“The Germans say that they worship the truth,” the ambassadors reported, “but they have day after day of fasting, and there is no magnificence.”
“I do not like to fast,” said Vladimir.
Finally, they visited the Greeks, that is, the Byzantines.
“The Greeks,” they said, “led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for nowhere have we seen such splendor and beauty. We are at loss how to describe it, but we do know that God must dwell there.”
Then they added, “If the Greek faith was not good, your grandmother Olga would not have adopted it.”
For they knew that this straw-haired princess had never stopped talking about the domes of polished copper, the pavements of rare stone, the magnificent decorations, the pearl-encrusted psalm books and Bibles, the incense and the music in Constantinople. They knew too that she had never stopped talking about the God-chosen emperor who had wanted to marry her, and how she had tricked him into giving her rich gifts instead.
Vladimir agreed. He ordered his subjects to be baptized, and told his boyars to give up worshiping Odin and Thor, and to burn their idols or cast them into the Dnepr River.
This conversion of the Slavs was as important to the Byzantines as a victory by their army or by their diplomats, and indeed it was a victory. For although they still fought with the Serbs and with the Russians and particularly with the Bulgarians, these people were gradually drawn into the Byzantine way of life and became more and more friendly. Thus the flanks of the empire were protected.
It was, of course, far more lasting than any military victory. The Byzantine Empire came to an end more than 500 years ago, but if you were to go into the Balkans or Greece today, you would find that the work done by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius still remains. Even after forty years of communism, you might find that the seeds of Christianity, and particularly Greek Orthodox Christianity, which had been sown by Vladimir’s conversion, were still living in some Russian communist hearts.
