Askold and Dir
Christianity came to the Slavs already in the 1st century. According to early church historians, Apostle Andrew preached Christianity to Slavs and Scythians, in the area between Eastern Europe in the west, and Caucasus and at the Black Sea coast in the south and east, particularly in Scythia within the autocephalous Scythian eparchy. Other active eparchies included the Gothian, Sourozhian, Fullian and the Bosporian. In this period Christianity began to rise within this area. Christianity was spread in the 9th century by crucial happenings that are often characterized as baptisms; if excluding the first baptism of the Rus under Apostle Andrew, those are the preachings and enlightenings of Slavs by Cyril and Method, the baptism of and by Askold and Dir, the baptism of and by Olga and finally the actual baptism under Vladimir I in 988.