WHITE - Byzantium and The Viking World

BYZANTIUM
AND THE
VIKING WORLD
Edited by
FEDIR A N D R O S H C H U K J O N A T H A N SHEPARD
MONICA WHITE
UPPSALA
UNIVERSITET
ISSN: 0283-1244
ISBN: {XXX-XX-XXX-XXXX-X}
© 2016 Fedir Androshchuk, Jonathan Shepard and Monica White for selection and
editorial matter; individual chapters, their contributors
Distribution:
Uppsala University Library,
Box 510, 751 20 Uppsala, Sweden, acta@ub.uu.se
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Preface ix
Notes on contributors xiii
Abbreviations xix
General maps xxiii
PART I: CONTACTS AND CULTURAL TRANSFER BETWEEN

BYZANTIUM AND THE VIKING WORLD
1 J O N A T H A N SHEPARD
Small worlds, the general synopsis, and the British 'way from the
Varangians to the Greeks' 3
2 LESLEY ABRAMS
Connections and exchange in the Viking world 37
3 ROLAND SCHEEL
Concepts of cultural transfer between Byzantium and the north . . . . 53
PART II: CONTACTS REFLECTED IN THE MATERIAL CULTURE

4 FEDIR ANDROSHCHUK
What does material evidence tell us about contacts between Byzantium
and the Viking world c. 800-1000? 91
5 MAREK JANKOWIAK
Byzantine coins in Viking-Age northern lands 117
6 FLORENT AUDY
How were Byzantine coins used in Viking-Age Scandinavia? 141
7 MAGNUS KÄLLSTRÖM
Byzantium reflected in the runic inscriptions of Scandinavia 169
8 THORGUNN SNÆDAL
Runes from Byzantium: reconsidering the Piraeus lion 187
9 FEDIR ANDROSHCHUK & GULGUN KÖROGLU
A Viking sword-bearing resident of southern Asia Minor? 215
10 VALERI YOTOV
Traces of the presence of Scandinavian warriors in the Balkans 241
v
vi BYZANTIUM A N D T H E V I K I N G W O R L D
11 MATHIAS BÄCK
Birka and the archaeology of remotion: early medieval pottery from
Byzantium and beyond in eastern S candinavia 255
12 INGA HÄGG
Silks at Birka 281
13 V A L E N T I N A S. S H A N D R O V S K A I A
The seal of Michael, Grand Interpreter of the Varangians 305
PART III: CONTACTS REFLECTED IN THE WRITTEN SOURCES

14 ELENA M E L ' N I K O V A
Rhosia and the Rus in Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos' De
administrando imperio 315
15 ANNA LITVINA & FJODOR USPENSKIJ
Contempt for Byzantine gold: common plot elements in Rus chronicles
and S candinavian sagas 337
16 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON
The Varangian legend: testimony from the Old Norse sources 345
17 SCOTT ASHLEY
Global worlds, local worlds: connections and transformations in the
Viking Age 363
PART IV: CHRISTIANITY AND THE INTENSIFICATION OF CONTACTS

18 MONICA WHITE
Relics and the princely clan in Rus 391
19 JOHN H. LIND
Christianity on the move: the role of the Varangians in Rus and Scandinavia 409
Glossary 443
List of illustrations and acknowledgements 447
Index 455
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the following people and institutions, and to acknowledge
their help in seeing this volume into print. First and foremost, thanks go to Ingela Nils-
son, without whose consistent support and guidance we would never have got things
off the ground; to Ragnar Hedlund, who played an invaluable role in organising the
Uppsala workshop in May 2013; to the Nordic Byzantine Network for their support of
that workshop; to Eric Cullhed and all at Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia, including our
anonymous reviewers whose insights and comments have helped shape the volume; to
David Cox for his excellent maps; to Nicola Sigsworth for her unstinting work on the
copy editing; to Elena Stepanova for her assistance with illustrations of material in the
Hermitage; to those colleagues who participated in the 2011 Sofia International Byzan-
tine Congress table-ronde or in the Uppsala workshop, but whose papers are published
elsewhere, for the intellectual stimulus they provided; but above all, to our authors for
their enthusiastic participation in the project and for their patience and good-humour
in dealing with a raft of queries great and small.
We also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubile-
umsfond; the Stiftelsen Enboms Donationsfond; the Swedish Collegium for Advanced
Studies (SCAS); and the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII). Publication of
this volume would not have been possible without the generous support of the Berit
Wallenberg Stiftelse; the Kungliga Patriotiska Sällskapet; the Stiftelsen Konung Gustaf
VI Adolfs fond för svensk kultur; and the Åke Wibergs Stiftelse.
vii
Abbreviations
AbrDIV L. Abrams 2.012. "Diaspora and Identity in the Viking Age" EME 20,
17-38.
ANS Anglo-Norman Studies
BCCE M . Woloszyn (ed.) 2009. Byzantine Coins in Central Europe Between the
5th and 10th Century. Cracow.
BCFS I. Hammarberg, B. Maimer & T. Zachrisson 1989. Byzantine Coins
Found in Sweden. Stockholm.
BD J. Shepard & S. Franklin (eds) 1992. Byzantine Diplomacy. Papers from
the Twenty-fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Cambridge,
March 1990. Aldershot.
BIG H . A r b m a n 1943. Birka I. Die Graber. Text. Stockholm.
BIS E. Piltz (ed.) 1998. Byzantium and Islam in Scandinavia. Acts of a Sympo-
sium at Uppsala University June 15-161996. Jonsered.
Bill K. Fledelius & P. Schreiner (eds) 1996. Byzantium. Identity, Image, In-
fluence. XlXth International Congress of Byzantine Studies, University
of Copenhagen, 18-24 August 1996. Major Papers. Copenhagen.
BRM F. Daim & J. Drauschke (eds) 2010. Byzanz—Das Romerreich im Mit-
telalter, 3 vols. Mainz.
BSl Byzantinoslavica
CES B. Gasparov & O. Raevsky-Hughes (eds) 1993. Christianity and the East-
ern Slavs, vol. 1. Berkeley.
CIEW U. Fransson et al. (eds) 2007. Cultural Interaction Between East and
West. Archaeology, Artefacts and Human Contacts in Northern Europe.
Stockholm.
CPUR M . Kazanski, A. Nercessian & C. Zuckerman (eds) 2000. Les Centres
proto-urbains russes entre Scandinavie, Byzance et Orient. Actes du Col-
loque International tenu au College de France en octobre 1997. Paris.
CRCM N . Berend (ed.) 2007. Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monar-
chy. Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus' c. 900-1200. Cambridge.
DAI Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, De administrando imperio, vol. 1:
Text. Ed. R.J. H.Jenkins. L o n d o n 1962.
DAI Com Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, De administrando imperio, vol. 2:
Commentary. Ed. R.J. H.Jenkins. L o n d o n 1962.
xix
XX BYZANTIUM A N D T H E V I K I N G W O R L D
DeCer Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, The Book of Ceremonies. Ed. J. J.

Reiske, De cerimoniis aulae byzantinae, 2 vols. Bonn 1829-1830. Tr. A.
Moffatt & M. Tall, The Book of Ceremonies, 2 vols. Canberra 2012.
DG Drevneishiegosudarstva na territorii SSSR/ Vostochnoi Evropy
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
DOSt Dumbarton Oaks Studies
DRVM Drevniaia Rus'. Voprosy medievistiki
EB J. Shepard 1973. "The English and Byzantium: A Study of Their Role
in the Byzantine Army in the Later Eleventh Century" Traditio 29,
53-92-
EBE2 B. Ambrosiani (ed.) 2004. Excavations in the Black Earth 1990-19(15.
Eastern Connections. Part Two: Numismatics and Metrology. Stock-
holm.
ECJVl'G I. Garipzanov & O. Tolochko (eds) 2011. Early Christianity on the Way
from the Varangians to the Greeks. Kiev.
EME Early Medieval Europe
EMIK P. Magdalino 1993. The Empire of'Manuel IKomnenos 1143-1180. Cam-
bridge.
EOE J. Shepard (ed.) 2007. The Expansion of Orthodox Europe: Byzantium,
the Balkans and Russia. Aldershot.
ER S. Franklin & J. Shepard 1996. The Emergence of Rus 750-1200. London.
FBN H. Janson (ed.) 2005. Fran Bysans till Nor den. Ostliga kyrkoinfluenser
under vikingatid och tidig medeltid. Skelleftea.
FGV L. Bjerg et al. (eds) 2013. From Goths to Varangians. Communication and
Cultural Exchange between the Baltic and the Black Sea. Aarhus.
HH S. H. Fuglesang & D. Wilson (eds) 2006. The Hoen Hoard. A Viking
Gold Treasure of the Ninth Century. Oslo.
HUS Harvard Ukrainian Studies
IF Islenzk fornrit
JOB Jahrbuch der osterreichischen Byzantinistik
KK E. N. Nosov & S. V. Beletskii (eds) 2010. Kraeugol'nyi kamen'. Arkhe-
ologiia, istoriia, iskusstvo, kul'tura Rossii i sopredel'nykh stran, 2 vols.
Moscow.
LDH Leo the Deacon, The History of Leo the Deacon: Byzantine Military Ex-
pansion in the Tenth Century. Tr. A.-M. Talbot & D. F. Sullivan Wash-
ington, D C 2005.
MA Medieval Archaeology
MGKSV M. Iversen et al. (eds) 1991. Mammen. Grav, kunst ogsamfundi vikinge-
tid. Aarhus.
ABBREVIATIONS xxi
Mork. Morkinskinna. Ed. Armann Jakobsson & PorSur Ingi Gudjonsson, 2

vols. IF 23-2.4. Reykjavik 2.011.
NAR Norwegian Archaeological Review
ObUpImp1 Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, De administrando imperio. Ed. G.
G. Litavrin & A. P. Novoseltsev. Konstantin Bagrjanorodnyi: Ob upra-
vlenii imperiei. Moscow 1989.
ObUpImp1 Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, De administrando imperio. Ed. G.
G. Litavrin & E. A. Mel'nikova. Konstantin Bagrjanorodnyi: Ob upra-
vlenii imperiei. Moscow 2016 forthcoming.
Og E. Brate (ed.) 1911-1918. Ostergotlands runinskrijter. Sveriges runinskrifter
2. Stockholm.
PmbZ Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit. Ed. R.-J. Lilie et al., vol.
1: (641-867), Prolegomena, 5 parts and list of abbreviations (1998-
2002); vol. 2: (867-1025), Prolegomena, 7 parts and indices (2013). Ber-
lin & New York.
PNB R. Zeitler (ed.) 1981. Lespays du NordetByzance (Scandinavie etByzan-
ce). Actes du colloque nordique et international de byzantonologie. Tenu
a Upsal20-22 avril 1979. Uppsala.
Psell. Michael Psellos, Chronographia. Ed. and French tr. E. Renauld, Chro-
nographie ou Histoire d'un siecle de Byzance (976-1077), 2 vols. Paris
1926-1928; repr. Paris 1967.
PSRL Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei
PVL Povest' vremennykb let. Ed. V. P. Adrianova-Peretts & D. S. Likhachev,
2nd ed. rev. M. B. Sverdlov. St Petersburg 1996.
RAA Riksantikvarieambetet (Central Board of National Antiquities), Swe-
den
RBN M. Miiller-Wille (ed.) 1997-1998. Rom undByzanz im Norden. Mission
undGlaubenswecbselim Ostseeraum wahrenddes8.-14. Jahrhunderts,
2 vols. Stuttgart.
REB Revue des etudes byzantines
RN Revue numismatique
RoU M. G. Larsson 1990. Runstenar och utlandsjarder. Aspekter pa det sen-
vikingatida samhdllet med utgangspunkt i de fasta fornldmningarna.
Stockholm.
RFC Russian Primary Chronicle. Tr. S. H . Cross & O. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor.
Cambridge, M A 1953.
RIIDD J. Staecker 1999. Rex regum et dominus dominorum. Die wikingerzeitli-
chen Kreuz- und Kruzifixanhanger als Ausdruck der Mission in Altda-
nemark und Schweden. Stockholm.
Xxii BYZANTIUM AND THE VIKING WORLD
Rus'AP N . A. Makarov (ed.) 2012. Rus' v IX-X vekakh. Arkheologicheskaia Pano-

