But it was only after an interval of nine centuries that the rays of divine light beamed upon Russia from the walls of Byzantium, in which city the same apostle, St. Andrew, had appointed Stachys to be the first bishop, and so committed, as it were, to him and to his successors, in the spirit of prescience, the charge of that wide region in which he had himself preached Christ. Hence the indissoluble connection of the Russian with the Greek Church, and the dependence of her metropolitans during six centuries upon the patriarchal throne of Constantinople, until, with its consent, she obtained her own equality and independence in that which was accorded to her native primates.
The Bulgarians of the Danube, the Moravians, and the Slavonians of Illyria had been already enlightened by holy baptism about the middle of the ninth century, during the reign of the Greek emperor Michael and the patriarchate of the illustrious Photius. St. Cyril and St. Methodius, two learned Greek brothers, translated into the Slavonic the New Testament and the books used in divine service, and according to some accounts even the whole Bible.
This translation of the Word of God became afterward a most blessed instrument for the conversion of the Russians, for the missionaries were by it enabled to expound the truths of the Gospel to the heathens in their native dialect, and so win for them a readier entrance to their hearts.
Oskold and Dir, two princes of Kieff and the companions of Ruric, were the first of the Russians who embraced Christianity. In the year 866 they made their appearance in armed vessels before the walls of Constantinople when the Emperor was absent, and threw the Greek capital into no little alarm and confusion. Tradition reports that "The patriarch Photius took the virginal robe of the Mother of God from the Blachern Church, and plunged it beneath the waves of the strait, when the sea immediately boiled up from underneath and wrecked the vessels of the heathen. Struck with awe, they believed in that God who had smitten them, and became the first-fruits of their people to the Lord." The hymn of victory of the Greek Church, "To the protecting Conductress," in honor of the most holy Virgin, has remained a memorial of this triumph, and even now concludes the Office for the First Hour in the daily Matins; for that was, indeed, the first hour of salvation to the land of Russia.
It is probable that on their return to their own country the princes of Kieff sowed there the seeds of Christianity; for, eighty years afterward, on occasion of a conference for peace between the prince Igor and certain Byzantine ambassadors, we find mention already of a "Church of the Prophet Elias" in Kieff where the Christian Varangians swore to the observance of the treaty. Constantine Porphyrogenitus and other Greek annalists even relate that in the lifetime of Oskold there was a bishop sent to the Russians by the emperor Basil the Macedonian, and the patriarch St. Ignatius, and that he made many converts, chiefly "in consequence of the miraculous preservation of a volume of the Gospels, which was thrown publicly into the flames and taken out after some time unconsumed." Also in Condinus, Catalogue of Sees Subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the metropolitical see of Russia appears as early as the year 891.
Lastly, it is certain that many of the Varangians who served in the imperial bodyguard were Christians, and that the Greek sovereigns never lost sight of any opportunity of converting them to their own faith, by which they hoped to soften their savage manners. When the emperor Leo was concluding a peace with Oleg, he showed not only his own treasures to the ambassadors of the Russian prince, but also the splendor of the churches, the holy relics, the precious icons, and the "Instruments of the Passion of our Lord," if by any means they might catch from them the spirit of the faith.
Some such influences as these, while Christianity as yet was only struggling for an uncertain existence at Kieff, produced in good time their effect on the wisest of the daughters of the Slavonians, the widowed princess Olga, who governed Russia during the minority of her son Sviatoslaf. She undertook a voyage to Constantinople for no other end than to obtain a knowledge of the true God, and there she received baptism at the hands of the patriarch Polyeuctes; the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus himself, who admired her wisdom, being her godfather. Nestor draws an affecting picture of the patriarch foretelling to the newly illumined princess the blessings which were to descend by her means on future generations of the Russians, while Olga, now become Helena by baptism—that she might resemble both in name and deed the mother of Constantine the Great—stood meekly bowing down her head and drinking in, as a sponge that is thirsty of moisture, the instructions of the prelate concerning the canons of the Church, fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and continence, all which she observed with exactness on her return to her own country.
Although, in spite of all her entreaties, the fierce and warlike prince Sviatoslaf persisted in refusing to humble his proud heart under the meek yoke of Christ, he had still so much affection for his mother as not to persecute such as agreed with her in religion, but even to allow them freely to make open profession of their faith under the protection of that princess. He confided his children to her care during his incessant military expeditions, and so enabled her to confirm the saving impressions of Christianity among the people who respected her, and to instil them into the mind of her young grandson Vladimir; for nothing sinks so deep into the heart as the simple-and affectionate words of a mother. The princess had with her a priest named Gregory, whom she had brought from Constantinople, and by him she was buried after her death in the spot which she had herself appointed, without any of the usual pagan ceremonies. The people, by whom she had been surnamed "the Wise" during life, began to bless her for a saint after her death, when they came themselves to follow the example of this "Morning Star" which had risen and gone before to lead Russia into the path of salvation.
Nowhere has Christianity ever been less persecuted at its first introduction than in our own country. The Chronicle speaks of only two Christian martyrs, the Varangians Theodore and John, who were put to death by the fury of the people because one of them, from natural affection, had refused to give up his son when he had been devoted by the prince Vladimir to be offered as a sacrifice to Peroun.
Probably the very zeal of this prince for the heathen deities, to whom he set up statues and multiplied altars, may have inspired the neighboring nations with the desire of converting so powerful a ruler to their respective creeds; and thus his blind impulse toward the Deity, which was unknown to him, received a true direction. The Mahometan Bulgarians were the first to send ambassadors to him, with the offer of their faith; but the mercy of Providence—for so it plainly was—inspired him to give them a decided refusal on the ground that he did not choose to comply with some of their regulations; though else a sensual religion might well have enticed a man who was given up to the indulgence of his passions.