Глава I. Христианство на Руси до св. Владимира 12

I. Prehistoric times. By prehistoric times we mean the times from the appearance of Christianity on earth until the half of the 9th century, when our Russian state was founded by the Varangians. A later legend included in the chronicle, expressing the desire of our ancestors to derive the beginning of our Christianity directly from the apostles, and precisely, if not from their preaching to people, then at least from the blessing they gave to the place, forces the apostle. Andrew to travel through Rus' so that he would bless the Kyiv mountains, which, according to the author or authors of the legend, were not yet inhabited by anyone in the age of the apostles. Refusing the vain claim of our ancestors, although partly and in a sense only to appropriate to our church the title of the apostolic church and like other Christian nations who did not see the apostles among themselves, having the modesty to limit ourselves and be content with the confidence that the apostles, without being with us in body, blessed in spirit, equally with the entire universe, our Russian land, we must accept the legend for what it is, that is, for a simple work later folk art (detailed discussions about it below). If the introduction of Christianity among us earlier than it actually was depended on our place of residence, then at the moment of the appearance of Christianity on earth, our ancestors not only occupied the territory in present-day European Russia where history found them in the middle of the 9th century, but were also already very long-standing inhabitants on it, for they occupied it in times immemorially prehistoric not only in relation to ourselves, but also to Europe in general 13 . But we were destined to come to Christ no earlier than about the tenth or eleventh hour, and Christianity could only be established among us with the advent of historical times for us. However, there should be some talk about Christianity in our country even in prehistoric times. Regarding the majority of the Slavic tribes that belonged to that tribal whole, which at the beginning of historical times received from the founders of their state, the Varangian-Russians, the name Russian Slavs, we can positively say that in prehistoric times Christianity did not penetrate them at all and that during these times it remained completely unknown to them. But there were two tribes regarding which we do not have the right to say this in a positive way and regarding which it is, on the contrary, possible to accept what should be denied regarding other tribes. Christianity could spread among the Russian Slavs from the Greeks. It is absolutely incredible to assume that Christianity was spread by the Greeks among those tribes of Russian Slavs who lived far from them, who were not in any relations with them and who remained completely unknown to them. For it does not and cannot happen that Christian missionaries search around the world for unknown peoples to whom they could preach Christianity (but they go to peoples that have already been found). But it is impossible to deny the possibility that the Greeks were concerned about the spread of Christianity among those tribes of our Slavs who lived in the neighborhood with them or who, without living in the neighborhood, were in more or less active relations with them. And two tribes from among the Slavic-Russian tribes fit the now specified conditions. These tribes were the Uglich and Tivertsi tribe and the Kiev Polyany tribe. The Uglichi and Tivertsi lived on the lower Dniester and from the Dniester to the lower Danube 14. It should be taken for granted that in their place of residence they were not the latest newcomers who descended from the north in the 5th-7th centuries AD, but the same (and even more ancient) relative aborigines as other Slavic tribes were in their places of residence 15. But if this is so, then regarding the possibility that existed for the spread of Christianity between them from the Greeks, the following should be said. Firstly, having been conquered by the last Dacian king Decebalus, Uglichi and Tivertsi under the emperor Trajan (101–107 AD), together with all of Dacia, fell under the authority of the Romans 16, and administratively their territory was separated from Dacia and was annexed to the Transdanubian Lower Mysia (present-day Bulgaria). But in Lower Mysia Christianity appeared no later than the middle of the 2nd century 17. Secondly, when in 271, under the Emperor Aurelian, the Romans withdrew from Dacia, at the same time their power over the territory of the Uglichi-Tivertsi ended, these latter remained direct neighbors across the Danube of that part of Lower Mysia, which was located between the Danube and the Black Sea and which later, having been separated from Mysia, was made a special province with the name Scythia (Scythia Minor - present-day Dobruja). And in this part of Lower Mysia, the inhabitants of which, by the way, were also Slavs, Christianity appeared and its own special episcopal see was established (in the city of Tom, the subsequent main city of the province of Scythia), in any case, no later than Emperor Diocletian 18. Thirdly, at the mouth of the Dniester (actually somewhat lower, on the shore of the Dniester estuary) there was a large Greek colony, called by the ancient name of the river Tiras. And between the mouths of the Dniester and Danube there were other smaller Greek colonies. We have no positive information that Christianity spread to these colonies while they existed. But we have strong reasons to believe that this was indeed the case 19. Fourthly, it is not incredible to assume that among the now-mentioned Slavs (as inhabitants of Lower Mysia), closely related to the Russian Slavs, Christianity to some extent spread in their own place of residence before their decisive movement to the Balkan Peninsula (from the end of the 4th - beginning of the 5th century) - Dacia, in which they were separated from our Russian Slavs by the Seret or Prut rivers 20. Tertullian and Blessed Jerome 21 speak about Christianity in Dacia, and if for the first one can understand the Roman colonists settled by Trajan in Dacia, then for the second it is already necessary to understand the barbarian inhabitants of the country, among whom the Slavs constituted the overwhelming majority. Finally, fifthly, if not from an earlier time, then at least from the reign of Emperor Justinian (527–565), the Uglich-Tivertsy, on the one hand, served in the Byzantine troops as mercenaries, and on the other hand, in community with the Dacian Slavs or separately from them, they made very frequent raids on the empire, and took away many prisoners 22. The Kyiv Glades, whose territory did not extend very far to the south of Kyiv, were not neighbors of the Greeks, who made up the inhabitants of the Greek colonies located on the Dnieper, for these latter were all beyond the thresholds. (Which begin 12 versts down from Ekaterinoslav and stretch for 70 versts to the city of Alexandrovsk) 23. But they carried on constant regular trade with them, as one must think, since the time of Herodotus 24. And that in the Dnieper Greek colonies, while they existed, Christianity was widespread, we have positive evidence of this 25. So, we have no right to deny the possibility that between the two now-mentioned tribes of the Russian Slavs, Christianity was spread by the Greeks in prehistoric times. What can we say about the actual probability of the possible? But before giving our conjectural answer, we must talk about the testimony we read from church writers, from which it seems to follow that, with the elimination of all assumptions, a positive answer to the question in the affirmative sense must simply be given. The western half of present-day European Russia along the Don River to the east, in which our ancestors lived in prehistoric times, was known to the Greeks under the name of Scythia, and to the Romans it began to be called Sarmatia 26. But church writers of the 3rd-5th centuries, namely: Tertullian († 240), Athanasius of Alexandria († 373), John Chrysostom († 407) and Blessed Jerome († 420), speaking about the spread of Christianity in the universe, name the Scythians and Sarmatians among the peoples among whom it was established 27 . If our ancestors - the Russian Slavs were Scythians or Sarmatians for the Greeks, and writers say that Christianity was established between the Scythians and Sarmatians: then, apparently, we have positive evidence of the spread of Christianity in prehistoric times among our ancestors - the Russian Slavs. Moreover, it would be necessary to understand the two tribes we mentioned separately from the many tribes of these Slavs. In fact, the testimony of writers about the spread of Christianity between the Scythians and Sarmatians does not at all represent positive evidence in relation to the Russian Slavs. First of all, these testimonies hardly constitute testimony in the proper sense in relation to anyone. Among classical Greco-Roman writers, and after them among Christian church writers, the names Scythian and Sarmatian are used not only in the proper meaning of the peoples who inhabited the country called Scythia or Sarmatia, but also in the common meaning of barbarians in general. And predominantly - the most savage or rude barbarians and inhabiting the most remote and least known parts of the earth. If writers had spoken about the spread of Christianity between the Scythians and Sarmatians in deliberate speeches about Scythia or Sarmatia as a country, then the matter would have been indisputable. But this is not what we find with them: they claim that the prophetic was fulfilled on the apostles and the first preachers of Christianity: their message went out into the whole earth and their words into the ends of the world (Ps. 18:5). And, listing the peoples among whom Christianity is widespread, they name, together with other peoples, without any indication of place of residence, the Scythians and Sarmatians. And therefore, it is quite possible to understand them in such a way that they use the names Scythian and Sarmatian not in the proper meaning of the inhabitants of the country called Scythia or Sarmatia, but in the common meaning of barbarians occupying the most remote places of residence and the very ends of the earth. In other words, it is quite possible to understand them in such a way that they use the names Scythian and Sarmatian not in order to talk about the spread of Christianity in a well-known country called Scythia or Sarmatia, but in order to designate as strongly as possible with these names, which they use as a common noun, only the universality or ubiquity of the spread of Christianity on earth 28 . Then, if we accept that the writers mean by Scythians and Sarmatians the inhabitants of precisely and truly the country called Scythia or Sarmatia, then from here it will not necessarily follow that they mean our ancestors - the Slavs. These latter were indeed Greco-Roman Scythians or Sarmatians at their place of residence, but they did not at all constitute the only people who bore the name Scythians or Sarmatians among the Greeks and Romans. The name Scythian for some and the name Sarmat for others was not an ethnographic name, belonging to a famous people from whom the country would have received its name, but a geographical one, borrowed from a country called Scythia or Sarmatia, and adopted by the inhabitants of this country, whoever they were. But the Russian Slavs were by no means the only, or at least the main, inhabitants of the country called Scythia or Sarmatia: they occupied the areas in which their history found them in the middle of the 9th century. But the entire huge steppe to the south and east of them belonged to the nomadic peoples of the Turkic-Mongol tribe (and also, perhaps, tribes of unknown, disappeared ones), who were older aborigines of the country than the Slavs, and from whom it was from the Greeks that it received the name Scythia 29. And thus, if we accept that the named writers mean by Scythians and Sarmatians the actual inhabitants of the country called Scythia or Sarmatia, then it will remain completely unknown and unresolved which inhabitants or which peoples of the country they mean by Scythians and Sarmatians. Accepting the last case, i.e., what the writers mean by Scythians and Sarmatians are the inhabitants of the country called Scythia or Sarmatia, most likely they mean not some barbarian peoples of the country, but the Greeks themselves, namely, the inhabitants of the Greek colonies located in Scythia or Sarmatia along the northern shore of the Black Sea. A very ancient tradition, first read in Origen († 254), traces the beginning of Christianity among the local Greeks or Greek colonists to the times of the apostles, claiming that the Apostle Andrew received the lot to preach Christianity in Scythia (see below). Moreover, by Scythia we should mean precisely our colonies located in the latter along the Black Sea coast. The news of the apostolic preaching of Christianity in this Greek Scythia could have given the writers a basis, assuming that by Scythians and Sarmatians they meant the inhabitants of the country called Scythia or Sarmatia, to talk about the spread of Christianity in general, between the Scythians and Sarmatians 30 . Having made a digression, we return to the hypothetical answer to the question we posed. Regarding the Kyiv Glades, it seems very unlikely to think that Christianity spread between them in prehistoric times. The Glades conducted constant regular trade with the Greeks of the Dnieper-Black Sea colonies. But things did not happen in such a way that Greek merchants went to trade in the land of Polyana, but in such a way that Polyanian merchants came with their goods either to trading towns (markets) located on the border of the territory of the colonies, or to the Greek cities themselves. And with this order of trade, the Greeks could conduct it with the Polyans for a very long time and remain in complete ignorance about their country. To confirm our words, we can refer to our own example: Khiva and Bukhara merchants have long been coming to the Makaryevskaya fair to sell their goods and buy Russian goods, and, however, despite this, we remained almost completely unknown about their countries until we reached the latter ourselves. But it is very unlikely that there could be missionaries in the Greek colonies who would have the desire to go preaching Christianity to a remote country completely unknown. For the missionaries, assuming that they came at all, instead of traveling to an unknown country, it was quite enough to work among the barbarians well known to them who surrounded the colonies. And even if we assume that the Greeks of the colonies were more or less aware of the country of Polyana, then this knowledge of it could not at all have disposed their missionaries to travel to it to preach Christianity. In a country remote from them, the Greeks, their missionaries could have a desire to preach Christianity only in the hope of founding their own separate church in it. For otherwise, where would those converted to Christianity be left, that is, what would happen to their Christianity if they had no priests and bishops? But one can only hope to establish one’s own separate church in relation to a country that is a real state, with supreme power in the person of a real sovereign, who would take care of the founding of the church and who would protect its existence. And what hope could one have of founding one’s own separate church in a country in which there was no state power at all in the proper sense of the word and in which this state power was represented by the heads of clans (tribal communities), that is, in which there was no real sovereign, but there were a great many not real small ones, like the current volost elders, and even lesser sovereigns? But in the realm of the possible, sometimes what actually happens is precisely what seems very unlikely, for which reason we cannot decisively reject the assumption that Christianity was to some extent established in the Kyiv Glades in prehistoric times. Assuming this assumption, it will be necessary to attribute the establishment of Christianity among them to very ancient times, and regarding its disappearance from them it will be necessary to think that the latter took place long before the beginning of historical times. We do not know positively when the Greek colonies located in the lower reaches of the Dnieper and on the northern shore of the Black Sea, from which Christianity could have been brought to Polyany, ceased to exist. But in all likelihood one must think that this happened no later than the beginning of the so-called great migration of peoples, which opened in 376 with the influx of the Mongol Huns into Europe. As for the disappearance, it follows from our chronicler that at the beginning of historical times the Polyans had absolutely no memory of Christianity 31 . But if it seems very unlikely to think that in prehistoric times Christianity spread between Polyany: then, on the contrary, regarding Uglichi and Tivertsi this probability cannot be disputed. They were neighbors of the Greeks of that part of Lower Mysia, which, after being separated into a special province, was called Scythia, and just across the river (meaning the Danube), and the Greeks of the colonies located on the Dniester and along the Black Sea coast between the mouths of the Dniester and the Danube and in a completely direct way. They were not neighbors at all that the Greeks would find unworthy of paying attention to, not some small tribe that would be completely overshadowed and lost among other neighbors, but a very numerous tribe that could not be looked at except as a whole people 32, and not some extremely savage tribe, living “an animalistic and bestial way,” but, on the contrary, more or less freed from savagery and began to assimilate yourself - perhaps, and very likely, thanks to the same proximity to the Greeks, real human citizenship 33 . It is very incredible to think that the Greeks of Scythia Minor and the Dniester-Black Sea colonies were not at all jealous to convert such neighbors to Christianity. The consideration we indicated, which should have taken away from the Greeks the desire to spread Christianity between the Polyans, namely, that it was not possible to found their own private church among them, should not have taken place in relation to Uglich and Tivertsy. Given their proximity to the Greeks, they could be part of the Greek Church itself, in order to be in charge and receive clergy from the Greek bishops closest to them. The service of the Uglichs and Tiverts in the troops of the empire as mercenaries naturally resembles the same later service of the Varangians. But if we know about the Varangians who served in the troops of the empire that among them there were a considerable number of individuals who converted to Christianity: then we cannot deny the likelihood of the same in relation to the Uglich and Tivertsy. Finally, it would be very incredible that among the many prisoners who were taken out of the empire by the Uglichs and Tivertsi there were no people who wanted to preach Christianity to their pagan enslavers. Thus, in view of what we have now indicated, the probability of the assumption that Christianity from the Greeks spread between the Uglich and Tivertsi in prehistoric times cannot be denied. However, we have indirect evidence, from which it follows that, in any case, we should not assume this prevalence to be significant, but only more or less insignificant. Blessed Theodoret reports about St. John Chrysostom, that he was the first, through the missionaries he sent, to erect Christian altars among the Scythian nomads who lived near the Danube, who, as he learned, longed for salvation, but did not have people near them ready to quench their thirst 34. If Chrysostom was the first to make some experience of converting the Scythian nomads neighboring the Greeks to Christianity, and if in his time there were no people capable of preaching activities or, in this case, actually catechetical activities, then it is obvious that one cannot think very much about the preaching activities of the Greeks and among their neighboring sedentary Scythians, such as the Tivertsi and Uglich people were 35 . Conveying news about the service of our Slavs in the armies of the empire and about their very frequent raids on the latter, Procopius of Caesarea makes deliberate speeches about the pagan religion of the Tivertsi-Uglichs, but at the same time does not make any remarks about the spread of Christianity among them 36 . The slight spread of Christianity between the Tivertsy-Uglich people could have remained unknown to Procopius; but that he did not know or, knowing, kept silent about the significant spread, this is very incredible. In the second half of the 7th century, the Bulgarians who came from the East occupied the part of the Byzantine Empire located between the Danube and the Balkans. And along with this, it had to happen that, on the one hand, Christianity in the former Greek Scythia Minor, if not completely ceased to exist, then at least lost, if it had previously had, the spirit and zeal of all propaganda. And on the other hand, that the Uglichi-Tivertsi were separated from the empire both as its allies and as its enemies. But in the middle of the 9th century, the Bulgarians themselves, who by this time had completely adopted the nationality of the Slavs they had conquered in Dacia and beyond the Danube, accepted Christianity from the Greeks. And thus, from the half of the 9th century until the baptism of Vladimir at the end of the 10th century, Christianity could spread between the Uglich-Tivertsi from these Bolgars, who were their close fellow tribesmen. One cannot, we said, assume much. But, assuming not much, it is possible to assume, or at least not impossible not to admit, that Christianity appeared among the Tivertsi-Uglichi quite early and that it existed among them throughout our prehistoric times, as well as historical ones until St. Vladimir. However, even this Christianity, most likely assumed to have existed among one of the Slavic-Russian tribes until historical times, should not be put in connection with subsequent historical Christianity. Uglichi and Tivertsi did not become part of the Russian state founded by Rurik: in 914 they were conquered by Igor, but 30–40 years after that they fell under the rule of the Pechenegs, under which they remained not only before the baptism of Vladimir, but also for a very long time after 37. Let's end with a brief repetition of what we said above. In prehistoric times, Christianity could have spread from the Greeks between two tribes of Russian Slavs, namely among the Tiverts and Uglichs and among the Kyiv Polyans. There is very little probability of thinking that it actually spread between the latter and, on the contrary, there is a sufficient probability of thinking that it spread to a more or less insignificant degree, however, among the former. Assuming the unlikely possibility that it spread among the Polyany, it will be necessary to attribute its complete disappearance from them to a very long time before the onset of historical times. Assuming, not at all incredible, that Christianity existed among the Tiverts and Uglichs until St. Vladimir, we should not connect him with the latter’s Christianity. In general, about the mutual connection between our prehistoric Christianity, admitting its existence, and that which began with St. Vladimir, historical Christianity should think that there was no such connection between them and that the latter, without having its beginning from the first, appeared as something completely new and independent 38 . The legend about the visit to Russia by the Apostle Andrew. The introduction to the true, reliable history of the state and church of almost all peoples is the so-called folk traditions, which are sometimes created by the truly collective creativity of an entire people, sometimes, on the contrary, by the individual creativity of just individuals. The history of our Russian Christianity begins with such a folk legend, namely, the well-known story of the journey to Russia, or more precisely, through Russia, of the Apostle Andrew. Both in the question of folk legends in general, and in the question of our story, it is impossible to decide whether it is a work of national or private creativity, belonging in the latter case to some idle literate. It is more likely and more desirable to think, of course, the first, but it is not at all impossible to think the second. Be that as it may, the meaning and moral teaching of the story are clear; she wants to say and prove: we, the Russians, are by no means the last people in the Christian Church, and our Christianity originates in the same way from the apostles themselves, as from anyone else. The apostles could not introduce this Christianity among us by deed, but they visited and blessed our land and, through election, included it in the Church of Christ, of which it thus became a part from its very beginning. Although part of it remained for a long time, so to speak, in petto, only in thought and predestination. If the story belongs to folk art in general, then it should testify to the vanity of our ancestors as a whole people who did not want to remain in the latter and, having come to Christ around the eleventh hour, nevertheless wanted to transfer themselves to the former. If the story belongs to one person, then it only testifies to the vanity of its unknown author. In our original chronicle this story is written as follows. From Greece through Russia there was a path to the Varangians and further to Rome, namely, from the Black Sea along the Dnieper to its upper reaches, from here by drag 39 to the Lovat River, which flows and leads into Lake Ilmen; from Ilmen to Volkhov, to Lake Ladoga, to the mouth of this lake or the Neva River and to the Varyazhskoe (Baltic) Sea; along this last one to the Varangians and then to Rome. The Apostle Andrew, who preached the gospel throughout the Black Sea, once came from Sinop, which is on its southern or Asian shore 40, to Tauric Chersonesus or Korsun, and here he learned that the mouth of the Dnieper was not far from here. Having wished to visit Rome, the apostle went to the mouth of the Dnieper in order to go to it by the now indicated road. When, on his journey, he, with his disciples accompanying him, went up the Dnieper in boats, then one day by chance (by God’s arrangement) 41 he had to stop for the night near the shore under the mountains. These mountains were exactly the same ones on which Kyiv was later built. Rising the next morning, the apostle pointed to the mountains to his disciples and said: “Do you see these mountains? Look, for the grace of God will shine on these mountains, a great city will be built on them, and God will erect many churches on them.” After this, the apostle ascended the mountains, blessed them, prayed, and on the one on which the city was later built in the old meaning of the word, he placed a cross 42. Walking his way further, the apostle came to the Slavs, where Novgorod was later built, that is, to the Slavic tribe, which was called by this name in the closest sense. He saw the custom of the local people, how they wash themselves (in baths) and boast 43, and marveled at them. Then he went to the Varangians and finally came to Rome. Narrating in Rome how much he had accomplished with his preaching and what he had seen, the apostle, among other things, said: “I saw something very wonderful in the Slavic land when I walked here - I saw wooden baths, and they would heat them (that is, the heaters in them) red-hot and strip completely naked and douse themselves with sour kvass 44 and take on bunches of young rods and begin to beat themselves and themselves they will finish off (var. get off, i.e. from the regiment) barely alive; after that they will douse themselves with cold water, and then they will come to life again; and they do this constantly, not being tormented by anyone, but torturing themselves and thus doing not ablution for themselves, but torment.” The Romans, hearing the story, were amazed; the apostle, having been in Rome, again returned to Sinop. It may very well be that the ambition and vanity of our ancestors, wanting to ensure that our country was visited by one of the apostles, would not have been particularly difficult to compose a story about this even if there had been no reason and no external reason for this. But there really was an external reason to compose such a story specifically about the Apostle Andrew. The only thing that seems puzzling at first glance is that the story is composed this way and not otherwise. Most of the Greek legends about the Apostle Andrew say that it was his destiny to preach Christianity, among other things, in Scythia, and some of the legends were translated into the Slavic language in very ancient times 45. And since the territory occupied by our ancestors was located precisely in Scythia, as our chronicler directly speaks of, it would be expected that the compiler of the story would force the apostle to take a special trip to Rus', and not make only a random, passing trip through it. Perhaps the compiler of the story was unaware of the Greek legends translated into Slavic, speaking about the preaching of the Apostle Andrew in Scythia; perhaps he found it incredible and implausible to extend the preaching of the apostle in Scythia to the territory of our ancestors. Be that as it may, in any case, he had a direct or private very important incentive to present the matter exactly as he presented it. If the apostle were to be brought to Rus' on purpose, then it would be necessary to lead him to preach Christianity to people, and not to bless uninhabited mountains. For to force him to make a very distant deliberate journey for the last purpose would mean to say about him not only something completely incredible, but even attract ridicule to his memory. But to lead the apostle to Rus' to preach Christianity to people would mean to compose a story about his journey to Rus' only in order to say that the apostle came to our ancestors preaching Christianity and that they remained deaf to his preaching. Thus, in order to force the Apostle Andrew to visit Rus', and at the same time preserve the good glory of our ancestors, it seemed possible only to compose a story about his fleeting, accidental journey through Rus'. There were external reasons or pretexts for composing the latter kind of journey. Our ancestors knew, translated into the Slavic language, such Greek legends about the Apostle Andrew, which, speaking in detail about the places of his preaching, claim that He was on the northern shore of the Black Sea - in Tauris or Crimea. And here between other cities in Chersonesos or Korsun 46. In ancient times, this Korsun could be called, so to speak, the very threshold of Rus', because although it was not particularly close to it, it then constituted for it almost the same inevitable and as familiar market as the cities closest to them constitute for our villages, since in it the Russians acquired for themselves all the products of the European-Asian civilized industry. From Korsun in the time of our ancient ancestors there was a path through Russia to the Varangians, and from the Varangians to Rome, as they knew, there was a direct and continuous path by sea: thus, the path from Korsun to Rome really went through Russia. This is how the compiler of the story led Apostle Andrew from Korsun to Rome in order to force him to bless the Kyiv mountains in passing. Sending an apostle from Korsun to Rome by our route is the same as sending someone from Moscow to St. Petersburg by way of Odessa; but to make possible the completely unnatural or incredible is one of the privileges of compilers of folk legends. Moreover, when composing this unexpected and too original route, the compiler of the story, in all likelihood, did not consider it as impossibly strange as it actually was: having insufficient geographical information, he probably only found it somewhat longer than the direct route along the Mediterranean Sea. This actual path was known to the compiler of the story and is directly indicated by him 47, so if he considers it possible to send the apostle, who was in Korsun at the beginning of both paths, along the first one, then it is clear that he does not believe there is too much difference between both paths. If, with all the poverty of his geographical information, the compiler of the story still knew that, leading the apostle from Korsun to Rome along his own path, he forced him to make an absolutely incredible detour: then he could find it sufficient for himself that some kind of path existed. And then, like all compilers of folk tales who are not deceiving themselves, they counted on the ignorance and ignorance of their readers... It is necessary to think that the story of the Apostle Andrew appeared after the time of compilation of the initial chronicle and there is a later insertion in this latter. In another story, read in the same chronicle, it is said that “from here (in the Russian land) the apostles did not teach” and that “in body the apostles were not from here” 48 . Whether this second story belongs to the compiler of the chronicle himself or whether there is also an insertion in it, but, in any case, it should be recognized as older than our story. And to the story of the translation of books into the Slavic language by Methodius and Constantine, whether it was included in the chronicle by the chronicler himself (being not compiled by him) or after him, the remark is added that our teacher is Rus (not the Apostle Andrew), but, like all Slavs, the Apostle Paul: “The teacher of the Slovenian language is Andronicus the Apostle, who went to the Moravians; and the Apostle Paul taught that, because there is Ilyurik, the Apostle Paul reached him, because that was the first Slovene; The teacher of the Slovenian language is Pavel, from him we are the language - Rus', and for us the teacher of Rus' is Pavel. The conclusion about the not very early origin of our story should also be led by the fact that our ancestors could not be infected with vanity and think about satisfying it immediately after they accepted Christianity, but only after they had more or less settled in it and how it had more or less firmly settled and established itself in their country, which could have awakened their pride 49 . The edition of the story included in the chronicle is remarkable. The serious is at least half mixed in it with the comic and humorous, and the apostle is used in a not entirely modest way as an instrument of ridicule. Belonging to Little Russia, the editors aim half to glorify Kyiv, on the mountains of which the apostle erected a cross, and half to ridicule the Great Russian Novgorod, in which he seemed to have strange Great Russian baths. It is known that our regions loved to laugh at one another and composed many mocking legends and sayings about each other 50; It is known that two large regions especially loved, as they still love to this day, to laugh at one another – Great Russian and Little Russian. The edition of the story about the Apostle Andrew, placed in the chronicle, is an example of such