rama. Moscow.
SAS Studia anthroponymica scandinavica
SASR F. Androshchuk & V. Zotsenko 2012. Scandinavian Antiquities of
Southern Rus. A Catalogue. Paris.
SB Sigfus Blondal 1954. Veringjasaga. Saga norranna, russneskra ogenskra
hersveita ipjonustu Miklagarbskeisara a miboldum. Reykjavik.
SD Situne Dei
SKALD Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages
SKKDR Slovar'knizhnikov i knizhnosti drevnei Rusi
SMHD Scriptores minores historiae Danicae medii avi. Ed. M. C. Gertz, 3 vols.
Copenhagen 1917-1922.
So E. Brate & E. Wessen (eds) 1924-1936. Sodermanlands runinskrifter.
Sveriges runinskrifter 3. Stockholm.
SoS Saga och Sed
Str Kekaumenos, Strategikon. Ed. and Russian tr. G. Litavrin, Sovety i rass-
kazy. St Petersburg 2003. Ed. and tr. C. Roueche 2013. Kekaumenos,
Consilia et Narrationes. <http://www.ancientwisdoms.ac.uk/library/
kekaumenos-consilia-et-narrationes/> [accessed 1 September 2015].
TM Travaux et Memoires
U E. Wessen & S. B. F. Jansson (eds) 1940-1958. Upplands runinskrifter.
Sveriges runinskrifter 6 - 9 . Stockholm.
VB Sigfus Blondal 1978. The Varangians of Byzantium. An Aspect of Byzan-
tine Military History. Tr. and rev. B. S. Benedikz. Cambridge.
VBM W. Duczko 1989. "Vikingatida bysantinska metallsmycken i arkeolo-
giska fynd fran Skandinavien", in E. Piltz (ed.) 1989. Bysans och Nor-
den. Akta forNordiskaforskarkursen i bysantinsk konstvetensk, 125-32.
Uppsala.
VE F. Androshchuk 2013. Vikings in the East. Essays on Contacts along the
Road to Byzantium (800-1100). Uppsala.
VR W. Duczko 2004. VikingRus. Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in
Eastern Europe. Leiden.
W Vizantiiskii vremennik
WG L. Thunmark-Nylen 1995-2006. Die Wikingerzeit Gotlands, 4 vols.
Stockholm.
WOIS I. Jansson 1988. "Wikingerzeitlicher orientalischer Import in Skandina-
vien" Berichte der Romisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen
Archdologischen Instituts 69, 564-653.
19
CHRISTIANITY O N THE MOVE:
THE ROEE OF THE VARANGIANS
IN RUS AND SCANDINAVIA*
JOHN H . L,IND
SOME INITIAL REMARKS ON TERMINOLOGY
F EW WORDS GO through history without semantic changes. This is also the case
with words that are important in our context. It goes without saying that it is nec-
essary to be aware of such changes, especially if they occur during the period under in-
vestigation. 1 In this paper the term 'Varangians' is used to denote Scandinavians active
in the east, along the eastern European rivers and in Byzantium. It is, however, used in
a slightly anachronistic manner, so that it also covers the period when Scandinavians
in the east were still exclusively known as Rus. This seems to have been the case until
at least the mid-tenth century, when the term 'Rus' began to take on a wider meaning,
encompassing the East Slavonic majority-population in and around Kiev. Originally
both 'Rus' and 'Varangians' were functional rather than ethnic terms. While the term
'Rus' at first seems to have been linked to the organisation of naval warfare in oared
ships among early Swedes, with a presumed prehistoric form *rdpR, the term 'Varangi-
ans' (Old Norse Keringjar) was used about persons enlisted by oath in some kind of
commercial or military organisation.
W h e n the change from Rus to Varangians took place, the term Varangians was
used first and foremost about Scandinavian newcomers, such as those auxiliary forces
whom Rus princes called upon to support them in their internal struggles or for major
* M o s t renderings are the author's, but for c o n v e n i e n c e r e f e r e n c e is g i v e n t o t h e s t a n d a r d transla-
tions.
1
T h u s it is d i s t u r b i n g t o s e e H e n r i k Birnbaum claiming that Patriarch P h o t i o s in his homilies
"described the Varangian assault a n d siege of C o n s t a n t i n o p l e " (Birnbaum 1993, 45), although
Photios of course used the term Rhos (Photios, Homilies 7 4 - r r o ) . I t is h a r d l y less d i s t u r b i n g that
1
Daniel Kaiser, in translating the t e r m variag, as it a p p e a r s i n v a r i o u s v e r s i o n s o f t h e Russkaia
pravda, f o u n d it n e c e s s a r y t o r e p l a c e ' V a r a n g i a n ' w i t h ' V i k i n g ' (Laws of Rus' 12, 16, 2 2 - 2 3 , 35,
129). U n l i k e 'Varangian', t h e t e r m ' V i k i n g ' w a s n e v e r u s e d at t h e t i m e a b o u t S c a n d i n a v i a n s as
such unless they—like persons of any other ethnic or geographic origin—appeared to the Ger-
m a n i c p e o p l e as pirates or e n e m y warriors ( L i n d 2011).
409
42.8 JOHN H. IIND
campaigns. The term was, however, also used in retrospect by the compilers of the early
chronicles, the Primary Compilation (Nachal'nyi svod) in the 1090s and the Primary
Chronicle (Povest' vremennykh let or Tale of Bygone Years) in the IIIOS,2 who obviously
felt the need to explain to their contemporaries who the original Rus had been, now
that the term was used to denote the Slavonic population as well. The confusion this
brought about in later historiography is well known.
The term Varangian/Varangians also underwent semantic changes over time, al-
though it did continue primarily to denote Scandinavians. 3 Already in the late elev-
enth and early twelfth centuries, after the people of Scandinavia had become firmly
linked to the Latin church, the term Varangian, if it had religious connotations, came
to suggest Christianity in its Latino-Roman form. 4 Later, when Scandinavians took
part in the crusades and these were also directed against Orthodox populations, the
term Varangian gradually fell out of use. Instead, Scandinavians became merged with
the amorphous group labelled the 'mute ones' (Nemtsi), a derogatory term that came
to characterise the enemies of the Church Slavonic rite: because of their exclusive use
of the Latin rite, they could not communicate with God in their own language. 5
VARANGIAN CHRISTIANITY
W h e n I first became interested in the role that Varangians may have played in spreading
Christianity in Rus and Scandinavia, I also coined the phrase 'Varangian Christianity' 6
to indicate the types of influence that could, in my opinion, be assigned to Varangians.
I used it to account for certain curious phenomena I found when observing early Chris-
tianity in Rus and Scandinavia, but which could perhaps be explained as result of early
Christian Varangians travelling between Byzantium and Scandinavia through Rus.
Foremost among these phenomena are the intriguing remnants in the Finnish
Christian vocabulary of a number of words that, as linguists agree, can only have their
2
H i e existence of the Primary Compilation is s o m e t i m e s q u e s t i o n e d ( s e e , f o r e x a m p l e , Ostrowski
2 0 0 7 ) ; b u t its e x i s t e n c e is u p h e l d b y G i p p i u s ( 2 0 1 2 a ; 2 0 1 2 b ) . A c c o r d i n g t o m y v i e w , originally
advanced (in D a n i s h ) in 1994 a n d s u m m a r i s e d i n L i n d 2 0 x 0 , 185 n . 2, t h e r e c a n b e n o doubt
that for the early period the Novgorod First Chronicle ( y o u n g e r r e c e n s i o n ) c o n t a i n s a t e x t t h a t

was reworked in the Primary Chronicle. S o , p r e s u m a b l y , d i d t h e Novgorod First Chronicle ( o l d e r
r e c e n s i o n ) in its n o w lost first part.
3
In t h e Byzantine context, t h e Varangian G u a r d c a m e to consist of g r o u p s o t h e r t h a n Scandinavi-
ans, n o t least A n g l o - S a x o n s ; see, f o r e x a m p l e , E B ; S h e p a r d 2010.

4
J a c k s o n 2010; L i n d 2013, 358-59.
5
For m y v i e w o n these changes, see L i n d 2 0 0 1 a ; L i n d 2 0 0 1 b ; L i n d 2010.
6
In a note to his 1978 English translation of Sigfus Blondal's b o o k The Varangians of Byzantium
(VB, 6 n. 2), B e n e d i k t S. B e n e d i k z e m p l o y s t h e t e r m ' V a r a n g i a n C h r i s t i a n i t y ' as a t r a n s l a t i o n of
vera variazhskaia, u s e d in later R u s texts as equivalent t o Latin Christianity.

CHRISTIANITY ON THE MOVE 411
origins in O l d East Slavonic, perhaps with O l d C h u r c h Slavonic as a m e d i u m . They

include such f u n d a m e n t a l Christian terms as:
pappi < p o p (nom>) = priest;
risti < krest (KpecTt) = cross;

pakana < pogan (noram,) = heathen;
kummi < kum (KyM) = godfather;
raamattu < gramota (rpaMOTa) = b i b l e , scripture;
raahka < grekh (rpexi,) = sin; and
paasto < post (nocTT>) = lent.7
Elsewhere in Europe the reform papacy b r o u g h t the use of the C h u r c h Slavonic rite
to an end. Thus in 1080 Pope Gregory V l l denied D u k e Vratislav II of Bohemia the
right t o use C h u r c h Slavonic. 8 Moreover, although as late as 1095 the Sazava M o n a s t e r y
could deposit relics of the recently-canonised brothers Boris and Gleb in a new altar
consecrated at the occasion, 9 it was just over a year later that the last vestiges of the Cy-
rillo-Methodian mission in Bohemia were eradicated—when the Slavonic c o m m u n i t y
in the monastery was.expelled a n d replaced by a Latin one. 1 0 Nevertheless we find these
remnants of C h u r c h Slavonic in distant Finland.
Traditionally the Finns are t h o u g h t to have a d o p t e d Christianity only as a result
of a Swedish crusade in the wake of the Second Crusade to the H o l y Land in 1147. If
that h a d been the case, a Latin vocabulary w o u l d automatically have been introduced
at the same time. H e r e we must remember that the crusades were sponsored by a re-
f o r m papacy that, as we saw, wished to centralise, d o m i n a t e a n d make local Christian
usages c o n f o r m to a strict set of rules. To assume that C h u r c h Slavonic vocabulary
could have been introduced later in the middle ages—replacing a corresponding Latin
vocabulary—is far-fetched. 1 1 Consequently these C h u r c h Slavonic words must have
been i n t r o d u c e d prior t o the crusades in the twelfth century.
Moreover, for this vocabulary to have survived the Latin mission work that fol-
lowed the crusades, 12 a substantial n u m b e r of Christians familiar with the C h u r c h
Slavonic rite must already have been present in the regions that were first targeted by
7
Bjornflaten 2006, 50-65. O n the early use of C h u r c h Slavonic in Rus before the baptism of
V l a d i m i r S v i a t o s l a v i c h c. 9 8 8 , b a s e d o n i n f l u e n c e s f r o m B u l g a r i a , s e e P i c c h i o 1 9 8 8 - 1 9 8 9 . O n this
Bulgarian influence, see also T h o m s o n 1988-1989.

8
Gregory VII, Correspondence 1 4 8 ; see also L i n d 2001c, 140-41.
9
Fontes rerum Bohemicarum v o l . 2 , 251: " s a n c t i G l e b i i e t s o c i i eius". P e r h a p s t h e f a i l u r e t o mention
Boris explicitly indicates that the veneration of Gleb at first t o o k precedence over that of Boris.
10
Fontes rerum Bohemicarum vol. 2, 252.
11
Nevertheless, in 1994 E n n Tarvel suggested that the Slavonic vocabulary represented a later cul-
t u r a l l o a n : T a r v e l 1 9 9 7 ; cf. L i n d 2 0 0 6 , 72.
12
Lind 2015.
412. JOHN H. UND
the western crusades: Satakunta, including Eura (Luistari), and Vakka-Suomi, includ-
ing Laitila-Kalanti, in the south-western part of present-day Finland. This is precisely
the region where archaeological data corroborates the presence of Christians at least a
century before the crusades. In fact, according to Paula Purhonen, there were no pagan
burials later than the first decades of the eleventh century in Laitila-Kalanti. 13 W i t h
regard to early Christianity in this region, one should note that during the eleventh
century Finns, according to Pirkko-Liisa Lehtosalo-Hilander, "began to bury their
dead in separate inhumation cemeteries", some even supplied with belfries. In itself this
indicates the existence of an early church organisation a century before the crusades to
the region. Furthermore, Viking-Age finds in the same region on the one hand show
similarity with finds in Scandinavia, and on the other display Byzantine influence. This
indicates that the population here had links both with Sweden and with Byzantium,
just as we have archaeological evidence along 'the way from the Varangians to the
Greeks' that people from Finnish territory took part in traffic along this route. 14
In ascribing this degree of influence to Varangians, we should keep at least two
facts in mind. Firstly, that Varangians over the centuries must have travelled between
Scandinavia and Byzantium in their thousands. Otherwise Byzantine emperors would
not have been able to field armies containing several thousand Varangians in a single
battle, as Constantine IX Monomachos did in 1045.15 These Scandinavians must have
belonged to the higher levels of society, possessing both the training necessary for ac-
ceptance into Byzantine military service, and the pecuniary means to reach Byzantium.
Secondly, that Varangians were heavily involved in the early spread of Christianity in
Rus, no doubt influenced by their contact with Greek Orthodoxy.
EARLY CHRISTIANITY BEFORE THE CONVERSION OF RULERS

