page_title: Early Slavs
section_title: Christianization
hierarchical_section_title: Early Slavs / Later history / Christianization
caption_attribution_description: English: The first page of the Gospel of Mark from Codex Zographensis Русский: Первая страница Евангелия от Марка из Зографского кодекса. Рукопись найдена в 1843 году в Зографском монастыре на Афоне. Français&#160;: La première page de l'Évangile selon Marc de Codex Zographensis
context_page_description: The early Slavs were a diverse group of tribal societies who lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages in Central and Eastern Europe and established the foundations for the Slavic nations through the Slavic states of the High Middle Ages. The first written use of the name "Slavs" dates to the 6th century, when the Slavic tribes inhabited a large portion of Central and Eastern Europe. By then, the nomadic Iranian ethnic groups living on the Eurasian Steppe had been absorbed by the region's Slavic population. Over the next two centuries, the Slavs expanded southwest toward the Balkans and the Alps and northeast towards the Volga River. The Slavs' original habitation is still a matter of controversy, but scholars believe that it was somewhere in Eastern Europe.
  Beginning in the 9th century, the Slavs gradually converted to Christianity.
context_section_description: Christianization began in the 9th century and was not complete until the second half of the 12 century. The Christianization of Bulgaria was made official in 864, during the reign of Emperor Boris I during shifting political alliances both with the Byzantine Empire and the kingdom of the East Franks and the communication with the Pope. Because of the Bulgarian Empire's strategic position, the Greek East and the Latin West wanted their people to adhere to their liturgies and to ally with them politically. After overtures from each side, Boris aligned with Constantinople and secured an autocephalous Bulgarian national church in 870, the first for the Slavs. In 918/919, the Bulgarian Patriarchate became the fifth autocephalous Eastern Orthodox patriarchate, after the patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. That status was officially recognised by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 927. The Bulgarian Empire developed into the cultural and literary centre of Slavic Europe. The development of the Cyrillic script at the Preslav Literary School, which was declared official in Bulgaria in 893, was also declared the official liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, also called Old Bulgarian.
  Although there is some evidence of early Christianization of the East Slavs, Kievan Rus' either remained largely pagan or relapsed into paganism before the baptism of Vladimir the Great in the 980s. The Christianization of Poland began with the Catholic baptism of King Mieszko I in 966. Slavic paganism persisted into the 12th century in Pomerania, which began to be Christianized after the creation of the Duchy of Pomerania as part of the Holy Roman Empire in 1121. The process was mostly completed by the Wendish Crusade in 1147. The final stronghold of Slavic paganism was the Rani, with a temple to their god Svetovid on Cape Arkona, which was taken in a campaign by Valdemar I of Denmark in 1168.
caption: Page of the Gospel of Mark from Codex Zographensis, an Old Church Slavonic manuscript written in Glagolitic script.
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