mocking tales of the Little Russians about the Great Russians. The Little Russian, who does not have our Great Russian baths 51, and for whom these baths constitute an extremely funny oddity, 52 with his famous humor says in the story to the Great Russian: while he was with us in Kyiv, the apostle uttered a prophecy, blessed the mountains and put a cross on them. And here in Novgorod I was only amazed at your cunning invention of whipping and torturing yourself, which you talked about even in Rome. Naturally, the Novgorodians did not want to remain ridiculed. And so, in response to the Kyiv edition of the story, the Novgorod edition appeared. Unwilling or unable to respond to ridicule with equal ridicule, the Novgorodians reward themselves by trying to elevate themselves above the Kievans. Speaking about Kyiv the same as above, the Novgorod edition is silent about the Novgorod baths and instead says that in the Novgorod region the apostle preached the word of God 53 and left his staff for blessing 54 . That is, the Novgorodians answer in their edition to the Kievans: in your Kyiv the apostle limited himself to only putting a cross on empty mountains, but with us he did much more, declared his favor to us in a more tangible way. If initially the Russians were content only with forcing one of the apostles to bless their land, then it is natural that over time their claims should increase, especially since the later Novgorod edition of the story, which says that the apostle preached the word of God in the Novgorod region, provided them with some grounds for such claims. From the 16th century, if not earlier, the Russians began to consider and present the Apostle Andrew as the first real planter of the Christian faith in Rus', and when a need or opportunity presented itself, they proudly and firmly pointed to this as an undeniable fact. The famous Anthony Possevin, persuading Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible to unite with the pope, referred to the example of the Greeks, who accepted the union at the Council of Florence. The king answered: “We believe not in the Greeks, but in Christ. We received the Christian faith at the beginning of the Christian church, when Andrew, the brother of the Apostle Peter, came to these countries to go to Rome. Thus, we in Moscow accepted the Christian faith at the same time as you in Italy, and from then until now we have observed it inviolably” 55. In the middle of the 17th century, the famous elder Arseny Sukhanov, sent by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to Greece to describe church rites, had heated disputes with the Greeks over our pre-Nikon disagreements with them in some church rites. When the Greeks pointed out to Sukhanov that we, the Russians, accepted the faith from them - the Greeks and, therefore, should agree with them in everything, he replied: “How much you boast about yourself, that we received baptism from you, we received baptism from the Apostle Andrew, when after the Ascension of the Lord he came to Byzantium and from there we went along the Black Sea to the Dnieper, and along the Dnieper up to Kyiv, and from Kyiv even to Veliky Novgorod, and walking that way he spread his teaching about the faith of Christ, and baptized others... You initially received the faith from the Apostle Andrew, and we also from the Apostle Andrew” 56. To all foreigners who, coming to Russia or meeting Russians abroad, asked them about their faith, they answered no other than what Grozny said to Possevin and Sukhanov to the Greeks 57 . Ancient times and ancient people were forgiven for creating legends; but we, in turn, have the responsibility to distinguish legends from real historical truth... We, of course, must accept any legend in the form in which it is communicated to us. The legend about the Apostle Andrew says that he was in Russia because he wanted to pass through it from Greece to Rome. It is clear that the legend is an extremely incongruous fiction, for it forces the apostle to follow a path that is not only 50 times longer than usual, but which in his time was simply completely unknown. Correcting the legend and referring to the testimony of Greek writers that the Apostle Andrew preached, among other things, in Scythia, we will argue that he could have been in Russia on purpose? But if we give faith to the Greek writers regarding the preaching of the Apostle in Scythia, then they will need to understand by Scythia not the internal country with its barbarian population, but only its southern outskirts or the northern shore of the Black Sea with the Greek colonies located on the latter. As is actually understood by those of the Greek writers who speak in detail about the places of the sermon of the Apostle Andrew, who do not have too much of an inclination towards fabulousness 58 . As for the assumption that the apostle could have reached our Kyiv and Novgorod, or at least the first one, it is just as probable as the assumption that the apostle reached Arkhangelsk itself or Pustozersk itself. In the age of the apostles, our country was an unknown desert, located outside the known world and filled with all kinds of horrors 59 . Why would Apostle Andrew go into this unknown desert? He could go into it, like into any other similar desert, only when he had no business within the boundaries of the world of that time and had free time to walk through the deserts. But this, as everyone knows, was not at all the case. He could not have any hope of establishing Christianity in any lasting way in a country completely disconnected from the rest of the world, barbaric and inhabited by God knows who: why would he undertake a trip to it? Not for the same reason, in fact, to put crosses on uninhabited mountains or to observe such customs as the guy in the baths 60. It is impossible and completely incredible to allow one of the apostles to physically visit our country, but it is necessary to accept that all of them mentally blessed it - and we Russians, like all other peoples who adopted Christianity not directly from the hands of the apostles, are “nothing less” in the Church of Christ than anyone else 61. On January 20 and June 20, our church remembers the martyrs Inna, Rome and Pinna 62, about whom the Menology of Emperor Basil says that they were from Scythia, from the northern reaches - ἀπὸ Σκυθίας, ἐκ τοῦ βορείου μέρους, disciples of St. Apostle Andrew. That, teaching about the name of Christ and converting many to the right faith, they were captured by the prince of the barbarians - παρὰ τοῦ τῶν βαρβάρων ἄρχοντος, who committed them to martyrdom (on January 20). Understanding the Greek: ἀπὸ Σκυθίας, ἐκ τοΰ βορείου μέρους, in the sense: from Scythia, from its northern part, and adding to this what is said in the story of the torment about the severe winter cold, and about rivers frozen by the cold, they consider it necessary to understand by Scythia that part of it in which our ancestors, the Russian Slavs, lived. But the Greek: ἀπὸ Σκυθίας, ἐκ τοῦ βορείου μέρους means not - from Scythia, from its northern part, but - from Scythia, from the northern country, i.e., which is the northern country; As for the cold and freezing of rivers, they occur throughout the entire former Scythia of the Greeks to its southernmost border. However, to eliminate unnecessary disputes, there is a definite indication of the place of activity of the martyrs. In our Slavic Prologue, the story of the torment consists of the news of the transfer of the relics of the saints (it is on June 20, while January 20 is the day of death), which says that their bodies, buried by some Christians, were taken out of the grave by the bishop (it is not said whose or which one) and placed in his church. And that seven years after the deaths of the martyrs, as a result of their appearance, the same bishop transferred the relics “to a place called Alix, and (like and?) a dry refuge” (on June 20). This news is taken from a special legend about the transfer of relics. In a special legend, which is known in Greek from one manuscript of the Paris Public Library of the 11th century, it is said that the saints suffered in Gothia and that their relics were transferred to the seaside town of Alix by Bishop Goddoy 63. This means that the saints suffered in southern Crimea. For here, within the boundaries of Greek Scythia, was the so-called Gothia. When in the second half of the 4th century the Goths were forced from what is now southern Russia to move away from the Huns to the west, some of those who lived in the Crimea, without following their relatives, remained in their former places of residence. Namely, two small communities remained: One, occupying an area near the Bosphorus or Kerch, - the Goths of this community were called the Goths Tetraxites. Another, occupying a narrow coastal strip of land between Balaklava and Sudak, the Goths of this community from their region or region, which the Greeks bore the name Dori, are known as the Dorian Goths. And the settlement of these second Goths was given the name Gothia, just as the bishops of the diocese established by them were given the name of the Bishops of Gothia. It was in Gothia, which we have now indicated, that our martyrs suffered 64. The bishop of Godda, who transferred their relics to the town of Alisk or Alix, was the bishop of Gothia (the name of the bishop is Gothic, cfr in Stritt. Memorr. popp. I, 125, - Godas) 65. Alisk or Alix is ​​the current Alushta, located on the seashore, 42 versts northeast of Yalta and actually belonged to the Diocese of Gotthia 66. Unfortunately, we do not have a detailed extract from the legend about the transfer of relics, read in the Paris manuscript. But if our Slavic Prologue accurately reproduces the legend, saying that the transfer took place “after seven years” of the torment of the saints, then this is not at all the century of the disciples of the Apostle Andrew, but an unknown time, starting from the end of the 4th century. (Nicodemus in his Synaxarist, perhaps having at hand the legend about the transfer of relics, does not call the martyrs disciples of the Apostle Andrew - under January 20) 67. About the feet of the Apostle Andrew, imprinted “on the great stone” on the shore by the sea near Kherson, see in the Degree Book, I, 96. About the stay of the Apostle for some time on the stone cape of one of the Dnieper rapids (Nenasytitsky or according to the ancient and old Neyasytitsky), - in Lerberg’s studies serving to explain ancient Russian history, Russian translation of Yazykov, St. Petersburg, 1819, p. 272 fin.. The tradition of the Valaam monks that the Apostle Andrew was on their island, and that Saints Sergius and German, the founders of the monastery, were his disciples, from the Right Reverend Macarius, History vol. I, edition 2, p. 202, cfr description of Khludov’s manuscripts, No. 245, l. 20. G. Arandarenko in his “Notes on the Poltava Province” claims that the Apostle Andrei was not in Slavic or Veliky Novgorod, but in Novgorod Seversk (Chernigov province), and, referring to the Königsberg and Resurrection chronicles, he narrates in such a curious way: “The Apostle by the Desna River was then in Novgorod Seversk, preached the Gospel and seemed to see the local people using their baths, in which, according to him, each person was heated like a red-hot stone (!), cut himself with brushwood until exhaustion, and then, throwing himself into the river water with a murmur, came out of there alive and well, as if he had never been burned or beaten” (Note Part III, Poltava, 1852, p. 416). About the words: “like resha.” In the story placed in the chronicle about the journey through Rus' of the Apostle Andrew there is a reference to someone or something, expressed in the words: “like resha.” In the first edition of the Laurentian copy of the chronicle, made by the Archaeographical Commission, this “like resha” is stated in such a way that it seems to refer to the following description of the path and journey of the apostle (like resha). deciding, I taught Ondreya in Sinopia and came to Korsun...) 68. On the basis of which they want to see in these words the reference of the chronicler (meaning: the author of the story) to the folk tradition, which told him information about the apostle’s visit to our country. In fact, as it was corrected in the second edition of the Laurentian Chronicle (as well as in the second edition and the Ipatsky Chronicle), the words mentioned do not refer to what follows, but to the previous one, namely, to what Andrei, brother Petrov, taught on the Black Sea, and should be understood as follows: The Black Sea is called the Russian Sea; Andrei, brother Petrov taught on this sea, “like a decider,” that is, as some have said or are saying. In these words, the author of the story undoubtedly refers either to Epiphanius and Metaphrastus together, or to one of them alone. Additional assumption. We accept that the story about the Apostle Andrew, read in the chronicle, consists of two parts - from a geographical introduction about the routes from Greece to Kyiv and through Kyiv, and from the story itself about the journey of the apostle. But it is possible that what we consider to be an introduction to the story constitutes a geographical note or geographical message belonging to the chronicler himself, and that it was this that gave rise to the unknown zealot for the glory of his fatherland and his church to compose a story about the journey of the apostle. In a geographical note or message, on the one hand, it is said that through Russia it was possible to make a circular journey, which, starting from the Poneta or Black Sea, would lead again to the same sea. And on the other hand, it (remark - message) ends with the words that the Ponet Sea is known as the Russian Sea and that according to it, that is, in the cities along its shores, as they say, the Apostle Andrew, brother Petrov, taught. Along the Black Sea, it was read in the chronicles, the Apostle Andrew taught, and this sea was known as the Russian Sea: a zealot for the glory of his fatherland and his church could have the idea of ​​making the apostle who taught along the sea, which was reputed to be Russian, to some extent an apostle of the Russian country itself. And the chronicler’s message that through Russia it was possible to make a circular journey, which would begin with the Black Sea and end with the same sea, indicated a way to make the Apostle Andrew, to some extent, an apostle of the Russian country itself. As soon as the apostle who taught on the Black Sea acquired the desire to visit Rome, which lay on our circular route, he could be led to Rome, in order to then return to the Black Sea again, through Russia, through Kiev and Novgorod... II. Question about the baptism of Askold and Dir. From prehistoric times we turn to historical times, which began with the founding of our Russian state in the half of the 9th century by the Varangian Rurik. The beginning of speeches about our Christianity from historical times or about our historical Christianity is the question of the baptism of the Kiev princes Askold and Dir 69. The Grand Duke Rurik, who came to reign in Novgorod in 862, had two husbands “not of his tribe, but of a boyar” 70, namely Askold and Dir. Not wanting to stay with Rurik in Novgorod, they asked him to leave with his family to Constantinople; but when they sailed down the Dnieper, they stopped in Kyiv, took possession of it and remained in it to reign over the Polyansky land, gathering together many Varangians around them. Our chronicler reports this about Askold and Dir on his own behalf. Then he borrows from a Greek chronicler. Greek chroniclers speak of an attack on Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Michael III, the last years of whose reign coincided with the reign of Askold and Dir 71, some Russes, in Kyiv. The princes whom they do not mention by name and whose place of residence they do not speak in an exact manner. Our chronicler had one of these Greek chroniclers, namely the successor of George Amartol, at hand in a Slavic translation. Considering it likely to attribute his story about the Russians attacking Constantinople to the Kyiv Russians Askold and Dir, and indeed attributing it to them, the chronicler literally cites it, making only the addition that he added the names of Askold and Dir and put the event under the year 866, which according to him is the 14th year of the reign of Emperor Michael 72. Further, our chronicler says nothing about Askold and Dir, with the exception of their death, which followed at the hands of Oleg. But many of the Greek chroniclers, telling about the attack on Constantinople by unknown Russians, whom our chronicler takes for Askold and Dir, also talk about the adoption of Christianity by these Russians 73 . Namely, they report that the Russians, having made an unsuccessful attack on the capital of the empire, returned home. That the emperor then entered into negotiations with them and that through generous gifts he persuaded them to peace and persuaded them to be baptized and accept the bishop. So, the case of Askold and Dir is presented in the following form. Greek chroniclers talk about an unsuccessful attack on Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Michael III and then about the baptism of some unknown Russians, whose princes (as we said) they do not name by name, and whose places of residence they do not indicate exactly. Our Russian chronicler attributes the story of the attack to the Kyiv princes Askold and Dir, from which it should follow that Christianity was adopted by these same princes. The question, therefore, is whether our chronicler rightly attributes the Byzantine legends about the unknown Russes to Askold and Dir, and whether the former can really be mistaken for the latter. We believe that the answer must be negative. If the Russians who attacked Constantinople and then converted to Christianity and even allowed a bishop to be installed in their home were Kyiv Russians, then some legend about their Christianity would necessarily have to be preserved in Kyiv. For the installation of a bishop and, consequently, the establishment of a real private church, as everyone understands, is an event for which it would be very difficult to disappear completely without a trace from people’s memory. Meanwhile, we see that there was no such legend in Kyiv at all. The chronicler knows about Askold and Dir from local legends only that they came to Kyiv from Novgorod, and nothing more. Having found in a Greek chronicler, who was at his disposal, a story about the Russian attack on Constantinople, he attributes it to Askold and Dir, because in the absence of other Russians known to him, this seems completely probable to him. But he did not have at hand those Greek chroniclers who talk about the baptism of the Russians who attacked Constantinople, and therefore he does not say anything about the baptism of Askold and Dir. Such a complete absence of tradition in Kyiv about such important events as the baptism of princes and the receipt of their bishop, in our opinion, very, very decisively speaks against the likelihood of the opinion that the Russians who attacked Constantinople and then were baptized were Askold and Dir with their squad. In the fact that at the time of the chronicler Askold’s grave (as he reports 74) a certain Olma erected a church - there is no reason to see an indication that in the age of the chronicler and this Olma Askold was known as a Christian. If this were so, then the chronicler would not have failed to say it directly. If, despite the opportunity presented, he does not say this, then it is clear that Askold does not know any legends about Christianity. As for Olma, he erected a house church on Askold’s grave simply for the reason that the latter was in his yard, as the chronicler directly says, and that, being a hill or elevated platform, such as the graves of ancient princes were, it turned out to be a convenient place to erect a church 75 . Askold and Dir came from Novgorod to Kyiv in 862, and in 866, that is, four years later, they attack, according to the chronicler, Constantinople. Is it possible to allow that at the age of four they would have had enough time to gather the Varangians around them and generally become so strong as to plan this not at all a serious attack? It is clear that the matter is extremely doubtful, but that is not the main point. Our chronicler dates the attack of Askold and Dir on Constantinople to 866. We do not know what reasons he was guided by 76; but be that as it may, only the Byzantines and one Western chronicler attribute the attack of the unknown Russians on Constantinople to a much earlier time, and there can be no dispute or doubt that these latter should be given decisive preference. A direct contemporary of the event, Nikita of Paphlagon, in the life of Patriarch Ignatius he wrote, speaks of the invasion of the Russians before the events of 861, namely, before the Council of Constantinople on Ignatius (the so-called first-second or double) and before the great earthquake that occurred in Constantinople this year (in August). And since the now-mentioned council was at the beginning of May 861 and it, according to Nikita, took place “not much later” after the invasion of the Russians 77, then the latter should be attributed either to the very beginning of 861, or to the end of the previous year 860. Simeon Logothet says that the invasion of the Russians took place in the tenth year of the reign of Emperor Michael 78. It is believed that this is the same year that our chronicler has, i.e. 866; however, this is not true. Emperor Michael, who ascended the throne at the beginning of 842, reigned first together with his mother Theodora, and then separately. The years of both reigns are considered especially. According to Logofet, Michael reigned with his mother for thirteen years 79; therefore, the first year of his separate reign, in which the Russian invasion occurred, was 856, and therefore the tenth year of his same reign should be 866. But we do not know and are not able to explain at the present time for what reason, only Logothet, speaking about the separate reign of Michael, counts his years not from 856, but from 850. What he has is absolutely clear from the seventh year, for to this year he attributes the deposition of Patriarch Ignatius 80, which was in 857. Thus, the tenth year of Michael's reign is actually 860 for Logothetes. The Western chronicler John, Deacon of Venice 81, in his Chronicon Venetum, speaks of an attack on Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Michael III by the people of the Normans, by which we must mean our Russians. For, on the one hand, this is clearly evident from the description itself, and on the other hand, no other Normans under Emperor Michael attacked Constantinople. But he speaks of this event between 860 and 863 82. So, in reality, the Russian attack on Constantinople took place not in 866, but either in 860 or the very beginning of 861 (Nikitas of Paphlagon). And if this is so, then Askold and Dir not only could not attack Constantinople, but they had not yet come to Russia itself 83. According to what we have just said, and most of all, due to this absence of tradition in Kiev (which historians treat with a lightness that is completely incomprehensible to us), it seems to us very, extremely difficult to admit that the unknown Russians who besieged Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Michael and then adopted Christianity were our Kiev Russians, led by Askold and Dir 84. But, having removed our Kyiv Russians, we must find other Russians, for the fact that some Russians were besieging Constantinople remains undoubted: where will we get them? Kedrin and Zonara say that the Russians who attacked Constantinople lived near Taurus 85. Nikita of Paphlagon also makes it known that they lived there 86. And we think with almost complete certainty that these Russes should mean the Azov-Tauride or Azov-Crimean Russes. No historical information has yet been found about the Russes of Azov-Tauria. But that they existed, having settled in Tauris and above it at the mouth of the Don, it is unknown when before the founding of our state and then, having disappeared partly, probably through the transition to us in Kyiv and to the Greeks in Constantinople, partly through merging with the natives (partly, finally, since the Normans were a mobile people and represented precisely those people for whom ubi bene, ibi patria, having scattered to different places), - this cannot be subject to any doubt. And undeniable proof of this is provided by the names of places testifying to them, which were preserved even until quite a late time. The space on the western coast of Crimea from Lake Tarpanchsky to Lake Evpatoria was called Varaegia, and the first of these two lakes was Varangolimena or Varangico. A very long and narrow island at the entrance to the Dnieper estuary, now known as Tendera or Tendra (in ancient times Achilles' run), was called Rossa. A place in Crimea slightly above Lake Evpatoria (in the above-mentioned Varegia) was called Rossofar. The place a little lower than the same lake, near the small lake Kamyshly, was called Rossoca. On the Sea of ​​Azov, when the Don flows into it, there were settlements: on the western side of the present Azov (Genoese Tana), probably opposite it, on the right bank of the river: Rossi, Rosso, fiume Rosso (i.e., Russian river), on the eastern side, at one or another short distance from it along the seashore: Casar (Casal) de (de li) Rossi (i.e., Russian village, village) 87. The Arab historical geographer Ibn-Dasta or Ibn-Duste, writing in the first years of the 10th century, speaks of the Russians who lived on some island, which was located near Khazeran and Bulgaria, in which the Russians sold their military plunder 88 . These Russians cannot be placed anywhere else than on the Crimean Peninsula. Many other Arab and generally Eastern writers tell us directly and clearly that there were Russians who lived on the shores of the Black Sea, having as their capital the city of Rusija. And that this sea was called after them the Russian Sea 89. Our legends confirm that the Black Sea was indeed called the Russian Sea 90. But if this is so, then it is very incredible to think with them that the sea received its name from our Russians, who only walked on it, but did not live on it. For there are no other examples of a sea receiving a name from a people who did not live on it, but only who walked on it. On the contrary, the mentioned circumstance forces us to assume that there were Russians who lived on this sea and who therefore gave it their name 91. The Lives of Stephen of Sourozh and George of Amastrid 92 tell us that in the first half of the 9th century some Russians were robbing the Crimea and the Black Sea. But what other Russians can be implied in them, besides the Azov-Tauride 93? So, we repeat, the question of the Russians who attacked Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Michael III and then were baptized remains unresolved, and it seems very doubtful, or better yet, it is completely incredible that they were our Kiev Russians with the princes Askold and Dir. But if, therefore, it is very incredible that the Russians who attacked Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Michael III and then adopted Christianity and even the bishop were our Kyiv Askold and Dir, then, on the other hand, there is nothing incredible and impossible in the fact that Christianity first appeared in Kyiv precisely under them. Just as it could have appeared in Novgorod even under Rurik. Askold and Dir, who reigned in Kyiv for 20 years (862–882), united around them, as the chronicler says, many Varangians. But among these Varangians, as we will say below, there could also be Christians. Procopius of Caesarea says that, before the removal of the eastern or Pontic-Tauric Goths to the west, some of them remained in their previous place of residence. He speaks about these remaining Goths in two works - in De aedificiis and in De bello Gothico. In the first essay 94, he says that when Theodoric retired to Italy (in 454), some of the Goths who lived on the Tauride Peninsula or in the Crimea did not dare to follow him and remained forever in their former place of residence, namely, that they remained to live in the coastal region of Dori, which we indicated earlier. In the second work 95 he speaks of the Goths Tetraxites (Γότθοι Τετραξῖται), who remained from the eastern Goths in their former place of residence. The last Goths (Tetraxites) are usually mistaken for the same Goths as the Goths of the Dori region, but this is completely unfair. The Goths Tetraxites, who remained in small numbers near the Black Sea after the removal of their relatives to the west, were then forced by the Huns to change their place of residence somewhat; but both before this change and after it they lived “on the very shore where the outpouring of the Meotian estuary begins” (the Sea of ​​Azov into the Black Sea) 96. It is clear that they first lived either on the Kerch Peninsula 97 and were forced by the Huns to move to Taman or vice versa. And whoever reads Procopius (in this place not entirely defined) carefully, who takes into account the instructions he makes here (that after the said change of residence of the Goths, the Huns owned the sea coast from the Bosphorus to Kherson). So it is in the news about the Goths of the Dori region (that before Justinian, after the aforementioned change of place of residence by the Goths, the Bosporus belonged to the Huns). And also the circumstances of the case (namely, that it was natural for Gotham to initially appear in the Crimea and unnatural in the Caucasus), for this there will be no doubt that the first must be understood, i.e. that the Goths, after changing their place of residence, settled on the Taman Peninsula 98. Thus, the Varyago-Russians had to find their relatives on the Black Sea not only in Crimea, but also in Taman. Just as they settled with some, it was natural for them to settle with others. Accepting this, we will receive a completely clear, as we said, answer to that extremely mysterious question: for what purpose and for what need did our Kievan Russians establish an insignificant colony on the Taman Peninsula? A very simple answer is that they took into their power, which was actually completely unnecessary to them, Taman (it would not have served at all for raids on the Caspian Sea) because it was inhabited by their relatives (and they took into their power not under Svyatoslav, but at least under Igor until 944. For when in the agreement of this last year with the Greeks the Russians undertake not to allow Korsun into the country There were 99 Black Bulgarians who lived in the Caucasus, this makes it clear that they already owned Taman). We are confident, i.e. We most strongly suspect that the bishopric opened by Patriarch Photius among the Black Sea Russians should be seen in the Greek bishopric of Tmutarakan (and that our Russian bishopric of Tmutarakan was only a simple and continuous continuation of the Greek). When exactly the bishopric of Tmutarakan was established by the Greeks, we do not yet know and have only one act from the half of the 12th century, which mentions the Bishop of Tmutarakan as existing at that time. (Decree of Patriarch Luke Chrysovergus, which 1156–1169, in Ralli and P. V, 98. In the schedules or catalogs of episcopal departments, our diocese ibidd. 