IN THE SCANDINAVIAN SPHERE: THE RUS-BYZANTINE TREATIES
The official baptism of a ruler has traditionally been seen as an epoch-making event
in a country's history both by ecclesiastics and among scholars. This has been amply
demonstrated by the many millennial celebrations, with numerous conferences and
publications, in countries whose rulers officially adopted Christianity in the late tenth
and early eleventh centuries. Some of the rulers in these countries were certainly aware
of the importance of their baptism: none more so than the Danish king Harald Blue-
tooth. Baptised around 965, Harald had perhaps the most famous runestone of all
raised in commemoration of the event. Apart from presenting an early indigenous im-
13
P u r h o n e n 1997, 377.
14
Lehtosalo-Hilander 1992, 6 5 - 6 6 ; Lehtosalo-Hilander 1997; Lehtosalo-Hilander 2000; Purho-
n e n 1997, 375.
15
VB, 105.
CHRISTIANITY ON THE MOVE
413
age of Christ, King H a r a l d made several claims in the stone's inscription, o n e of w h i c h

was to have "made the Danes Christian". 16 The stone is therefore often presented as the
'baptismal certificate' of the Danes.
However the actual baptism of K i n g H a r a l d is m e n t i o n e d in some detail in a con-
t e m p o r a r y source, the Chronicle of the Saxons by W i d u k i n d of Corvey, w h o died soon
after 973. Here, in a chapter o n h o w the Danes became Christians a n d before he relat-
ed h o w the cleric P o p p a persuaded the king to be baptised, 1 7 W i d u k i n d started with
the claim that "The D a n e s were Christians of old, b u t they nevertheless served their
idols in pagan rites...". 18 This could suggest that individual Danes at the time practised
religious syncretism. It could, however, also suggest that D e n m a r k was a syncretic so-
ciety, allowing different religions to co-exist, so that individual Danes could be either
Christian or pagan, adhering to the traditional N o r s e religion. This does n o t exclude
the possibility that pagans could legitimately, f r o m their p o i n t of view, include Christ
or even a Christian saint in their p a n t h e o n . This p h e n o m e n o n is well k n o w n in written
sources in the region f r o m a slightly later period, 1 9 a n d it could, for instance, explain
the joint presence of Thor's h a m m e r s and crucifixes in burials. 20
A l t h o u g h W i d u k i n d ' s claim of ancient Christianity a m o n g the Danes has tradi-
tionally been disregarded or disbelieved by historians, archaeologists with their new
means of exact dating have u n e a r t h e d several Christian burial grounds in D e n m a r k
f r o m periods m u c h earlier t h a n the baptism of King H a r a l d Bluetooth. O n e of the
most recent a n d also most i m p o r t a n t discoveries was m a d e in Denmark's oldest town,
Ribe ( f o u n d e d a r o u n d 710) close to the later cathedral, where a Christian burial
g r o u n d in c o n t i n u o u s use f r o m the n i n t h to the mid-eleventh century has been exca-
16
"King Harald ordered these kumbls [monuments] made in m e m o r y of G o r m , his father, and
in m e m o r y o f T h y r a [I>yrve], his m o t h e r ; t h a t H a r a l d w h o w o n f o r h i m s e l f all o f D e n m a r k and
Norway and made the Danes Christian": <http://runer.ku.dk/VisGenstand.aspx!Titel=Jell-
ing-sten_2> [accessed n January 2014].

17
B e c a u s e W i d u k i n d states t h a t at t h e t i m e of w r i t i n g this P o p p a n o w lived t h e life of a bishop, he
has b e e n identified as A r c h b i s h o p V o l k m a r o f C o l o g n e (965-969).

18
" D a n i antiquitus erant Christiani, sed nichilominus idolis ritu gentili servientes": W i d u k i n d of
Corvey, Res gestae Saxonicae III.65,168.

19
A m o n g t h e Baltic W e n d s , at least those inhabiting the island of Riigen, the well-documented
v e n e r a t i o n o f St Vitus, p a t r o n saint o f C o r v e y M o n a s t e r y , w a s t r a n s f o r m e d i n t o t h e p a g a n ven-
eration of t h e four-faced idol Svantevit, a cult only abolished after the D a n i s h crusade in 1168:
Bysted 2012, 76-77.

20
T h e r e is o f c o u r s e a l w a y s t h e p o s s i b i l i t y t h a t a T h o r ' s h a m m e r c o u l d h a v e b e e n s e e n a s t h e Cross
o f T a u . T h a t s e e m s at least to b e t h e case w h e n t h e y a p p e a r a l o n g s i d e ' n o r m a l ' crosses o n a Dan-
ish R o m a n e s q u e b a p t i s m a l font, depicted in Capelle 2 0 0 5 , 1 7 6 . A c c o r d i n g to Capelle, syncretism
w a s n o t a d o m i n a n t feature in D e n m a r k , w h e r e p a g a n i s m a n d Christianity d i d n o t m e r g e but
co-existed over a long period.

414° JOHNH. UND
vated.21 The situation is the same in other countries on the fringes of Christendom. 22
It is certainly the case in Rus, where Varangians—judging by an ever growing amount
of archaeological data—seem to have been an important, although by no means the
only group among the early Christians.23 Thus the fact that the Church Slavonic rite
gained ascendancy over the Greek suggests that Christianity also spread among the
Slavonic majority population in the southern part of Rus, profiting from the presence
in Bulgaria of Church Slavonic translations of the scriptures and liturgical books.24 The
choice of the Church Slavonic rite may also reflect a wish by the ruling circles to keep
the Greek church hierarchy in Constantinople as well as in Kiev at a distance.
Seen against this background, the decisions by rulers to adopt Christianity, al-
though no doubt important, had perhaps more to do with the process of state forma-
tion and stabilisation of their rule than with the spread of Christianity. If so, the situa-
tion could be said to resemble that of the Roman empire at the time of Constantine the
Great. In a sense the rulers of newly-Christianising countries in the tenth and eleventh
centuries were simply emulating Constantine. Vladimir Sviatoslavich's younger con-
temporary Ilarion, the first native metropolitan of Kiev, was well aware of this.
Accordingly Ilarion includes a eulogy to Vladimir in his so-called Sermon on Law
and Grace (Slovo 0 zakone i blagodati). Here Ilarion not only equates Vladimir with
Constantine, but he also equates Vladimir and his grandmother Olga-Helena/Hel-
ga—who had been baptised before Vladimir—with Constantine and his mother Hele-
na—who had likewise been baptised before her son. In his references to how Vladimir's
son Iaroslav and his daughter-in-law Irina (the Swedish princess Ingegerd), together
with their children and grandchildren, had promoted the Christian faith, Ilarion clear-
ly associates the spread of Christianity not only with Vladimir's choice to be baptised,
but also with the further deeds of the dynastic line that he founded. 25 This alliance be-
21
S0VS0 2010 with updates <http://lindegaarden.wordpress.com/> [accessed 17 February 2014].
A n o t h e r burial g r o u n d with m i x e d p a g a n a n d Christian burials w a s earlier located closer to the
site o f Ribe's first marketplace on the other side of the River Ribe.
22
CRCM.
23
Petrukhin & Pushkina 1998; VR, 136-37; Petrukhin & Pushkina 2009. This can be updated with
articles in a r e c e n t a n t h o l o g y : A n d r o s h c h u k 2013; Eniosova & P u s h k i n a 2013; K o v a l e n k o 2013
a n d papers in the present volume. J o n a t h a n S h e p a r d has recently s u m m a r i s e d the archaeological
data: Shepard 2009,193-95, 205-06, w h e r e h e suggests at least an e l e m e n t o f religious syncre-
t i s m a n d e c l e c t i s m a m o n g Rus. B u t as w e shall see, t h e R u s - B y z a n t i n e t r e a t y o f 9 4 4 m a k e s a clear
distinction between Christian or "baptised" Rus o n the one h a n d a n d p a g a n or "unbaptised" Rus
o n the other, as seen f r o m a B y z a n t i n e perspective.

24
Picchio 1988-1989; Thomson 1988-1989.
25
Ilarion, "Slovo o zakone" 48-50. I l a r i o n w r o t e his s e r m o n n o later than, a n d n o t m u c h earlier
t h a n , 1 0 5 0 , b e c a u s e I a r o s l a v ' s w i f e , I n g e g e r d / I r i n a , w h o d i e d i n 1 0 5 0 , is d e s c r i b e d a s b e i n g alive,
w h i l e it is s u g g e s t e d t h a t t h e c o u p l e a l r e a d y h a d grandchildren.
415
tween dynasty and ecclesiastical hierarchy is the same as we find in other newly-Chris-
tianising countries, which soon found support in the sanctification of members of the
dynasties (see below, 430).
The close relationship Iaroslav Vladimirovich (d. 1054) obviously had with Uar-
ion, whom he raised to the office of metropolitan in 1051, could suggest that Iaroslav
wished to keep the Greek churchmen in Kiev at arm's length. 26 This allows us to see an
analogy with another Scandinavian royal house. Iaroslav's decision to elevate Ilarion to
the metropolitanate coincided with the decision of his brother-in-law in Sweden, King
Emund the Old, to keep an English-born cleric, Osmund, as a court bishop. This was
commented upon by a furious Adam of Bremen, seeing that Osmund was independent
of the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen who, in Adam's view, had the Apostolic author-
ity to ordain bishops for Scandinavia. At the same time Iaroslav s son-in-law Harald
Hardrada of Norway, confronted with these Apostolic' claims, asserted that he did
not know who was archbishop in Norway or who had power there except himself. 27
Obviously this close-knit family of rulers attempted to monopolise power over their
respective churches for themselves. 28
Irrespective of Ilarion's emphasis on Vladimir Sviatoslavich's decisive role in bring-
ing Christianity to Rus—and the role his grandmother Olga may have played earlier—
as we have seen, the archaeological evidence has shown that, as in Denmark, Christians
were already in Rus well before Vladimir decided to be baptised.
However, in addition to the archaeological evidence and the written sources that
tell us about Princess Olga's baptism we have a further group of sources that illustrate
the early process of Christianisation in Rus: namely the treaties the Rus concluded
with the Byzantine emperors in the first part of the tenth century, at a time when these
Rus were still Scandinavians or of recent Scandinavian descent. 29 The treaties were in-
cluded in the Primary Chronicle, compiled in the IIIOS. Access to these treaties, with
their fixed chronological points, may even have prompted the compiler of the Primary
Chronicle to compose his work, since they allowed him to create his overall annalis-
26
In d o i n g so Iaroslav m a y have been inspired b y his great-grandmother, Olga; by u p h o l d i n g links
t o t h e west, as H o l l i n g s w o r t h suggests, O l g a m a y have a t t e m p t e d to organise a national church:
Hagiograpby ofKievan Rus', lxxxii. See also N a z a r e n k o 2001; Shepard 2009, 203-04; Jackson
2010,161-62.
27
A d a m of Bremen, Gesta 348.
28
L i n d 2013, 356-57.
29
T h i s is c l e a r f r o m t h e n a m e s o f t h e r u l e r s ( O l e g / H e l g i a n d I g o r / I n g v a r ) , e n v o y s a n d o t h e r mag-
nates, o n w h o s e behalf the treaties were c o n c l u d e d ( m o r e t h a n seventy n a m e s are m e n t i o n e d in
t h e 9 4 4 treaty), see M e l ' n i k o v a 2004.

