his son, from Putívl, and Yarosláv had sent him, at his request, Olstín Oléksich, the grandson of Prokhór, with Kovúans[20] from Chernígov. They proceeded slowly, collecting their druzhína, for their horses were very fat. As they were going towards the river Donéts, Ígor looked one evening at the sky, and he saw the sun standing there like a moon, and he said to his boyárs and druzhína: “Do you see this omen?”