475 and 496 notes. The bishop and the diocese are called τῶν Ματράχων and τῶνΜετράχων, - this is instead of τῶν Ματάρχων, for the Greek name Tmutarakan, from which ours, is Ταματάρχα is actually τά Ματάρχα. acts, the form Ματράχα or Μετράχα, instead of the civil Ματάρχα, - Constant. Porfirog De administr. imper., - was almost more common, at least locally, this is what the Italian peripluses make us think (descriptions. Note. trans.) XIV-XVII centuries, in which Tmutarakan - Matreca, Matrega, Matriga, in Tafel in Constantinus Porphyrogenitus de provinciis regni Byzantini, Tubingae, 1847, p. 40). There is no reason to assume that the diocese of Tmutarakan was established by the Greeks after we owned Tmutarakan (after the end of the 11th century), because our power over it gave way not to the power of the Greeks, but to the pagan Caucasian peoples. Therefore, the establishment of the diocese must be attributed to the times preceding our possession, and to the later XII century. The Bishop of Tmutarakan should be viewed as a kind of bishop in partibus, as a titular and placeless bishop of a once former diocese (about this custom of the Greeks to install titular bishops with the names of departments that ceased to exist, see 6 of the Ecumenical Council, canon 37 and the interpretation of Balsamon on it. - Singer of the Lay of Igor's Host, addressing Tmutarakan with with a compliment: “And to you, Tmutarakan idiot,” he wants to say: and to you, Tmutarakan, which was Christian, and now has again become a idiot, idolatrous, pagan). Referring the establishment of the diocese to the times preceding our possession of Tmutarakan, we have every likelihood that it was attributed to Patriarch Photius (at the Council of Constantinople in 879, among others, Bishop Βαάνης τῶν Μαστράβων was present. Le Quien with full probability assumes that Μαστράβων instead of Ma τρόχων, - Oriens Christ I, 1325, and Βαάνης ’a, perhaps, a relative of the famous patrician Βαάνης ’u, who was the emperor’s representative at the council of 869 and to whom there are two epistles of the patriarch Photius, judging by his name, is not unlikely to be considered by origin to be Gottfin. If in the schedule of episcopal departments, which is assigned to Patriarch Photius himself and dates back to 883, Ralli and P. V, 472 fin., there is no diocese τῶν Ματρλάχων, then this can be explained as accidental. omission or understood in such a way that it was excluded by later editors of the schedule) 100. Let us not forget the evidence in favor of the existence of the Black Sea Russians and precisely in favor of the fact that they settled here with the Goths, merging with them into one. Constantine the philosopher, our first Slavic teacher, during his journey to the Kazars had a stop in Kherson and, by the way, “he found that (in Kherson) gospel and psalter written in Russian writing and found a person speaking with that conversation.” This place of the Pannonian life of Konstantinov, so to speak, crushed the heads of Slavic researchers. But if we accept the above, that the Varyago-Russians settled in Tauris with the Goths and merged with them into one people, so that the Russian was called Gothic and vice versa, then the mystery will be solved for us: Constantine met the Varyago-Russians in Kherson with the Gothic gospel and apostle (who are now called Russians according to the above). And whoever doubts that in the half of the 9th century worship in the Gothic language could still remain (alive), Walafridus Strabo (Walafridus Strabus or Strabo, - Walafrid the Oblique), a Western writer (of disputed nationality) of precisely the half of the 9th century († 849), answers this question. He speaks of worship in the Gothic language in his time: Studiosi illius (Gothicae) gentis divinos libros in suae locutionis proprietatem transtulerunt, quorum adhuc monumenta apud nonnullos habentur, et fidelium fratrum relatione didicimus, apud quasdam Scytharum gentes, maxime Tomitanos, eadem locutione divina hactenus celebrari officia 101. The attack of the Russians on Constantinople is spoken of by: Patriarch Photius in a few words spoken about this event, and partly in a district message (the words were printed by His Eminence Porfiry Uspensky in the book: Four Conversations of Photius, His Holiness Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Petersburg, 1863. And for the second time they were printed, with a significant correction of the text, by Academician Nauk in the collection (whom we we do not have at hand) Lexicon Vindobonense. District message in the collection of letters of Photius, according to the edition of Montacutius, Londini, 1651, p. 58, according to the edition of Valletta, ibid., 1864, p. 178). Niketas of Paphlagon in the life of Patriarch Ignatius, in the Bollandists in Acta Sanctorum, Octobr., t. X, d. 23. p. 182; successor to Amartol according to the edition of Muralta, p. 736; Leo Grammar, ed. Paris, (in addition to Feofan), b. 463; Simeon Logothet, ed. id.,p. 445 n. XXXVIII; the so-called successor of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, lib. IV, no. XXXII, ed. id., p. 121; Kedrin, ed. id., t. II, p. 551; Zonara, ed. id., t. II, p. 162 102. Having appeared on 200 boats at the mouth of the Bosporus Strait in Constantinople, and having terribly devastated its shores and the nearby shores and islands of the Propontis or the Sea of ​​Marmara 103, they began to besiege the capital itself. But after more or less prolonged futile efforts, they were forced to take it off and retired home. About the reason for lifting the siege, the successor Amartol and his repeaters Leo Grammatik and Simeon Logothet say: “The emperor, having returned (to the city from the Saracen campaign), stayed with Patriarch Photius in the Blachernae Church of the Mother of God, where they begged and propitiated God. Then, having brought out the holy omophorion of the Mother of God with psalmody, they applied it to the surface of the sea. And while before this there was silence and the sea was calm, suddenly a blow of winds and a continuous uprising of waves arose, and the ships of the godless Russians were broken and only a few (of them) escaped danger.” (The continuator of Porphyrogenite, Kedrin and Zonara, without talking about the miracle in detail, mean it when they say that Russov suffered divine wrath). From the testimony of Patriarch Photius (in the second word) it turns out that this was not the case, namely, that the robe of the Mother of God was not immersed in the waves of the bay, but was carried along the city walls; he writes: “When every single one of us wore the robe of the Mother of God with me to repel the besiegers, and protect the besieged, and diligently performed diligent prayers and litias, then, out of inexpressible love for mankind, with the mother’s bold intercession, the Divinity bowed down, and his anger subsided, and the Lord had mercy on his property. She rushed around these walls, and the enemies incomprehensibly turned their rear; it covered the city, and their embankment 104 crumbled as if according to a given sign; She brought joy to the besieged, and the siege of the enemies did not succeed beyond the aspirations with which they were inspired. As soon as this virgin robe was enclosed along this wall, the barbarians lifted the siege of the city, and we got rid of the threatened captivity and were honored with unexpected salvation” 105. They speak about the baptism of the Russians: Patriarch Photius in the district message, § 35; successor of Porphyrogenite; Porphyrogenite itself in Basilius Macedo, n. XCVII, ed. Paris., p. 211; Kedrin; Zonara, ibid., p. 173, and Mikhail Glicka, ed. id.,p. 298. Patriarch Photius, speaking about the Russians together with the Bulgarians, writes: “And not only this people (Bulgars) exchanged the first wickedness for faith in Christ, but even the so-called Russians (τὸῬῶς), who, having enslaved those around them and from here thinking high about themselves, are many times glorified and in cruelty and the nasty murder of everyone, leaving behind them, raised their hands against the Roman state - at the present time even these have exchanged the Hellenic and wicked teaching, which they previously contained, for the pure and genuine Christian faith, lovingly placing themselves in the rank of subjects (ἐν ὑπηκόων τάξει) and friends (ours), instead of robbing us and the great insolence against us, which had shortly. And the desire and zeal of faith flared up in them to such an extent that they accepted the bishop and the shepherd and kissed the beliefs (θρησκεύματα) of Christians with great zeal and zeal.” The successor of Porphyrogenite, repeated by Kedrin, briefly says: “A little time later (after the unsuccessful siege of Constantinople) an embassy came from them (the Russians) to the reigning city, asking to make them participants in divine baptism, which was what happened.” Porphyrogenitus himself speaks at length about the baptism of the Russians, who, however, begins by intentionally or unintentionally confusing Emperor Michael with Emperor Vasily and Patriarch Photius with Patriarch Ignatius 106: “And the people of the Rossov, warlike and most godless, through generous gifts of gold and silver and silk clothes (Emperor Vasily) attracted to negotiations and, Having concluded a peace treaty with them, he convinced them to become participants in divine baptism and arranged for them to receive the archbishop 107), who received ordination from Patriarch Ignatius. The archbishop, having arrived in the country of the said people for the aforementioned matter (his baptism), was received by him favorably. The prince of this people, convening a meeting of his subjects and presiding with the elders around him, who, due to long habit, were more committed to superstition than others, and, discussing his faith and the faith of Christians, calls and asks (the archbishop) what he will announce and what he will teach them. When the bishop offered the book of the divine Gospel and told them about some of the miracles of our Savior and God and told them the story of some of the miracles performed by God in the Old Testament, the Russians immediately hastened to say: “If we don’t see something like that, and especially what you say about the three youths in the cave, then we won’t believe you at all, and we won’t listen to your speeches.” He (the archbishop), being convinced of the truthfulness of what he said: “Whatever you ask in My name, you will receive,” and also: “Believe in Me, the works that I do, He will do and will do greater things than these,” when what is done is not for vanity, but for the salvation of souls, he said to them: “Although you should not tempt God, however, if you have decided to approach Him with all your heart, ask whatever you want - God He will certainly do it according to your faith, although I am humble and least.” They asked the Christian woman to throw the very book of faith, that is, the divine and sacred Gospel, into the kindled fire, (promising) if it remained unharmed, to approach the God whom he preaches. After this had been said, the priest raised his eyes and hands to God and cried: “Glorify Your holy name, Jesus Christ our God, even now in the sight of all this people.” And the book of the Holy Gospel was thrown into the furnace with fire. After sufficient time had passed, when the furnace went out, the sacred scroll was found unharmed, undamaged, and without receiving any damage from the fire. So even the tassels at the ends of the cords that tied him (οἱ ἐν ταῖς κλεδώμασι τῆς Βίβλου κροσσοί) did not suffer any harm or change. Seeing this and being amazed by the greatness of the miracle, the barbarians began to be baptized without hesitation (Porphyrogenita repeats Zonara) 108. The legend about the baptism of the Novgorod prince in Taurida or Crimea, in the city of Surozh. The ancient city of Surozh is the current town of Sudak, located on the southeastern coast of Crimea, southwest of Feodosia. The Greeks called it Sugdea and Sugdaea 109, the Westerners called it Sodaea, Soldaea and Soldadia, the Arabs called it Sudak, Surdak, Sholtadia or Soltadia 110, etc. In the life of St. Stephen, Archbishop of Sourozh, who died around 790, precisely - at the end of his life, among the miracles, we find the following story: After the death of the saint, “few years” passed, and the great Russian army came from Novgorod, “the prince is abusive and very strong (so in half of the lists of his life, in the other half: Prince Bravlin, var. Bravalin, Bravlenin - strong very much). Having captured (the country) from Korsun to Kerch, he came with much force to Surozh. For ten days they fought hard among themselves (the besiegers and the besieged), and after ten days the prince entered the city, forcibly breaking (its) iron gates - he entered the city, drawing his sword, and came to the church of St. Sophia and broke the doors and went up to where the saint’s coffin was 111. On the coffin there was a royal covering and pearls and gold, precious stones and many golden vessels: they robbed everything. And at that hour (the prince) fell ill - his face turned back, and, lying down, he exuded foam and cried out: “A great man and a saint is the one who is here; he hit me in the face, and my face turned back.” And the prince said to his boyars: “Give back everything you took.” They returned and wanted to take the prince from there. But the prince cried out: “Don’t touch me, leave me lying, for one old holy man wants to break me, (he) pressed me, so that my soul wants to go out.” And he said to them: “Lead the army out of this city immediately, and let the soldiers take nothing.” And the army left the city, but the prince did not get up until he again said to the boyars: “Return everything, how many sacred vessels we robbed in Korsun, in Kerch and everywhere, bring everything here and put it on Stefan’s coffin.” They returned everything and kept nothing for themselves and laid it at the tomb of the saint. And again, in horror, Saint Stephen spoke to the prince: “If you are not baptized in my church, you will not return (home) and you will not leave here.” And the prince cried out: “Let the priests come and baptize me; If I get up and my face turns, I am baptized.” And the priests came, and Archbishop Filaret (Stephen’s successor, as it is said in his life) and prayed over the prince. And they baptized him in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and his face turned again. All the boyars were baptized. But the prince’s neck also hurt, and the priests told him: “Make a promise to God that you will release all the captives - men, women and children whom you took from Korsun to Kerch.” Then the prince commanded all his people (to release the captives who were with them), and everyone was sent home. For a week (the prince) did not leave the church until he gave the great gift to St. Stefan. Having honored the city and the citizens and priests, (he) went home. Hearing about this, other soldiers did not dare to attack (the city), and if they attacked, they left disgraced 112. Life of St. Stephen is not known in Greek and is read only in our Slavic manuscripts. Since Stephen himself is not among the saints in the Greek calendar, it was assumed that the life was compiled here in Russia. But this assumption is unfounded. By all indications, there is no doubt that the life of origin is Greek, and not Russian 113. His absence in Greek manuscripts, as well as the absence of Stephen himself in the Greek calendar, is explained by the fact that the latter was not a general saint, but only a local one - Sugdai 114. Since the story about the Novgorodians is read not in the life itself, but in miracles that could be attributed later, the question of the origin of it itself does not resolve the question of the origin of our story. But it is necessary to think that it is of Greek origin, and not Russian, and precisely - that, together with all the other miracles found in the life (numbering 4), it belongs to the author of this last one, for at the conclusion of the miracles it is said: “God did a fair number of miracles to his saints... and here was the life of the Venerable Stephen” 115. It is difficult to determine with accuracy the time of St. Stephen, for the life is distinguished by chronological inconsistencies. At the age of fifteen he came to Constantinople, during the reign of Emperor Theodosius Adramittin (Andramindin), therefore - in 716 or early 717, because Theodosius Adramittin, who reigned for one year and several months, left the throne until March 25, 717 (when Leo the Isaurian took it). After an unknown number of years of study in Constantinople, after a 15-year stay there under Patriarch Germanus, and after a 30-year stay in a cloistered monastery, he may have been installed as archbishop around 760. Meanwhile, according to his life, he was supposedly installed by the above-mentioned Patriarch Herman, who from 715 was on the see for 15 years and was deposed from it in 730. And he allegedly suffered for the icons, having remained in the rank of archbishop for an unknown amount of time, more than five years, under Leo the Isaurian and was freed by his son Constantine Copronymus. While the first of these two died, and the second ascended the throne in 741. It seems most likely to think that, having actually been erected around 760, St. Stephen suffered for the icons not under Leo the Isaurian, but under Constantine Copronymus himself (741–775), and that he is one and the same with Stephen, Bishop of Sugdai, who was present at the Seventh Ecumenical Council 116, and may also be with Stephen, a student of Stephen the New of Constantinople, who was exiled by Kopronin to Sugdai 117. Since in 787, when the seventh council took place, he should have been very old, his death after this time should be attributed to the year 790–795. The invasion of Surozh by enemies called Novgorodians took place under Stephen’s successor “a few years” after his death. Consequently, it should be approximately attributed to the continuation of the first - early second quarter of the 9th century 118. So, the question is: how to look at this story about the Novgorod attack on Surozh in the first - early second quarter of the 9th century? Surprised by the strange gullibility of those who want to believe him, we, for our part, absolutely do not find it possible to do this. Firstly, before the Varyagov-Russians arrived to us, the Novgorodians were called not Russia, but Slavs. Secondly, we do not know from any writer and do not have any evidence that our Slavs, before the Varangians arrived to us, were engaged in raids on other peoples, but on the contrary, we only know that they themselves were the target of these raids, and that this constantly suffering role constituted their characteristic and distinctive feature. Thirdly, at that time all of southern Russia, overshadowing the Crimea, belonged to the Khazars, who extended their power to Kyiv, and to assume that the Novgorodians would dare, and could, and for some reason wanted to break through the Khazars, is absolutely incredible and unthinkable. Finally, fourthly, the Novgorodians at that time were tributaries of the Varangians: did they really care enough to undertake any kind of campaigns, much less such distant and such impossible campaigns? 119. But who were these enemies who attacked Surozh? There could be many enemies nearby, and it is impossible to decide who exactly they were. Assuming that the record of the miracle belongs to the author of the life himself, or that it is generally of Greek origin, assuming that she herself gave the reason to make Novgorodians out of the enemies; we think that the name of these enemies in it was οἱ (τὸ) Ῥῶς and that here we should mean the same Azov-Tauride Russians, about whom we were talking now above. Arab writers say that the Russians, who lived on the Black Sea, were engaged in robbery in all directions and that they constantly raided the possessions of the Khazars 120. Kerch and Surozh in the 8th and 9th centuries belonged to the Khazars 121, and thus, the latest news seems to directly indicate to us these Azov-Tauride or Black Sea Russians. Around the same time as the Russians’ attack on Surozh, there took place exactly the same attack by enemies, also called οἱ Ῥ ῶς, on the city of the Byzantine Empire Amastrida 122, as we know from the life of St. George of Amastrida 123. It is clear that here and here we must mean some Russians alone, who traveled around the Black Sea for robberies, and that by these sea robbers the Russians of Azov-Tauria is the only thing that can be done 124. Unknown from Greek manuscripts, the life of Stephen of Sourozh could have come to us in a very simple way. Surozh, being a trading city, had a special significance in trade that European and Asian merchants gathered in it for the mutual exchange of their goods. (That is, that it was the site of a kind of Nizhny Novgorod fair, which was in Taurida, as in the center of Europe and Asia, from ancient times and the place of which, before Surozh, was the Bosporus, present-day Kerch). Those Russian merchants who traded Asian goods, and specifically Asian silk fabrics, went to Surozh to buy them, which is why they received the nickname Surozhan 125. So these merchants could bring out the life of St. from Surozh. Stephen, the local Sourozh saint (whom they were supposed to venerate, just as merchants selling at the Nizhny Novgorod fair venerate the Monk Macarius). Assuming that these merchants were Novgorodians or, in general, from anywhere from northern Rus', we can easily understand how from the οἱ Ῥῶς original appeared in the Slavic translation: “the great Russian army from Novograd.” If the life spoke about the Russians, then our Russian translators naturally had to conclude that it spoke specifically about us, the Russians, because, of course, they could not know the others - the Black Sea Russians. If the translators were from northern Rus', then they had to assume that the Russians were Novgorodians because in ancient times in northern Rus' there was only Novgorod, which could have been used to go to foreign lands. As for the name of the prince, it is much more likely to think that the true reading of the life is “abusive and strong,” and that the proper name Bravlin arose from “abusiveness” simply as a result of a scribe’s slip. This name seems to be not a Slavic name, but simply a random combination of sounds that has now occurred in the indicated way (the name Bravlin can only be derived from the word brave; but this last word is not Slavic, but French - originating from the Greek βραβεῖον through the Latin bravium, and entered the Russian language very recently, moreover, from brave in Slavic word production will not work Brav-lin 126. Now we will have to start talking about Christianity in Russia, as a state founded by the Varangians. Considering it has been completely proven (by all kinds of evidence) and beyond doubt that the Varangians were Normans, 127 we will allow ourselves here to express some perplexities that may seem like such to the so-called Normanists themselves. These perplexities are the following: Firstly, the Normans were not called Russia in the west, but only in the east - among the Russians, Greeks and Arabs. Secondly, our chronicler, on the one hand, calls Rus' a Norman tribe, while such a Norman tribe is completely unknown, and on the other hand, he claims that Rurik took all of Rus' with him to Novgorod, i.e. (brought out? Approx. Per.) the whole tribe, which is completely incredible. Regarding the first perplexity, the following should be said. The Russians and precisely the Novgorodians 128 first became acquainted with the Normans through the Finns, who lived between one and the other. The Finns called the Normans, as they still call the Swedes, Rotsi, Ruotsi, Ruossi. Having become acquainted with the Normans through the Finns, the Russians (Novgorod Slavs) could naturally call them by their Finnish name, and thus the Russian (Slavic) name of the Normans came from the Finnish Rotsi-Ruossi. Following the Russians, the Greeks 129 named the Normans by this name, and after the Greeks the Arabs, and thus it happened that the name of the Normans, Rus', which was unknown in the West, appeared in the East. As for the Greeks in particular, it is necessary to think that the Black Sea (Azov-Tauride) Normans or Varangians, in the early days of their settlement near the Black Sea, called themselves before the Greeks the name of the Russians. If not earlier, then from the end of the 8th century throughout Europe it was very well known what the Normans were, that is, it was very well known that they were sea pirates and robbers, for they began their famous naval exploits in the West, if not earlier, then from this end of the 8th century 130. To call oneself Normans from the first acquaintance with the Greeks meant to force the Greek government to immediately take all precautions against itself. And therefore it is natural that they called themselves by the name that others gave them. That the Black Sea Normans did this towards the Greeks must be concluded from their behavior towards the Franks. In 839, as we talked about above, several Black Sea Normans managed to get to the Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious, with the embassy of the Emperor Theophilus of Constantinople, for spying purposes (hoping through deception to get through and spy out the entire empire). If they had called themselves Normans, they would have been immediately sent by the emperor to the gallows, or at least to the strongest place; but they called themselves Russians, and the emperor, who suspected them of being spies, found out that they were indeed Normans only “after a thorough investigation,” that is, after a deliberate, diligent inquiry. As for the fact that the chronicler makes the Russ a Norman tribe, while all Normans were called Russ, and that he brings all of Rus' with Rurik to Novgorod, which, of course, is completely incredible: then, in our opinion, this perplexing thing should be explained as follows. The Novgorod-Kyiv Slavs at first called the Normans Russians; with this name (Russov) the Normans settled among them to take possession of them. But then the Slavs learned another name for the Normans, which they called themselves, that is, the name Varangians, and gradually having adopted this second name (which, perhaps, did not appear suddenly and not soon among the Normans themselves), they stopped calling them by their first name. At the time the chronicler was writing his chronicle, the Normans who settled among our Slavs for possession (like these Slavs themselves) were called Russians, because they settled with this first name (which remained with them forever), but the Normans, so to speak, the Normans, the Normans who came then (at the time of the chronicler) from Normandy, were no longer called Russians, but Varangians. The chronicler did not know that before all the Normans were called Russia by us, and therefore concluded that the Rus who settled with us were a special tribe of Normans. Having mistakenly concluded this, he had to bring all of Russia with Rurik to Novgorod: among the contemporary Varangians, he did not find the tribe of Russia, and hence he concluded that they were all brought by Rurik to Novgorod. III. Christianity in Russia from the beginning of the state to St. Vladimir. We must begin our speeches here by calling the ordinary ideas about Christianity in Russia erroneous and incorrect during the space of time from the beginning of the state to the general baptism of the entire country by Vladimir. Christianity appeared in Kyiv during the reign of Igor; after Igor he was received alone or with very few saints. Olga, and then it disappeared completely or almost until the time of Vladimir - this is how the matter is usually, or for the most part, presented. In reality it was not like that at all. Having appeared, perhaps, even before Igor, and, in any case, undoubtedly, during his reign, Christianity did not disappear later in Kyiv, but constantly existed in the latter until Vladimir himself. As a result, its continuous history in Russia should be considered not from the time of the second of the princes, but not later than from the time of the first. Vladimir baptized the Russians together with himself, making Christianity the common faith of the entire people. But, before becoming a general and dominant faith, Christianity for quite a long time, at least half a century, continuously existed in Russia as a private faith, side by side and next to the dominant paganism. The history of our state began with the fact that, having been voluntarily conscripted or (which is much more likely) involuntarily accepted, the Norman Varangians-Russians came to take over us. These Varangians did not mix with the indigenous Slavs for quite a long time, representing a separate ruling nationality or, as it were, a separate dominant caste, in a word - a special crowd, foreign finders and a special people among the people. Christianity first appeared in Kyiv and before the time of St. Vladimir existed in it and in Russia in general, if not the only one, then at least mainly between these Varangians, separate from the indigenous Slavs. It may very well be that the first Christians among the Varangians appeared under Rurik and Oleg and simultaneously with Rurik under Askold and Dir. From their homeland, that is, from their Normandy, they began to go to service in Constantinople no later than the end of the first half of the 9th century 131. We have no positive news, but we can confidently assume that they soon began to accept Christianity there 132; but among the members of Rurik’s squad there could be people who had previously served in Constantinople, and, therefore, those who could accept Christianity there. Likewise, after Rurik’s arrival to us, similar baptized Varangians could come to him, to Askold and Dir, and to Oleg from Constantinople. Be that as it may, our chronicle says nothing about the Christian Varangians under the first two great princes, and we can only positively say that they appeared in Kyiv no later than during the reign of Igor 133. That there were Christians among the Kyiv Varangians during the reign of Igor is a fact known from the latter’s treaty with the Greeks in 944 134 and generally accepted by all. But in a strange way, until now neither our church nor civil historians have paid serious attention to this agreement between Igor and the Greeks. No one thought to raise suspicions that it was a later fake. It is clear to anyone who has any understanding of the matter that its text, as it is placed in the chronicle, is not a free transfer made by the chronicler himself, but the document itself in its original form and in its authentic and literal reading, translated from Greek into Russian 135. Therefore, in the treaty, as it is placed in the chronicle, we undoubtedly have a genuine official document. But this document says much more about Christianity in Russia during the time of Igor than what is usually customary to see and find in it. The treaty twice speaks of the Varangians as a party concluding peace with the Greeks, and in both times two halves are distinguished between them and separately mentioned - the unbaptized and the baptized 136 . At the beginning of the agreement, where the Russians give an obligation to observe the concluded peace, we read: “Whoever thinks from the country of Russia to destroy such (such) love, and as much as they have received baptism, let them receive vengeance from God Almighty, condemnation to destruction both in this age and in the next, and as long as they are not baptized, let them have no help from God or from Perun.”... At the end of the agreement, where the Russians again repeat their aforementioned obligations, it is written twice - first as a guarantee on the part of the baptized for themselves and for the unbaptized side: “and whoever transgresses this (written above) from our country, either a prince or anyone else, whether baptized or unbaptized, may they have no help from God and may they be slaves in this age and in the next,” then as a guarantee from the unbaptized for themselves and for the side baptized: “If anyone from the prince or from the Russian people, whether Christian or non-Christian, transgresses this, as it is written on this Haratya, (yes) he will be worthy to die with his weapon, and may he be cursed by God and by Perun, because he violated his oath.” After the conclusion of the treaty, the Russian ambassadors were sworn in in Constantinople, and this was written in it or in its act itself: “we (Russian ambassadors), since we have been baptized, swear by the Church of St. Elijah in the congregation of the church, by the honorable cross and this harath, to keep everything that is written on it...; and let unbaptized Rus' lay down 137 their shields and their swords naked and their hoops and other weapons, and let them swear about everything that is written on this charter” 138. After this, he told how the Greek ambassadors who arrived from Constantinople to Kyiv swore in Igor and his boyars, and how those baptized among the latter were led into the company to the “collective” church of St. Elijah, the chronicler concludes: “many were the Varyazi Christians.” In these final words of the chronicler, that many Varangians were Christians, apparently, seems to be a completely sufficient conclusion from everything that is said about Christians in the treaty itself. In fact, this is far from the case, and you only need to read the agreement with some attention to see that much more follows from it. The dominant, official faith of the Russians was paganism; but we see that in the agreement, along with the side of representatives of the dominant faith, representatives of the non-dominant faith - Christianity - are mentioned everywhere as an equal party. It is clear that there were not only many Christians, but also very many, for otherwise how would they have received equality? If the non-dominant side is placed completely on an equal footing with the dominant one, then it clearly and necessarily follows that it had a moral superiority over the latter, for it obviously could only obtain equality in the absence of the right if it had an advantage. But this is not enough. The decisive moral superiority of Christians over pagans is not only a necessary conclusion, but a positive and undoubted fact. We have already said above that we have before us an agreement not in alteration or free transfer of the chronicler, but in its original form and original text. What do we find in it? In an official agreement with another people, the Kyiv Varangians allow the side of the Christians, which was non-dominant, to be everywhere placed above the side of the pagans, which was dominant. If they allow it, it is obvious - because they do not want and cannot help but allow it; and if they do not want and cannot, then it is clear that those who want and are able were on the side of the Christians. But this, finally, is not enough: in the agreement it is not only made clear that Christians took precedence over the pagans, but it is directly and definitely stated that it was they who owned the entire management of the matter about it: “We, since we were baptized”..., they say about themselves, and about the pagans in the third person (and as if dismissively): “and they believe that Rus' is not baptized”... So, the official and undoubted document tells us regarding Igor's reign information: there were not only many Christians among the Varangians under him, but also very many. If not numerically (which the document does not make clear), then morally they prevailed over the pagans. They constituted the dominant political party, and the conduct of state affairs was in their hands. All this may not be entirely unexpected, but before turning to an explanation of the matter, we must also point out the last and greatest surprise. Based on everything we have said, we believe that the reader himself can already see it. Be that as it may, it consists in the fact that the Grand Duke himself, i.e. Igor, should be classified among the supporters of Christianity or among the internal Christians. If Christians morally prevailed over pagans and if it was they who constituted the dominant political party, then it turns out to be absolutely necessary to make and accept the assumption we have indicated. That it is absolutely necessary in its own sense and without any exaggeration - that without it it is impossible to explain the predominance and dominance of Christians, this, we hope, is too clear for everyone and does not require proof. If the Grand Duke were on the side of the pagans, he would tolerate Christians, but in no case would he give them dominance, for otherwise his behavior would be complete and impossible nonsense. Thus, in the end, regarding the reign of Igor, or at least the second half of it, we get the conclusion that there were very many Christians in Kyiv among the Varangians, and that even the Grand Duke himself was on their side or was an internal Christian. As a result, in the field of political affairs they clearly and decisively prevailed over the pagans. Perhaps, we repeat, all this may not seem entirely unexpected, but meanwhile, there is nothing particularly strange in all of this. Let's start with how Christians could appear in Kyiv under Igor Varangians. Igor, like all pagans, was distinguished by complete religious tolerance and accepted the Varangians who came to his service without any distinction, whether they were pagans or Christians. In his time, the Varangians, who were in the service in Constantinople, as we have positive evidence, if not in the majority, then in significant numbers, accepted Christianity 139. If we assume what is completely natural to assume, namely, that the Varangians found service with the Russian prince more profitable and honorable for themselves than with the Emperor of Constantinople, and that, as a result, they moved in droves from the latter to the former, then we will receive a completely satisfactory explanation of how very many Christian Varangians could appear in Kyiv under Igor. In Constantinople, the Varangians had to be content with a certain salary and not count on anything more. On the contrary, from the Russian prince they could hope to enrich themselves with booty in military campaigns that would be undertaken for this special purpose. In Constantinople they were only alien mercenaries and could not achieve official positions of any honor; on the contrary, when they came to Kyiv to join their own people, they immediately naturalized and entered service as if in their own state. Finally, in Constantinople there was a well-organized state and in it, of course, they tried, if possible, to curb people with too broad natures, such as the Varangians. On the contrary, Kyiv still had its own Normandy, which they loved, that is, they still had the freedom to live like a Norman. In view of all this, it was completely natural that the Varangians in very large numbers would move from Constantinople to Kiev 140. There is nothing incredible about the fact that Igor himself, at the end of his reign, stood on the side of the Christians or was