4i 6 JOHN H. U N D
tic framework, replacing the relative chronology of his immediate chronicle source. 30
The original texts were probably written in Greek b u t were translated i n t o O l d East
Slavonic before they were inserted into the chronicle. It is generally agreed that these
texts offer a f a i t h f u l rendition of the original treaties with a few m i n o r adaptations to
twelfth-century forms. 3 1
In the first treaties, concluded in 907 a n d 911, the term Christians is used in the
text as synonymous w i t h Greeks, whereas the Rus a n d their ruler, Prince Oleg, are
described as pagans, w h o swear their oaths by their gods a n d o n their weapons, 3 2 just as
the Danes did, according t o A d a m of Bremen, w h e n they m a d e peace w i t h the Franks
in the time of Louis the Pious: "the D a n e s swore o n the treaty according t o the tradi-
tion of the people an unbreakable oath by their weapons". 33
In the next a n d most comprehensive treaty f r o m 9 4 4 this has changed. 3 4 The trea-
ty can be divided i n t o sixteen articles a n d lists n o fewer t h a n seventy-two or seven-
ty-three names by w h o m — o r o n whose b e h a l f — i t was concluded. But by contrast to
the previous treaties, the treaty of 9 4 4 repeatedly distinguishes between Rus w h o are
still pagan and Rus w h o have become Christians. 3 5 For example, at the beginning of the
treaty separate p u n i s h m e n t s are m e t e d out t o would-be transgressors a m o n g the Rus:
those w h o are baptised face " G o d with d a m n a t i o n a n d destruction b o t h in this world
a n d the next"; those w h o are "unbaptised" risk being "slain by their own swords, laid
low by their own arrows or by any of their own weapons". 36
In this treaty the Rus are required to take separate oaths o n three occasions, de-
p e n d i n g o n w h e t h e r or n o t they are baptised: once w i t h i n the treaty text itself a n d
twice in connection with its confirmation. The first instance occurs if a Rus slave
should escape during his stay in Byzantium. If the slave is n o t f o u n d , his owner can
30
Nevertheless the relative chronology of the Primary Compilation i s i n s o m e r e s p e c t s s u p e r i o r
to the constructed chronology that the compiler of the Primary Chronicle s u p e r i m p o s e d o n h i s
w o r k . T h u s b y e x t e n d i n g t h e arrival of t h e Riurikids b a c k in t i m e , so as to allow A s k o l d a n d Dir
t o b e p r e s e n t e d as "Riurik's m e n " a n d t h e r e b y illegitimate rulers in K i e v a r o u n d 8 6 0 , t h e compil-
er of t h e Primary Chronicle m a k e s his g e n e a l o g y o f t h e early Riurikids l o o k highly suspect, with
Riurik fathering Igor before 879 a n d Igor m a r r y i n g O l g a in 9 0 3 b u t only fathering Sviatoslav in
t h e e a r l y 9 4 0 s , a d a t e t h a t is c o n f i r m e d b y C o n s t a n t i n e V I I Porphyrogennetos.
31
M a l i n g o u d i 1994; M a l i n g o u d i 1995; M a l i n g o u d i 1997; B i b i k o v 1999.
32
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 3 0 - 3 8 ; RPC, 64-69.
33
A d a m o f B r e m e n , Gesta 2 0 8 .
34
Lavrent'evskaia letopis'46-53; RPC 73-78.
35
The large n u m b e r of magnates on w h o s e behalf the treaty was concluded indicates that Rus, as
also suggested by J o n a t h a n Shepard, w a s at the t i m e an oligarchy rather t h a n a m o n a r c h y : Shep-
ard 2009, 201-04.

36
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 4 7 - 4 8 ; RPC 74.
CHRISTIANITY O N THE MOVE
417 9
receive compensation from the Byzantine authorities if he swears to this fact: the bap-
tised "according to his faith", the un-baptised "after his custom".3
Before relating the two final oath-takings, the treaty text proclaims that it has been
put into writing on two parchments. One was adorned with a cross and "our names"
(i.e. the names of the Byzantine emperors); the other had the names of the Rus envoys
and merchants. The text then goes on to stipulate that the Rus envoys were to "accom-
pany the imperial envoys to the Rus grand prince, Igor, and his people; receiving the
parchment they should by oath confirm what had been agreed upon and written in the
parchment on which our [the emperors'] names are written".38
After this we have the two accounts of the oath-taking on the part of the Rus.
Firstly, the Rus envoys while still in Constantinople take what—in the words of Jana
Malingoudi—amounts to a 'negotiator oath' (Unterhandlereid): they swear both for
themselves and on behalf of Prince Igor that the treaty will be observed. The respective
punishments for baptised and unbaptised transgressors are spelled out in even more
detail than they had been in the initial clause of the treaty quoted above. Of particular
interest is the fact that the baptised negotiators are said to have taken their oaths in a
church dedicated to St Elijah (or Elias).39
This is followed by an account, presumably composed by the accompanying Byz-
antine envoys, of the actual ratification (Ratifikationseid) of the treaty in Kiev per-
formed in accordance with the stipulation in the treaty text itself:
in t h e m o r n i n g , Igor s u m m o n e d the envoys, a n d w e n t to a hill o n w h i c h there w a s a statue of
Perun. The Rus laid d o w n their w e a p o n s , their shields, a n d their gold o r n a m e n t s , a n d Igor a n d
h i s p e o p l e t o o k o a t h , t h a t is t h o s e w h o w e r e p a g a n s , w h i l e t h e C h r i s t i a n R u s t o o k o a t h in t h e
C h u r c h o f St Elijah.40
This account must have been brought back by the Byzantine envoys together with the
ratified treaty with which it would have been kept. With this the chronicler writing in
the IIIOS ends his quotation from the treaty texts. He must, however, have felt that at
least two points needed explanation. Concerning the Church of St Elijah he therefore
added: "which is above the creek, in the vicinity of the Pasyncha square and the quar-
37
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 52; RPC 75.
38
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 5 2 ; RPC 7 6 - 7 7 .
39
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 5 2 - 5 3 ; RPC 7 7 . T h e church in question was m o s t likely the ' N e w Church'
( N e a E k k l e s i a ) in t h e G r e a t Palace, w h i c h w a s a m o n g s t o t h e r s d e d i c a t e d t o St Elijah or, p e r h a p s ,
a s e p a r a t e C h u r c h o f St Elijah close by, b o t h e r e c t e d b y Basil I: E b e r s o l t 1910, 1 3 0 - 3 7 . See also
Brubaker 1999,161-62.
40
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 53-54: "zautra prizva I g o r ' sly, i p r i d e na kholm, kde stoiashe Perun,
pokladosha oruzh'e svoe i shchit i zoloto, i k h o d i Igor' rote i liudi ego eliko p o g a n y k h Rusi; a
k h r e s t e i a n u i u R u s ' v o d i s h a r o t e v t s e r k v i s v i a t o g o I l ' i " ; RPC 77.

42.8
JOHN H. IIND
ter of the Khazars".41 And for the benefit of those of his contemporaries who thought
that Rus Christianity began with the conversion of Prince Vladimir, and who were
perhaps uncertain as to who exactly the Rus were, the chronicler expounded: "this was,
in fact, the cathedral church, since many of the Varangians were Christians". 42 Here the
change from quoting the treaty texts to commenting on them is signalled by the use of
'Varangians' for the Scandinavians or people of Scandinavian descent, instead of the
treaty text's 'Rus'.
The distinction drawn repeatedly in the 944 treaty between the pagan and Chris-
tian Rus, not least with regard to oath-taking and especially in connection with the
ratification in Kiev, shows that more than a generation before Vladimir Sviatoslavich's
decision to have himself baptised, Rus Christianity had gained such status that the
Byzantine authorities considered it necessary to provide for ratification of the treaty
by representatives of the Christians. As performative sources, these treaty texts are far
superior to other narrative sources on the spread of Christianity among the Scandi-
navians—whether this concerns Scandinavia proper or Rus—even compared to the
contemporary account of Widukind with regard to Christianity among the Danes.
THE RATIFICATION OF THE 944 TREATY IN THE CHURCH OF ST ELIJAH, KIEV

The fact that both the oath by the Christian Rus envoys in Constantinople and rat-
ification in Kiev by the Christian Rus took place in a church dedicated to St Elijah
has led some to doubt the reliability of the account. After scholars became aware that
a Church of St Elijah existed in Constantinople, it was the ratification in a Kievan
church of the same name that was called into doubt, despite the chronicle compiler's
seemingly precise knowledge of its location in Kiev.43
Recently Oleksiy Tolochko has postulated that the report of the treaty's ratifica-
tion in a Church of St Elijah in Kiev is not only "erroneous" but even "fictitious". In his
argument Tolochko seems to be guided by a firm belief that Christianity played scarce-
ly any role in Rus—or at least in Kiev—at the time. H e contends that the account of
the ratification in Kiev cannot have formed part of the treaty texts, despite (as quoted
above) such a ratification having been provided for in the treaty text itself, as Tolochko
himself admits. In fact, one gets the impression from Tolochko that the treaty text's
stipulation of the need for such a ratification by Prince Igor in Kiev makes the ensuing
account of the ratification even more suspect: this stipulation—in Tolochko's view—
41
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 54: "iazhe est' n a d r u c h a e m konets' P a s y n ' c h e b e s e d y i kozare"; RFC 77.
O n t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of t h e t o p o g r a p h y in K i e v o n this p o i n t , see T o p o r o v 1995, 285-86.

42
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 5 4 : "se b o b e s b o r n a i a tserki, m n o z i b o b e s h a Variazi khrestiani"; RFC 77.
43
Pamiatniki russkogoprava 50. See also M a l i n g o u d i 1994, 4 6 n. 100; M a l i n g o u d i 1995, 9 0 n. 95.
CHRISTIANITY O N THE MOVE1019
itself inspired the chronicler to fabricate an account of the ratification.44 Why the au-
thor should have done so remains unasked and unanswered by Tolochko. Similarly, it
remains unanswered why the chronicler should invent a Church of St Elijah in Kiev for
the occasion, together with a Christian community, thus inadvertently diminishing the
importance of Princess Olga and Vladimir Sviatoslavich as promoters of Christianity
in Rus, a concept which he otherwise highlights in his chronicle. 4 '
The gist of Tolochko's argument seems to be that if a Church of St Elijah existed
in Constantinople at that time, another could not co-exist in Kiev. By the same token,
all references in Rus texts to churches of Hagia Sophia in Rus should be considered
equally fictitious—especially those no longer in existence—because of the famous ex-
ample in Constantinople. This would apply to the church of Hagia Sophia in Kiev
that is mentioned in the Novgorod chronicles under the year 1017, and to the one in
Novgorod with thirteen cupolas that is said to have been destroyed by fire in 1049. The
latter report is of particular interest, because the Novgorod chronicler is able to place
this church in the topographical townscape of his own time, around 1167,46 just as the
author of the Primary Chronicle was able to do with regard to the Church of St Elijah
in Kiev over a similar timespan.
We should also consider that the Church of St Elijah in Constantinople was cho-
sen for the event because it may have had special significance for Varangians visiting
Constantinople, and it is therefore hardly surprising that the Varangians should have
44
" t h e a c c o u n t o f t h e St E l i j a h c h u r c h i n K i e v is e r r o n e o u s , b e i n g f o u n d i n t h e fictitious account
of the treaty's ratification s u p p o s e d l y held in Kiev. This invented story w a s b a s e d entirely on
t h e idea of w h a t p r o t o c o l s h o u l d l o o k like, w h i c h w a s s u p p l i e d by t h e text of t h e treaty itself":
T o l o c h k o 2011, 65. In a r e c e n t article T o l o c h k o h a s e l a b o r a t e d h i s p o i n t o f v i e w f u r t h e r : Toloch-
ko 2013.
45
In his 2013 article T o l o c h k o tries to bolster his a r g u m e n t by claiming that "the e n t r y for the year
of 945 consists of t w o distinct parts: the text of the treaty signed in C o n s t a n t i n o p l e a n d the story
o f its e n d o r s e m e n t in K i e v b y t h e p r i n c e a n d his m e n " , w h e r e t h e first is " d o c u m e n t a r y " , while
t h e s e c o n d o n e is " o v e r t l y n a r r a t i v e " . T h i s , a c c o r d i n g t o T o l o c h k o , is " a t y p i c a l a r r a n g e m e n t for
the author of the Primary Chronicle, h e a t t a c h e s a similar (in m a n n e r , t h o u g h n o t in content)
s t o r y t o t h e t r e a t y o f 911. T h i s l a t e r o n e c l e a r l y r e v e a l s its e a r l y t w e l f t h - c e n t u r y o r i g i n a n d most
c e r t a i n l y w a s i n v e n t e d b y t h e c h r o n i c l e r h i m s e l f " : T o l o c h k o 2 0 1 3 , 112. H e r e T o l o c h k o r e f e r s to
the account of a tour of churches a n d holy places in Constantinople that the Rus envoys were
given after the conclusion of the treaty that w a s inserted into the chronicle i m m e d i a t e l y after the
t e x t o f t h e 911 t r e a t y . T h e r e is, h o w e v e r , h a r d l y a n y s i m i l a r i t y b e t w e e n t h i s a c c o u n t ( s e e below,
4 2 0 ) a n d t h e a c c o u n t o f t h e r a t i f i c a t i o n o a t h i n 9 4 4 . It is d i f f i c u l t t o s e e h o w t h e n a t u r e o f the
first account necessarily reflects on the nature of the second.

