The Christianization Of Ancient Russia

The Russian church is central to an understanding of early Russian and Slav history, but for many years there has been no accessible, up-to-date introduction to the subject in English - until now. The late John Fennell's last book, is a masterly survey of the development, nature and role of the early Church in Russia from Christianization of the country in 988, through Kievan and Tatar poeriods to 1448 when the Russian Church finally became totally independent of its mother-church in Byzantium.

The present collection of studies by Andrzej Poppe in many ways represents a continuation of the research brought together a quarter century ago in the author's previous Variorum volume. The focal themes are the political circumstances of the 'baptism of Russia' and the processes by which Rus' became a Christian country, an era marked by the emergence of indigenous saints in royal and monastic garb. Relations with the Byzantine world, both political and ecclesiastical, are often to the fore, but as Poppe shows, those with the West, from the Carolingians onwards, were important too. Many of the articles are provided with additional notes, and the volume includes three pieces previously unpublished in English, including an introductory survey of the Rurikid dynasty, and a major new study of the process by which Vladimir the Great became a saint.

These essays by Russian scholars represent an attempt to give meaning to the interaction of religious consciousness and culture. They represent an exposition of historical, theological, ecclesiastical, philosophical and moral problems from the point of view of the religious consciousness, a function which was the exclusive prerogative of the clergy, and consequently absent in scholarly literature of the Soviet period. The collection as a whole witnesses to the liberation of Christian thought in Russia. With an introduction by Natalia Pecherskaya, Director of the St Petersburg School of Religion and Philosophy. Essays include: Sergei Bulgakov - His Life and His Reflections in It; A Case Study for the Churching of the Russian Intelligencia, A.M. Choufrine; Christian Tradition and the Birth of the Concept of Patriotism in Russia, M.M. Krom; On the Doctrine of the Church, V.A. Alymov; The Word of the Church - On the Orthodox Exegesis, G.I. Benevich; Theology on the Margins of Philosophy, A.G. Chernyakov; Metaphysics in Dostoevsky's Poetics, O.M. Nogovitsyn.

In AD 988, Grand Prince Vladimir I of Kiev, replaced paganism with Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the official religious orientation of Kievan Russians.