an inner Christian. Igor could lean towards Christianity and become an inner Christian either on his own or through the mediation of his wife Olga. The probability of the latter is obvious, but, strictly speaking, the probability of the first is exactly the same. At that time, a decisive or at least very significant movement towards Christianity began among the Varangians. Many of the Varangians, baptized in Constantinople, came to serve Igor: is it surprising that these baptized Varangians managed to convert one of their own, that is, the Kyiv Grand Duke, to Christianity in Kyiv? Quite a few Varangians turned and turned to Christianity: but for the prince, among these many, there was absolutely the same opportunity to turn to him as for anyone else. As for Olga, it is necessary to assume that, having become an open Christian only after Igor’s death, she became such internally long before the latter. But, having become a Christian herself, she naturally had to persuade her husband to Christianity. And if she had to persuade, then there is nothing incredible that she actually succeeded in her efforts. Having become a Christian internally, Igor did not become one externally or openly. This must be explained for political reasons. Igor was on the throne of Kiev and only the second sovereign 141; in the eyes of his Slavic subjects, he still remained the same alien alien as Oleg and Rurik were. For all this, he still could not feel too firmly on his throne. But not feeling firmly on the throne, he could not dare to undertake such an important matter as a change of faith. In their attachment to paganism, our ancestors were not the slightest exception from other peoples, and in order to force them to accept the new faith, it would have been necessary to use all the energy of power, as was the case under Vladimir. It is not surprising that Igor did not find it possible to try to use this energy, risking the throne. Subsequently, Vladimir's position was completely different from Igor's. He had already managed to transform from a Varangian into a Slav, so that the Slavs looked at him as their natural sovereign. When he introduced a new faith, the Slavs could not tell him that you should go with your new faith to where you came from; but they could very well tell Igor this. When a person encroaches on his great-grandfather’s customs, it is not so offensive. But when the encroachment comes from the outside, from strangers, then it evokes all the irritation of offended national pride. Thus, not wanting to seriously risk the throne, Igor remained an outward pagan, although he became an inner Christian. From the internal life of the Varangian Christians under Igor, we only know that they had the Church of the Prophet Elijah in Kyiv. This church is called in the chronicle “team”. If we take the expression “collective church” as a translation of the Greek καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία, then it will mean a parish church as opposed to house churches; and if we were to understand it in our later Russian sense, then it would be necessary to understand such a parish church from among other parish churches in which daily services were performed (see below). We don’t know who made the widely accepted assumption that our church should be built on the site of the current Church of the Prophet Elijah, which is located on Podol, on the banks of the Dnieper, behind the Brotherly Monastery: this assumption is completely unfair. Firstly, the chronicle tells us that under Igor there was no population yet in Podol 142. Secondly, even if it were on it, then, in any case, it is necessary to assume that the ruling Varangians did not live there, but above, in the city itself or near it, and, therefore, the church of the Christian Varangians should be located here. Thirdly, that it was not on Podol at all, the chronicler makes it clear when he says that it was “above the stream”: under the stream, of course, is not the Pochaina, which flowed through Podol, which was a swamp in Igor’s time, but the Khreshchatytsky stream; therefore, the church was located near this latter, and since it stood not on the stream, but above the stream, it is clear that it was on the edge of the mountain facing the stream 143. The Varangian Christians, of course, received priests for their church from Constantinople (from the local Varangian church or the local Varangian churches, if there were several special churches) 144. The Christians of Igor's time made the Russian Varangian state a literate state. Before the time of Igor's Treaty, Russian ambassadors and merchants, when coming to Constantinople, brought with them, instead of passports, seals issued by the government 145. Since these special types of species were very vague and unreliable, when concluding a treaty, the Greeks demanded that in the future, ambassadors and merchants come with letters that would indicate how many ships came in the caravan (and how many people were on them), and from which the trustworthiness of the bearers would be better visible. If the Russians accepted this condition, then it is clear that they were already able and did not find it difficult to establish offices for writing. They obviously owed this opportunity to Christians, who could bring with them the knowledge of literacy and the art of writing from Constantinople. Olga, Igor’s wife, was a Varangian by birth, that is, she was still a foreigner separate from the Slavs, like the previous Christian Varangians and like all Varangians in general from the time of Igor 146 . The legends about her beauty and extraordinary intelligence are confirmed by the fact that Oleg brought her to Igor from Pskov 147, where she was probably the daughter of one of the governors or boyars 148, i.e. if Oleg, bypassing all the daughters of the Kyiv boyars, took a bride from the outside, then it is clear that this bride was outstanding and famous for her qualities. The event of Olga’s acceptance of Christianity is explained as simply as the internal conversion of her husband Igor to him is simply assumed. In the squad of this latter there were quite a lot of Varangian Christians who came from Constantinople. As a very intelligent woman, Olga should have paid attention to these Varangians of the new faith; for their part, the Varangians themselves, counting on Olga’s same intelligence, naturally should have dreamed of making her their proselyte. The preaching of the Christian Varangians had the consequence that Olga decided to become a Christian. We know that she was a woman not just with a great mind, but with a state mind. This circumstance should have served to make their work half easier for those who took it upon themselves to convince her of the truth of Christianity. The indication that Christianity has become the faith of almost all the peoples of Europe and, in any case, is the faith of the best peoples among them - an indication that among her own relatives (Varyags) a strong movement towards it finally began, following the example of other peoples, could not help but affect Olga’s mind, making it necessary for her to conclude that the best people should have the best faith. But, brought to this assumption, Olga was halfway closer to being convinced of the truth of Christianity itself. Olga became an open Christian only after the death of her husband, and then probably not immediately (more on that below). But it must be assumed that she became internally Christian during his lifetime and even long before his death. Christians, if they were not in Kyiv even before Igor, then, in any case, began to appear to the latter from the very beginning of his reign, for the great multitude of them that we see with him at the end of his reign could not suddenly surge. But it is impossible to imagine the matter in such a way that Olga, for many decades, for almost a whole half-century, 149 saw Christians and did not pay attention to them, and then suddenly, in her old age, she paid attention, and became a Christian. Having become an internal Christian under Igor, she could not be baptized under him for the same political reasons that we discussed above. If the Grand Duke had allowed his own wife to become an open Christian, it would have been a sign of overly obvious connivance and favor towards Christians, i.e., an action that he could not decide to take. If Olga had died before Igor, then before her death she, of course, would have been baptized secretly. In Olga’s story, questions still remain unresolved: when and where she was baptized. Our chronicle says that to accept Christianity she traveled to Constantinople, where she was baptized by the patriarch, having the emperor as her successor, and dates this event to 955. From the Greek writer Constantine Porphyrogenitus we undoubtedly learn that she was in Constantinople in 957. Taking the news of the chronicle about Olga's baptism in Constantinople, and correcting her year according to Porphyrogenitus, they usually think that she was baptized in Constantinople in 957. But it is very difficult to agree with this generally accepted opinion. In 957, when Olga came to Constantinople, the Greek emperor was the same Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the son of Leo the Wise, who in his essay “On the Rites or Ceremonies of the Byzantine Court” (Ἔ κθεσις τῆς βασιλείου τάξεως) described the reception Olga received in Constantinople. Describing this technique, Konstantin describes what happened with him, and, therefore, there is a completely reliable and reliable witness. But while describing in detail how Olga was received at court, Constantine does not say with a single word or a single hint that she came to Constantinople for baptism and was actually baptized there. Since the time of Schlözer (Nestor in Russian translation, III, 427), who also has Karamzin on his side (I, note 381), it has been customary to respond to this objection by saying that in a book intended solely for describing court ceremonies, which is the aforementioned work, Constantine had no need to talk about Olga’s baptism. The answer, however, is extremely weak and cannot in any way be considered satisfactory. Firstly, if Olga had been baptized in Constantinople then, this would have given space not only to ordinary, but also to very special, very rare court ceremonies, and, therefore, Constantine would not only have to mention them, but also describe them with special and deliberate care. Secondly, if we assume - which, however, is completely incredible, and no one assumes - that Constantine had the intention of describing the ceremony of baptism in a special work, then, in any case, it would be necessary to expect that he, referring to this special work for details, would mention it here, at least briefly, in two or three words. What was needed was consistency and completeness of speech. Finally, thirdly, Constantine makes it absolutely clear that Olga arrived in Constantinople already baptized. Describing the receptions made to her at court, he makes it clear that he begins with the very first reception 150; but at this reception her priest already appears: it is obvious that she arrived in Constantinople already as a Christian. So, it is impossible to accept that Olga was baptized in Constantinople on her visit to it in 957; on the contrary, it is necessary to think that she was baptized sometime before. Where and when? As for “where,” it seems most likely to think that she was baptized in Kyiv, and not in Constantinople. True, the Greek chroniclers Kedrin and Zonara 151, our Russian storyteller monk Jacob 152 and one Western chronicler 153 say, in agreement with our chronicle, that Olga was baptized in Constantinople. But to allow this means to accept Olga’s two journeys to Constantinople: one in 957, when she was already baptized, the other sometime before for baptism. Taking two journeys is not very easy. Firstly, these journeys, in addition to their difficulty and even danger (from the nomads sitting on the lower reaches of the Dnieper), should have been too expensive, and, having satisfied her curiosity to see the capital of the world once, Olga (about whom legends remained as a very thrifty woman) would hardly have wanted to go to it another time. Secondly, as we will now see below, we should think that she was not baptized very long before 957, but to assume that she made two trips to Constantinople in a short period of time would be very improbable. As for the later opinion, recorded by the above-mentioned writers, that Olga was baptized in Constantinople, it could easily have arisen, appearing as a natural assumption that she then traveled to Constantinople in order to be baptized in the capital of the Christian world at the hands of the ecumenical patriarch 154. How, however, the naturalness of this assumption in reality is not great, we know very well from the fact that Vladimir himself had no desire to be baptized in Constantinople. Of course, the question arises: why did Olga go to Constantinople in 957, if not for baptism? The answer to it is very simple: then, in order to satisfy your curiosity, to see the capital of the Christian and educated world, then, to see the fabulously magnificent Tsar City, to see the life and way of life of those kings who, called the rulers of the universe, although they no longer ruled it, still retained their former charm. And finally, then, what can be assumed together and as the main thing, so that in the capital of Christianity it is better to learn this last 155. As for “when,” it seems likely to think that after Igor’s death Olga remained unbaptized as long as she was the ruler of the state for the young Svyatoslav and continued to remain an official figure in the state. And that she was baptized only after, having found the opportunity to relinquish her official regency, she retired, at least formally, into private life, after which the people no longer had the right to hold her accountable for her actions. Svyatoslav was born in 942 156, therefore, he did not achieve full courage in 957, when Olga, undoubtedly, was already baptized. What year of age should be taken as incomplete courage, which at that time was considered the civil age of majority - we do not have direct data to answer this question, or at least we do not know. Assuming that such a year should be counted no earlier than 10, we get that Olga was baptized in the period between 952–957. The monk Jacob, and after him the later biographers of Olga, say that she lived in Christianity for 15 years 157, therefore, according to Jacob, who dates her death, as well as the chronicle, to 969, she was baptized in 954. Much later we will see that this monk Jacob deserves all our faith in his chronicles; and therefore, with a very high probability and with all right, we can stop at his year 158. To the questions: firstly, why Olga, being the ruler of the state after Igor’s death, did not baptize the people, and secondly, why did she not baptize Svyatoslav when he was a child and had not yet left obedience - we have given the answers in what is said above. For political reasons, because she did not find it possible to do either one or the other. As for Svyatoslav in particular, she, of course, could dispose of him as a son, but could not dispose of him as a prince. The monk Jacob reports the somewhat mysterious news that Olga, after returning from Constantinople, where he believes she was baptized, crushed the idolatry 159. Since she did not destroy, because she could not destroy, public idolatrous treasuries, then the above news of the monk Jacob, if it is true, must be understood to mean that she destroyed the treasuries in those palaces and estates that were her private property. If we consider the aforementioned news to be true, then it will be completely probable to make another assumption, namely, that Olga, not being able to take care of the spread of Christianity among the people, at least cared about its spread in her home - between her own courtiers and between her own servants and servants. There is news that Olga built churches, namely, that she built the Church of St. Sofia in Kyiv and that she supposedly left money for the construction of the Church of St. Trinity in Pskov, which, according to the underlying legend, did not yet exist during her time and appeared only after. Regarding the first news, the matter in itself would not represent anything incredible or impossible. Olga did not spread Christianity among the people and therefore had no need or motivation to build churches for the people; but in Kyiv there were many Varangian Christians who needed churches and already had them. Why couldn’t she, Olga, satisfying the need and prompted by pious zeal, build one or more new churches in Kyiv for the Varangians in addition to the previous churches? However, if this is the case in itself, then the positive news about the church she built in Kyiv is rather doubtful. It is represented by an entry in the calendar of one apostle of the beginning of the 14th century on May 11, which reads: “on the same day the consecration of St. Sophia (in) Kiev in the summer of 6460” 160. Regarding the year which is from P. X. there is the 952nd, in any case - a small mistake, because in this last year Olga had not yet been baptized. And since the entry does not directly say that the consecration of Olga’s church, it is quite possible to suspect a big mistake and mean the entry about Sofia Yaroslavova (or about the Tithe Church of Vladimir, about which see below). As for the money for the construction of the Pskov Church of St. Trinity, as evidenced by the life of Olga, compiled in Moscow in the 16th century, 161 which tells that once Olga arrived near the Velikia River, where there was then a great forest and many oak groves, that, having seen a vision on the spot, she predicted the construction of the city of Pskov on it and in the latter the church of St. Trinity and that later, having returned to Kyiv, “he sent a lot of gold to the Pleskova River (to whom?) to build the Church of the Holy Trinity”: then we believe that this news does not deserve to be criticized 162. Whether or not Olga built public churches for the Varangians in Kyiv, one must think that she built house churches for herself. Where these last churches were built, and in what number, this remains, and probably will forever remain unknown 163. In the third year after her trip to Constantinople, i.e. in 959, Olga sent an embassy to the German king (later emperor) Otto I or the Great. The fact of this embassy, ​​which our chronicler does not know about, or at least does not mention, but which many Western chroniclers talk about, is beyond doubt. There is also no doubt that it was from our Kyiv Olga, whom the mentioned chroniclers call by the Christian name of Helen, and not from anyone else 164. But then the question: why the embassy was sent must forever remain an insoluble mystery, unless some new, as yet unknown, evidence explains the matter. Western chroniclers say that Olga sent a bishop and priests to ask. That, as a result of a request, Libutius, from the brotherhood of the monastery of St., was appointed bishop of Russia in 960. Albana near Mainz. But when he, not having time to set off, died at the beginning of the next 961, then another was put in his place in the same year - Adalbert from the brotherhood of the monastery of St. Maximin in Trier (later the Archbishop of Magdeburg from 968). But it turned out, according to the chroniclers, that the embassy was sent in a deceitful and treacherous manner and that the Russians lied about everything. The bishop who arrived to them had to return back with nothing (and in such a way that on the way back he barely saved his life, and some of his companions were killed) 165 The most likely explanation of this completely mysterious embassy is the following: Olga sent to the king not at all to ask for a bishop and priests, but for something else, unknown to us 166; but Otto I, a well-known zealous spreader of Christianity, and precisely its spreader among the Slavs, 167, taking advantage of the opportunity of the embassy, ​​decided to send an uninvited bishop to the Russians; The chroniclers did not know the matter in detail, but since the bishop was sent after the embassy, ​​they concluded that he was sent as a result of this latter (post hoc, ergo propter hoc). Otto sent a bishop to the baptized Olga, of course, to call her back from the Patriarch of Constantinople to his Pope. Since the Greek and Roman Catholic churches, in reality having long been separate churches, formally still continued to constitute one Orthodox Church, for the final division occurred between them later; since then the newly baptized Olga could only be a Christian, but could not become either a supporter of the Greek half of the church or an opponent of the Roman half, then in itself it would not seem completely incredible that she sent to Otto to ask him for a bishop. But this assumption seems completely incredible in view of the fact that Olga did not need the bishop at all. Having accepted Christianity herself, she did not want, because she did not have the opportunity, to spread it among the people: why would she ask the bishop? Moreover, the Western chroniclers themselves say that the embassy was sent deceitfully, that is, that Olga had no real desire to receive a bishop. St. Olga died at an advanced age, being 70–75 years old, in 969. Before her death, she commanded not to perform funeral feasts on herself, that is, not to perform public pagan games that were performed at the graves of deceased princes and generally noble persons. Having been buried in a Christian manner, 168 she was laid somewhere in a special place, in all likelihood, in the courtyard or garden of one of her palaces. St. Vladimir, after his baptism, transferred her relics to the Church of the Tithes, which he built, where they were placed in a small stone shrine 169. There is no doubt that the Russian people began to honor the memory of the first Christian woman, who preceded general baptism, like the morning sun to the sun, from the very first time. But when she was formally canonized, and when the celebration of her memory was established, this remains positively unknown. And hardly already under Vladimir, as is usually thought, and even hardly even in the pre-Mongol period (cfr below - the chronicler and monk Jacob only say that in their time the memory of Olga was highly revered, but they do not say clearly that she was celebrated). Christians in Kyiv among the Varangians, who appeared, if not simultaneously with their arrival to us, then, undoubtedly, during the reign of Igor, in the second half of the latter’s reign, were very numerous. There were not a few isolated, inconspicuous and hidden individuals in the general mass, but a whole special, more or less significant community, which, existing openly and freely next to the dominant paganism, had all the accessories of a completely organized religious society - a church and priests. Thus, in the second half of Igor’s reign, Christianity was fully established in Kyiv as a private faith. What happened to him then? After Igor, our historians do not say anything about it before Vladimir, in other words, they silently assume that after the first of them it disappeared and that its existence was nothing more than a fleeting episode. We have already said above that in reality the matter should not be presented this way at all. We have very little positive evidence, but it goes without saying that it is necessary to assume that after Igor Christianity did not disappear in Russia. That it continued to remain in it, still in the same position of a large and completely organized religious community, from the very death of Igor until the baptism of Vladimir. And that thus this Christianity of Russia, preceding the baptism of the latter, has a period of continuous existence of more than half a century. After the death of Igor (in 945) for the young Svyatoslav 170, his mother Olga became the ruler of the state. At this time she was an internal Christian, for she became such, as must be assumed, long before the death of her husband. What should have been the position of Christians under her? Obviously, it could not in the least change for the worse. While Olga remained the ruler of the state, she not only did not find it possible to spread Christianity among her subjects, but she herself did not dare to be baptized. From this it is clear that there can be no talk of her completely obvious and completely decisive patronage of Christianity. But, of course, she was no longer his persecutor and, as far as was possible in her position, she provided him with the most zealous and secret patronage and support. Consequently, there was no reason that during Svyatoslav’s childhood and during Olga’s regency the number of Christians in Kyiv decreased compared to Igor’s time. And so that their situation, in comparison with the previous one, would experience some deterioration. One only needs to think that the number of Christians did not remain, but partly, perhaps even decreased, through external means. The Varangians' special craft was war, and they strove to go where they clashed with weapons; but in Kyiv, during the reign of women, of course, these swearing sounds, which had the power to call out to them, fell silent. It may very well be that under Olga the influx of Varangians, including Christians, into Kyiv from Constantinople did not continue. It may even be that some Varangians, including Christians, for the above reason, i.e., not wanting to sit with their hands folded, retired under Olga from Kyiv to Constantinople or generally seek their fortune around the world. It is unknown when, in the years 952–957 (see above), Olga resigned her regency, and Prince Svyatoslav himself became the ruler of the state. But, having officially become the ruler of the state, Svyatoslav was for a long time at such an age that he could not disobey his mother and that the latter, having ceased to be the official ruler of the state, had to remain so in practice. The chronicle lets us know that Svyatoslav began to act independently in 964, when he turned 22 years old 171. Consequently, the position of Christians in Kyiv until this year 964 remained the same, completely favorable for them, as before, starting from the second half of Igor’s reign. After Olga's official and unofficial regency, Svyatoslav's own reign began. His father Igor was an inner Christian, his mother became an open Christian: but in this respect the son took after neither his father nor his mother. Svyatoslav was the last Varangian among our princes and at the same time a Varangian knight in the fullest sense of the word. Without thinking at all about the state and completely abandoning it to the mercy of fate, he dreamed only of being equal in glory with his Norman ancestors, in order to seek only military adventures and military valor. The desire for the glory of his ancestors naturally had to closely connect him with both their religion and their traditions, which were precisely the religion and traditions of heroes. Svyatoslav not only could not abandon them and exchange them for Christianity, but on the contrary, he had to become their zealous adherent all the more, the more he strove to restore the old glorious Normans in himself and in his squad, for one was inseparable from the other. From a pagan by birth, Svyatoslav had to become an ardent pagan by conviction and principle, as a representative of antiquity, as a bearer of those ancient ideals that had absolutely nothing in common with Christianity. This latter commands prolonged prayers, fasting, obedience to the divine scriptures, deeds of mercy and love of poverty, abstinence from shedding human blood 172; all this should have seemed wild to the true knight and not in the slightest incompatible with what his thoughts were striving for - and Christianity should have become in the eyes of Svyatoslav a religion that was ridiculous and worthy of contempt, intended for a completely different kind of people 173 . Thus, Svyatoslav was a man who did not have the slightest desire or inclination to patronize Christianity. From this, however, it does not at all follow that under him it should cease to exist in Kyiv. Svyatoslav was a pagan, and as such, he could not be a persecutor of Christianity. According to the ideas of every pagan, not one faith should dominate the whole world as the only true one, but the world should be divided, as he actually sees, between many and varied, equally true, faiths 174. A pagan will find a certain faith not at all to his taste or to his heart, but, nevertheless, he will not cease to find it equally true and having the same right of existence with all other faiths; a pagan will even despise a certain faith and laugh at it, but still will not cease to consider it true, only intended for people lower than himself. As a result of this, a pagan, no matter what bad opinion he has about a certain faith and no matter how much dislike he has for it, will still not persecute it: the best and worst faiths, in his opinion, are all equally from the same God, and are only appointed for the best and worst people. The only case when he can initiate persecution of another faith is when another faith clearly and decisively encroaches on his own, when he conducts open propaganda about the latter 175. According to all that has been said, Svyatoslav, despite all his displeasure towards Christianity, despite his disdain and contempt for it, should not have persecuted its followers, but, giving them freedom, should have only limited himself to the statement of his aforementioned feelings for their faith. Without going into evidence of something that we would never prove to people who do not want to agree with us, we will directly refer to the chronicle, which, fortunately for us, does not leave us without positive evidence on this far from controversial issue. It testifies in the most positive way that Svyatoslav was not a persecutor of Christianity, and that under him there was no persecution of Christians. “If anyone wants to be baptized, I don’t scold him, but curse him,” she says about the attitude towards Christianity of Svyatoslav with the pagan part of the squad: if they did not even forbid the pagans to be baptized, then it is clear that they no longer persecuted those baptized who had previously become Christians. So, under Svyatoslav there was no real persecution of Christians, but there was, so to speak, only moral persecution, which consisted in the fact that the prince and the pagan part of the squad laughed at their faith 176. With this kind of persecution, should Christianity have disappeared in Kyiv under Svyatoslav, or, at least, should the number of its followers have decreased? If people accepted Christianity only externally, for some selfish calculation, then such light persecution could force them to abandon it. But this did not happen, because it could not have happened at all. And sincere Christians had to look at the neglect and contempt for their faith on the part of the prince only with regret, internally recalling the words of Scripture that madness hates wisdom, and saying to themselves what the chronicler says about Svyatoslav: “to the infidels, the Christian faith is ugliness” 177. Now above we have cited the words of the chronicle, from which it is clear that under Svyatoslav there were pagans in Kyiv who wanted to convert to Christianity: if the prince’s displeasure towards Christianity did not stop the pagans from turning to him, then all the less could it encourage those who were Christians to fall away from him. Without raising real persecution against Christians, Svyatoslav could declare his displeasure towards them by removing those who occupied the highest positions among them from the latter and replacing them with pagans. As a result of this, it could happen that, at least among the Christians from the boyar class, there could be people who preferred places and position to faith and who therefore returned again from Christianity to paganism. But the chronicle gives us one rather clear and positive indication that even this did not happen, that faith was faith, and service was service, and that mockery of the faith of Christians was the only reason for all the persecution against them under Svyatoslav. In the last years of Igor's reign and during Svyatoslav's childhood under Olga, Sveneld was the main commander of the grand duke. If this Sveneld was not the same inner Christian as Igor and Olga, then, in any case, it is necessary to think that he was not an enemy, but a more or less determined friend of Christianity. But he continued to remain the chief governor throughout the reign of Svyatoslav: this makes it quite clear that the previous attitude towards Christians did not change with the previous people 178. So, the whole persecution of Svyatoslav against Christians consisted in the fact that he despised and disdained their faith and that, together with other pagans, he laughed at it. But regarding this moral persecution, a significant reservation must be made in relation to those Christians who actually lived in Kyiv. It is known that Svyatoslav, after he grew up and matured and began to work (in 964), was almost constantly absent from Kyiv: At first he fought “many wars” with his neighbors, and then went into the Bulgarian war, from which he did not return alive 179. We do not know whom Svyatoslav left in his place as official ruler during his absences while Olga was alive († 969). But there is no doubt that she was the unofficial and actual ruler. Consequently, under Svyatoslav until Olga’s death, the position of Christians who remained in Kyiv proper was exactly the same as it had been before during Olga’s actual regency and under Igor 180. Svyatoslav's successor was his eldest son Yaropolk, whom he planted in Kyiv during his lifetime, after Olga's death, and who was the last Grand Duke before Vladimir 181. We have absolutely no positive information about Yaropolk, or at least indications and hints, 182 and we can only make assumptions. Whatever bad we might assume about Yaropolk - whether he looked at the Christian faith through the eyes of his father, or whether it was even more antipathetic to him than to the latter, in any case, it will remain undoubted that he did not persecute Christians. And that the latter continued under him to enjoy the same freedom as in all previous times, starting from their first appearance. This is the same reason why Svyatoslav did not persecute Christians, i.e. because he was a pagan and that paganism is synonymous with tolerance. Persecution of another faith can only be a consequence of the conviction that my faith is the only true one, and all other faiths are false, and that therefore all other faiths must be destroyed in order to give universal dominion to the one true faith. But the views of the pagans on the matter, as we have already said, were different; in their eyes, all faiths were equally true, constituting not a human invention, but originating from the same God. The difference between religions and their higher or lower dignity in their opinion meant, in their opinion, the difference between lower and higher, better and worse people for whom they were intended. Just as they despised the people who were inferior to them, in their opinion, so they could despise the inferiors