46
"It s t o o d in the episcopal quarter above the Volkhov, w h e r e Sotko n o w erected the Boris and
Gleb c h u r c h in stone": Novgorodskaia pervaia letopis' 1 8 0 - 8 1 . S e e also t h e e n t r y s.a. 1167 in the
same chronicle on the foundation of the church of Boris and Gleb by Sotko Sytinich: Novgo-
rodskaia pervaia letopis' 219.
420 J O H N H. U N D
used the same dedication for a church in Kiev. That is, after all, how church dedications
spread.4' Moreover there is an obvious reason why newly-baptised Varangians might
have venerated St Elijah, since he was the Christian counterpart of their favourite pa-
gan god Perun-Thor.48 St Elijah had already by this time become the patron saint of
fur-traders and furriers, providing the Varangians with an additional reason to dedicate
a Christian church in Kiev to him.49 Tolochkos argument is therefore open to doubt 50
and the fact remains that Christianity had—at least by 944—gained prominent stand-
ing in the polity of Rus.
No doubt most of these early Christian Rus were baptised in or from Byzantium,
since they were exposed to Orthodox Christianity when visiting Byzantium or while
spending time in Byzantine service. It could have happened as a result of the missionary
activity mentioned by the compiler of the Primary Chronicle in his rendition of the
text of the 911 treaty. Here we are told how Emperor Leo VI had the Rus envoys shown:
t h e beauties o f t h e churches...the relics o f t h e Lord's Passion: t h e c r o w n , t h e nails, a n d the
p u r p l e robe, t o g e t h e r w i t h relics o f saints. T h e y also i n s t r u c t e d t h e m in t h e i r faith, a n d demon-
strated to t h e m the true faith.51
47
T h e dissemination of saints' cults in t h e Varangian milieu has recently b e e n s t u d i e d by Ildar H.
G a r i p z a n o v : G a r i p z a n o v 2 0 1 0 a ; G a r i p z a n o v 2 0 1 0 b ; G a r i p z a n o v 2011; G a r i p z a n o v 2013.
48
Zhivov 2002,191; Hammarstedt 1917.
49
The basis for the veneration of the prophet by furriers was presumably the fact that the Nea
Ekklesia, w h e r e the baptised Rus envoys are t h o u g h t to have taken their oath o n the treaty, held
as o n e o f its m o s t p r o m i n e n t relics t h e p r o p h e t ' s s h e e p s k i n , m e n t i o n e d b y C o n s t a n t i n e V I I Por-
p h y r o g e n n e t o s in De cerimoniis: K l e i n 2 0 0 6 , 92 n. 87; M a g d a l i n o 1987, 56-60.

50
T o l o c h k o ' s l a t e s t c o n t r i b u t i o n t o t h e s u b j e c t i n p a r t i c u l a r is m a r r e d b y a n u m b e r o f speculative
arguments. Having denied the existence of a Christian community in K i e v — a n d here he has
not considered the archaeological evidence, stressing instead that n o written sources support
"Christians a m o n g the Kiev p o p u l a t i o n " — T o l o c h k o clearly n e e d s to d o w n p l a y t h e role of Chris-
tian R u s in c o n c l u d i n g t h e treaty. T h e initial t h r e a t to R u s transgressors in t h e treaty, accord-
i n g t o t h e i r b a p t i s e d o r u n b a p t i s e d s t a t e ( s e e a b o v e ) , is f o u n d " p u z z l i n g " : T o l o c h k o 2 0 1 3 , 116.
T h e a c c o u n t o f o a t h - t a k i n g i n c o n n e c t i o n w i t h r u n a w a y s l a v e s is d i s m i s s e d a s " c l e a r l y corrupt":
T o l o c h k o 2 0 1 3 , 117 n . 2 0 . T h e p r e s e n c e o f C h r i s t i a n R u s a t t h e n e g o t i a t o r s ' o a t h - t a k i n g i n the
C h u r c h o f St E l i j a h i n C o n s t a n t i n o p l e , o b v i o u s l y t h e m o s t d i f f i c u l t t o g e t a r o u n d , is explained
as a result o f a p o s t u l a t e d B y z a n t i n e d e m a n d t h a t s o m e b a p t i s e d R u s — n o t , a c c o r d i n g Tolochko,
available a m o n g the Rus e n v o y s — s h o u l d p e r f o r m an o a t h "on the Palace premises...[as] formal
proofs of their [the Rus'] faithful observance of the treaty's conditions. There happened to be some
other Ruses at hand, however, w h o could take an oath, a n d in a Christian m a n n e r at that. They
vouched for their fellow countrymen and witnessed the treaty on behalf of the Rus' side...The
i m p r e s s i o n is t h a t t h e m e m b e r s o f t h e l a t t e r [ g r o u p o f C h r i s t i a n R u s ] s i m p l y happened to be in
Constantinople when the envoys arrived, which m e a n t that their loyalty should be reaffirmed
but they were not part of the delegation": Tolochko 2013,119 (author's italics).
51
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 38; RPC 68-69.
CHRISTIANITY O N THE MOVE 421 9
This is one of the few accounts we have of Byzantine attempts to convert the Rus after
the early endeavours of Patriarch Photios.52
Two of Patriarch Photios' homilies concern the Rus attack on Constantinople in
June 860;" and in an encyclical of 867 to the oriental patriarchs, Photios claimed that
the terrible "Rhos" had now abandoned paganism and accepted bishops and priests
from Constantinople. 54 The long-term effects of the Photian mission are often dis-
missed, with the Rus in the early tenth century being described as out-and-out pagans
on the strength of the early treaties made with Byzantium. However, we should recall
that Prince Oleg and his men were then newcomers from the north, who are said to
have seized power from Askold, Dir and their entourage. These would have been the
Rus whom Photios' missionary efforts targeted. Even though Oleg and his people re-
mained pagan, a Christian substratum among the Rus could have survived from Pho-
tios' time, facilitating the progress of Christianity later in the tenth century. It may
even be that believers from the era of Askold and Dir surfaced when the 944 treaty
was concluded. This would not only explain the presence of Christian Varangians, but
it would also highlight the oligarchic structure of Rus. In addition to the ruling prince,
many magnates and merchants were represented at the conclusion of the treaty in 944,
in contrast to the 911 treaty which was exclusively ratified on behalf of Prince Oleg.
THE PATERIK OF THE KIEVAN CAVES MONASTERY

As mentioned above, when I began to explore the concept of 'Varangian Christiani-
ty', my aim was to explain phenomena found in early Scandinavian Christianity that
reflected the influence of the Orthodox church as conveyed through the Varangians.
However, Varangians were not only active in transmitting Christian influences from
the east to Scandinavia. Once Christianity had been firmly established in Scandinavia,
to a large extent based on influences from Anglo-Saxon England, Christian Varangians
baptised in the west were also able to influence Christianity in Rus, even in one of the
centres of Russian Orthodox spirituality: the Kievan Caves Monastery. Evidence of
this can be found in the monastery's Paterik.
At the time this was under way, the term Varangian was already becoming asso-
ciated with Latin Christianity in religious or confessional contexts. At first this did
not pose a problem in Rus, as we shall see. But by the mid-twelfth century, as local
ecclesiastics belatedly—in contrast to their Greek colleagues—became aware of the
rift between Constantinople and Rome, it did raise questions: questions which Rus
52
T h i s a n d o t h e r e a r l y a t t e m p t s a t s p r e a d i n g C h r i s t i a n i t y a m o n g t h e R u s is d i s c u s s e d i n Janson
2.011, 4 1 - 4 5 .
53
Photios, Homilies 7 4 - 1 1 0 .
54
Photios, Epistulae et amphilochia vol. 1,49.
4-i£> J O H N H . LIND
churchmen felt needed to be asked and answered. We have fairly securely dated evi-
dence of this change in attitude in a text from the mid-twelfth century, attributed to
the Novgorodian monk Kirik (Voproshanie Kirika). Here we find a list of questions
put to Archbishop Nifont ofNovgorod (1130-1156). One question concerns Orthodox
people who bring their children to a "Varangian priest" to be baptised. These are now
said to be "dual believers" and must accept six weeks' penance. Another question con-
cerns a person baptised in the "Latin" faith, who wishes "to convert to us". He should,
according to Nifont, attend an [Orthodox] church for seven days, take an [Orthodox]
Christian name and say four prayers a day.55
The first question in particular shows that it must have been quite a common prac-
tice for Novgorodians to go to the Varangian priest at St Olaf's Church to have their
children baptised, just as other townsfolk did at Novgorod's many other churches. The
archbishop's responses clearly reveal a new attitude, at least among ecclesiastics, to an
issue that had not earlier been seen as problematic, and that some people in Novgorod
still did not see as such.
It is against this background that we shall take a closer look at some of the texts in
the Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery. The Paterik is undoubtedly one of the best
known and most important religious literary works of medieval Rus, but it has had a
complex history, combining, as it does, texts that originate in different periods. In form
it is not strictly a Paterik, that is, the sayings of or by renowned monks ('fathers') of the
monastery. Instead, to quote a leading scholar of the Paterik, Fairy von Lilienfeld, it is
a "collection of stories and other texts for the praise of the monastery as a sacred place
where so many holy fathers had lived".56 However, von Lilienfeld also claims that these
stories and texts revealed the Caves Monastery to be "not only a stronghold of piety,
but also of 'the Constantinople connection,' i.e., of the 'Greek faith', opposed to the
Latin one...". This is a claim to which we shall return later.'
The Paterik as we know it is based on letters exchanged between Simon (d. iz2.6),
a former monk in the Caves Monastery but now a bishop in Vladimir-Suzdal, and
his pupil Polikarp.58 Polikarp, still a monk in the monastery, disclosed in a now lost
letter to Simon that he was not satisfied with his humble position as a monk and had
ambitions to rise in the hierarchy to the office of bishop—an ambition that in itself
made Polikarp unfit for the office, in Simon's view. In his response, which became the
55
Pamiatniki drevnerusskogo kanonicheskogo prava 2 2 , 31. S e e a l s o J a c k s o n 2010,160-61.
56
v o n Lilienfeld 1993.
57
v o n Lilienfeld 1993, 75 n. 4.
58
For the Paterik in general, see Ol'shevskaia 1987a. For S i m o n and Polikarp, see Ol'shevskaia
1987c; Ol'shevskaia 1987b. See also Muriel Heppell's introduction to her translation of the Pa-
terik: Paterik xvi-lii.

fourteenth 'tale' (slovo) in the Paterik, Simon tried to dissuade Polikarp from this path
and convince him to stay in the monastery. He pointed to the holiness of the place, de-
rived from the many notable and pious monks who had preceded them in the caves.59
In the same letter Simon included accounts of a number of these monks as models for
Polikarp to follow. To these descriptions he later added fifteen separate tales. These
not only convinced Polikarp to remain in the monastery, but also inspired him to sup-
ply additional tales about monks and events there. These were based on the sources
available to him and were provided in part by the then abbot of the Caves Monastery,
Akindin (1214-1231). Polikarp continued to do this even after Simon had died. These
two series of tales, supplemented by a few separate items such as Nestor's Life ofFeodosii
(Tale 8)—by far the largest piece in the collection 60 —constitute the Paterik today.
The collection was copied throughout the middle ages, but like most written
sources for the early history of Rus, our extant manuscripts are late.61 All the remaining
manuscripts of the Paterik date from the fifteenth century onwards. These manuscripts
(including a couple of early printed versions) can be grouped into several redactions of
which the earliest, the Arsenievskii, dates to 1406. This is shorter than two redactions
from 1460 and 1462, both made by Kassian, a monk in the monastery. These Kassian
redactions are considered to reflect the original collection best, both in content and
structure. Of these two redactions, it is the Second Kassian Redaction from 1462, with
thirty-eight tales altogether, that forms the basis of modern editions.
In general, we know little about the sources available to Simon and Polikarp.
Some quite similar texts are found in the Primary Chronicle and Simon advised Po-
likarp to consult the Old Rostov Chronicle, which on internal evidence can be dated to
the mid-twelfth century, and which may explain the similarity between these texts and
the Primary Chronicle,62 Another source that may have been of major importance with
59
Kievo-Pecherskii paterik 3 5 4 - 6 0 ; Paterik 1 1 3 - 2 0 ; S i m o n briefly repeated his a d m o n i t i o n at the
e n d o f T a l e 1 9 : Kievo-Pecherskii paterik 3 7 4 ; Paterik 1 3 0 .

