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290 ANDRZEJ POPPESuch was courtly historiography. In any case, in Byzantium during theyears 987-988, when the Rus' church province was founded with theformer metropolitan of Sebaste, Theophylaktos, a man loyal to Basil II, atits head, the event was thought of primarily as a dynastic alliance and adiplomatic mission to the Kievan court. That perception continued to somedegree in the eleventh century. 7The Byzantine contribution to the Christianization and to the transformationof culture and public life in Rus' is indisputable. But this Byzantineimpact was often passive in nature. Through Byzantine influences, a largeChristian religious and cultural legacy was at the disposal of the Rus'. Theneeds, conditions, and possibilities of the Rus' limited the benefits theycould derive. Reception was facilitated by the existence of the Cyrillo-Methodian and Bulgarian inheritance. Its adaptation created some problems,but in the main was conducive to acculturation. 8 There is some doubtabout considering early East-Slavic receptivity to Byzantine Christianityand civilization as acculturation. The active party in the process was therecipient. The Byzantine merit could have lain in facilitating unhamperedborrowing from this repository. Yet here too a civilization's attitude towardits lowly follower could have been in evidence. Acrimonious remarksmade in Kiev about the Greeks simultaneously with expressions of deeprespect to Greek Christianity seem to reflect this duality. The baptism andChristianization of the East Slavs and their acculturation into Byzantinecivilization must be attributed to the initiative of the leading strata of Rus'society (including the clergy). In this case Spinoza's statement is especiallyapt: "the active one is not the one who influences but the one who receivesthe influence. . . . Receiving, in the language of scholastics, is alwaysaccomplished modo recipientis." 91See Poppe, "Background," pp. 224-32; note, for instance, the creation in the 1060s of twotitular metropolitanates in Cernihiv and Perejaslav. Cf. A. Poppe, "Uwagi o najstarszychdziejach Kosciota na Rusi," pts. 2 and 3, in Przeglqd historyczny 55 (1964):557-72 and 56(1965): 557-69; Podskalsky, Christentum, pp. 32f.8Cf. D. Obolensky, "The Byzantine Impact on Eastern Europe," Praktika tes AkademiasAthenon 55 (1980): 148-68, reprinted in idem, The Byzantine Inheritance of Eastern Europe(London, 1982); also see other papers by this author there. For an attempt at recapitulation, seeS. Franklin, "The Reception of Byzantine Culture by the Slavs," in The 17th InternationalByzantine Congress. Major Papers (Dumbarton Oaks, 1986), pp. 383-98, which omitted F. J.Thomson, "The Nature of the Reception of Christian Byzantine Culture in Russia in the Tenthto Thirteenth Centuries and its Implications for Russian Culture," Slavica Gandensia 5(1978): 107-39 (with valuable data and controversial conclusions).9See L. Kotakowski, Jednostka i nieskonczonosc, Wolnosc i antynomia wolnosci w filozofiiSpinozy (Warsaw, 1958), p. 612. Cf. A. Gieysztor, "Kasztelanowie flandryjscy i polscy," inStudia Historyczne (Festschrift S. Arnold) (Warsaw, 1965), p. 107; cf. also I. Sevcenko,"Remarks on the Diffusion of Byzantine Scientific and Pseudo-Scientific Literature among the