of their, in their opinion, religion. But it could not have occurred to them to pursue that which is from God and has its own reasonable purpose and legitimate purpose of being the religion of lower people. The desire to exterminate the worst religions would mean nothing more on their part than the desire to exterminate the lower races of people. Thus, no matter how unfavorably disposed towards Christianity we imagine Yaropolk to be, in any case, it remains undoubted that he did not initiate persecution against Christians. But, strictly speaking, we have no reason to assume either the worst or even just the worst about Yaropolk, but on the contrary, we have decisive reasons to assume the best. At least until he was 10, and maybe even 12 years old, his grandmother Olga 183 remained alive, who was his own teacher instead of the constantly absent Svyatoslav. True, Svyatoslav himself was raised by Olga, and, however, she did not have time to make him either an external or an internal Christian. But “examples are extremely rare when two people in a row - father and son - turned out to be such unique people as Svyatoslav was, and the historical-physiological probability (if I can put it that way) is all on the other side that Yaropolk, without being another out-of-the-ordinary Norman daredevil, was just an ordinary person. And as a result of this, there is every possibility of thinking that with the upbringing of Yaropolk, Olga had a completely different luck than with the upbringing of Svyatoslav, i.e., that she actually managed to make him a person more or less favorable towards Christianity (Yaropolk died at the hands of Vladimir at the age of 21–18; if he had lived longer, it is very possible that not Vladimir, but he would have been the baptizer of all Rus'). So, here is the history of Christianity in Russia from the beginning of the state to St. Vladimir. Christians among the Varangians appeared in it, if not under Rurik and Oleg, then, undoubtedly, under Igor, in the second half of whose reign there were very many of them in Kyiv, and who in this second half of his reign himself inclined internally to their side. Using under Igor all the patronage of the Grand Duke, who internally belonged to their side, they continued to enjoy the same patronage during the reign of Olga. Under Svyatoslav they did not enjoy this patronage, and regarding Yaropolk we have no positive information, but with both, they undoubtedly did not tolerate persecution and enjoyed complete freedom. We said above that we have very little positive evidence regarding this Christianity in Russia from Igor to Vladimir. But now the reader has before his eyes the historical side of the matter; We hope he sees that these few pieces of evidence are quite sufficient, and that they fully confirm everything that we said above. From the death of Igor to Vladimir, the worst time for Christians was the reign of Svyatoslav. But we have positive evidence that says that even during this reign, Christians did not tolerate persecution and enjoyed complete freedom (to such an extent that even pagans accepted Christianity without any restrictions). Consequently, they did not tolerate persecution and enjoyed freedom at all other times. And if so, then everything else we have said will follow from this. Under Igor, there were very many Christians among the Varangians. After him, their number, perhaps, decreased from time to time due to the departure of some to Constantinople and generally to other places. But, firstly, the decline of those who left completely or to some extent could be compensated by others who came again, and secondly, we have positive evidence that Christianity, much or little, but gradually, grew internally through the conversion of pagans to it in Kyiv itself. This evidence tells us that such conversions took place during the reign of Svyatoslav, the worst for Christians, and thus give us the perfect right to extend them to the entire time before Vladimir. Thus, in the end, a conclusion is reached regarding the number of Christians among the Varangians before Vladimir: having appeared in Kyiv no later than the reign of Igor, from that time on they were constantly there in relatively large numbers. We hope everyone understands how important everything we have said now is in relation to subsequent times: by the reign of Vladimir, Christianity was not some completely unknown faith in Russia, but on the contrary, it was a very well-known faith; Christians were in Kyiv for more than half a century, having churches and priests, and they lived not somehow secretly, but completely openly, in the form of a special, permitted and tolerated by the government, non-religious community. We spoke only about Christianity among the Varangians, because only positive evidence speaks about them. But from the Varangians, didn’t Christianity spread among the Slavs themselves? As for the mass of the common people, who were supposed to see in the Varangians a special people from themselves, and who could not be particularly friendly towards this special people, as the dominant one, as representing a crowd of foreign finders, Christianity probably spread very little, and maybe even did not spread at all. But in the upper class of natural Slavs, in the natural Slavic part of the boyars 184, which the desire to participate in power was supposed to unite with the Varangians and separate from the people, Christianity could more or less spread, although we cannot say anything positive. During the second half of Igor's reign, the Kyiv Varangian Christians had at least one public church. There is every possibility of thinking that, with complete freedom to build churches, several more were built over time. For at that time there was an inclination to build as many churches as possible, and to build small churches, such as those of that time, especially wooden ones, as it should have been in Kyiv, cost absolutely nothing. And, thus, it will not be at all strange to think that by the time of Vladimir, Kyiv had, perhaps, about a full five Christian churches, and maybe even more. In addition to public churches, even in the time of Igor there were churches and house buildings 185. In the course of time they must also have multiplied in a proportion greater than the social ones. For several public churches, for a significant number of brownie churches in Kyiv, there should have been a very significant number of Christian priests, of whom at that time, like churches, there was a tendency to have as many as possible, i.e. not one or two or three, but at least two or three dozen. In what language did the Kyiv Varangian Christians perform their public worship? We do not have any positive data to answer the question, and we can only make assumptions. There are two possible assumptions, namely, that they performed it either in Greek or Gothic. (That is, by this we mean that there is absolutely no reason and no probability to assume that the liturgical books were translated into their own Norman language). We find it difficult to give priority to which assumption, but we are more inclined to favor the second. Our Kyiv Varangians, no doubt, performed worship in the very language in which the Varangians of Constantinople performed it, since our Varangian church (community) was the daughter of the Varangian church of Constantinople. The Varangians who lived in Constantinople more or less knew Greek. The Greek spiritual and secular government, no doubt, had the desire to have their services performed in Greek, because the later Greeks were as much for the dominance of their Greek language in all worship as the later Latins were for the dominance of their Latin language (cfr below). But, on the other hand, the Gothic language was almost their own for the Normans, and yet the influence of the Greek government could not be particularly strong on them, so that they would not dare to be willful. If the Gothic language had not been in living use anywhere in the 10th century and had remained only an archaeological monument in books, then the Normans, of course, would not have called it to new life. But we have evidence that in the half of the 9th century, the Goths, who lived within the Greek empire, performed divine services in their own Gothic language: from the half of the 9th century to the 10th is not very far 186. We said above that the Christian Varangians introduced literacy in Russia back in the time of Igor. Once installed, she, no doubt, remained in Russia together with the Christians themselves throughout the subsequent time until Vladimir. The letters for writing, as it should be thought, were used Greek or Gothic (also taken from the Greek alphabet, with the exception of a few letters that were independent or taken from their own Germanic runes), depending on the language in which the divine service was performed 187 . This fact of the continuous existence of literacy in our country no later than since the time of Igor is a circumstance of extreme importance in relation to the question of the sources of our original or so-called Nestor Chronicle... Russian legend about Olga's baptism in Constantinople, recorded in our chronicle under the year 955. In the summer of 6463 (955) Olga went to Greece and came to Constantinople. There was a king then (in Constantinople) named Tzimiskes (Temsky) 188. And Olga came to him, and the king saw that she was very beautiful in face and intelligent (smart) and was surprised at her intelligence and, talking with her, said to her: “You are worthy to reign here in Constantinople with us” 189. She, understanding the king’s speech, said to him: “I am a pagan; if you want me to be baptized, baptize me (be my successor) yourself, but if not, then I will not be baptized,” and the king and the patriarch baptized her. Having been enlightened (by baptism), she rejoiced in soul and body, and the patriarch taught her a lesson about faith and said: “Blessed are you among the Russian women because you loved the light and left darkness: the Russian people will bless you until the last generation of your grandchildren.” And he commanded her about the church rules, about prayer and fasting, about almsgiving and about keeping the body clean. She, bowing her head, stood like a soldered lip, listening to the teaching; bowing to the patriarch, she said: “By your prayers, lord, may I be saved from the hostile snare.” She was given the name Elena in baptism, as was the name of the ancient queen, the mother of the great Constantine. The patriarch blessed her and released her. After baptism, the king called her and said: “I want to marry you.” She answered: “How do you want to take me, when you yourself baptized me and called me (his) daughter - you yourself know that Christians do not have such a law.” And the king said: “You outwitted me, Olga” (you outwitted me, Olga). Having given her many gifts - gold and silver, expensive materials and various vessels, the king released her, calling her his daughter. She, although (to go) home, came to the patriarch, asking for a blessing on the house, and said to him: “My people and my son are pagans, so that (oh if) God would preserve me from all evil.” And the patriarch said: “Faithful child! You were baptized into Christ and put on Christ. Christ will save you, as he saved Enoch in the first birth and then Noah in the ark, Abraham from Abimilech, Lot from Sodom, Moses from Pharaoh, David from Saul, the three youths from the cave, Daniel from the beasts - in the same way he will save you from the enemy and from his snares.” The patriarch blessed her, and she went in peace to her land and came to Kyiv. It was similar to how during the time of Solomon the Queen of Ethiopia came to Solomon, although she heard his wisdom, and saw much wisdom and signs - so this blessed Olga sought the good wisdom of God. She sought human wisdom, and this God... This blessed Olga from her youth sought everything in the world with this wisdom 190 (and therefore) found a valuable bead, which is Christ... Olga came to Kyiv, and the Greek king sent to her, saying: “I gave you a lot, for you told me that when you return to Rus', you will send many gifts - slaves, wax and furs and army to the rescue." Olga answered and said to the ambassadors: “Tell the king from me: if you stay with me in Pochaina as long as I stayed with you in the pier, then I will give you gifts.” 191 Constantine Porphyrogenitus about Olga’s receptions in Constantinople in the imperial palace (De ceremoniis aulae Byzantinae, lib. II, cap. 15, ed. Bonn, p. 594, y Minya Patrology t. 112, col. 1108). “On the 9th of September, on Wednesday, there was a reception, in everything similar to the previous one (of one Saracen ambassador), on the occasion of the arrival of Olga (Ἕ λγας), the Russian princess. The princess herself entered (into the appointed place of the imperial palace) with her princesses, her relatives and selected maidservants 192, she - walking ahead of all the other women, and - they followed in order one after another, and stood in the place where the logothete 193 has the custom of asking questions. After her, the ambassadors and solicitors of 194 Russian princes entered and stood further between the curtains, and everything else was done according to the above-mentioned reception (of the Saracen ambassador). Having gone back through the anadendradium, and the hall of candidates, and the hall in which the kamilavka 195 stands and the masters are produced, she passed through the onopod and the golden arm or portico of Auguston 196 and sat down there. When the emperor entered the palace 197 in the usual manner, there was another reception as follows. In the Hall of Justinian, an elevated platform was placed, covered with red carpets embroidered with gold, and on it was placed the great throne of Emperor Theophilus 198, and on the side was a golden royal chair, while two silver organs of two parties 199 were placed further, behind two curtains, and the organs played on were placed outside the curtains. Having been called from Auguston, the princess passed through the apse and through the hippodrome and internal passages of the same Auguston, and arriving at the village of εἰς τὰ σκύλα 200. The Empress 201 sat down on the above-mentioned throne (Theophila), and her daughter-in-law 202 was on the chair, and the entire edicate 203 entered and the prepositum and ostriaries were introduced into the following sections: Section one - ladies of state 204, section two - masters, section three - patricians (wives of patricians), section four - official protospatharei, fifth department - the rest of the protospatharei, sixth department - spataro-candidatesses, seventh department - spatarei, stratorissa and candidates. After this, the princess was introduced with a preposite and two ostiaries. Moreover, she preceded, and after her, as said, the princesses of her relatives and her chosen maids followed. And questions were made to her on behalf of the empress, and she went out and sat down. The Empress, having risen from the throne, passed through the lavsaik and tripeton and entered the kenurgy, and through it into her inner chambers, the princess with her relatives and maids entered through the Justinian hall and the lavsaik and tripeton into the kenurgy (and there) rested. Then the emperor sat down (in the inner chambers of the empress) with the empress and his porphyry-born children, and the princess was called from the kenurgy hall and, at the invitation of the emperor, sat down and spoke to him about what she wanted. On the same day there was a ceremonial table 205 in the same Justinian Hall. The Empress and her daughter-in-law sat on the aforementioned throne, and the princess stood from the side; when the master of ceremonies brought the princesses (relatives) into the table according to the usual rank and bowed, then the princess, slightly bowing her head (bowed) 206, sat down according to the rank where she stood, at the truncated table with the ladies of state 207. It should be known that the singing churches of the Apostles and Sophia were present at this dinner and sang the imperial hymns; All sorts of theatrical games were also played. In the chrysotricline there was another ceremonial table, where all the ambassadors of the Russian princes and the people and relatives of the princess and attorneys 208 dined, and her nephew received 30 miliarisiy 209, her people 20 mil. each, 20 ambassadors 12 mil. each, 43 attorneys 12 mil. each, priest Gregory 210 8 mil., two translator 12 mil., Svyatoslav's people 5 mil., princess translator 15 mil. After the emperor stood up from the table 211, dessert was (offered) in the breakfast room - a small golden table was placed, which stands in the pentapyrgy (five towers) 212) and dessert was placed on it on dishes decorated with enamel and precious stones, and the emperor (Constantine - the author) and Romanus Porphyrogenitus (son of Constantine) and their porphyry-born children and daughter-in-law and princess, and 213,500 mil. were presented to the princess on a gold plate decorated with stones, and 8 mil each to 18 maids. On the 18th of October, Sunday, there was a ceremonial dinner in the chrysotricline, and the emperor was sitting (dining) with the Russians. And again there was another ceremonial dinner in the pentacubucle of St. Paul, and the empress was present with her porphyry children and daughter-in-law and princess, and the princess was given 200 mil., her nephew 20 mil., 18 slaves (i.e., boyars?) 6 mil. each, 22 ambassadors 12 mil. each, 44 attorneys 6 mil. each, two translators 12 mil. each.” 214 – (The year of Olga’s stay in Constantinople is determined by the instructions of Porphyrogenitus that the 9th of September was on Wednesday, and the 18th of October on Sunday.” These dates on these days were in continuation of the required time only in 957). Western chroniclers about Olga's embassy to Otto. Continued by Reginon (half of the 10th century, a direct contemporary) under 959: “They came to the king - as it later turned out, in a deceitful manner - the ambassadors of Helena reginae Rugorum, who was baptized in Constantinople under the Emperor of Constantinople Romanus, and asked to consecrate a bishop and priests for this people.” Under 960: (in this year) “the king celebrated the feast of the Nativity of Christ in Frankfurt, where Libutius from the brethren of the monastery of St. Albana (in Mainz) was consecrated Bishop of Rugorum (genti Rugorum) by the venerable Bishop Adaldag of Bremen. Under 961: “Libutius, who was prevented from traveling last year by certain matters, died on March 15th of this year; Adalbert from the brethren of the monastery of St. was dedicated to him as his successor. Maximina in Trier; this latter, the most pious sovereign, with his usual mercy, generously supplying him with everything he needed, sent with honor to the Rugs (genti Rugorum).” Under the year 962: “In this year Adalbert returned back, having been appointed bishop of Rugam, for he did not succeed in anything for which he was sent, and saw his efforts in vain. On the way back, some of his companions were killed, but he himself barely escaped with great difficulty.” (Pertz. Monumenta Germaniae, I, 624). This successor is repeated verbatim by the Saxon chronicler (Annalista Saxo of the 12th century, see Schletser, Nest., III, 450; in Acta SS. Bollandists, Junii t. 4, p. 32, cited under the name of the Magdeburg chronograph). Chronicle of Gildesheim (end of the 10th century) under 960: “The ambassadors of the Russian people (Rusciae gentis) came to King Otto and asked him to send them one of his bishops who would show them the path of truth, and they said that they wanted to abandon their paganism and accept the Christian faith. The king heeded their request and sent Bishop Adalbert, Orthodox by faith (fide catolicum), but they, as the outcome of the case showed, lied about everything” (ibid., t. V, p. 60). This chronicle is repeated verbatim, only with additions at the end, by the Quedlinburg Chronicle (the first half of the 11th century) and Lambert of Hersfeld (usually called Aschaffenburg, Scafnaburgensis, the second half of the same century). The Quedlinburg Chronicle, after the words “they lied about everything,” adds: “since the aforementioned bishop himself did not escape mortal danger from their treachery” (ibid., p. 60); Lambert of Hersfeld after the words “Bishop Adalbert” adds: “who, however, barely escaped their hands” (ibid., p. 61). Chronicle of Corvey under 959: “King Otto, at the request of the Russian queen, sent to her Adalbert, a monk of our monastery, who was later made the first bishop in Magdeburg” (Schletser, Nest. III, 451 - why the chronicle, contrary to Reginon, calls Adalbert a monk of his monastery, we cannot explain). Dietmar of Merseburg († 1018), speaking about the installation of Adalbert as archbishop of Magdeburg, writes that he was previously ordained abbot of Rus' - Rusciae, but was expelled from there by the pagans, Chronic., lib. II, sar. 14. Speaking directly below about our Rus', he calls the country - Ruscia, the people - Rusci, lib. VII, p. 52 and lib. VIII, p. 16. The decree of Emperor Otto on the installation of Adalbert as archbishop of Magdeburg says that he had previously been appointed and sent as a preacher to the Rugs (Rugis olim praedicatorem destinatum et missum, Pertz ibid., IV, 561). We find that the name Vladimir should be written not with the letter and at the end, but with the letter and, because the word peace, both in this name and in all other names combined with it, is not peace - the universe, but peace - agreement, peace, as is clear especially in the names Lyubomir, Dobromir, Tvorimir, Terpimir. Dietmar of Merseburg, Chronic, lib. VII, §52, about our Vladimir, he says that his name is interpreted as the possession of the world - potestas pacis. Already Herodotus, about half of the 5th century BC, speaks of Scythian plowmen (ἀροτῆρες) on the Bug and on the Dniester and about Scythian farmers (γεωργοί) on the Dnieper (Book IV, ch. 52 and 53). And there is no doubt that by both he means our ancestors of the Slavs, distinguishing them with the epithets “plowmen and farmers” from the Scythian nomads or nomads, who, inhabiting the steppe lying to the south and east of the Slavs, mostly belonged to the peoples of the Altai or Mongolian (Mongol-Turkic) family. However, the author of the story about the journey of Ap. Andrei through Rus', without noticing the contradiction to himself or not paying attention to it, represents only the Kyiv mountains as still unoccupied by the Slavs in the time of the Apostle, and then leads him to the land of Novgorod, as to the Slavic land. He needed that at the time of the Apostle the Kyiv mountains had not yet been occupied by the Slavs so that, otherwise, he would either have to say something reprehensible about the local Slavs, that the Apostle was not able to introduce Christianity among them, or leave the reader to assume the no less reprehensible thing that the Apostle established Christianity among them, but they did not preserve it. As for the Novgorod Slavs, having one of the deliberate goals of his story to ridicule them (see below), he does not care about their honor in the now indicated respect and leaves the reader to assume that the apostle really could not establish Christianity among them, like among the great Neveglas. The chronicle about them is in the introduction: “And Uluchi (incorrectly instead of Uglichi, as this correct one was preserved in some later chronicles) and Tivertsi sedyahu along the Dniester, sedyahu to Dunaevi; There are so many of them that they travel along the Dniester to the sea; the essence of their city to this day.” The city of Peresechen, which voivode Igor Sveneld besieged for three years and which is probably mistaken for the capital of the later Uglichi - Tivertsev, is seen in the current large village of Peresechin, located in the Ogreevsky district of the Bessarabian region, 15 versts from Ogreev along the post road to Chisinau (Dictionary of the Russian Empire by Semenov, words. Peresechin). The name of Uglichi, as explained by the late Nadezhdin, comes from the area, which is an angle (cut, nook) between the Dniester, the Black Sea, the Danube and the Prut or Seret. The Greeks, preserving the Slavic name of the area, called it Ὄ γγλος (on - the nasal sound yus), and the current Turkish name for the southern part of the area Budzhak is a translation of the Slavic name, for the Turkish word Budzhak means corner. As the folk legend preserved before the chronicler and recorded by him rightly said, our ancestors the Slavs came to present-day Russia along the Danube from the west, from their relative or in the proper sense of the first homeland in Europe - the Venetian region in northern Italy (received the name from the Slavs of Veneda, Veneta) and the first area from which they began their settlement along it was the lower reaches of the Danube. And, thus, the Uglichi-Tivertsy were at their place of residence the most ancient or original inhabitants than all other Russian Slavs at their places of residence. (That by Antes Byzantine historians should mean the Uglichi-Tivertsi, this can be seen partly from them themselves, - Procopius of Caesarea, with undoubted clarity - from the contemporary Gothic historian Iornand or Jordan, Procopius, who says about the place of residence of the Ants literally the same as our chronicle about the place of residence of the Uglichi-Tivertsi: Antes a Danastro extenduntur usque ad Danubium, - De Gothorum origine, cap. V, y Minya in Patrology t. col. 1255 sub fin.). The memory of Trajan was preserved in a very remarkable way among the Russian Slavs. They turned the famous Roman emperor into their very famous national hero. As such, they made him the patron of their land, including him among their gods or demigods (see below), and for this reason they called their land “the land of Troy” (The Tale of Igor's Campaign). They called the glorious times of their imaginary Trojan the centuries of Trojan ("evenings of Trojan"); about performing valiant deeds, they expressed themselves as “venturing into Troyan’s path,” that is, following in Troyan’s footsteps; they traced back from the time of Emperor Trajan, whom they turned into their national Trojan, an approximate reckoning of their prehistoric times (“on the seventh century of Trojan” - The Tale of Igor’s Campaign. If we are not mistaken, something similar to what we have happened to Emperor Trajan among the Romanians, Bulgarians and Serbs). - All the ramparts existing in Bessarabia are called Troyan. And mainly called by this name, an exceptionally long rampart, perhaps erected by Emperor Trajan to protect the northern Roman border in present-day Bessarabia from barbarian raids, stretches for more than a hundred miles from the Dniester to the Prut, starting opposite Tiraspol at the first river and ending at the town of Leova at the second. See Le Quien ’a in Oriens Christian., I, 1217 (the martyr Melitina, commemorated on September 16, suffered in Marcianopolis, the main city of Lower Mysia, under the emperor Antoninus, who occupied the throne from 138 to 161). See Le Quien' a ibid. I, 1211 (the martyrs Epictetus and Astion, commemorated on June 7, suffered under Diocletian in the Scythian city of Almyris, while on the episcopal Thomian or Tomitan see of the Evangelist). Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his book De administrando imperio reports that in his time on the lower Dnieper the ruins of six cities were visible, in which the remains of buildings that had signs of churches were preserved, and crosses carved on stones were found, testifying to the existence of Christianity in the former cities - sar. 37 sub. fin., ed. Bonn. p. 167. Russian translation of the work of Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, to which the title is given in the translation: “On the Peoples” and, moreover, the translator in our place, taking the name of the Dnieper River as an error of the copyists of the work, puts the Dniester instead of the Dnieper, - in the Readings of the Society of History and Antiquities, in Book I. 1899. But if Christianity existed in the Greek colonies located on the Dnieper, then there is every possibility of concluding that it existed in the same colonies located on the Dniester. (And if we accept with the translator the works of Konstantin Porphyrogenitus and with some others, it is very likely that instead of the Dnieper, Konstantin should mean the Dniester, then we will have the positive information we need. Konstantin says that the first of the six cities that were in ruins was called the White City by the Pechenegs, - Ἄ οπρον κάστρον, and it is very likely to mean by this White City the subsequent Slavic Belgorod, which is now called in Turkish Akkerman and which is the Greek Tiras we mentioned). Dacia, present-day Moldo-Wallachia with Transylvania, received its name from the Thracian people of the Dacians or Getae (called by the first name by the Romans, and by the second by the Greeks) who came to it in the middle of the 4th century BC from across the Danube. But in the country that received its name from them, they were inhabitants of the Slavs, who were as ancient inhabitants there as our Uglich-Tivertsi were on their territory. (Under the invasion of the Slavs on the Danube by the Volkhov or Volokhov, which our chronicler speaks of, in all likelihood should be understood the invasion of the Dacians, whom the chronicler calls by their later name). Emperor Trajan, having conquered Dacia in 101–107, populated it with Roman colonists, and from the mixing of these colonists with the native inhabitants, the present-day Romanians arose: but the Romanian language (which is a mixture of Latin and Slavic languages, and perhaps some others), undoubtedly testifies that the Slavs took a very significant part in its formation. From the end of the 4th – beginning of the 5th century A.D. Huge hordes of Slavs poured across the Danube from Dacia to the Balkan Peninsula and terribly flooded the entire latter (the current Bulgarians are the descendants of these Slavs). But in Dacia these Slavs could not suddenly grow out of the ground like mushrooms. (And the opinion of Safarik, who spreads the Slavs across Europe contrary to reality and forces them from one or another seashore, on which they found themselves during the transition from Asia to Europe, to miraculously fly to the northern slopes of the Carpathians, which he takes to be the original homeland of the Slavs in Europe, should be considered completely unfounded). In the works that we quote below. In Stritt, in Memor. popp. (I, 161, 199, 612; II, 25) about the Antae, by which we should mean the Uglich-Tivertsev (in general, see the historical Index under the word Antae). The Gothic historian Iornand, confirming the Greek historians, speaks of the Uglich-Tivertsy (whom he calls Antami) and the Dacian Slavs (whom he calls Slavs) of his time, that they are nunc ubique desaeviunt, and at the same time about the belligerence of the Uglich-Tivertsy, he says that they are eorum fortissimi, qui ad Ponticum mare curvantur, -De Gothorum origine, cap. 5.