60
N e s t o r b e c a m e a m o n k i n t h e C a v e s M o n a s t e r y b e t w e e n 1 0 7 4 a n d 1 0 7 8 . T h i s t a l e is i m m e d i a t e l y
f o l l o w e d b y a n a c c o u n t o f t h e t r a n s l a t i o n o f St Feodosii's relics in 1091, likewise a t t r i b u t e d to
Nestor. W h i l e in the m o n a s t e r y N e s t o r also c o m p o s e d a Life of the murdered sons of Vladimir
Sviatoslavich, Boris a n d Gleb, a n d s o m e scholars link Nestor to the compilation of the Primary
Chronicle.
61
A n exception to this rule are the birch b a r k letters u n e a r t h e d by archaeologists in Novgorod.
61
In Tale 14, S i m o n lists b y n a m e fifteen m o n k s w h o h a d g o n e o n t o b e c o m e b i s h o p s a n d tells Po-
l i k a r p t h a t , if h e w a n t s t o k n o w m o r e , h e c a n l o o k in t h e Old Rostov Chronicle (pochti Letopistsa

starogo Rostovskago). This will bring the n u m b e r to m o r e t h a n thirty, a n d u p to a n d including
S i m o n h i m s e l f " s i n n e r t h a t I a m , it will, I t h i n k , b e a l m o s t Kievo-Pecherskii paterik 3 6 0 ;

fifty";
Paterik 118-19. This calculation suggests t h a t t h e Old Rostov Chronicle s h o u l d b e d a t e d a r o u n d

t h e m i d d l e of the twelfth century. In his time, t h e p r o m i n e n t linguist a n d f o u n d e r of modern
chronicle research, Aleksei S h a k h m a t o v (1897) a r g u e d that Polikarp h a d at his disposal a lost

424 JOHN H. U N D
regard to the earliest period is a Life of St Anthony, now lost. 63 Otherwise oral informa-
tion may have been available, especially with regard to the tales we shall focus on here.
One problem we are faced with is that texts describing the earliest period of the
monastery can—and sometimes demonstrably do—contain later chronological over-
lays. However, this is not so important when considering the texts of relevance here:
these seem to me to disprove Fairy von Lilienfeld s claim that the Paterik shows the
Caves Monastery to be "not only a stronghold of piety, but also o f ' t h e Constantinople
connection', i.e., of the 'Greek faith', opposed to the Latin one...".
The formative years of the monastery were in the mid-eleventh century, when two
monks later recognised as saints, Anthony (d. 1073) and Feodosii (d. 1074), were ac-
tive.64 The origin of the Caves Monastery lay in St Anthony's decision to settle in a cave
called the 'Varangian Cave'. The Paterik's compilers do not focus on this stage, though,
but on the transformation of this cave hermitage into a monastery, which began with
the building of a cathedral dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God in the
1070s.65 It is to this later stage that the Paterik devotes its first three tales, which in their
present form were composed by Bishop Simon. It is these three tales that are important
in our context.
In the first tale we learn about the miraculous role of a prominent Varangian called
Shimon (Sigmund) in the building of this cathedral. The tale starts by listing Shimon's
family relations in so far as they were relevant:
In t h e Varangian l a n d lived a prince by t h e n a m e of Afrikan, brother of that Iakun (Hakon)
t h e B l i n d " w h o lost his g o l d e n coat fighting w i t h Iaroslav against the ferocious Mstislav; this
A f r i k a n h a d t w o sons, Friand a n d S h i m o n . After their father's d e a t h Iakun [ n o w b a c k in Scan-
dinavia] expelled both brothers f r o m their lands. Shimon c a m e to our pious Prince Iaroslav
w h o , receiving a n d t r e a t i n g h i m w i t h h o n o u r , a s s i g n e d h i m as s e n i o r t o his s o n , V s e v o l o d , and
he received great p o w e r f r o m Vsevolod.67
Chronicle ofthe Caves Monastery, w h i c h w a s also used w h e n the Primary Chronicle was compiled
in the m o n a s t e r y in the inos.

63
It is r e f e r r e d t o i n s e v e r a l o f t h e Paterik's tales, f o r t h e first t i m e i n T a l e 3. O n t h e Life, see Tvoro-
g o v 1987.
64
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 1 5 5 - 6 0 ; RPC 1 3 9 - 4 2 .
65
According to the Primary Chonicle, t h e c a t h e d r a l was f o u n d e d in 1073 a n
d consecrated in 1089:
Lavrent'evskaia letopis'207-08; RPC 1 5 6 , 1 7 9 .

66
O r "Iakun the H a n d s o m e " , a c c o r d i n g to a widely accepted e m e n d a t i o n in the Primary Chroni-
cle's a c c o u n t o f t h e b a t t l e b e t w e e n I a r o s l a v a n d M s t i s l a v s.a. 1 0 2 4 : slep > s" lep: Lavrent'evskaia
Letopis', 1 4 8 , footnote A- Inconclusive attempts have been m a d e to identify this Iakun with vari-
ous Scandinavians called Hakon.

67
Kievo-Pecherskiipaterik 296; Paterik 1.
4 9
In 1068, before attempting to fend off a Polovtsian attack on Rus, the three ruling
princes, joined by Shimon, visited Anthony in his cave to ask for his blessing. Anthony
predicted their defeat, but promised Shimon that he would survive and would even-
tually be buried in the church that was still to be built in the monastery. Wounded in
battle, Shimon turned his eyes towards heaven where he saw a large church, similar to
one in an earlier vision he had experienced in Scandinavia, when threatened by ship-
wreck. He now prayed to the Lord to save him through the intercession of his Mother
and the venerable Fathers Anthony and Feodosii.
Soon afterwards Shimon told Anthony of his two visions. He also told Anthony
that his father had made a cross, on which Christ had been painted in the way "the Lat-
ins venerate" (iako zhe latina chtut). His father had adorned Christ with a belt (poias)
of gold and a golden crown (venets*). When Shimon was expelled from Scandinavia
he had taken both the belt and the crown from the cross. While doing so, he heard a
voice from the image of Christ telling him never to put the crown on his own head,
but to take it to the place prepared for it, where a church dedicated to "My Mother
will be built by the venerable Feodosii. Into his hand you shall give this, so that it can
hang over my altar." Shimon told Anthony that the belt had appeared in his earlier
vision, when he was shipwrecked. In this vision the church was measured using the
belt—twenty cubits (lokti) in width, thirty in both length and height, and fifty with
the cupola.68 At this point Anthony pronounced, "Child, from now on you will not
be called Shimon, but your name will be Simon."69 Anthony then summoned Feodosii
so that he could receive the belt and the crown, and from this point the tale focuses
on Feodosii and Simon-Shimon, who donated many gifts towards the building of the
church.
During a conversation with Feodosii, Simon-Shimon asked him to pray both for
him and for his descendants. Feodosii promised to do so. Simon-Shimon prostrat-
ed himself and refused to part with Feodosii until he received this prayer in writing.
Moved by love, Feodosii agreed and wrote the prayer down. Significantly, the author
added that "from that time it became the practice to place the same prayer in the hands
of the dead. Before then nobody in Rus had done so". 0 In both the second and the
third tale' 1 the Paterik returns to some of the stories linked to Simon-Shimon, now
only referred as "the Varangian".
68
69
Kievo-Pecherskii paterik 298; Paterik 3.
70
71
T h e s e c o n d t a l e i n t h e Second Kassian Redaction, u s e d h e r e , i s t h e t h i r d in the First Kassian Redac-
tion a n d v i c e v e r s a : t h i s i s o n e o f t h e f e w d i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n t h e t w o redactions.
4-i£> J O H N H. LIND
In the second tale, craftsmen from Constantinople come to Anthony and Feo-
dosii, guided by the Mother of God in order to build "her church", as mentioned in the
first tale. The Mother of God had told them that, ordered by her Son, she had already
sent his belt as a measure for the church. Together with relics to be placed in the foun-
dation of the church, the craftsmen also brought an icon of the Mother of God, which,
in the words of Anthony:
nobody can have given [this] except she herself, her son, the Lord God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ, whose belt and crown were brought from the Varangians as the measure for the width,
length and height of this precious church.72
In the third tale we find a similar reference to the miraculous origin of the church and
the role the Varangians played, when we read:
Brothers, what is more miraculous than this? Even if you read through the books of the Old and
New Testaments, nowhere will you find such miracles about holy churches as about this: from
the Varangians and from Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, from his praiseworthy, divine and
human-like image, comes the crown of Christ's holy head. We have heard the divine voice from
the image of Christ that has ordered the crown to be brought to the place prepared for it; and
the heavenly voice ordered the measurement of the church, already revealed before its creation,
to be made by this belt. Likewise came the icon from the Greeks with the craftsmen, together
with relics of holy martyrs, placed under all the walls, where they themselves are depicted on
the walls above the relics.73
It should be noted that these references to Varangians and the Christianity they repre-
sent are linked to the Latin church, and it would be wrong to say that Simon-Shimon's
form of the faith played no role for the original author of the first three tales; however,
his view is far from negative. Thus, despite following the Latin rite, Simon-Shimon is
perceived as a quasi-divine messenger from both Christ and his Mother to Rus and to
the Caves Monastery. The belt and crown taken by Simon-Shimon from an explicitly
Latin image of Christ are treated by the monastery as just as holy as the icon of the
Mother of God, brought from Constantinople in the second tale. All three tales stress
that the belt was to be used as a measure for the new church. And the choice of words
when describing the crown in the third tale ("from the Varangians and from Our Lord
Jesus Christ himself, from his praiseworthy, divine and human-like image, comes the
crown of Christ's holy head...") endows 'Varangians' with an almost Christ-like quality.
Regardless of whether it was actual Latin practice to place a written 'absolutory prayer'
in the hands of the dead, it is worth noting that the author stresses that this future Or-
72
73
49
thodox practice was introduced by and taken over from a Latin Christian. 74 Elsewhere
in the tales of the Paterik, Varangians and their faith are linked with the Latin rite,
although this may represent a later chronological overlay.
As we have seen, the cave in which Anthony decided to settle was called the Va-
rangian Cave. This is the subject of the seventh tale, where it is said that the cave had
originally been dug out by Varangians.'5 Who these Varangians were and what they
represented is not mentioned here. However, Tale 33 returns to the question and there
the name is explained by treasure found in the cave and said to be a Varangian hoard
because it contained "Latin chalices" (s"sudy latin'stii).76 This story, whether it is true
or not, does convey a thirteenth-century view that the origin of the Varangian Cave
was—like early Christianity in Rus—linked to Christian Varangians who had used the
cave before Anthony decided to settle there.7'
In one of the last and perhaps latest tales, Tale 37, we find a further story concern-
ing the nature of the Varangian faith where this is seen as equivalent to Latin Christi-
anity. However, this time the tale takes an overtly anti-Latin position, and is entitled
"The Orthodox Prince Iziaslav's Enquiry about the Latins". Here the Varangian faith
{vera variazhskaia) is purportedly explained by Feodosii to Iziaslav Iaroslavich, but this
attribution to Feodosii seems wrong. It is more likely to have been the later abbot of
the monastery, Feodosii 'the Greek' (Grek) (1142-1156), who puts across the by now
adversarial Byzantine position on the Catholic church.' 8 It might have been this tale
74
T o d a y t h i s t y p e o f p r a y e r is c a l l e d a n ' a b s o l u t o r y p r a y e r ' (razreshitel'naia molitva). It is r e f e r r e d t o
o n c e m o r e in T a l e 10, i n w h i c h w e are t o l d t h a t S i m o n - S h i m o n ' s s o n , G e o r g e , m a d e a large dona-
t i o n t o t h e m o n a s t e r y s o t h a t St F e o d o s i i ' s c o f f i n c o u l d b e c o v e r e d i n silver a n d g o l d . T h i s e v e n t is
said by the Ipat'evskaia letopis' t o h a v e t a k e n p l a c e i n 1 1 3 0 , w h e r e G e o r g e i s t e r m e d " G e o r g i i R o s -

tov'skyi i tysiachkoi": Ipat'evskaia letopis' 2 9 3 . B y t h e n S i m o n - S h i m o n ' s s o n h e l d a h i g h p o s i t i o n
as p r i n c e l y a g e n t in t h e R o s t o v r e g i o n u n d e r P r i n c e Iurii V l a d i m i r o v i c h D o l g o r u k i i . T o w a r d s the
e n d o f Tale 10 w e are told t h a t G e o r g e w r o t e a letter to his d e s c e n d a n t s , telling t h e m t h a t they
w e r e all m e n t i o n e d in t h e p r a y e r t h a t F e o d o s i i h a d g i v e n to his f a t h e r , a n d t h a t F e o d o s i i would
c o n t i n u e to p r a y for t h e m ; that he, George, h a d himself p l a c e d t h e prayer in his dying father's
h a n d ; a n d that in a vision his father h a d told h i m that t h r o u g h Feodosii's prayer he h a d received
all b l e s s i n g s . T a l e 10 e n d s b y a f f i r m i n g t h a t h i s ( S i m o n - S h i m o n or George's) great-grandsons
continued to show the monastery their affection (Kievo-Pecherskiipaterik 330-36; Paterik 98-
99). Thus Simon-Shimon's f a m i l y w a s still l i n k e d t o t h e m o n a s t e r y at the t i m e w h e n Bishop
S i m o n a n d Polikarp's exchange of letters were f o r m i n g the basis of the Paterik.

