River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1876-11-09
RUssIA,s CONVERSION.
How Russia was Made a Christian State |
the VIII of One Man.

The prospect we have now of war
between Russia, in her capacity of
Christian power, and Turkey as the
leader of Mohammedanism, gives in
terest to the strange story that history
tells of the way in which Russia be-
came Christian, wrestling her CONVEX
sion by force of arms from the Empe-
rors Basil and Constantine in their cap
ital, Constantinople.
In the latter half of the tenth CEN
fury the Grand Prince SyiatoZlaf man.
aged to get his own skull trimmed
with gold, inscribed with legend and
made more useful as drinking cup
than it had ever been as a skull, and
his three sons divided Russia between /
them. 1t happened. however, that
one of the sons, Vladimir, had ability /
and courage, two useful qualities /
which his brothers lacked, and. hav-
ing ambition also, he was not long in /
depriving himself of brothers, and |
providing himself with united empire |
whose borders he diligently labored to |
extend in every direction.
Failing TO secure the affections of a |
princess whom he desired to marry, |
| Vladimir made war upon her father,
slew him with his own hand, and, |
without washing off the blood with
which his palm was stained, compelled |
the lady to become his wife.
Vladimir was pagan, and after win
ming this and other wars in which he
had been engaged, he piously resolved
to give public thanks to his gods, and
especially to PERFUME, the god of the
| golden whlskers, upon whom he con-
ferred a new and costly beard for the
occasion. He planned to sacrifice a
Christian youth upon this gods altar,
and was prevented only by the obsti-
macy of his chosen victim, who resist
ed so stoutly that he was slain in the
attempt to win his consent by force.
Pious as he was, however, Vladimir
was Eot by any means satisfied that
his religion was the best that could be
had, or that his gods were altogether
worthy of HIS countenance. He listen
ed to the missionaries of various faiths
| who sought to convert him, and tried
/ to choose between them by a process
of elimination. Judaism he rejected
/ as unfit for great young empire be-
cause their followers had been unable
to preserve their own national exist
ence, and were wanderers on the face
| of the earth. Mohammedanism did
not please him because its sacred book
forbade the use of wine, and Vladimir
1 esteemed wine one of the necessary
things of life. The Roman Church
recognized in its Pope a person super
iOr to himself, and therefore he would
have nothing to do with it. Thus one
faith after another was rejected for
cause, and only that of the Greek Church
seemed possible to him. lie had pur-
sued his studies of theology diligently,
and sent commission of learned men
to study each faith in its home.
Finally he determined to become a
Christian of the Greek school, and
straightway determined to,be baptized,
but here difficulty presented itself.
To be baptized he must have priest.
There were priests enough in his cap
ital, of course, but they were despised
missionaries, belonging to the lower
order of the clergy, and Vladimir pos
itively would not become Christian
through the agency of a less person
than an Archbishop. AS there was
no Archbishop in Russia the great
pagan Emperor must of course import
one from the Byzantine Empire to con-
vert and baptize him, and he knew
very we'll that the royal heads of the
|
" send him dozen or scoe of their
most exalted ecclesiastics in regal state
for the purpose but the young con-
vert to Christianity was not accOstom-
ed to ask favors of the Byzantine En-
perors, and he would rather have re-
manned an unconverted pagan than ask
for the means of conversion.
He had made up his mind. however,
to become Christian, and he deter
mined to march an army into the
neighboring nation and capture an
Archbishop by force, taking the King
dom of Heaven by violence, as it were
His followers approved this plan right
heartily, as it would give them ample
opportunities for plumber, and war
was at once declared by this convert
in search of an Archbishop to baptiZe
him.
His first point of attack was the City
of Kaffa, in the Crimea, but the resist
ance made was so vigorous that his
siege of six months threatened to end
in failure. When matters were at
their worst, however, treachery came
to his aid, and, learning the source of
the city's water supply, he cut it off
and compelled capitulation.
vladimir now had ArchbiShops in
plenty, and, the water having been re-
stored to its channels, there was no
obstacle to his immediate baptism
but the convert wanted another wife
and an alliance as well as religion,
and he sent messenger to ConStantl-
nople to demand the hand of the Prin-
cess Anne, the sister of the two emper-
ors, wooing her with threat to sack
the capital if she or her brothers
should'oppose his suit. Consent was
reluctantly given-at last, and Vladimir
was baptized and married on the same
| day. 1t is perhaps worth mentioning
that he had several wives already,
while the church with which he unit
ed himself restricted its members then
as it does now to one.
Having got himself converted to
Christianity at SO great cost of time,
money, and labor, Vladimir deter
mined that his people should also be-
come Christians. His piety and zeal
for religion, which had so recently
shown themselves in his attempt to
make human sacrifice to his idols,
were changed only in their direction.
| He was as jealous for religion now as
| before, but in different religion, and
he was impatient of slow processes in
| the conversion of his Russians.
1t was no part of his plan to reason
with his subjects or to preach to them.
He was Christian and they must be-
| come so as matter of course. He
stripped the golden-whiskered father
of the gods of his recently bought |
beard and of his costly raiment, and |
directed attention to the fact that the |
god was only log of wood. He had |
the dethroned idol dragged at horses |
heels, whipped by the soldiers, and |
flung into river, in the presence of
tho nnnn1p