– In the second half of the 2nd century AD, the German Goths appeared on the lower Danube and the Black Sea, who, gradually spreading their power to the west along the Hungarian Teissus River, and to the east along the Don River, formed two kingdoms (domains) - the Visigothic (Visigothic) or western and the Ostrogothic (Ostragothic) or eastern, with a mutual border between them by the river Dnieper, and who dominated the country now within the indicated limits until the year 376, when the Mongol Huns came from Asia to Europe. It must be assumed that the Goths subjugated the Uglich-Tivertsi more or less soon after their arrival on the Danube - the Black Sea. And since, starting from the second half of the 3rd century, Christianity spread between them to such an extent that they began to have their own special bishop: it would be possible to indicate another way of spreading Christianity between the Uglich-Tivertsi, this is from the Goths who owned them. But contrary to the most accepted opinion, the Goths, among whom Christianity was widespread, should be considered not the Western Goths, who had the Uglich-Tivertsi under their rule, but the Eastern ones. (The chair of the Gothic bishop Theophilus, who was present at the first ecumenical council, as can be seen from reading his signature under the conciliar acts according to some lists of the latter, was in the city of Bosporus, present-day Kerch: De Gothes Theophilus Bosporitanus, - Bessel Über das Leben des Ulfilas und die Bekehrung der Gothen, Götting., 1860, S. 115). Bishop of Unila, installed by St. John Chrysostom for the Goths, who remained at their place of residence after the removal of most of their relatives to the west, and, as one must think, was one of the direct successors of Theophilus, had his own see, which is clearly evident from Chrysostom’s speeches about him in the letter to the Olympiad (in the editions of Montfaucon, t. III, and Minev, t. LII, – 13) also in the city of Bosporus. As for the Western Goths, Christianity began to spread among them only about thirty years before the Huns arrived in Europe and before they moved away from the latter to the west. (The first preacher of Christianity among these Goths, and specifically of Arian Christianity, was the famous Ulfila. Who himself was baptized while in Constantinople as a hostage and who was ordained bishop by Eusebius of Nicomedia in order to go to introduce Christianity to his homeland, in 341. Ulfila’s preaching was successful, but in In 348, King Athanaric, driven by political motives, launched a persecution against Christians, and the bishop, along with his converts, was forced to retire beyond the Danube, to the borders of the empire. Where in the city of Nikopol, near the Balkans - currently Nikup or Nikyup, not far to the north of Tarnov, he made his famous translation of the Bible into the Gothic language and died in 381. After 348, Christianity was again spread among the western Goths, and it was partly the same Arian missionaries sent by Ulfila, partly Orthodox missionaries coming from the eastern Goths, but in 370 Athanaric raised a new persecution. During this second persecution, the Orthodox martyrs suffered, whom our church recognizes: Nikita, - September 15, Savva, - April 15, Vafusy and Verk with a squad of other twenty-four, - March 26 (under King Ungerich, from whom the latter suffered, we must understand, one of Athanaric’s henchmen). The most important and famous among the colonies was Olbia, located in the Dnieper-Bug estuary, namely on the right bank of the separate Bug estuary. See Herodotus book. IV, ch. 53 (the lower Dnieper was known to the Greeks of the colonies for 14 days of travel from the mouth up, namely, to the rapids, it must be implied, because during these 14 days of travel they climbed the river to trade with the Scythians - farmers, by which we mean Polyane). See above, footnote No. 18. (And if we accept that Constantine Porphyrogenitus should mean the Dniester, and not the Dnieper: then from the existence of Christianity in the colonies located on the banks of the first, it is just as much the other way around, and it will be even more likely to conclude about the existence of Christianity in the colonies located on the banks of the second). Since the later Greeks of the imperial times had two Scythia (European except Asian) - our Scythia, which we are talking about, and Scythia, which constituted a province or province (έπαρχία) of the empire itself (present-day Dobrudzha between the lower Danube and the Black Sea, with the main or provincial city of Tomi, located on the shores of the Black Sea on the site or slightly below the site of the current town Mangalia), then the first Scythia, unlike the second, was called Great Scythia, as our chronicler says about this (“all of them, the Russian Slavs with the Finnish peoples neighboring them, are called from the Greek Great Scythia,” in the introduction and under 907). First in the book or treatise against the Jews (Adversus Iudaeos), ch. 7, in Min's Patrology t. II, col. 611: Having spoken about the spread of Christianity among the peoples of the entire universe and listing by name many peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe, he names the Scythians and Sarmatians, along with other peoples of the last part of the world. Second in the word on the incarnation, ch. 51, in Minh ibid. t. XXV, col. 188: the disciples of the Lord Jesus, assisted by His all-effective power, were able to spread His veneration among so many remote and wild peoples as the Scythians, Ethiopians, etc. Chrysostom names the Scythians and Sarmatians among the peoples among whom Christianity is spread, in several of his words: against the Jews and pagans, ch. 6, in Ming ibid. t. Χ LVIII col. 862; on Psalm 44, ch. 3, ibid. t. LV, col. 186; said in the Gothic Church by St. Paul, ch. 1, ibid. t. LXIII, col. 501. Blessed Jerome – in his letter to Lethe (ad Laetam), in Men ibid. t. XXII, col. 870: Christianity spread throughout the world, so that even the Huns study the psalter, and the cold of Scythia glows with the heat of faith (Scythiae frigora fervent calore fidei). That church writers of the first time go into greater or lesser exaggeration regarding the ubiquity of Christianity on earth and that therefore their speeches about the Scythians and Sarmatians can only be understood as an intensified image of expression, this is especially evident from what Justin the philosopher († no later than 170) and Tertullian say about our ubiquity. The first, regarding his time, claims that there is absolutely not a single people on earth, no matter what barbarians they belong to, in which prayers and thanksgiving would not be offered to the Father and Creator of all through the crucified Jesus (Conversation with Tryphon, chapter 117). The second, listing by name very many peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe as having believed in Christ, adds loca et abditarum multarum gentium et provinciarum et insularum multarum, nobis ignotarum et qua enumerare minus possumus. John Chrysostom in his homily on the day of Pentecost says that the apostles received the Holy Spirit after the descent of the Holy Spirit on them and that everyone in their time who turned to Christ received the gift of tongues after baptism, and among other languages ​​he names Scythian (Min in Patrology t. L, col. 459). Since in reality there was no Scythian language at all, but there were many languages ​​of the peoples living in Scythia: it is clear that St. the father uses the name Scythian language not in its own sense, but in a common noun. (The most unknown languages. See the similar use of the name Scythian language in the word spoken in the Gothic church of the Apostle Paul). No matter how immemorially distant the Russian Slavs came to those places of residence where history found them, they were still not the first inhabitants there, but inhabitants of others. Before their arrival, all of present-day European Russia belonged to the peoples of two great families, related to each other - Finnish and Mongol-Turkic. The northern, wooded half of Russia was occupied by the semi-sedentary Finns, the southern, steppe - by the nomadic Mongol-Turks. The historical Torks (Turks, Türks), Berendeys and Black Klobuks (Kara-Kalpaks) represented the remnant of the original inhabitants of the territory occupied by the Russian Slavs. Blessed Jerome expresses the existence of Christianity in Scythia in his time: Scythiae frigora fervent calore fidei, and it is believed that the image of his expression quite clearly indicates those parts of Scythia that were occupied by our ancestors (Reverend Philaret). But for the Romans and Greeks the cold began much further south than for us; for them, not only all of Scythia, but even Transdanubian Mysia (present-day Bulgaria) was a land of cold weather. Ovid Nazon, who was in exile in the Mysian city of Tomi, speaks of the area adjacent to the city that it is nihil est, nisi inhabitabile frigus. – To the testimony of ancient church writers about Christianity in Scythia in the 6th-5th centuries, the Right Reverend Philaret (Hist. period I, §1, 3rd edition p. 2) adds evidence of the adoption of Christianity by the Russians under Constantine the Great, belonging to the Syrian-Jacobite historian of the second half of the 13th century, Metropolitan Gregory Abulfaraj, otherwise Barhebräus’y (i.e., the son of a Jew, † 1286, see about him in Le Quien’a, II, 1552, and for evidence see Fren in Ibn - Foszlan’s und anderer Berichte, §§41 and 134). Anyone who holds the old-new belief that the Russians are Slavs who have lived in present-day southern Russia since ancient times should, of course, rejoice at this very unexpected news. But, in fact, this very unexpected, and at the same time very absurd, news should be explained very simply: Having met with Arab writers (and perhaps also with Greek, for he knew in Greek) that the Russians (with Vladimir at their head) were baptized under the emperors Vasily and Constantine, Abulfaraj makes Constantine the Great from the second between these two. (One could assume that he calls some other people Russ. Oriental historians say there are examples of such a mixture of peoples. But under Constantine the Great, only Armenians and Georgians adopted Christianity on our side. And both peoples are so well known that the transformation of one or the other of them into Russians does not seem probable). If we were to believe the chronicler that the Kyiv Polyans differed sharply from other Russian Slavs in their morals, rising very significantly above them in this respect, - that while all other Russian Slavs “live in a bestial manner, live bestially,” the Polyans “have the custom of their father being meek and quiet and being ashamed towards their daughters-in-law and sisters, towards their mothers and parents, towards their mothers-in-law and I have great shame for my brothers-in-law,” and that they had real marriages, which other Russian Slavs did not have: then such a comparatively very significant civilization (culture) of the Polyans compared to other Russian Slavs would have to be explained by something. If not exclusively, then, by the way, it would be very likely to explain it by the long-standing constant relations of the Polyans with the Greeks. But in view of this, it would no longer seem so unlikely that the assumption that, to some extent and for a certain period of time, Christianity was established between the Polyana in prehistoric times. - According to Iornand, the last Ostrogothic king Ermanaric before the invasion of the Huns, who managed to unite both Goths under his rule, subjugated to his arms all or almost all of Great Scythia and, by the way, all the Russian Slavs living in it (De Gothorum origine, sar. XXIII). But the spread of Christianity from the Goths between the Polans, not to mention other tribes, is out of the question, because, firstly, the dominance of the Goths over them, if it really took place, was very short-lived. And secondly, it should be understood not at all in the sense of the installation of the Goths between them, but only in the sense of the latter imposing their tribute on them. “There are so many of them,” our chronicler says about Uglich and Tivertsi. And the Gothic historian Iornand presents them precisely as a special Slavic people among the three nations into which he divides the Slavs. (The first people are the Vinids or Venets, by which they mean all Russian Slavs, with the exception of the Uglichi and Tivertsi, and with one or another part of the Western Slavs. The second people are the Ants, by which they mean the Uglichi and Tivertsi. The third people are the Slavs, by which they mean the Dacian Slavs, - De Gothorum origine, sarr. V and XXIII). “The essence of the city continues to this day,” says the chronicler, wanting, as one must think, to say that the Tivertsi-Uglichi had a comparatively developed city life. And the development of urban life presupposes the development of citizenship. (The first beginning of the establishment of which between the Uglich-Tivertsi is very unlikely to be traced back to the times of the Romans’ domination over them). In Church History, book. Chapter V 31 (repeated by George, Bishop of Alexandria, - in Photius in Library No. 96, ed. Beckeri p. 80) and in a eulogy to Chrysostom - in Photius ibid. No. 273, ed. id. r. 508. The Greeks did not care about preaching Christianity among the Goths, and if it spread significantly among the latter, it was in addition to their deliberate efforts. – About Bishop Theotim of Tomia or Tomitania, a contemporary of Chrysostom, Sozomen says that for his virtuous life he was highly revered by the Huns who lived on the other side of the Danube, but does not say that he tried to spread Christianity among the Huns, -H. E. lib. 7, sar. 26 (In Le Quien'a in Oriens Christ. I, 1214). In Stritt, in Memorr. popp. Ι I, 28. The chronicler assigns to the Tivertsi the nickname Tolkovin or Tolkovinov, which is incomprehensible to us: “Tivertsi, who are the essence of Tolkoviny” (beginning in 907). In the Tale of Igor's Campaign, in the story about the dream of the Grand Duke Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich, some filthy Tolkovins are named who were engaged in pearl mining (“to pour the filthy Tlkovins great and women into their bosoms”). If by Interpretations we mean the Words of the Uglichs and Tiverts (who were engaged in pearl fishing at the mouths of the Dniester and Danube and in the Black Sea?): then the epithet “filthy” should not be understood to mean that they were especially stubborn in paganism. And so, even after the adoption of Christianity under Vladimir by those tribes of Russian Slavs who became part of the Russian state, they, being under the rule of the Pechenegs, continued, in their majority or as a whole tribe, to remain pagans. About Christianity in prehistoric times of the Russian Slavs on the territory of present-day Russia, but not among themselves, but among other peoples who lived and still live on it, which does not concern us, see the Right Reverend Macarius in his “History of Christianity in Russia before Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir, as an introduction to the history of the Russian Church.” Dragging - from dragging, dragging boats along the ground from one river to another. The portage between the Dnieper and Lovat, which probably went from Smolensk (where they prayed - the ancient name of Smolensk is Smolivesk, and the boats of the Verkhovlyan-Novgorodians and Krivichs, who were about to sail along the Dnieper, were finally prepared?) to Velikiye Luki, with the intersection of the Western Dvina at Velizh, had a length of up to 200 miles. Almost directly opposite the Crimean Feodosia across the sea - the same one in which the Russian fleet won the famous victory over the Turkish fleet in 1853. In the Laurentian Chronicle: “according to adventure”, var. “according to chance,” in the Hypatian Chronicle and Prologues (under November 30): “according to God’s chance.” Later monuments indicate exactly where the later legend assigned the place of this cross. The so-called Gustin Chronicle (late 16th - early 7th century) says: “The cross was erected not far from the current brane (gate) from noon” (Complete Collection of Chronicles II, 251), meaning the brane in the rampart, which currently does not exist (see Zakrevsky in the Chronicle and description of the city of Kyiv, M., 1858., p. 257). Zechariah Kopystensky in his Palinodia writes: “On that mountain in Kyiv, where (Apostle Andrew) stood, which is now called Sighing, supposedly because on it he rested from his labors with his studies, .... at the same hour (!) the Church of the Exaltation of the Honest Cross was erected, where it is now, as the story continues to this day about that church and about that mountain” (part III, section I, article I, – in the Historical Library IV, 970; repeated in the Moscow Book of Faith, in the article: “On Confidence and the Baptism of Russia”, Chapter 3, Grodno edition, f. in a similar way, Innocent Gisel writes in his Synopsis: “Hoist the cross (Apostle Andrew) in the place where therefore the Church of the Cross of the Lord will be built” (St. Petersburg, 1798, p. 20). The Church of the Exaltation of the Cross no longer exists; it was located not far from the current St. Andrew's Church, south of it (Berlinsky Brief Description of Kyiv, St. Petersburg, 1820, p. 189 and Zakrevsky ibid., p. 147). In one collection of the second half of the 17th century it is noted: “The Holy Cross, where the Church of St. Simeon now stands, (the Apostle Andrew) erected” (see Bodyansky’s essay: On the time of the origin of Slavic writings, p. LXV, note 109) - this church also does not currently exist and where it was located is unknown. That, according to the author of the story, the apostle erected a cross on that part of the Kyiv mountain, which was later embraced by the city in the proper sense or the city fortress, he makes it known in the words: “and put up the cross and prayed to God and came down from this mountain, where Kyiv was.” And that the original or pre-Vladimirov city did not stand where later tradition and current scientists believe it to be, see below. “They are boasting” - to boast, in today’s terms to boast (in Little Russians: to boast), is the same as to be whipped. Instead of “kvass usniyanom” in the Laurentian Chronicle it is read “kvass sour” in the newest chronicles (Nikonovskaya, Sofia Vremennik); in the Hypatan Chronicle: “by washing.” (Village residents still wash their heads in bathhouses with kvass to cleanse them of the so-called flesh. Little Russians still have the word mytel, which means warm water with kvass or mint for washing hair). Greek legends about the Apostle Andrew are divided into two classes - short news and lengthy lives. Brief news is read: from Origen, Dorotheus of Tyre, Eusebius of Caesarea, Epiphanius of Cyprus, an unknown author cited under the name of Hippolytus of Rome, Nikita of Paphlagon, in the Menology of Emperor Basil the Bulgarian Slayer, from Ikumenius of Trikka and Nicephorus Callistus. Three lengthy lives are known: the monk and presbyter Epiphanius, Symeon Metaphrastus and the now mentioned Nicephorus Callistus (who briefly reports about the Apostle Andrew in his Church History). That the Apostle Andrew had the destiny to preach Christianity, among other things, in Scythia, this is said in all the brief news (and only in Nikitas of Paphlagon the name of Scythia is replaced by the name of Sarmatia, and in Ikumenius of Trikka, who repeats Jeronimov’s collaborator Sophronius of Palestine, by Scythia it is clearly understood that Scythia is not European, but Asian, which made up the current Russian-Chinese Turkestan). From the legends containing brief news, they were translated into the Slavic language: Περὶ τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων by an unknown writer, given under the name of Hippolytus of Rome, read in Svyatoslav’s Izbornik of 1073. (l. 261), a legend from the Menology of Emperor Basil, read in some Prologues of the 13th century (under November 30), Σύγγραμμα περὶ τῶν μαθητῶν Κυρίου Dorofeev and Σύγγραμμα περὶ τῶν ἁ γίων ἀποστόλων Epifaniev, known from manuscripts of the 15th century (Vostokov Description of the Rumyantsev Museum p. 12, col. 2), but the translation of which is not unlikely to be attributed to much more early time. Two lives were known - Epiphanievo and Metaphrastovo, or at least the second of them. (The Slavic translation of the life of Metaphrastov in an abbreviated form is read in the Makariev Chet-Minea on November 30, - beginning “This was from the city of Bivsaida, the son of Ionin,” - and his language, which remained unrenewed, clearly makes one can see its antiquity. The Greek original, - beginning Ἄ ρτι τοῦ παιδός Ζαχαρίου, Ἰ ωάννου φημὶ τοῦ πάνυ, - in the Greek liturgical Menaions under November 30, and in Min, among the lives written by Metaphrastus, - tt. СXIV-СХVI, it is not there. The oldest list of the Slavic translation of Epifaniev’s life is read in the manuscript of the late 15th - early 16th century, - Moscow Theological Academy No. 592, l. 549 vol. in Patrology t. Ἐπειδήπερ πολλοὶ ἀνεγράψαντο βίους καὶ πράξεις θεοφίλων ἀνδρῶν καὶ γυναικῶν ... The beginning of the translation, for some reason lowering the original to one and a half printed quarters and in general, it seems, was made according to its special edition from the one printed by Min: “To Saint Epiphanes, Archbishop of Cyprus, speaking about the blessed apostle Andrey"... Epiphanius did not live in the 10th-11th centuries, to which Harles refers him - in Fabricius VIII, 259 notes, but, as he himself makes it known, during the time of the iconoclasts, after Constantine Copronymus - † 775. And what he wrote before Metaphrastus is evident from his words at the beginning of his life, following the above: τῶν δὲ μακαρίων ἀποστόλων οὐδείς βίους ἀνεγράψατο αἰσ ί ως ). Epiphanius and Metaphrastus believe that there were three journeys of the Apostle Andrew, of which the first two were dedicated to Asia Minor and the southern shore of the Black Sea (between the cities on the seashore and Sinop), and the last embraced Transcaucasia, the northern shore of the Black Sea, Byzantium with Heraclia and, finally, the Peloponnese, where the apostle suffered martyrdom in Patras. On the northern or Russian shore of the Black Sea, he was - according to Epiphanius: in Vospor, Feodesia or Feodosia, Chersonese, again in Vospor, from which he crossed to Sinop on one Kherson ship to go to Byzantium; according to Metaphrastus: in Vospor and Chersonesos, from which he also went to Sinop for the same purpose. [Cm. "Additions and amendments"]. “From Rome to come along the same (Varangian) sea to Tsar-Gorod, and from Tsar-Gorod to come to the Pontus Sea,” reads in our story (in the geographical introduction to it). In the story of the murder of the Varangian Christians under the pagan Vladimir. 50 years after the baptism under Yaroslav, the Russians with modest humility called themselves “the little flock” (Metropolitan Hilarion in the Sermon on Law and Grace). They probably continued to look at themselves this way for about 50 years. But with such an unarrogant look, they could not yet have composed pretentious stories according to which the apostles would go to their land to erect crosses on their mountains. That in the age of the compiler of the chronicle the story of the Apostle Andrew was not yet known, this must also be concluded from the words of the Monk Nestor, who, being unfairly mistaken for the chronicler himself, was his contemporary and who in the lives of Boris and Gleb says: “The apostles did not go to them without God” (Russians). The first church of the Apostle Andrew was built in Kyiv very early, namely by Vsevolod Yaroslavich in 1086 (for his daughter Anna or Yanka, who wanted to become a monk and for whom he built a convent at the church, - the famous Andreevsky Yanchin, - Ipata Chronicle under 1086). But according to what has been said above, it does not seem at all probable to think that a legend about the apostle’s visit to Kyiv could have existed so early: rather, on the contrary, the existence of the church itself could have contributed to some extent to the emergence of the legend. The first Church of the Exaltation of the Cross, and even a somewhat dubious one (we don’t know if it’s the same one mentioned above), was built in Kiev at the beginning of the 13th century (Karamzin III, note 326). You can read about them and about them in books: Snegireva Russians in their proverbs, book. IV, Moscow, 1834, p. 162 sqq (ethnographic proverbs), and Sakharov's Tales of the Russian People, volume I, sq. 2, St. Petersburg. 1841, p. 107 sqq (Russian folk sayings). If anyone remembers Olgin’s bathhouse in Kyiv, in which the Drevlyansky ambassadors were burned: then, firstly, in the chronicle’s story, it seems, of course, not a bathhouse, but a washing room (a room with bathrooms, a bathhouse in the Western European sense, which is not at all the same thing with the Great Russian or so-called “Russian” bathhouse): “Olga mov commanded create (the Derevlyans), bursting into tears: come to me, exhausted; they (the servants) have burned out the fire (var. isba - they heated the hut, the room hotly), and the Derevlyans climbed in, starting to wash”... (cfr chronicle from 1095, about the beating of the Polovtsians). Secondly, the existence of baths among the princes in the south (in the Ipatian Chronicle under 1205, of course, a real bath?) would not constitute evidence of their existence among the people: Great Russian baths of Norman origin (Pogodin Research, notes and lectures, III, 463, cfr on the current Swedish baths in the article “The Land of the Midnight Sun” in Otechestvennye Zapiski 1883, March, p. 228). And it is quite possible that our princes, who were descendants of the Normans, took them with them to the south. What a great strangeness our Great Russian baths are for those who do not have them, see, for example, in the article “Buryats”, published in the Journal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, part XXVI, book. 4, p. 60: “the terrible voluntary torture (to which Russians subject themselves in the baths) serves as the Buryat’s main reproach,” etc. The Novgorod edition is in the Degree Book (I, 7 and 95, - in the lives of Olga and Vladimir) and in the life of Mikhail Sallos, written on behalf of the Novgorod archbishop (after Metropolitan) Macarius Vasily Mikhailovich Tuchkov (printed in the Monuments of Kushelev-Bezborodko, IV, 36). “Hoist your (apostle) rod in the weight called Druzino” (Degree Book I, 7) - in the famous Arakcheevsky village of Gruzin, located on the Volkhov approximately halfway along its course (15 versts down from the Volkhov station of the Nikolaev railway). It was from this erection of the cross by the apostle that the village supposedly got its name (Druzino or Gruzino from “to erect” or “to load” - the life of Michael Sallos, in which the rod is discussed in detail). Possevini Colloquium primum with Grozny de fide catholica in Supplementum ad Historica Russiae Monimenta, p. 102. The so-called Small Proskinitarium or the Article list itself (unfairly considered a schismatic forgery), conversation in Tergovishchi on June 6 (printed by S. A. Belokurov in Christian Readings 1883, No. 11–12 and in 1 issue of volume II of the study “Arseny Sukhanov”, M. 1893). Arseny refers to the well-known Book on the Right Faith, recently published in Moscow (in this latter, in Chapter 3, “On Confidence and the Baptism of Rus',” Zechariah Kopystensky is repeated, who, having his own, especially southern Russian, reasons for presenting the Apostle Andrew as the first planter of Christianity in Rus', assures that “Saint Andrew, passing through the land of Russia, baptized many even before the knowledge of Christ led,” Palinod. Part III, section 1, article 1, – in the Historical Library IV, 970). Herberstein's Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii, in Starczewski in Historiae Ruthenicae Scriptores exteri saeculi XVI, vol. I, p. 19, Fabra Moscovitarum Religio ibid., p. 5, Guagnini Omnium regionum Moscoviae descriptio, ibid., p. 18, Oderborn Ioannis Basilidis Magni Moscoviae Ducis vita, ibid., vol. 2, p. 20 sub fin. However, even at the beginning of the 16th century, we had a kind of liberals, so to speak, who repeated the most ancient, pre-legendary thing, that the Russian language was one of the last to believe in Christ, “and not the former apostle in the Russian land,” - Description of the Synodal Manuscripts. Gorsky and Nevostruev No. 326, l. 17 vol., p. 681. (And the Monk Joseph of Volokolamsk at the beginning of the same 16th century solved the question of why the Apostle Andrew did not preach Christianity in the Russian land. The answer: “the Holy Spirit was forbidden, his destinies are many and for this reason these are unspeakable,” - Enlightener Kazan edition p. 41). Epiphanius and Metaphrastus, who speak in detail about the places of preaching of the Apostle Andrew, limit his activity in Scythia, as we indicated, only to the Greek colonies located on the Tauride Peninsula or Crimea. Nicephorus Callistus (known for his great love, if not for composing his own fables, then for collecting others), whose life of the Apostle Andrew is not published and is known to us only by instructions (Fabricius Biblioth. Graec. ed. Harles, VII, 443, and his Codd. Apocrr. N. T., ed. 2, p. 502, not.), probably he speaks fabulously about the apostle’s journey into Scythia, for in his brief information about the places of his activity, which is read in his Church History (lib. II, sar. 39), he says: “the Apostle Andrew had to go to the pagans, namely to Cappadocia, Galatia and Bithynia, having gone around which, he also went to the country called the country of the Anthropophagi, and to Scythian deserts on both banks of the Euxine Pontus - northern and southern." Callistus probably speaks about the country of the Anthropophagi on the basis of the apocryphal legend about the city of the Anthropophagi (which see Tischendorf in Acta Apostolorum apocrypha, Lipsiae, 1851). And this legend is the most absurd plot, in which there is no smell of our Russia. (And the creation of which was probably prompted by Epiphanius, who said that the inhabitants of the city of Sinop are called anthropophagists for their barbaric and cruel customs, and that the inhabitants of the city of Amastris were so called because of their hostile attitude towards the Apostle and, in particular, because one local Jew bit off his finger). Inhabited by Anthropophages, covered with almost eternal darkness, shackled by terrible scum, and so on. Whoever, having abandoned Novgorod, would nevertheless begin to stand for Kyiv, to which it was supposedly easy for the apostle to rise along the Dnieper, besides the question: why would he rise, we will answer that in fact in the age of the apostles it was as easy to do this as in recent times to rise to the upper reaches of the Nile. From Herodotus to the time of the Apostles, the acquaintance of the Greeks with our country hardly increased, and this latter says that the Greek colonists of the northern shores of the Black Sea sailed up the Dnieper (to trade with the barbarians) only approximately to the southern part of the province of Ekaterinoslav (to the city of Alexandrovsk). And what happened next, absolutely none of them could say (book 4, chapters 53 and 56 - extracts with Russian translation and explanations in the Notes of the Odessa History Society, vol. I, pp. 15, 16 and 54). Let the reader remember that higher up were the Dnieper rapids (between Aleksandrovsk and Yekaterinoslav for about 70 miles), which were supposed to pose a decisive barrier to acquaintance with further inland Russia and would remain like pillars of Hercules for the Greeks for a long time. Our first church historian, Metropolitan Plato, does not recognize as reliable the story of the journey of the Apostle Andrew to Rus', and only, as the first non-believer, expresses his disbelief with some secrecy. (History Part I, Chapter II). His Eminence Filaret wanted to express his disbelief without any secrecy, but was prevented from doing so by so-called “independent circumstances.” (See Addition to the works of the holy fathers of 1884, book II, p. 641 note. And judging by the tone in which the Eminence Philaret in one letter to A.V. Gorsky speaks about the conjectures of the Eminence Macarius regarding the preaching of the Apostle Andrew to the Slavs, one should think that he either assumed agreement with himself on this subject, or directly knew about this like-mindedness of his. – Letters of Philaret, Archbishop of Chernigov, to A.V. Gorsky, M. 1885, N 90, p. 227, letter dated June 30, 1848). Karamzin, following Metropolitan Plato, expresses his disbelief in the story of the journey through Rus' of the Apostle Andrew in such a way that, having spoken about the journey on the basis of the chronicle in the text of History, he makes a reservation in the note: “However, people who know doubt the truth of this Andrew’s journey,” - I, 17 and approx. 66. In Greek: Ἰ νν ᾶ, Ῥ ημ ᾶ (Ῥ ιμμ ᾶ), Πινν ᾶ. In one Serbian Prologue of the first half of the 14th century they are called Enen, Nirin and Pinna (but not Stump, as in the Lives of the Southern Slavs by the Right Reverend Philaret and after him by the Right Reverend Sergius in the Complete Monthly Book), see Glasnik Drushtva of Serbian words., XVI, 37. See Vershinsky in “Mesyatseslov” under June 20. It is more likely to present the matter in such a way that they suffered not in Gothia, which was already completely Christian (since it already had a bishop), but among some pagan neighbors of the Goths, themselves having been from Gothia. When, after the end of the 4th century and until the 8th century, our Goths were given their bishop remains unknown. The first known bishops of Gothia are: not called by name (John the Elder?), who signed the definitions of the iconoclastic council of 754, and the successor of this nameless bishop, St. John, remembered by our church on May 19 and June 26 (Le Quien'a, Oriens Christ. I, 1243 fin.; and what is reported by Procopius of Caesarea about the Gothic bishops during the time of the emperor Justinian, refers not to our Goths, but to the Tetraxites, and by bishops we must mean either the Bosporus or, more likely, the Phanagorians, see. below about the diocese of Tmutarakan). The see of the ancient bishops of Gothia, according to later evidence, was located in the now non-existent city of Theodoro, which is probably located on Cape Ai-Todor (i.e. St. Theodore), located 8 versts south of Yalta. (But it is not likely to be seen in the city of Mankup, the ruins of which are 10 versts east of Sevastopol, for Mankup should be placed outside the boundaries of our Gotthia). See Miklosic in Acta Patriarchat. Constantinop., II, 67 and 150 (“The shelter is dry” is probably a translation of the Greek Ξηρολιμενι, Ξηρολιμενας, as Alix was otherwise called or by which the place adjacent to him is meant). The Polish writer of the half of the 17th century, Stanislav Lubinsky, Bishop of Plock, forces the Apostle Andrew to preach and spread Christianity in Poland. But he does this not at all on the basis of an ancient tradition among the Poles, which could be cited in connection with our tradition (and what kind of tradition the Poles have is unknown). But, as can be seen from himself, solely on the basis of his own general consideration that the apostle preached in Scythia. And that Poland was also part of Scythia (in the work: Vitae et series episcoporum Plocensium, which we do not have at hand, but an excerpt from which is read in the Pagian notes to Baronius under 965, n. VI, Lubinsky writes: S. Andreas apostolus Scythiam Europeam, cujus appellatione universus septentrio continetur, primus ex Achaia, Istro transgresso, ingressus, revelatae a Christo veritatis lumen in Poloniam intulit. Lubinsky’s contemporary Simon Stavrovolsky, canon of Krakow, who also wants to trace the Christianity of Poland back to the times of the apostles, without saying anything about the Apostle Andrew, forces it to be planted in it by the inhabitants of Pontus, who on the day of Pentecost listened to the apostle’s sermon in Jerusalem. Petra, see in Maciejewski's History of the Primitive Christian Church among the Slavs, Russian translation p. 223, approx. 