75
Kievo-Pecherskii paterik 316-22; Paterik 1 9 .
76
Kievo-Pecherskii paterik 454; Paterik 1 8 8 - 1 8 9 .
77
For this see also S t e n d e r - P e t e r s e n 1953,145-46.
78
On this see Podskalsky 1996, 2 9 4 - 3 0 1 ; N a z a r e n k o 2 0 0 9 , 275-77. H e p p e l l thinks that Tale 37
w a s only included in the Second Kassian Redaction in 1462, as a reflection of t h e strong anti-Latin
s e n t i m e n t in the O r t h o d o x church after the Council of Florence in 1439: Paterik xx. See also h e r
discussion c o n c e r n i n g t h e attribution o f the tale: Paterik 211 n . 6 6 4 . F o r t h o s e w h o m i g h t still

4-i£>
J O H N H . LIND
that inspired Fairy von Lilienfeld to attribute anti-Latin sentiment to both the Caves
Monastery and the Paterik.
There is, however, a further instance in the texts under discussion that needs to be
addressed. At the end of the first tale, after Simon-Shimon has received the absolutory
prayer from Feodosii, a kind of epilogue has been attached to the text with a short
outline of what became of Simon-Shimon and his son George. Here we are first told
that Simon converted to Orthodoxy under Feodosii's tutelage, together with his entire
household of 3,000 individuals, including priests, so that from being a "Varangian" he
became a "Christian", "leaving behind Latin error" [ostaviv latin'skuiu buest'). The text
goes on to relate that after his death, Simon-Shimon was the first to be buried in the
church he had first seen in his visions, just as St Anthony had predicted. From then on,
as also related in Tale 10, his son George had a great love for that holy place, and the
tale ends by relating George's flourishing career under Vladimir Monomakh and Iurii
Dolgorukii.79
The edge against Latin Christianity in the phrase "leaving behind Latin error"
is clearly at odds with the generally positive attitude elsewhere in the same tale and
in the two that follow. On the other hand it accords well with the negative attitude
towards the Latin rite that later became associated with the Varangians. This attitude
began to creep in from the mid-twelfth century in Novgorod, but it may have been
more outspoken in Kiev, where Greek ecclesiastics were undoubtedly more numerous
and influential than in Novgorod. 80 Therefore the phrase "leaving behind Latin error"
is best explained if we see it as part of a chronological overlay that was added to the
original tale, together with the information about the career of Simon-Shimon's son.
As we have seen, George Simonovich was involved with the monastery in 1130, when
he donated the silver and gold necessary for the adornment of St Feodosii s shrine de-
scribed in Tale 10.
In support of this we can note the apparent duplication in the first tale of Si-
mon-Shimon's conversion to Orthodoxy. In the section of the tale which I suspect to
be a chronological overlay, Simon's conversion is seen as a dramatic event that took
a s s u m e t h a t t h e t e x t r e f l e c t s v i e w s h e l d b y F e o d o s i i ( d . 1 0 7 4 ) , it is p e r t i n e n t t o p o i n t o u t a c o u p l e
o f a p p a r e n t a n a c h r o n i s m s : firstly t h e text claims t h a t Latin b i s h o p s go to w a r ; a n d s e c o n d l y that
Latin priests d o not m a r r y lawful wives {Kievo-Pecherskiipaterik 494; Paterik 212). T h e first claim
s e e m s t o r e f l e c t a p o s t - c r u s a d e s i t u a t i o n (i.e. l a t e r t h a n 1 0 9 6 ) ; t h e s e c o n d , t h e s i t u a t i o n a f t e r t h e
F i r s t o r e v e n t h e S e c o n d L a t e r a n C o u n c i l o f 1123 o r 1139.
79
80
On anti-Latin feeling a m o n g Greek ecclesiastics in K i e v see, f o r instance, Nazarenko 2009.
M a n y of the anti-Latin writings by G r e e k c h u r c h m e n in Kiev were directed against the marriage
ties f o r g e d b e t w e e n Riurikid princes a n d m e m b e r s o f Latin C h r i s t i a n families in t h e west, b u t as
N a z a r e n k o s h o w s , t h e s e w r i t i n g s m a d e little i m p r e s s i o n o n c o n t e m p o r a r y R u s rulers.
place under instruction from Feodosii. However, earlier on the brief phrase spoken by
Anthony—"Child, from now on you will not be called Shimon, but your name will
be Simon" 81 —certainly signified Simon-Shimon's adoption into the Orthodox com-
munity; it was at this point that he was given a 'Christian' name, as described in the
Voproshanie Kirika.82 That the honour of having guided Simon-Shimon into the Or-
thodox flock is transferred from Anthony to Feodosii can be explained by the latter's
ever growing reputation in the Caves Monastery as its founder and patron saint, while
Anthony gradually became a more peripheral figure. Anthonys eclipse at the expense
of Feodosii can be seen in the donation by Simon-Shimon's son to a shrine for Feodosii.
From this analysis of the use of'Varangian' and 'Varangians' in connection with Chris-
tianity in the first three tales of the Paterik, it is clear that the monks of the Caves
Monastery held the early Varangian Christians in high regard, seeing them to a large
extent as co-founders of Christianity as it was practised in the monastery, despite their
association with the Latin rite. Thus in these tales Christianity is presented as a blend
of influences from both Constantinople and the Latin west, much as I think the term
'Varangian Christianity' should be understood.
THE TWO VARANGIAN MARTYRS

Not all the Christian Varangians mentioned in the Paterik were linked to Christianity
in its Latin form. In the fourteenth tale, in which Simon urges Polikarp not to seek
honour in the form of a bishop's rank but to focus on the humility that befits a monk,
Simon lists those monks of the Caves Monastery who had gone on to become bishops.
The first of these was a certain Leontii, who as bishop of Rostov was martyred in the
1070s. In the words of the tale he is said "with the two Varangians to be the third cit-
izen of Rus to be crowned by Christ, for whom he suffered".83 It is worth noting that,
according to this tale, the two Varangians preceded Boris and Gleb as 'proto-martyrs'
of the Rus church, and the latter are not even mentioned. 84 This suggests that Simon's
81
See above, 425.
82
See above, 421.
83
" i se t r e t i i g r a z h a n i n b y s t ' r u s k a g o m i r a , s' o n e m a v a r i a g o m a v e n c h a s i a o t K h r i s t a " : Kievo-Pech-
erskiipaterik 360; Paterik 118.
84
T h e status o f these t w o Varangians as t h e first R u s m a r t y r s is g e n e r a l l y o v e r l o o k e d i n modern
scholarship. T h u s Paul H o l l i n g s w o r t h t i m e a n d again characterises Boris a n d G l e b as "the first
R u s saints", w i t h o u t m e n t i o n i n g t h e t w o Varangians (Hagiography ofKievan -Rws'xxvi-lvi; Holl-
i n g s w o r t h 1999, 203) a n d H a k i A n t o n s s o n even claims that Boris a n d G l e b w e r e t h e only native
saints o f K i e v a n Rus: A n t o n s s o n 2 0 0 4 , 74. A p a r t f r o m t h e translation of St Feodosii's relics in
1091 (see above, note 60) a n d his subsequent inscription on a sinodik i n 1 1 0 8 , i t is o n l y f o r B o r i s
and Gleb that we have evidence of some form of formal canonisation in the written sources,
w i t h m e n t i o n o f t h e t r a n s l a t i o n o f t h e i r r e l i c s i n 1 0 7 2 a n d a g a i n i n 1115. H o w e v e r , t h e t w o broth-
ers w e r e a high-profile case, described in a chronicle serving to legitimise t h e Riurikid dynasty,

source for this information was early. It also suggests that, contrary to the opinio com-
munis, the cult of Boris and Gleb did not get off the ground before 1072, when Iaroslav
Vladimirovich's three sons Iziaslav, Sviatoslav and Vsevolod—in a late show of uni-
ty—joined forces with the ecclesiastical hierarchy to perform a solemn translation of
the saintly brothers' relics to a new church in Vyshgorod.85 This translation in 1072,
together with the renewed translation in 1115, shows their cult to be a joint initiative
of churchmen and princes. Similar initiatives can be seen in other newly-converted
countries, where kings and princes such as Olaf in Norway and the two Cnuts in Den-
mark—murdered or slain in battle—were conceived of as martyrs through comparable
collaboration between rulers and church leaders. The apparently late appearance of
the cult of Boris and Gleb has consequences for the debate as to whether there is a link
between the hagiographical texts of these two martyrs and St Olaf of Norway.86
The martyrdom of the two Varangians is best known from the Primary Chronicle,
where it is recorded under the year 983. This was only a few years before Vladimir Svia-
toslavich decided to adopt Christianity at the same time as his marriage to a Byzantine
princess. According to the chronicle, Vladimir's baptism was preceded by a period of
pagan revival during which Vladimir returned from battle victorious and wished to
make a sacrifice to the idols (kumiry). It was proposed that lots should be cast for a
youth and maiden to be sacrificed. The chronicler relates the story of a certain Chris-
w h i c h h a d an interest in h a v i n g the t w o b r o t h e r s recognised as saints. W e c a n n o t expect 'minor'
figures to be given t h e s a m e exposure. In a n y case t h e question of w h a t constituted an act of can-
o n i s a t i o n a s o p p o s e d t o e v i d e n c e o f ( e c c l e s i a s t i c a l o r p o p u l a r ) v e n e r a t i o n a t t h a t t i m e is moot,
a n d the fact r e m a i n s that here in an ecclesiastical text, e m a n a t i n g f r o m a m o n a s t e r y that other-
wise t o o k part in the p r o m o t i o n of the cult of Boris a n d Gleb, the t w o Varangians are singled out
a n d v e n e r a t e d as t h e first martyrs in Rus before Boris a n d Gleb were included in their company.
85
Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 181-82; RPC 154-55. I n
the controversy over the date a n d origin of the
cult of Boris a n d Gleb, t w o p r o m i n e n t scholars in the field have taken opposing views on many
issues: L u d o l f Miiller has a r g u e d for an early date, w h e r e a s A n d r z e j P o p p e has a r g u e d in favour
o f a l a t e d a t e , l i n k e d t o t h e t w o t r a n s l a t i o n s o f t h e b r o t h e r s ' r e l i c s i n 1 0 7 2 a n d 1115: M i i l l e r 1995;
Poppe1994.
86
Several s c h o l a r s h a v e e x p r e s s e d v i e w s o n this, see e.g. R e i s m a n 1978; A n t o n s s o n 2 0 0 3 . B o t h as-
s u m e an early date, that the cult of Boris a n d Gleb was p r o m o t e d during the reign of Iaroslav
V l a d i m i r o v i c h (d. 1054). In b o t h the cult of Boris a n d G l e b a n d that of Olaf, R e i s m a n sees rem-
n a n t s of V a r a n g i a n p a g a n i s m . For criticism of R e i s m a n , see P o p p e 2 0 0 7 . A g a i n s t the v i e w that
the cult of O l a f influenced Iaroslav's a s s u m e d p r o m o t i o n of his half-brothers' cult, Antonsson
suggests that influences could have g o n e b o t h ways, a view h e f u r t h e r develops in Antonsson
2007,115-21. In a recent anthology the question was raised again by M o n i c a W h i t e a n d Marina
Paramonova. Here White finds that "the Scandinavian influence o n the cult of Boris a n d Gleb
is u n d e n i a b l e " (White 2010, 106); whereas Paramonova finds little e v i d e n c e o f a n y influence
f r o m or to o t h e r cults in eastern or n o r t h e r n E u r o p e ( P a r a m o n o v a 2010). I tend to agree with
Paramonova.
431 9
tian Varangian, who had arrived from Greece. This Varangian had a son upon whom
the lot fell. When the father refused to hand over his son, Vladimir's men forced their
way into the Varangian's mansion and killed them both. In the Primary Chronicle the
account of the killing ends by proclaiming that "nobody knows where they laid them",
a phrase not found in the Novgorod First Chronicle (younger recension), which oth-
erwise offers a similar text. The addition in the Primary Chronicle probably reflects a
wish at the time of its compilation in the IIIOS to locate the relics of the Varangians.8'
The Varangian's mansion itself is said to have been located on the spot where, soon
after his conversion, Vladimir built the first major stone church in Kiev. Dedicated to
the Mother of God and also known as the 'Tithe Church' (Desiatinnaia Tserkovit is
where Vladimir was later buried. The account of the killing of the two Varangians in
the Primary Chronicle is followed by lengthy reflections on the humiliation the devil
suffered through the martyrdom of the two Varangians, who are said to have "received
the heavenly crown, with the holy martyrs and the righteous".88
The names of the two Varangians are not mentioned in the chronicle text, but
in hagiographic tradition they became known and venerated as "Fedor the Varangian
and his son John", with 11 July (Old Style) as their feast day. No separate Life of the
two martyrs has been preserved from the earliest period. But so-called Prologue Lives
do appear in the earliest known versions of Byzantine Synaxaria found in Old East
Slavonic translation. Known in Old East Slavonic as Prologues (prologi or profiles),89
these are preserved in manuscripts from the thirteenth and fourteenth century on-
wards, where the name of the son appears.90 The father's name, Fedor, only turns up in
later redactions from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.91 However, the father's
name is seemingly revealed in an early version of the Prologue Life of St Vladimir, the
87
T h e church historian Evgenii Golubinskii, a n d others after him, claimed that a m o n g the relics
v e n e r a t e d i n t h e C a v e s M o n a s t e r y w e r e t h o s e o f t h e t w o V a r a n g i a n s : G o l u b i n s k i i 1 9 0 3 , 211. H o w -
ever, h a d t h e m o n a s t e r y b e e n in p o s s e s s i o n o f t h e s e relics, t h e Paterik would undoubtedly have
mentioned it.
88
" p r i e m s h e v e n e t s ' n e b e s n y i s" s v i a t y m i m u c h e n i k i i p r a v e d n i k i " : Lavrent'evskaia letopis' 8 2 - 8 3 ;
RPC 9 5 - 9 6 . F o r t h e Novgorod First Chronicle (younger recension), s e e Novgorodskaia pervaia
letopis' 1 3 0 - 3 1 . I t h a s t o b e s a i d t h a t t h e r e i s n o firm textual evidence to show that the account in
t h e Novgorod First Chronicle i s n o t a r e w o r k i n g of a text f r o m the Pri?nary Chronicle, w h i c h was
available to a n d used by later N o v g o r o d chroniclers.

