HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

THE CONVERSION OF RUS' 297gave the order, because his piety was linked with authority." 22 Over thirtyyears later Nestor the hagiographer, in his Vita of Boris and Gleb, sketcheda more idyllic picture: "and all hastened to be baptized, and there wasnobody opposed, but as if already educated a long time, they came joyfullyfor baptism." 23Ilarion does not reduce the conversion to a single act. Noting that "atthe same time our land started to glorify Christ," he also points out that thiswas only the beginning: "Then the obscurity of paganism started to recedefrom us, and the daybreak of the true faith dawned." 24 By the end of theeleventh century, a chronicler praising Jaroslav would express the samethought more allegorically: "His father Volodimer plowed and harrowedthe soil, when he enlightened Rus' through baptism, while this prince[Jaroslav] sowed the hearts of the faithful with the written word; we in turnreap the harvest by receiving the teaching of the [sacred] books" (the PrimaryChronicle's entry under the year 1037). 25Ilarion attributes the conversion of Rus' exclusively to Volodimer's meritsas a teacher of the true faith: "Through you we came to know the Lordand got rid of pagan delusions. . . . The Savior himself assigned you."Unlike many other rulers who witnessed the power of Christ and of thesaints but rejected the faith, Volodimer "came to the true faith, came toChrist, without those witnesses. . . owing to an upright attitude of mind andsagacity in understanding that there is God, only one Creator," who "sentto earth his one and only son for the salvation of the world." Volodimer'svirtues are manifold because "he converted not one person, not ten of them,not a city, but the whole of his land." 26 Those virtues allowed Ilarion toequate the Rus' prince with Constantine the Great—the first ChristianRoman emperor. According to Ilarion, the baptism of Rus' was a repetitionof a previous historical situation, and Volodimer was a new Constantine.His interpretation gave the event in Rus' an autonomous character withoutdirect reference to the "terrestrial" Byzantine connection. But for Ilarion itwas inconceivable to equate Rus' with a Byzantium perceived as orbisromanus. He made parallels only between Volodimer and Rus' and the firstChristian Roman emperor and first Christian empire. In any case, Ilarion's22Miiller, Ilarion Lobrede, pp. 102, 103-104, 105; Moldovan, Slovo, pp. 92-93.23Die altrussischen hagiographischen Erzdhlungen und liturgische Dichtungen tiber dieheiligen Boris und Gleb. Nach der Ausgabe von D. Abramovic in Auswahl neu herausgegebenund eingeleitet von L. Miiller (Munich, 1967), 4.24Miiller, Ilarion Lobrede, p. 105; Moldovan, Slovo, p. 93.25PSRL, 1:152; Cross, Primary Chronicle, p. 137.26Miiller, Ilarion Lobrede, pp. 107, 108, 110, 116; Moldovan, Slovo, pp. 94, 95, 96.