234). The unsuccessful reading probably belongs to the late Stroev, for this is what it says in the Sophia Vremennik published by him; in previous editions of the chronicles (Nikonovskaya, Königsbergskaya) it is read as corrected later. The baptism of Askold and Dir that forms the question is preceded by the legendary baptism of the Novgorodians in the Crimean Surozh. See the appendix for details. According to another reading: “not his tribe, nor the boyar.” The successor of Amartol, according to the ancient Slavic (Bulgarian) translation: “the king (Mikhail) went to fight against the Hagarians... When the Black Rivers reached him, the eparch of the ambassador told him that Rus' was coming to the city of Kostyantin; the king also went away, Rus' went inside... (pass) having entered, he committed many murders among the peasants and in two The Holy Mother of God in Blachernae performed the all-night prayer in Blachernae. Having tamed, the storm with the wind rose and the great waves rose apart, the godless people of Rus' were brought back, and to the shore of adherence and beating, as it was not enough for them to escape such troubles, they returned to their homeland with flight” (Synodal manuscript No. 732, l. 330). ( ) In vile. τῆ θαλάσση ἄκρως προσέβαψαν . () In vile. κυμάτων ἐπαναστάσεις ἀλλεπάλληλοι ἐγένοντο. ______________ Our chronicler: “In the summer of 6374. Askold and Dir went to the Greeks and came in the 14th year of Michael the Caesar. When the Tsar went to Ogaryan and reached the Black Rivers, the eparch sent word to him that Rus' was going to Tsargorod, and the Tsar had returned. Sit inside the Court) a lot of murder has entered”... and so on, as with the successor, without any additions. ) About the Court, by which (in fact, by which) the chronicler in this case should mean the Bosphorus Strait, see below. In the original: οἰ δε Ῥ ῶς φθάσαντες ἔνδον τοῦ ἱεροῦ γενέσθαι: Hieron is the name of the fortress. It was Hieron, or rather Hieron, that the Greeks called two fortresses, which received their name from the ancient pagan sanctuary (ἱερόν), which were located on the Bosporus, approximately a third of its extent from the Black Sea, and which, standing one against the other on the European and Asian shores, blocked the passage along the strait to Constantinople. (At present Karatash and Ioroz Kalesi, near Rumeli and Anadol Kavak, see Byzantium Ἡ Κωνσταντινούπολις, II, pp. 174 and 197, and the second map appended to this volume; cfr Amartola after ed. Muralta, pp. 652 and 841, as well as Gonz. de Clavijo Diary of travel to the court of Timur, translated by Sreznevsky, p. 96). Thus, ἔνδον τοῦ ἱεροῦ means: in the strait on this side towards Constantinople, the fortress of Hieron (the fortresses of Hieron). The Bulgarian translator had a pass, probably because he was perplexed what τὸ ἱερ ό ν means here and found it difficult to translate it; the brave Serbian translator translated: “Russia has come to the point of being a church” (Synodal manuscript No. 148, fol. 387 beginning). The successor Amartol speaks only about the attack, which we have now given above, but does not speak about baptism. And also, perhaps, guided by the impulse by which Vladimir ordered the first churches to be erected “in the place where the idols (previously) stood” (chronicle of 988), i.e., as evidence of the triumph of Christianity over paganism. It would be most natural to look for reasons from the successor Amartolov; but in this latter, events are described by reign, without designating years. Vita Ignatii, sar. IV, §§23 and 24, in Acta Ss. Bollandists, October t. X, r. 182 sqq. Nec multum temporis fluxit (after the Ross invasion) et rursus conciliabula... The Life was written by Nikita between 879. and 886, see ibid., p. 158, no. 5. Ed. Paris., p. 445, n. XXXVIII. Ed. id., p. 435, n. Χ III. Ed. id., r. 441, n. XXVIII. It is remarkable that our chronicler’s count of the years of the separate reign of Emperor Michael is not valid (from 856), but special, close to Logothet: the year 866 is not the 10th, but the 14th year of the reign of Michael. [Cm. "Additions and amendments"]. Wrote between 980–1008. Wu Ming in Patrology, t. CXXXIX, col. 905; in Pertz'a in Monumenta Germaniae, IX, 18. Here are the words of Deacon John in their original and complete form: “At that time (indicated by us) the hordes of Normans with 360 ships dared to attack Constantinople; but since they could in no way harm the invincible (city), then, having indulged in violent robbery of the suburbs and mercilessly beating quite many, they returned home with triumph (plunder). A. A. Kunik claims that on the basis of a letter from Pope Nicholas to Emperor Michael dated September 865. the issue of the Russian attack on Constantinople is irrefutably resolved in the sense that it took place in 865. (in summer). And he notes to us that “in this case, it is in vain to build new hypotheses to determine the time of the campaign” (News of Al-Bekri and other authors about Rus' and the Slavs, part 1, St. Petersburg 1878, p. 161 sqq.). But we do not quite understand the venerable scientist: in his letter, dad talks about the Russian invasion of Constantinople, but does not indicate when it was: from letter, of course, it irrefutably follows that the invasion took place before it was written, but how does it follow that it happened precisely in the summer of 865, and not earlier? For some reason, Mr. Kunik, who stubbornly stood for the year 865, did not want to be properly attentive to the letter, and yet it follows from himself that the invasion should be attributed not to 865, but to a slightly earlier time. The pope, reproaching the emperor for the threats he received from him, writes to the latter: (Those who, having killed many people, burned the churches of the saints and the outskirts of Constantinople almost to its very walls) did not receive any revenge (et vere de istis nulla sit ultio). To us... they express threats”... (the letter and Russian translation are given by Mr. Kunik). If the attack had taken place in 865, then the pope's reproach would obviously have been premature, for what reason would he (the pope) have to assume that the emperor was not going to take revenge? If the pope reproaches and considers himself to have the right to reproach, then is it not clear that such a more or less long time has passed since the attack, which made it true and fact that the emperor is not going to take revenge? (G. Kunik says: “The Pope might also have been aware of the fact that Michael himself in the summer of 865 went out with a fleet against the Cretans,” p. 174. If the venerable scientist had told us how he himself knew this, and if he had proved to us that this was precisely the campaign from which Michael returned to Constantinople to defend the latter from the Russians, then we, of course, would have given up our year. In the meantime, we consider it worthwhile to report that, having turned to a specialist in the case of Paparrigopoulou, we found in him the emperor’s campaign against the Saracens in 859, which exactly goes with our opinion about the year, and did not find the campaign in 865, -Ἡ στορία τοῦ Ἑ λληνικοῦ ἔθνους, III, 830). In confirmation of the fact that not only Askold and Dir themselves accepted Christianity, but that the latter had greater or lesser success with them in Russia, His Eminence Philaret refers to the Arab writer Massudi (Masudi), who wrote: “of the Sklabs (Slavs) some are Christians, others are pagans,” and then said: “of all the Sklab kings, the strongest is Dir.” - History of the Church I, §2 fin.. But which Slavs Masudi means remains completely unknown. And his reading of the name of one of the Slavic kings: Dir, Dir is completely unreliable and most scholars understand it not to mean the princes of Kyiv (who could be understood by Dir as the successors of the latter on the Kiev grand princely throne, since Dir himself Masudi was not at all almost a contemporary, for whom the Right Reverend Philaret gives him out, for he wrote in the second quarter of the 10th century), see Garkavi in “Tales of Muslim Writers about the Slavs and Russians,” pp. 137 and 167, and in Dorn’s “Caspian,” pp. XLIX. A more precise and direct definition of their place of residence, which the Serbian abbreviator Zonara makes, saying that they lived “in Euxinopontus” (Readings of the Society of History and Antiquities 1847, No. 1, department II, p. 101), is simply an arbitrary correction of himself, made on the basis of Zonara’s words that the Russians (who lived near the Taurus) “devastated with his fleet on the coast of Euxinopontus” (based on the Serbian abbreviator Zonarin, they talk about the Russes, others like them and Cumani living in Euxinopontus, Degree Book I, 50 and 84, and Nikon Chronicle I, 21). Rossi, atrocissima gens Scytharum a Ponto Euxino ad Stenum excursione facta. See Spruner. Historisch-geographisch. Hand-Atlas, 2 Aufl., Nordische Reiche No. V, and Italian peripluses (descriptions. Note per.) Crimea XIV-XVII centuries. in Tafel in Constantinus Porphyrogenitus De provinciis regni Byzantini, Tubingae, 1847, p. 39. News about the Khazars, Burtas..., Slavs and Russians by Ibn-Dast, published, translated and explained by D. A. Khvolson, St. Petersburg, 1869, p. 34. Khazeran should mean the Khazar capital Itil (actually one part of the city), located at the confluence of the Volga into the Caspian Sea, Khvolson, ibid., p. 151, and Fren, Ibn-Foszl., 64. That Ibn-Dasta does not speak about the Russians who ruled the Slavs, such as those of Kyiv, but about some others, he makes it clear by what he says about their raids on the Slavs (“The Russians have a king who is called Khakan-Rus, they raid the Slavs”). See Ibn-Foszlan's und anderer Araber Berichte von Fr ü hn, 27–33, 193–235 (Masudi, Dimeshki, Ibn el-Wardi, Edrizi, Maghrebi). Arab writers, some let us know, others directly say that the city of Russia was located at the confluence of the Don into the Sea of ​​Azov, where, according to other news we cited, there was the city of Rossi, Rosso, fiume Rosso. Dimeshki writes: “The Russians got their name from the city of Rusiya, which lies on the northern shore of the sea named after them” (i.e., the Black Sea, for which Dimeshki takes the Azov Sea to be part of). Edrizi: "from the city of Matercha (Matercha - Tamatarkha, Tmutarakan) to the city of Rusii is 27 miles. The latter lies on the great river that comes out of Mount Kukaya." Magrebi: "to the east of the city of Sudak is the entrance to the Manitish Sea (corrupted from Maiitis or Maeitis, i.e. Maeotis). On its shore lies Russia, which is the main city of the Russes" (Ibn-Foszl. Frena, 27 sqq). The Don River, by the name of the Russians who lived at its mouth, as it should be concluded from Arab writers, was called the Russian River (Fren ibid., 38). - The Bertin Chronicle is known for its story about the Russians who came to Constantinople to Emperor Theophilus with the expression, as they said, of the friendship of their prince, and whom Theophilus, at their request, transported to the Frankish emperor in 839 Louis the Pious (Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae, I, 434). The prince of these Russians, as they showed, bore the title of Khakan. Since the princes of the northern Russians, as far as is known, did not bear this title, then, therefore, it is not them. What other Russians are there? In our opinion, it is clear that the Azov-Tauride, for the title of Khakan was obviously borrowed from the Khazars, of whom these last Russians were neighbors. As for the strange assurance of the Russians about the impossibility of returning home from Constantinople the way they came, and their desire to make this return journey through the land of the Frankish emperor, the riddle can be explained very simply: they wanted to visit the Franks, as Louis rightly suspected, for the purposes of spying, wanting to make their country a field of their raids and robberies. That preliminary surveillance was their custom is shown by their attack on Constantinople, which we spoke about above: they attacked it when the emperor was absent and busy with war. Ibn-Dasta: “The king of the Rus (also) is called Khakan-Rus.” This bis Khakan undoubtedly indicates the existence of Russians who lived in the neighborhood of the Khazars. - Since Emperor Theophilus obviously did not know what kind of people these Russians were, whom he sent to Emperor Louis, it follows that they settled in Tauris not very long before 839. “The Ponetskoe Sea, the hedgehog sea is called the Russian Sea,” is a story about the Apostle Andrew read in the chronicles. Until later times, Greek writers called us, the Kiev-Novgorod Russians, Tauro-Scythians. But how can we explain this name when we have never lived near Taurus? It seems necessary to assume that there were other Russians who really lived near him and that from these other Russians the name Tauro-Scythians was transferred to us by the Greeks. The existence of the Principality of Tmutarakan is still an inexplicable mystery, that is, it remains an unanswered question: for what purpose and why did the Russians establish their power on this piece of land so remote from them? If we assume that on the Taman Peninsula the Russians found a colony of their relatives, then the answer will be clear (some Arab writers say about the Tauride Russians that they lived on seven islands, in Frena, 28: when looking at the map of the Taman Peninsula, it will be clear to everyone what seven islands mean; and that in the times of classical, and perhaps non-classical antiquity, the peninsula was a real multi-island, see. Goertz Archaeological topography of the Taman Peninsula, p. 31 sqq). To the apparently tricky question: what made the Russians settle in Taurida, the answer is very easy. They lived, as Ibv-Dast testifies (in Khvolson, p. 35), exclusively by military robbery; therefore, the best place for them was where there was the greatest field for their unique trade. But it was difficult to find a better place in this sense than the Tauride Peninsula: from here they could rob the Greeks, Khazars, Slavs and in general everything that was along the shores of the Black and Azov Seas and along the rivers flowing into them. We said above that when the Ost-Goths were removed from present-day southern Russia, two small Gothic colonies remained in the Crimea - one near the Bosphorus or Kerch (Tetraxite Goths), the other in the Dori region (Dorian Goths); to this it should be added that the first colony later moved to the Taman Peninsula. The meeting of close relatives, such as the Goths were, could serve as an external reason for the wandering colony (companionship) of Russians to choose Crimea and Taman with the entire Azov coast for their settlement. The modern storyteller about the Russians attacking Constantinople, Patriarch Photius, in his church words spoken about their attack, speaks of their place of residence, that they were a people of the far north (Hyperborean) and lived somewhere far from the Greeks. That they rushed from the north, from the end of the earth. That they were separated from Greece by “many countries and peoples, navigable rivers and stormy abysses” (by the Reverend Porfiry, pp. 1, 3, 7 and 19 - detailed quote below). This indication of the place of residence of the Russians who attacked Constantinople, apparently, does not at all go to the Azov-Tauride Russians. But to rely and rely on it in view of what we have said otherwise would be unfounded. Firstly, for all Greeks in general, almost everything that was outside their fatherland towards the north, in this unknown Scythia, was far northern and Hyperborean. Secondly, Photius, in particular, clearly does not care about accuracy in this case. Depicting the picture of the Russian invasion of Constantinople, he, on the one hand, wants to liken it to the invasion of many tongues into Babylon and Chaldea, which the prophet Jeremiah depicts in chapters 50 and 51, and literally takes the expressions about the place of residence of the Russians “from the north, from the end of the earth” from this latter (chapter 50, art. 3, 9 and 41; ch. 51, art. 48). And on the other hand, it brings our Russians closer to those biblical Russians (Heb. Rosh), living at the end of the north, about whom the prophet Ezekiel speaks (chapter 38, art. 2 and 15, and ch. 39, art. 2). Making his imitation of the first of the prophets in the whole picture and his literal borrowing from both in individual expressions, Photius himself lets us know that we should look at his distant, Hyperborean north, from which the Russians allegedly came, as oratorical license. And thus he himself deprives us of the right to see in them real evidence, on the basis of which it would be possible to decide the question of who these Russians were. Lib. III, sar. VII. The place is given with a Russian translation in Keppev's Crimean Collection, page 54 sqq. (On) a small peninsula protruding from the large Tauride peninsula. The Huns, who lived on the Taman Peninsula and further in the Caucasus, says Procopius, crossed the Kerch Strait (to explain the plot of the transition, which is not entirely fabulous, compare Hertz Archaeological Topography of the Taman Peninsula, p. 15), found the Goths on the Crimean coast, who were defeated and dispersed, and leaving the peninsula they settled on the Danube. But then one part of them decided to return to their previous place of residence. Returning through Taurida, she found the Goths on the Kerch Peninsula (reading the description of the first place of residence of the Goths, surrounded on three sides by the sea, let the reader take a map and look at the Kerch Peninsula), forced them to move to the other side (i.e., to the Taman Peninsula), and she herself remained in their place. Black Bulgarians lived in the northern foothills of the Caucasus, along the Kuban and Terek. (We think that the current Caucasian Bulgarians, about whom see in Semenov’s Dictionary under this word, represent their remnant, cfr Article list of Nikifor Tolochanov’s embassy to Georgia in Vivliofik, V, pp. 144, 220 and 249. And the Cuphis Feofanova river, which formed the southern border of the ancient great Bulgaria, - Memorr. popp. II, 503 fin., probably, there is Kuban). The very establishment of the bishopric of Tmutarakan by Photius should be considered not an establishment in the proper sense, but only the renewal of a previously existing bishopric. The Goths Tetraxites represented the Christians who remained at the previous place of residence of the Goths, for John Chrysostom appointed Bishop Unila for them in the Bosphorus (see above footnote No. 23). When they were forced to move to the Taman Peninsula, a new bishopric of Phanagoria was established for them here, which is mentioned under 519 (Le Quien, Oriens Christ. I, 1327, and which should be understood by Procopius of Caesarea under 547, - Stritt. Memorr. popp. I, 245). The establishment of the Tmutarakan bishopric by Photius should be considered the renewal of this Phanagorian bishopric. De ecclesiasticarum rerum exordiis et incrementis liber unus, cap. VII fin. y Minya in Patrology, t. 114, p. 927. Printed in the Paris edition of the Byzantines, in Scriptores post Theophanem, George the monk is none other than Amartolus with a successor. The so-called Princes (Πριγκηπόννησοι; the island of Terevinth, on which they robbed Patriarch Ignatius, who was imprisoned there, belongs to the group of these islands and is currently called Antirovit, see Byzantium Κωνσταντινοῦπ., II, 316). For the ancient custom of taking besieged cities by means of embankments or adding earth to their walls, see Svida in the Dictionary, under the following words. Χῶμα. By the Most Reverend Porfiry, page 24. Basil the Macedonian, grandfather of Porphyrogenitus, was accepted by Michael as co-ruler on May 26, 866. Having killed him, he remained alone on the throne since September 23, 867. After the deposition of Photius, Ignatius was elevated to the patriarchal throne for the second time by Basil on November 23 of the same year 867. Based on the Porphyrogenite, which dates the baptism of the Russians to the reign of Emperor Vasily, they speak of it as an event that took place under this emperor: Kedrin, Zonara and Glick. That is, an autocephalous bishop, dependent (without the metropolitan) directly from the patriarch, which bishops were given to the barbarians in the event of the establishment of only bishoprics, and not metropolitanates. In our later Russian news, the archbishop is called Michael, see His Grace Macarius, History of Christianity in Russia before Vladimir, edition 1 p. 285, edition 2 p. 232; Our cfr is lower. And according to Bronevsky (Notes of the Odessa History Society, VI, 346), as if Sidagios. [Cm. "Additions and amendments"]. About Sudak, see Köppen's Crimean Collection, p. 113, etc. St. Stephen was buried in the altar of St. Sofia, see “Notes of the XII-XV centuries relating to the Crimean city of Sugdea” in the Notes of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities, V, 595. Lists of the life of St. There are many Stephens (five, if not more, in one Moscow Synodal Library). The Russian translation of the story we have given is based on a manuscript from the fundamental library of the Moscow Theological Academy of the 16th century. (December Menaion), No. 90, l. 346 rev. By the way, in the words we underlined: “and again in horror - to the prince,” in all likelihood, one should see a distortion by the translator of the original that he did not understand. See the notes about Sugdei mentioned above in the Notes of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities V, 623, No. 194. Currently, a short life of Stephen is also known in Greek. Since it contains information that is not found in our life (about the journey to Athens), then on the basis of this we should conclude that our life is already an abbreviation of a more extensive life, ibid., pp. 595 and 623. Fourth miracle: “Queen Anna was walking from Korsun to Kerch, and on the way she fell ill with a mortal illness on the Black Water (Karasu),” and, calling on St. for help. Stefana was miraculously and suddenly healed. To assume that this refers to our Queen Anna, the wife of St. Vladimir, it would be very hasty. Here we can understand the Greek princess Anna, unknown to us and our eldest, who went to Khazaria to her relatives, for the emperors of Constantinople were related to the Khagans of Kozar (So, Stefanov’s contemporary, Emperor Constantine Copronymus, was married for the first time to a Khazar princess, according to the Greek chroniclers - Irina, the daughter of the Khagan, Dukange Famil. Byzant., 126, according to our life - Theodora, the daughter of the Kerch king. Yes, our queen Anna had no way to go from Korsun to Kerch). Le Quien, Oriens Christian., I, 1229. The lengthy life of Stephen the New in the Menology of Emperor Basil under November 28, cfr the lengthy life written by the deacon Stephen, in the Patrology of Min, t. C, col. 1100. In our chronographs, which briefly write out about Bravalin’s attack on Surozh from the life of St. Stephen, we don’t know why, it dates back to the reign of Emperor Michael and 852. (Karamzin vol. I, note 289, Popova Chronographs, I, 234). Unknown warriors not only took Surozh, but Korsun and Kerch, and plundered the entire area between the last two cities or the entire southern Crimea: one must have great faith not to find it impossible to master such brilliant feats for the Novgorodians of the early 9th century! Ibn-Foszl. Frena, §§28–29. Stritt. Memorr. rorr. III, 543 (and in the life of Stephen it is said that the Khazar king sat in Kerch, see above). Situated on the Asian shore of the Black Sea, not too far from Constantinople, half the distance between it and Sinop, at present Amasry. [Cm. "Additions and amendments"]. Life, written by an unknown person, in Acta SS. Bollandistov, February t. III, d. XXI, r. 269 ​​sqq. In conclusion, the life of the many posthumous miracles of St. George, the author tells two, and one of them is a miracle about the Russes (nn. 43–46, p. 278). Having begun the devastation from the Propontis (by which we should mean in this case the Bosphorus Strait, see about the use of the word in our sense in the article by Mr. Vasilievsky “Russian-Byzantine excerpts”, published in the journal of the Ministry of Public Education, part CXCVI, p. 174 sqq) and having devastated other sea coasts, the Russians finally appeared in in the saint's fatherland - Amastris. Some of them came to the church in which the saint's body lay, and began to dig up his coffin, suspecting that there was a treasure in the latter, but those who dared to do this were struck by numbness in their hands and feet, and became as if bound by invisible bonds. The leader of the Russes, amazed by the miracle, asked: what deity is this action and how can it be propitiated; receiving in response that this is the action of the one Christian God and that He can be propitiated by the prayers of Christians, and on his part - by the release of captives. The leader did the latter and asked for the former. When fervent prayers were offered to God and St. George, the barbarians were freed from the divine wrath that had struck them, after which the leader concluded an alliance of peace and friendship with the Christians. Lifetime of St. George, the chronology of which the author does not have, is determined by the fact that he was installed as bishop of Amastris by Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople, who occupied the throne from 784 to 806. He died, as it is given in his life, either during the reign of Empress Irina (797–802), or at the beginning of the reign of Nicephorus Genik (ἀπὸ G ενικῶν, from the end of 802 to 811, life no. 33, p. 277). How long after the death of the saint the miracle happened is not clearly stated in the life and is not given to know. But its author himself, by the thoroughness of the biographical information he provides, makes it clear about himself that if he is not a contemporary of George, which he does not call himself, then, in any case, he is a person who lived after him a very short time. The Russians are characterized in their lives: “There was an invasion of the Russians (τῶν Ῥ ῶς), a people, as everyone knows, the most cruel and ferocious and not having even the slightest particle of love for mankind - bestial in morals, inhuman in deeds, the very appearance of showing filthiness, not finding joy in anything else with other people, as in bloodshed, this people, destructive in deed and name (in all likelihood an allusion to ῥ ώξ, which was also used in the form ῥὼ ς, - Gideon. Fragments of research on the Varangian question I, 60, which means tarantula, poisonous spider, and maybe a rapprochement with the biblical prophet Ezekiel Dew), starting devastation from Propontides” and so on. (in the life, which the Bollandists have only in a Latin translation, without the Greek original, n. 43; the Greek original of the passage we cited from the life in the article by A. A. Kunik “On the note of the Gothic toparch”, published in the Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, volume 24, book. I, 1875, p. 98, note, also in the mentioned article by Vasilievsky, ibid. part CXCV" p. 304). G. Kunik wants to mean by the Russians who attacked Amastrida, Askold and Dir; but let us note that these Russians are spoken of as a people well known to everyone for their qualities, and what is directly said about them: as everyone knows, ώς πάντες ἴσασιν: how How will this apply to Askold and Dir, who would come to rob for the first time? In 839, as can be seen from the story of the Bertin Chronicle under this year, these Russians were not yet known in Constantinople; Consequently, they settled on the Sea of ​​Azov and in the Crimea and began their predatory exploits in the Black Sea not very long before our year. As for their arrival at the indicated place of residence, it must be thought that they came not by sea, circumnavigating all of Western Europe and passing by Constantinople, but by land through our present-day Russia. (And, consequently, that by their origin they belonged to the Normans, not Western - Danish-Norwegian, but Eastern - Swedish, or one and the same with our Varangians: and Louis the Pious recognized in the Russians sent to him by Theophilus in 839 precisely Sveonov, i.e. Swedes). This is where the name Surovskaya (instead of Surozhskaya) row came from. About Surozh and the merchants who traded in it or Surozhans, they are mentioned: The Lay of Igor’s Campaign (according to the edition in Russian Dostopami, part III, p. 40: “orders to listen to the unknown lands - Volz and Pomoria and Surozh and Korsun”), Ipata Chronicle under 1288. (when describing the death of Vladimir Vasilkovich Galitsky: “the whole multitude of Volodymerts, Nemtsi and Surozhtse and Novgorodtsi and Zhidov were crying over him”). Folk songs talk about Surozhany as about daring merchants (Songs, collection, Kireevsk, issue 3, p. 107: “Oh, you goy hunter, Surovets, Suzdalets himself is rich”). Due to its important commercial significance and great popularity among us, Surozh and the Sea of ​​Azov, which formed the water road to it, received the name Surozh. From the end of the 13th century, Surozh was replaced in the Crimea by the Genoese-founded Kafa, into which Russian trade also moved from the first (about this latter in the 15th century, see Notes of the Odessa History Society, V, pp. 213, 231, 234 of the first account and the second 148, 149), and, however, the merchants who traded in it continued to be called Surozhans. For the later Surozhans, see Karamzin V, 231 and notes 32, 70, in particular, about Novgorod - Collection of State Charters and Treaties II, 58. In addition to the Russian merchants who traded in Surozh, they could also bring the life of St. Stefan the Crimean Greeks themselves. Some argue, we do not know on what basis, that the wife of the Suzdal prince Konstantin Vasilyevich († 1355) was the daughter of the Crimean Mankup prince (Genealogical list of the descendants of Grand Duke Rurik, compiled by N. Golovin, M. 1851, V, 338, cfr Karamzin IV, note 374; the city of Mankup or Mangup, very remarkable for its position on a high inaccessible rock and now remaining only in uninhabited ruins, was located not far to the east of Sevastopol. Before 1474, the Mankup prince Isaiko offered his daughter in marriage to the son of Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich III, Karamzin VI, 56. Based on this proposal, it is likely to conclude that before there really were marriages between the Russian and Mankup princes); Prince Stefan Vasilyevich came to serve Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich from Surozh (who was the ancestor of the Khovrins, Golovins and Tretyakovs, Genealogical book, Novikov edition, II, 270). The life of Stephen of Sourozh was brought to us, as one must think, around the middle of the 15th century. The first known extract from it is read in the life of the Monk Dionysius of Prilutsky, whose writing dates back to the second half of the 15th century (Klyuchevsky Lives, p. 189). The name of Stephen himself begins to appear in our calendar (under December 15) from the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century (Trinity Lavra Manuscript No. 617, fol. 68 volume. Description of the synodal manuscripts. Gorsky and Nevostruev No. 352, fol. 11, and No. 408, fol. 254 volume; Eminence Sergius Complete Monthlies of the East, I, 158). Varangian (Varing, Väring) was not the name of the Normans as a people, but of those among them who, in artels or gangs, set out from their fatherland to foreign lands to plunder them (and later to serve in them: Varing from wara - oath, oath (our later: “faith-kissing the cross?”) and, therefore, oath-sworn, sworn, because the members of the artels swore before equipping for the journey a mutual oath not to betray each other and to help each other on the other side). Everyone, of course, understands that we use the word Russian out of anticipation. ΟἱῬῶς. The Greeks could speak and write and οἱ Ῥ οῦς; but they brought the Russians closer, as we said above, to the biblical Ros. Einhardi Annales from 800, and after that from 830. Bertina Chronicle. From the story of the Bertin Chronicle under 839. about the Russians sent by the Byzantine emperor Theophilus to the Frankish emperor Louis the Pious, it should be concluded that until this year the Varangians had not yet gone to serve in Constantinople. But in the story of our chronicle about Askold and Dir, it is made known that in 862. the path to Constantinople was already well known to them - the Varangians (and the siege of Constantinople by the Azov-Taurian Russes in 860 does not prevent the travel of the Russes or Varangians from their homeland to it from being attributed to an earlier time). As for Oleg’s reign, his agreement with the Greeks in 911 already deliberately says “about those working in Gretsekh Rus for the peasant king.” At home, the Normans began to accept Western Christianity partially or piecemeal as early as 826. This year, at the court of the Frankish Emperor Louis, one of the Danish princes, named Heriold or Harald, was baptized at the court of the Frankish Emperor Louis, having been driven away from his table by other Danish princes. The baptism of Heriold aroused in the emperor the desire to establish a mission for the conversion of the Normans, and the executor of his desire was St. Ansgarius, monk of New Corvey. From 831 to 865 the first Archbishop of Hamburg, who labored to preach Christianity in Denmark and Norway with Sweden, with some success directly and indirectly through others - Einhardi Annales under 826. and the life of St. Ansgaria, written by Rimbert, in Monumm. Germ. Pertsa. When Oleg’s ambassadors made peace with the Greeks in Constantinople in 911, then, according to our chronicle, “Tsar Leon almost donated Russian ambassadors with gold and pavoloks and fofuds and sent his men to show them the church beauty and gold plates and real wealth in them - a lot of gold and pavoloks and precious stones, and the passion of the Lord and the crown and a nail and a scarlet robe and the relics of saints, teaching me to my faith and showing them the true faith.” Comparing this news from our chronicle with the Greek news about the reception of foreign ambassadors in Constantinople, one must conclude that both the wealth of the imperial palace and the beauty of the churches (especially St. Sophia) were shown to our ambassadors not so much in order to teach them the Christian faith, as the chronicler concludes, but in order to show off to them and impress them. Quite similar to what our chronicler writes about the behavior in Constantinople with the Russian ambassadors, we find in Constantine Porphyrogenitus about the behavior with the Saracen ambassadors (De ceremon. aulae Byzant., lib. II, cap. 15, ed. Bonn. p. 590 sqq, y Minya in Patrology t. 112, p. 1100). The Passion of the Lord and the crown and nail, etc., the chronicler probably adds on his own, based on his assumption about the purpose for which they were shown to the ambassadors of the church. The Reverend Philaret, borrowing information from Butkov in his “Defense of the Russian Chronicle,” who in turn takes from Pogodin in his dissertation “On the Origin of Rus',” says: “To the Arabs in 922. it was known that the Russians were converting to the Christian faith,” trans. I §3, edition 3 p. 7. But the Arab writer Ibn-Foszlan or Ibn-Fadlan, whom the Eminence Philaret means and whom see Frehn in the work Ibn-Foszlan’s und anderer Araber Berichte üüber die Russen älterer Zeit and y Harkavi in the publication Tales of Muslim Writers about the Slavs and Russians, does not talk about the conversion of Russians to the Christian faith. Here a not entirely understandable and not entirely excusable oversight happened to Pogodin (although, by the way, oversights happen to everyone). In Frena, which he uses, an extract of news from Ibn-Fotslan about the Russians ends with the words: “As for the Russians at the present time, (everyone) knows that they profess the Christian religion,” page 23. But this is not said by Ibn-Fotzlan, but by that other Arab writer, namely Yakut, in whose work the news of Ibn-Fotzlan about the Russ is included and from whom Fren takes it. Four lines above the words we have just cited, with which Fren’s extract from Ibn Fotslan ends, reads: “This is the essence of the news that I (i.e., I am Yakut) literally borrowed from the writings of Ibn Fotslan.” As for Yakut, he lived in the second half of the 12th - first half of the 13th century. († 1229. In the schedule of episcopal departments subordinate to the Patriarch of Constantinople, which bears the name of Emperor Leo the Wise in its title, ἡ Ῥ ωσία is in 61st place in the row of metropolises. Some scientists, in confirmation of their preconceived thoughts, find it possible to use the evidence of the schedule. But it has long been proven and recognized that it or does not belong to Leo the Wise or, if it does, it is interpolated at a later time). The agreement does not contain an indictment or a year, but the time of its writing is very accurately determined by the fact that it was written “under Tsar Roman and Constantine and Stephen, the Christ-loving rulers” and placed in the chronicle under 6453. Since Emperor Roman Lecapen (and Constantine and Stefan his sons) was expelled from the throne on December 16, 944, the agreement was written earlier than this. And since in the September year 6453 from S.M., the January year 944 from A.C. falls on the months September - December (the further ones to 945), then the agreement was written after September 1, 944. The contract directly begins with the incomprehensible: “Equal to another meeting”... This, as N. A. Lavrovsky happily guessed, is an unsuccessful translation of the Greek ἴσον, which literally really means “equal”, but which was and is still used in the meaning: copy, which is what it has in this case. (“Equal to the other” – ἴσον τοῦ πρωτοτύπου, i.e. a copy from the original). On the authenticity of the treaty and the traces of Greek in it, see the dissertation of the now-named venerable scientist: On the Byzantine element in the language of the treaty between the Russians and the Greeks, St. Petersburg. 