89
Study of the Prologues h a s a d v a n c e d recently, leading to debate over b o t h terminology a n d meth-
o d o l o g y ; see e.g. P r o k o p e n k o 2012. See also T o l o c h k o 2011, 60-62.

90
P i c h k h a d z e et al. 2 0 0 5 , 3 0 2 - 0 3 ; L o s e v a 2 0 0 9 , 2 2 5 - 2 6 ; L u k i n 2 0 0 9 . L u k i n p u b l i s h e d b o t h the
chronicle text a n d the earliest surviving text of the t w o Varangians' Prologue Life from a thir-
teenth-century manuscript (English version in Lukin 2011-2012). In 2009 A. M. Vvedenskii
published a later version of the same redaction of the Prologue Life: Vvedenskii 2009,65-67.
91
For discussion of this, in a d d i t i o n to L u k i n a n d Vvedenskii, see Stender-Petersen 1953.
432- J O H N H . LIND
man responsible for the Varangians' murder. It claims that on the site where the citizens
of Kiev were baptised, after Vladimir himself had accepted baptism, "now stands the
church of the Holy Martyr Tur [or Tury], the first intercessor in favour of our salva-
tion".92 This can only refer to the Varangian father, and the name must be interpreted
as his original Scandinavian name, corresponding to the Norse &orr or JjoriR/^uriR
(Thor/Thorir/Thurir). 93 That would fit well with the choice of Fedor (Theodoras) as
his baptismal name.94
As noted above, according to the Primary Chronicle Vladimir decided to build
his future burial church, the Tithe Church, on the site of the two Varangians' martyr-
dom. When excavations in 1908-1914 exposed wooden structures under the ruined
church, these were immediately thought to be remnants of the Varangian's mansion.
After Mikhail Karger's investigations in the 1950s, however, most archaeologists con-
sidered the Tithe Church to have been built on the site of a former pagan cemetery and
that these structures were the remains of a chamber grave.95 Nevertheless some author-
ities on Kiev, such as Petr Tolochko, cling to the idea that the structures are remnants
of the Varangian's mansion: "there can be no doubt at all that the Tithe Church was
established on the blood of the first Christians".96 In 1006-2011 new investigations on
the site of the church made it possible to re-examine what is once more referred to as
the "mansion of the Varangian" [dvor Variaga).9' If in fact Vladimir decided to build
his first major church in the 990s on the site of the Varangians' martyrdom, this would
be the earliest indication of their veneration as martyrs, and indeed would make them
'proto-martyrs' of Orthodoxy in Rus. Even if the story is a later invention, added when
the Primary Chronicle or its predecessor was compiled in the 1090s or nios, it is still a
sign of their early veneration in the Orthodox church of Rus.
92
" i d e z h e i n y n e cerkvi est' sviatoiu m u c h e n i k u T u r o v a , i t'i byst' pr'vyi k h o d a t a i n a s h e m u spase-
niiu": P i c h k h a d z e e t al. 2 0 0 5 , 3 0 5 - 0 6 . T h i s is t h e a c c o u n t i n t h e e a r l i e s t v e r s i o n s o f t h e Pro-
logue Life of St V l a d i m i r discussed in S h a k h m a t o v 1907. B a s e d o n this a n d o t h e r observations by
S h a k h m a t o v a n d S t a n i s l a w R o z n i e c k i , S t e n d e r - P e t e r s e n a l s o c o n s i d e r s it p o s s i b l e t h a t t h e r e is a
link between the C h u r c h of the Holy Martyr T u r or T u r y a n d the m e n t i o n of a "Turova bozhnit-
sa" in the Ipatievskaia Chronicle s.a. 1146: Ipat'evskaia letopis'321; Stender-Petersen 1953,142-44.
93
O t h e r interpretations have b e e n suggested. These are discussed in L u k i n 2 0 0 9 , 82-84.
94
A t t h e t i m e b a p t i s m a l n a m e s w e r e o f t e n , if n o t always, c h o s e n so t h a t t h e y b e g a n w i t h t h e same
letter as t h e given n a m e : O l g a / H e l g a - E l e n a / H e l e n a ; Vladimir-Vasilii; Ingegerd-Irina, etc; or as
we saw: Shimon/Sigmund-Simon.
95
The c h a n g i n g views are surveyed in L u k i n 2 0 0 9 , 91-96.
96
Tolochko 2009, 163-73: "v torn chto Desiatinnaia tserkov' byla postavlena na krovi pervykh
khristian, nikakikh somnenii byt' ne mozhet".

97
K o m a r 2 0 1 2 , 311.
433 9
In contrast to the other Varangians mentioned in the Paterik, these two Varangian
martyrs can clearly be seen to be an intrinsic part of Orthodox Christianity in Rus,
without any Latin connotations. The same goes for our third 'Varangian' saint.
THE THIRD VARANGIAN SAINT

Scholars have long been aware of the close textual interrelationship between the ac-
counts of the two Varangians' martyrdom in the chronicle and in the Prologue Life.
Based on the fact that the Prologue Life does not include the story ofVladimir building
his Tithe Church on the site of the Varangian's mansion, Pavel Lukin has recently sug-
gested that the two versions have a lost Life as a common source, which could perhaps
tentatively be dated to the i070-i090S. 9 8 The textual evidence for this lost Life may not
be strong, but other considerations may support such an early dating of the Prologue
Life.
As we saw above in Tale 14, the martyrdom of Bishop Leontii of Rostov in the
1070s made him only the third martyr in Rus after our two Varangians, sidestepping
Boris and Gleb. Interestingly the two saintly brothers seem to have suffered the same
fate in the early version of the Prologue. At least that is the impression given by one of
the palimpsests from Mount Sinai and now held by the Russian National Library."
This Bulgarian thirteenth-century miscellany does not contain the Prologue as such,
but only three Rus Prologue Lives excerpted from an Old East Slavonic original: those
of Olga (11 July), our two Varangians (11 July) and Vladimir Sviatoslavich (15 July). But
considering the omission of Sts Boris and Gleb, could it not be that Prologue Lives of
these Rus saints existed as a group when the Greek Synaxarion was translated, and that
this group of saints was included in an early Prologue before the veneration of Boris and
Gleb caught alight after the translations of their relics in 1072. and 1115?100
While early short Lives of both Olga and the two Varangians may well have been
composed by this time, what was the situation with regard to a Life ofVladimir Sviato-
slavich? Despite the efforts in the eleventh century of Ilarion in his Sermon and Iakov
the Monk in his Eulogy [Pamiat'ipokhvala kniaziu Volodimeru) to promote Vladimir's
sanctity, it is generally assumed that Vladimir's actual veneration as a saint was late in
developing. 101 However, this is how Vladimir is presented in his Prologue Life: "On
98
Lukin 2009, 91-94
99
R N B . Q . p . I . 6 3 . S e e P i c h k h a d z e e t al. 2 0 0 5 , 293.
100
O n e must concede that the Prologue Life o f St V l a d i m i r d o e s p r a i s e h i m as p r o g e n i t o r o f " t h e h o l y
martyrs Boris a n d Gleb", possibly a dynastic attempt to p r o m o t e the veneration of Vladimir's
t w o s o n s : P i c h k h a d z e e t al. 2 0 0 5 , 307.
101
See, for e x a m p l e , Fennell 1988; N a z a r e n k o 1996 and the discussion in P i c h k h a d z e et al. 2005,
292.
the same day [15 July], the death of the blessed Grand Prince Vladimir, having Chris-
tened the Rus land. Vladimir, son ofSviatoslav, ofVarangia?i stock..!' (author's italics).102
Why did a churchman in Rus find it necessary—or important—to stress that Vladimir
was of Varangian stock? When would this have been possible? Is it conceivable that he
would do so at a time when the term 'Varangian' was tainted by being closely associated
with Latin Christianity, as it became during the twelfth century?
If we are to answer these questions, we must try narrow down the interval in which
a churchman wishing to stress Vladimir's Scandinavian origins could do so by using the
term 'Varangian'. I think we must accept that this could not have been after 'Varangian'
had become linked to the Latin rite, with all its negative connotations: that is, after
the beginning of the twelfth century. On the other hand, this description of Vladimir
as being of Varangian stock must belong to a period when it no longer made sense
simply to say that Vladimir was of Rus stock, as the envoys had presented themselves
in the tenth-century treaties with Byzantium (my otroda ruskago).103 At that time the
term 'Rus' indisputably singled out the envoys as Scandinavians or of Scandinavian
descent. But this was no longer the case even before Vladimir died, and certainly not
later in the eleventh century. By then Rus had come to signify the population of Rus
at large. Therefore the identification ofVladimir as "of Varangian stock" must belong
to a time when Vladimir's Scandinavian descent could only be defined by using the
term Varangian. Broadly speaking, that means the eleventh century and possibly the
first decades of the twelfth. This was when chroniclers found the term Varangian useful
to explain to their contemporaries who the original Rus and founders of the Rus pol-
ity actually were; when it was found useful to explain how Christian Rus, with their
Church of St Elijah in Kiev, could appear in connection with the 944 treaty; and when
monks in the Kievan Caves Monastery could still accept Christian influences from
both east and west on equal terms.
In light of all this, the Prologue Life of St Vladimir was most likely composed for
the translation of the Greek Synaxarion in this period. 104 If so, it would seem that Ilari-
on and Iakov the Monk were more successful in their promotion of Vladimir's sanctity
than is generally supposed. 105 Moreover, if we accept that the Prologue Life of Vladimir
102 « v > U S p e n i e blazhenago i velikago kneza Volodimira . krestivshago vsu ruskuiu zemliu
:. s ' i u b o V o l o d i m i r ' b e s y n ' S v i a t o s l a v l ' . o t p l e m e n e v a r i a z h ' s k o g o . . . " : P i c h k h a d z e et al. 2005:
303-04.
103
Lavrent'evskaia letopis'32-33, 4 6 ; RPC 65, 73.
104
S e e a b o v e , n . 9 0 , 91.
105
In a n analysis o f a c c o u n t s o f Vladimir's b a p t i s m in w o r k s b y early w e s t e r n a u t h o r s s u c h as Thi-
e t m a r of M e r s e b u r g (d. 1018) a n d P e t e r D a m i a n (d. 1072), A l e k s a n d r N a z a r e n k o suggests that
signs of Vladimir's sanctification were present in these sources by the first third of the eleventh
century: N a z a r e n k o 1996, 35-36. See also P r e o b r a z h e n s k i i 2009.

CH R] STTANTTY ON THE MOVE
435
was included in the translated Synaxarion as part of a group containing two other short
Lives of Olga and the Varangian martyrs, this would support Pavel Lukin's suggestion
that a lost Prologue Life of the two Variangians from the same period was, in fact, the
common source of both the chronicle account of their martyrdom and the extant Pro-
logue Life. But the question remains: why did a churchman find it so important to
emphasise Vladimir's Varangian origins in his Prologue Life, virtually making him into
a third 'Varangian' saint?
IN CONCLUSION
In this study on the role that Varangians may have played in spreading early Christian-
ity, our focus has been on their activity in the east rather than in Scandinavia proper.
We have seen how by the middle of the tenth century, when Scandinavians or people
of Scandinavian descent were still known as Rus, the presence of Christians among
these Rus gave Christianity a prominent standing when it came to concluding an in-
ternational treaty with the dominant power to the south, Byzantium. This status may
have been facilitated by traditions surviving from the missionary activity of Patriarch
Photios in the 860s.
We do not know how long Christianity was able to maintain its prominent stand-
ing after 944. It may have ended with the death in 969 of the first Christian regent,
Igor's widow Olga. While still keeping in contact with western churchmen, