It was at this time, and probably because harmony now reigned, that the Byzantine church at last felt powerful enough not only to take care of its own peoples’ religion, but to set out to convert their heathen neighbors. Particularly their Slavic neighbors! Many of these still worshiped pagan gods 800 years after Christ.
It was Michael the Drunkard, a much better emperor than the name seems to indicate, who ended the Iconoclast controversy. And it was the same Michael who sent out Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius to do their work. They were the most famous missionaries eastern Europe had ever seen.
They prepared themselves like generals going into battle, and in a way they were like generals. They carefully restudied the Slavic languages, for since they were from a part of the empire where there were many Slavs, they already knew some Slavic languages. They learned all about Slavic culture and Slavic history. Finally they invented what is known today as the Cyrillic alphabet, which is still used in much of the Slavic world.
To be sure, their mission was not a complete success. They converted Moravia, now a part of Czechoslovakia, without too much difficulty, but when the Moravian king was defeated by a German king the country became Roman Catholic. Cyril and Methodius or saints trained by them, for they actually trained saints, went into Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Serbia. The people there stayed converted and stayed Orthodox. Indeed, Bulgaria soon boasted that it was the “eldest daughter of the eastern church,” and had its own patriarch, and its own Santa Sophia, too.
But the most important conversion made by the Byzantines took place a hundred years later. It was the conversion of the Russians. The Russians themselves say this was done more by Byzantine splendor than by the talk of Byzantine missionaries, or even by the marriage of the Russian Prince Vladimir to the emperor’s sister, Anna.
In 989, this huge ruler with his forest-shaking voice decided to make his people abandon their Norse gods and goddesses. He sent ambassadors to the four great religions that he knew about to find out which one was the best to adopt.
First the ambassadors went to the Black Bulgars, who were Moslems. But the mosques were smelly and dirty, and the Black Bulgars told the Russians that they would have to give up wine.
“Drinking is the joy of the Russians!” roared Vladimir.
Next they visited the Jewish Khazars, but how, asked Vladimir, could the Jews be God’s chosen people if he had scattered them all over the earth?
Then they went to the German Roman Catholics.