1853. And Schletser found the agreement only very spoiled (Nest. in Russian translation, III, 90, which actually means that he himself did not know the Slavic language well and did not take into account that the agreement was a translation from Greek), but he did not doubt its authenticity (see Solovyov Ist. vol. III, 4th ed. p. 124). The order of the content of the treaty after the title or inscription: listing the names of Russian ambassadors, the obligation of the ambassadors to observe the peace being concluded, the clauses or articles laid down, the signature of the ambassadors with a new obligation to comply with what is written. Based on the expression about the baptized Russians in the past tense (we swear), and about the unbaptized in the future (yes, they believe, that is, they have to believe), it is necessary to present the matter in such a way that the baptized were sworn in at the time the treaty was written, and the unbaptized were to be sworn in after. “Naked,” that is, unsheathed, as evidence that the criminal of the oath deserves to die with his weapon; “hoops” - hand wrists from “ob” and “arm”, i.e. around the hand (bracelets and maybe neck hryvnias); “other weapons” - other military armor and (knightly) jewelry, over which (set then that “let us be gold as gold is,” - the agreement of the Holy Hierarch) they had to take an oath. Konstantin Porphyrogenite speaks of entire detachments of Russians who served in Constantinople, which were composed of only baptized people, De ceremonn. aulae Byzant., lib. II, sar. 15, ed. Bonn., p. 579, y Minya in Patr. t. CXII, col. 1081. The Church of the Kyiv Varangians was in the name of the same saint with the same church of the Varangians of Constantinople (Prophet Elijah). This makes it quite clear that the first was the daughter of the last. That is, we exclude Rurik, who reigned in Novgorod. Under 945, in the story about the arrival of the Drevlyans to Olga after the death of Igor (“on Podillya there are not gray people, but on the mountain”). By stream it is customary to mean Pochayna (which currently flows into the Dnieper outside the city, and in ancient and not very long ago flowed through the entire Podol). But, not to mention the dubiousness of this a priori, since at the mouth of the Pochayna there was a ship pier and, therefore, the name of the stream was not befitting for the river, although not large, but playing such an important role, here is proof of the injustice of this a posteriori or direct and positive. The unknown author of “The Life of Blessed Volodymer,” about whom we will conduct lengthy speeches below, speaking about Vladimir’s crushing of idols in Kyiv before the baptism of the people, writes: “He ordered the hair of the idol, whose name was the cattle god, to be taken into the Pochaina River, and Perun was ordered to be tied to a horse’s tail and dragged from the mountain along Borichev to the stream”... (The Khreshchatitsky stream does not currently exist and along its ravine and former bed, Khreshchatitskaya Street currently runs, making up Nevsky Prospekt and the Kuznetsky Bridge of Kyiv. If the Borichev transport went to the mountain not from the Dnieper and Pochayna, but from the Khreshchatytsky stream, then it is clear that the original or Dovladimirov city (Fortress) was not on the mountain of the Tithe Church, but on the mountain of the St. Michael's Monastery, which is required to be assumed by all sorts of other indications and considerations - for the topography of Kyiv, see below. The church was “above the stream, the end of the Pason’s conversation and Kozare”: conversation here means a street or (more likely) a square - there is a Little Russian proverb: “rich pokut, poor conversation,” but what does conversation mean in it? The name Pasyncha may be from the stepsons - ancient boyar children, cfr Karamzin III, approx. 227. Kozare - a street or settlement (locality), which received its name from Kazar, to which the Polyans paid tribute before Askold and Dir, and which were supposed to have a courtyard in Kyiv for visits or for the permanent residence of their officials, as after Tatara in Moscow). We do not know where the Varangian church of the prophet Elijah was located in Constantinople, which is mentioned in the treaty of Igor and which was, if not the only, then, obviously, the main Varangian church there. We consider it probable that it should be seen in the church of St. Elijah εἰς τὸ Πετρίον or εἰς τἀ Πετρία, which, having been built under the emperor Zeno and having been restored by the emperor Basil the Macedonian, was located on the Golden Horn or gulf, not far from the present Phanar, near the gate of the city wall from the bay, which was called τὸ Πετρίον and which, having retained the ancient name to the present day, are now called Petri - Kapi (Petri - gate, Dukanja Constantinop. Christ., lib. IV, Sar. IV, and Byzantium Κωνσταντινούπ 1, 563 and 567). Here, in the city wall, by means of another circular wall adjacent to it, a special fortress was built, which was called Κάστρον τῶν Πετρίων (of Patriarch Constantius Κωνσταντίνιας, p. 16): it seems likely to think that The Varangians who served as soldiers in the fortresses of Constantinople also had their own church in one of them. St. Mama or Mamant, who had a courtyard in Constantinople, our Russians (the treaties of Oleg and Igor) was not particularly far from here (outside the city wall, near the city gate, which was called Ξυλόπορτα and was the last from the bay in the Blachernae corner, a little further from the city of the present gate Aivan or Eyvan-Seray Kapi; here was the pier of St. Mammoth, which, of course, and served as a stopping place for visiting Russian ships - the name of the courtyard or settlement in which it was located, and the pier - from the former monastery of St. Mammoth). Some of our researchers seem to be of the opinion that in the agreement there is only one church of St. Elijah, namely Kiev. But that in the treaty itself, and not in the chronicler’s addition to it (“the message from Igor”), of course, is the church of St. Elijah of Constantinople, to which the Christian part of Igor’s ambassadors who were in Constantinople were taken to take the oath, this is absolutely clear. In the 14th century, the Church of the Virgin Mary τῆς Βαραγγιωτίσσης, located behind the altar of St. Sofia (Miklos. Acta Patriarchat Constantinop., I, 423), but whether its name should be understood in the sense that it belonged to the Varangians remains unknown to us (isn’t it, of course, the Church of the Mother of God, mentioned in 3 Justinian’s novella, chapter 1, as built by a certain Virina, and Βαραγγιωτίσσης instead of Βηρινιωτίσσης?). Like stamps or tickets proving identity. On the use of seals in the sense of signs of presentation, see the second half of the volume, pp. 516–517 (but also what Konstantin Porphyrogenitus says in Deadminist. imper., pp. 53, ed. Bonn. p. 251). – In the treaty of Oleg with the Greeks in 911. it is said that the Russian ambassadors signed the treaty document “with their own hand.” If the signature did not consist of the inscription of some conventional signs, but was a real signature, then it will follow that the art of writing was to some extent known to the Russians already in the time of Oleg (among the ambassadors, few or even just one could be able to write to sign for everyone). That Olga was a Varangian, this, firstly, shows her Varangian name (Olga instead of Oleg is a female name from the masculine Oleg, which was also used in the form Olga - the possessive adjective Olgovich), - secondly, it should be assumed on the basis that Oleg, who had not yet become glorified, could not take a Slav as his wife (on this, of course, the last reason they call Olga Varyazhka and her later lives - lengthy in Degree Book I, 6, brief in the Right Reverend Macarius, History vol. I, edition 2 p. 276, cfr Karamzin 1, 78). And the opinion of the late Archimandrite Leonid, based on one Kamenevich-Rvovsky of the 15th century, that Olga was not a Varangian, but a Bulgarian, from the city of Pleskov, not Russian, but ancient Bulgarian (Russian Antiquity, 1888 July, vol. LIX, pp. 215–224) can be mentioned only for curiosity. The later legend that Olga was from the village of Vybutsky, that at present there is a village of Vybutino or Labutino, located 12 versts from Pskov up the Velikaya River, “the city of Pskov (then) does not exist yet,” and that she was not a prince or a nobleman by birth, but from ordinary people - in the lives now indicated (who, while writing down or composing the legend, lost sight of the fact that the Varangians were gentlemen and that there could not be ordinary people among them). Igor was married to Olga in 903 and died in 945. He makes this clear by the fact that the first reception he described was a reception in the audience hall through the Minister of Foreign Affairs (see below). Stritt.Memorr. popp. II, 976. In Memory and Praise of Vladimir, see appendices to the next chapter. See appendices to this chapter. The Western chronicler (the successor of Reginon) was not a late writer, but a direct contemporary. But what makes him comparable to the later ones is his too great distance from Russia. The imperfect thoroughness of his information is evident from the fact that he considers Olga to have been baptized under Emperor Roman (959–963). It may very well be that Olga took the Christian name Elena in honor of the wife of the then Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who was also called Elena. But there is no reason to conclude from this that she was baptized in Constantinople. And Vladimir was called Vasily in Christianity after the Greek emperor of his time. Chronicle of Ipata, Resurrection, Sof. Time The omission of news about the year of birth of Svyatoslav in the Laurentian chronicle, which could simply be accidental, due to the fault of the copyist or editor, does not at all speak against its reliability in the Ipatian chronicle. Jacob see ibid.; lives - by the Right Reverend Macarius, History vol. I, edition 2 p. 77. and in the Degree Book, I, 34. In the chronicle, as we said, Olga’s journey to Constantinople was dated in 955, while in reality it took place in 957. One might think that the later legend was recorded in the chronicle under the year under which the original record of Olga’s baptism was written. “Return to the Russian land... and then crush the trebles.” Description of the Synodal manuscripts of Gorsky and Nevostruev, Nos. 45–47, p. 314. In Degree Book, I, 31. The more ancient prologue life of Olga only says that she foresaw and predicted the construction of the Pskov Church of St. Trinity (by the Right Reverend Macarius in History, vol. I, edition 2 p. 277). The Nikon Chronicle (I, 54) speaks of Olga’s village of Budutin (to which she allegedly exiled Vladimir’s mother Malusha, about which we will make a note below). If this Budutino is one and the same with Vybutin, about whom a little higher: then we can assume that in this village of hers Olga really built a church and that the legend about this construction served as the reason for the legend about the money for the Pskov Church of St. Trinity. According to the Nikon Chronicle, Olga, dying, gave this village to the Holy Mother of God (ibidd.). Since it is entirely possible that Olga built public churches for the Varangians; since there is no doubt that there could be no obstacles on Svyatoslav’s part for her to give estates to the churches (see below): then it is impossible to decisively declare the news as fiction. Kyiv should be considered as the only probable place for this possible church. Based on the fact that some of the chroniclers and Otto’s official document call the people from whom the embassy was sent Rugi, some (including Karamzin, I, note 395) want to mean Rugov - the inhabitants of the island of Rügen (also Slavs). But if one part of the chroniclers calls the people Rugi, then the other part, including Thietmar of Merseburg, who has very great authority in this case (Chronic., lib. II, n. 14, in Min in Patrology t. 139, p. 1212), gens Russiae. Meanwhile, the impossibility of understanding the real Rugs is obvious from the words of the chroniclers about the one who sent the ambassadors: Helena regina, quae Constantinopoli baptizata erat. For, firstly, it is not only very difficult to imagine that the Rugs could have had a princess who would have gone to Constantinople to seek baptism, but it is also positively known that at this time there was no such princess. Secondly, Western chroniclers would never call Princess Rugov regina (queen). There was in the west a certain Hroswitha, otherwise Helena von Rossow, a nun of a monastery, who came from a noble, perhaps princely Brandenburg family, who was related to the Emperor Otto and who had been in Constantinople, where she learned the Greek language (a famous poet of her time). But to see in this Helen, as some want, the Helen of the chroniclers, is extremely strange. Regina will never mean only a woman who may have come from a princely family; von Rossow is a personal nickname (family surname), and all the chroniclers talk about the people Rugi or Russ, and besides, how would Rugi, Russia come from von Rossow? Finally, what would be the point of this embassy from the princess-nun to the king for the bishop and presbyters (and why on earth would the chroniclers write about it)? We cannot undertake to explain satisfactorily why some chroniclers and Otto himself call the Russians Rugami; We believe, simply because our name was not well known in the West (cfr above that in the West the Normans were not called Russians) and that thus there was a mistake in the name. Some of the chroniclers (Lambert) present the matter in such a way that the bishop barely escaped alive from the Russian capital itself. But this is obviously inaccurate. Perhaps, simply for the reason why she herself went to Constantinople: to collect and obtain some information about the West. Otto I is known for the fact that in order to spread Christianity among the Slavs of Polabsk (from Laba - Elbe) or the Baltic, who were finally defeated by him, he founded six bishoprics (Magdeburg and Meissen on the Elbe River, Merseburg on the Sal, Tseytskaya on the Elster, Havelberg at the confluence of the Havel with the Elbe and Brandenburg in the upper reaches of the latter river) and that of these six bishops he formed a special Slavic metropolis (Magdeburg, the first on the department of which was the aforementioned Adalbert). The chronicler says: “And Olga commanded not to do harm to yourself, for if you had a prosperous name, bury blessed Olga.” Since, firstly, it is very likely to assume that Olga had not one house priest, but several, and since, secondly, in addition to her house priests, there were public and house priests for the Varangian Christians in Kyiv at that time, the funeral matter should not be presented as the chronicler presents it: Olga was buried not by one, but by many priests (of course, all those who were in Kyiv, and not secretly, as the chronicler seems to want to let it be known, but openly and solemnly, to which there could be no obstacles from Svyatoslav). Only her later lives speak clearly about the transfer of Olga’s relics by Vladimir to the Church of the Tithes (written by the Right Reverend Macarius in History vol. I, edition 2 pp. 87 and 277, extensive in Degree Book I, 35). But after Vladimir, we actually find her relics in the Church of the Tithes (monk Jacob in Memory and Praise of Vladimir or someone ancient who made an insert from him), and therefore it is most likely to attribute their transfer here to him. Under the year 1007, the Laurentian Chronicle does not clearly record: “transfer the saints to the Holy Mother of God”; but it is not particularly likely to understand this about the transfer of Olga’s relics, for in the Hypatan Chronicle, instead of “transferring,” it reads “bringing,” and in some others it is definitely: “holy icons were brought” (Konigsberg, and Tatishchev, II, 89, and Karamzin, I, 138, very plausibly mean: from Greece). During the Mongol invasion, the relics were hidden under cover in the church. In the 17th century, according to legend, they were discovered by Peter Mogila, and in the 18th century. again hidden, for a not entirely intelligible reason, in an unknown place (History of the Most Reverend Macarius, vol. I, edition 2, p. 87). In the family of the Beloselsky-Belozersky princes there is a portrait of Olga, painted according to legend by the painter Constantine Porphyrogenitus after her baptism, on which the Greek signature reads: ἡ τοῦ γένους Ῥ ῶς δεσπηνὰ, (Messenger) southwestern and western Russia, Govorsky edition, 1862, book 2, August, section IV, p. 122). This means that the venerable princes went too far into deceiving some clever Greek. Born, as we said, in 942. Chronicle from 964: “I grew up and matured to Prince Svyatoslav, and began to copulate many and bravely.”... (Patriarch) “commandments (to Olga) about the church charter, about prayer and fasting, about almsgiving and about keeping the body clean,” - the legend about Olga’s baptism. Polish historians quite plausibly put into Batu’s mouth the answer to the pope’s ambassadors who invited the khan to be baptized: “It is not good for a brave people to be baptized, who love to shed blood, and Christians forbid this, for this reason they are not brave in battle,” see our Gustin Chronicle in the Collected Chronicles II, 341. In the novel by Main-Read “Esperanza” we came across a story, we don’t know whether it was copied from reality, but theoretically faithful to it, that an Indian Christian woman convinces her pagan husband to become a Christian and that the latter replies: “my god is the god of battle and blood, who loves only the brave.”... It is not in the realm of probable, but actual, that it is known that the Frankish king Clodovic responded to the first exhortations to him to accept Christianity in a manner similar to the above. (Neander, Guericke). “Es war allgemeiner Grundsatz des Altertums (the pagans of antiquity), dass die Götter selbst in jedem Lande die besondere Art ihrer Verehrung angeordnet hätten.” Gieseler, Kirchengesch., I, 1, §12. Together with the German Gieseler, see our Zinovy ​​Otensky in “Truth in Testimony”, Kazan edition p. 394. Everything we have said seems to be decisively refuted by the fact that the pagan Roman emperors cruelly persecuted the leading Christians. However, this is not at all true. The pagan Roman emperors saw in the primacy of Christianity not an existing folk religion, but a newly emerging and newly imagined, very harmful and hateful, religious-political sect (from the religious side, Christianity in their eyes was exitiabilis superstitio, Tacit. Annal.. lib. XV, p. 44; from the political side, Christians for them were publici hostes, Tertull. Apologet., cap. 2). The preachers of Christianity, animated by the consciousness of its truth, tried to spread it in the world, despite any obstacles, but for this very reason the Roman emperors considered it their duty to suppress it by all means in their power. The complete tolerance of the pagan Roman emperors, who persecuted Christianity, towards all existing folk religions is evidenced by their Pantheon, which was dedicated to the gods of the whole world. (And their so-called later syncretism in religion; let the reader also remember that the Athenians of the time of the Apostle Paul honored the gods of the world not only known, but also unknown). About the tolerance of Christianity specifically of the Normans and about their views on religions, exactly the same as we learn from Svyatoslav and pagans in general, see Rimbert’s Life of St. Ansgaria (§§9, 11, 14, 19, 24, 26, 27, 30, - underlined §§, in which views; during the entire missionary activity of Ansgaria, part of the people only once rebelled against the preachers by inciting those interested - the priests - §17, cfr 16). On the tolerance of Christianity of the Western Slavs, see Helmold in Chronica Slavorum, Lib. 1 §2 (tolerance precisely on the condition that Christians refrain from propaganda). Absolutely about such, as stated above, views on the religions of our present-day Siberian pagans, see Spiritual Conversation 1863, No. 3, p. 70. (In volume 2, in speeches about the religious tolerance of the Mongols, we provide more completely clear evidence of what we have just said; a pagan religion can be distinguished by intolerance only if it is not a folk religion in the proper sense, but comes from one person who created it, and this is because the creator of the religion considered and declared it to be the only true one: such, for example, was the Zoroaster religion in Persia). “Swearing” just means laughing and nothing more, i.e. it should not be understood at all in the sense of abuse through some kind of action. With the word “ugliness,” the chronicler wants to say the same thing that we said above - that Christianity, which requires from a person virtues that are contrary to the passionate inclinations of his nature, in which he sees virtues (heroism, seeking to prove itself in wars, honor, imposing the obligation of vengeance, etc.) should have seemed to the pagans as foolishness, that is, the faith of holy fools, pathetic people. insignificant in spirit. In the treaty between Svyatoslav and Tzimiskes in 971. there is not a word about Christians. But this may not mean that they were not in Svyatoslav’s army, but only that he did not want, like Igor, to give them political equality with the pagans (According to Leo the Deacon, Book IX, Chapter 6, Svyatoslav’s first leader in the Bulgarian campaign was Ikmor; but, of course, he is mistaken: in addition to the chronicler’s own testimony, see the latter’s now indicated agreement between Svyatoslav and Greeks). In 964 campaign against Vyatichi, in 965. war with the Kazars, Yasami and Kasogs (the last two are neighbors of our Tmutarakan), in 966. again the war with Vyatichi, from 967. until his death (in 972) the Bulgarian war, from which Svyatoslav returned home only once and not for particularly long. There is one piece of evidence about Christianity in Russia under Svyatoslav, which is not yet entirely definite, so that it may or may not apply to us, and which cannot yet be presented as undoubtedly reliable; but if it is proven that it refers specifically to us and reliably, then it will constitute very important evidence. Kozma of Prague in his chronicle (lib. I, §22) cites a letter from Pope John XIII to the Czech King Boleslav II, written in 972, by which the pope allows the king to open one bishopric in the Czech Republic (Prague). Along with this permission, the pope also gives permission to establish one nunnery, and regarding this latter he prescribes: “verum tamen non secundum ritus aut sectam Bulgariae gentis vel Ruziae aut Slavonicae linguae, sed magis sequens instituta et decreta apostolica”... Under Ruzia gens one can understand two - or Hungarian Russians, who in their own way in the present place of residence are not recent newcomers, as Hungarian historians want to claim, but prehistoric aborigines, who adopted Christianity of the Greek rite in the 9th century from the Bulgarians, having been their tributaries before the arrival of the Hungarians, or us, the Russians of Kyiv. Since it is more than likely that the Hungarian Russians adopted the name Russians for themselves after 972, there is every reason to believe that Kozma means us - the Kievan Russians. If it turns out to be possible to prove this in a positive way, and if the undoubted authenticity of the pope's letter is then proven, then the testimony, as we said, will receive very important significance. It will say that there were so many Christians in Russia during the reign of Svyatoslav that even the pope knew about them, as they constituted a whole special private church. In continuation of 970–972. ruler, continuing 972 - 978. actual Grand Duke (about the last number, instead of 980, below). We do not recognize the information from the so-called Joachim Chronicle of Tatishchev as information. In what year Yaropolk was born is not recorded in the chronicle. But there is one circumstance that can serve to approximately determine the early limit of his age at the moment of Olga’s death. Svyatoslav, who was last in Kyiv precisely in 969, when Olga died, married him to one beautiful Greek woman he brought from Bulgaria: we believe it is difficult to allow this to happen even before Yaropolk turned 10 years old. As for the later limit, it is not possible to assume that he was more than 12 years old at the time of Olga’s death, Svyatoslav’s own years do not allow him, to whom he could hardly have been born before the age of 15. Between the names of Igor's boyars in the treaty of 944. there are Slavic ones: Volodislav, Predslava (although, however, the boyars - the Varangians - could have already begun to take Slavic names). Speaking about the church of St. Elijah under Igor: “be a collective church,” which means public, the chronicler makes it known that there were house churches. The existence of house churches is also supported by the then universal custom in Greece of having one for every more or less noble person, or at least aspiring to be so: the house church was an accessory and sign of nobility (we will talk about them in more detail below). The testimony of Walafrid Strabo, which we cited above. In addition to the Taurian or Crimean Goths, there were also Mysian Goths in Greece: Firstly, the descendants of those brought by Ulfila (about whom we spoke above), secondly, the descendants of those numerous Goths who, during the invasion of the Huns in 376, they sought salvation from the Greeks in Mysia. In this latter, in the second half of the 7th century. The Bulgarians formed their own state and adopted Christianity in the middle of the 9th century. But even under the rule of the Bulgarians, first political and then ecclesiastical, the Goths were able to preserve their Gothic language (there were so many Goths in Bulgaria that the Bulgarian Serbs themselves were called Goths, see Danichich’s Riverman under the word Gotin). To anyone who would find it strange to use Greek letters to write in another language, we remind you that the Bulgarians used these letters to write in the Bulgarian language not only in ancient times before the invention of the Slavic alphabet, about which there is positive evidence, but even in the recent times of their Hellenization. There are even new Bulgarian books printed in Greek letters, for example: Ευαγγελιε να γοσποδα μπογα (of God) η σπασα νασεγο Ιησουσα Χριστω (sic), σιγα (now, now) νοβο τυποσανο (printed) να μπογαρσκοι εςικ ... Σολον (Thessaloniki), Σταμπα (printing house) Κυριακοβα Δαρζηλευ, 1852 (Irechka Bulgarian Bibliography, No. 182). John Tzimiskes was emperor after Olga's death from 969 to 976. Tsemsky appears only in the oldest or Laurentian list, in all other lists, with the inclusion of Ipatsky, correctly - Konstantin, son of Leonov (Leontov). Stryikovsky, however, had a list of the chronicle, in which, just like in Lavrentievsky, Tsemsky was read (Chronica, ed. Varsh., 1846, vol. I, p. 120). Olga, who married in 903, should have had in 955. about 60–65 years old. The then emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus had a wife. Laurentian Chronicle: “since she grew up, blessed Olga sought with wisdom everything in this world”; Ipatskaya: “searching for wisdom, which is the best thing in this world.” These words, by the way, can serve to explain why Olga went to Constantinople and sent ambassadors to the Frankish emperor. Whether the legend written down is correct or incorrect, its meaning is that Olga, upon her arrival in Constantinople, was kept in the pier on a ship for a very long time - not several hours, but several days, without being allowed into the city. The matter really could have been similar to how our tradition presents it. The Russians were among those foreigners with whom the Greeks tried and had reason to be as careful as possible. The unprecedented arrival of the Russian princess could arouse various suspicions in Constantinople, and there for a very long time they could decide whether or not to let her into the city. According to our legend, Olga was very offended by the Greeks for this delay with her; but to think, as they usually think, that the Greeks wanted to inflict a deliberate insult on her, and in general to assume that Olga was not treated well enough in Constantinople, there is not the slightest reason. - The harbor of Constantinople in the chronicle is called the Court (“as in the Court”). Σοῦδα - courts (but not court) means ditch, pit. In Constantinople, in particular, the Suda was the moat that surrounded the city fortress wall (very well preserved to this day). Why the chronicler calls the pier, the harbor the Court, we cannot say; Perhaps the Greeks really called artificial, dug harbors that way, of which there were several in Constantinople, as opposed to natural ones (and whose proper name among the Greeks was τὰ νεώρια). It is most likely, however, that the chronicler did not have a proper idea of ​​the Court, and that for him this name generally meant the waters of Constantinople. (Either he calls the Strait of Constantinople or the Bosphorus the Court, under 866 and 941, then the Gulf of Constantinople or the Golden Horn, under 907, then the pier in Constantinople, as in the present case. The Strait was called the Court even after - Anthony of Novgorod, according to Savvaitov’s edition, p. 173). Προκρειτοτέρων θεραπαινῶν - of course, the court ladies or noblewomen of Olga. Logofet – Minister of Foreign Affairs; the place refers to the audience hall for receiving foreign ambassadors (located in a building called Magnavra). [Cm. "Additions and amendments"]. Ἀποκρισιάριοι καὶ πραγματευταί . The royal crown has a special shape and special meaning, about which see below. Names of departments and halls of the palace. The Palace of the Emperors of Constantinople did not consist of one large building or building, but consisted of several buildings surrounded by one common wall, like a monastery. Since neither the palace itself, nor its plan or detailed description has been preserved to this day, its former location, on the basis of incomplete and unintentional descriptions, can only be approximately restored. For such an approximate restoration, see the Encyclopedia of Ersch and Gruber, vol. 84, article: Griechische Kunst, S. 323. Under the anadendradium, ἀναδενδράδιον, of course there is a garden or alley leading from one building to another. That is, from their inner rooms to the ceremonial sections of the palace. That is, the throne made by this emperor, cfr Scriptt. post Theophan. ed. Paris, pp. 410 and 516. Famous parties of the racecourse yellow and blue, cfr ibid.. Σκῦλον means booty taken from the enemy, war trophy, lat. spolium (and in this proper meaning it was usually used in the plural, - σκῦλα Μηδικά, βαρβαρικά, Lex. Passova). Consequently, by τὰ Σκῦλα it seems to mean the hall in which military trophies were located, or otherwise the palace arsenal. Ducange's assumption that scyla - carcer (Constantinop. Christ. Lib. II, p. 178) is refuted by our place of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. The author of the now mentioned article Griechische Kunst in the Encyclopedia of Ersch and Gruber, recognizing τά σκῦλα as a hall, does not make any assumptions regarding its purpose (S. 321, col. 1). Wife of Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, Elena. The wife of Konstantinov's son Roman, Anastasia Feofano. Kuvukliy is a staff of lower court officials, in our old way - sleeping bags, room children of the boyars (κουβοῦκλειον from the Latin cubiculum, which means bedroom, room). Αἱ Ζωσταἱ: Zosta (from Ζώννυμι I gird and Ζώνη - belt, and it is not entirely clear whether to mean a belt in the proper sense, a clothing belt, or a headband) is the very first lady in the empress and under the empress. There were one of each, and in this case the plural number - because of course the empress’s zosta and the daughter-in-law’s zosta. (For the emperor’s work on zost, see Constantine Porphyrogenitus ibid. Book I, Chapter 50). Κλητώριον, from καλέω - I call, actually a dinner party. For more details on these dinner parties or imperial ceremonial tables, see Constantine Porphyrogen. ibid. book 2, ch. 52 sqq. Τὴν κεφαλὴν μικρὸν ὑποκλίνασα . Ἐκαθέσθη εἰς τὸ ἀποκοπτὸν μετὰ ζωστῶν κατὰ τὸν τύπον. Τὸ ἀποκοπτὸν, ή ἀποκοπτὴ τραπέζα was called a small special table, at which the emperor and empress sat separately with a few higher ranks (Constant. Porfirog. ibid. book. 2, ch. 52, τόμος ß' and passim in several other places). In this case, at this “imperial” table they dined: the empress with her daughter-in-law, two zostas and Olga. That is, there was a special table for men. Miliarisius or miliaresium, otherwise drachma, a small silver coin, (Duc., Gloss. Graec.), According to the account of K. Paparrigopoulus (Ἱ στορία τοῦ Ἑ λληνικοῦ Ἔ θνους, IV, 116), equaled 35 kopecks ser., according to Byzantium (Κωνσταντινούπ., III, 267) with a small one franc. Παπ ᾶ ς Γρηγόριος . In common parlance, and not even in common parlance, as in this case, the Greeks call priests - παπάς, παπάδες, where our “priest” comes from. The pop priest differs among the Greeks from the Pope in that the first is παπ ᾶ ς, and the second is πάπας. He dined either alone or with men in chrysotricline. Built by Feofan, Scriptt. post Theophan. ibid.. Novgorod Archbishop Anthony (in the world Dobrynya Yadreikovich), who was in Constantinople at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries and wrote the Constantinople Pilgrim, among other things reports that in the local St. Sophia has “a great golden dish served by Olga the Russian, when she took tribute, going to Tsaryugrad; in Olzhina’s dish there is a precious stone, on the same stone Christ is written, and from that Christ people receive seals on all their goods, in the same dish everything on top is made with pearls” (Journey of Novgorod Archbishop Anthony to Constantinople, ed. Savvaitov, 1872, p. 58). If the dish, which was passed off in the time of Anthony as an offering to Olgino, really belonged to her, then it is very likely to think that it was the same dish that Porphyrogenitus is talking about, that is, that the dish itself was presented to her with miliaresia and that she donated it to St. Sofia. In addition to the similarity in the description, the likelihood of this is indicated by the words of Anthony: “when she took the tribute,” which, it seems, should be understood as follows: the dish was presented to Olga as a tribute, and she (in memory of the fact that she took the tribute) donated it to St. Sofia. Unfairly thinking, based on the passage in our chronicle we have cited, that Olga was not treated particularly well in Constantinople, Karamzin wants to see proof of this in the insignificance of the amount given to her and her companions (1.102). But again it is unfair: Olga was offered no less than what was customary to be offered in such cases (see the same Porphyrogenite, immediately before the story of Olga’s reception, the story of the reception of the Saracen ambassadors, who were much more important for the Greeks than the Russian princess), and Karamzin himself admits and confirms with a tangible example (I, note 381) that the meaning of such trays or salaries was not quantity. From the entire story of Porphyrogenitus, it is clearly seen that Olga was received in Constantinople completely as it should be. You might be interested in: