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THE CONVERSION OF RUS' 289tices among the Rus'. Also, the human and spiritual qualities of the Greekclergy sent to Rus' must be considered: how many of them were real missionaries?One remark of a Kievan monk and chronicler at the turn of theeleventh century is hardly complimentary to most of the metropolitans ofKiev. 5 It can be assumed that opinions in Constantinople about the newlyconverted land were shaped in part by Byzantines returning from there.However, Psellos first and foremost was a Byzantine imperial historian, andone, moreover, uncommonly pliable and cunning. He knew how to selecthis materials. He must have considered it tactless and indiscrete to connectVolodimer's help for Basil during the civil war with the giving of a porphyrogeniteprincess in marriage to a barbarian prince, especially since heprobably considered the conversion as unauthentic and insincere. He preferredto keep silent on the topic.In any case, the inclination to insinuate and to pass over in silence wastypical not only of Psellos. John Skylitzes, his contemporary, noted theRus' military assistance and the marriage of Volodimer to the emperor'ssister, but made no mention of the prince's baptism or the conversion of hiscountry. Yet in treating the 860s Skylitzes repeated the testimony of TheophanesContinuatus on the conversion of Rus' and for the 950s he didrecord the baptism in Constantinople of the archontissa of Rus', Ol'ga. 6Mention of these events might have suggested to his readers that when theemperor Basil later asked for Volodimer's help and gave him the hand ofhis sister Anna, he was dealing with a Christian ruler.5See Polnoe sobranie russkix letopisej (hereafter PSRL), 1 (Leningrad, 1926), p. 208; Eng.trans. S. H. Cross and O. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, The Russian Primary Chronicle (Cambridge,Mass., 1953), pp. 169f.: "In this year, John the Metropolitan passed away. John was a manversed in books and study, generous to the poor and to the widows, affable to both rich andpoor, calm-tempered and mild, reticent yet eloquent, and able to console the sorrowful withwords of Holy Scripture. There never was his like in Rus' before him, nor will there be in laterdays." Usually the metropolitans were much different. Cf. L. Miiller, "Russen in Byzanz undGriechen im Rus'-Reich," Bulletin a" information et de coordination, no. 5 (Athens and Paris,1971), pp. 96-118; G. Podskalsky, "Der Beitrag der griechischstammigen Metropoliten(Kiev), Bischofe und Monche zur altrussischen Originalliteratur (Theologie), 988-1281,"Cahiers du monde russe et sovietique 24 (1983): 498-515. For separate biographies of Kievmetropolitans, see G. Podskalsky, Christemum und theologische Literatur in der Kiever Rus'(988-1237) (Munich, 1982), pp. 282-301. For a more recent view on John II, see G. Podskalsky,"Metropolit Ioann II von Kiev (1076/77-1089) als Okumeniker," Ostkirchliche Studien2(1988).6loannis Scylitzae synopsis historiarum, ed. J. Thum (Berlin and New York, 1973): 165,240. See Karayannopulos and Weiss, Quellenkunde, pp. 407f.; Poppe, "Background," p. 201.On the "first conversion" of Rus', see Podskalsky, Christentum, pp. 14-17; L. Miiller, DieTaufe Russlands (Munich, 1987), pp. 57-66; and A. P. Viasto, The Entry of the Slavs intoChristendom (Cambridge, Eng., 1970), pp. 244f., 391f.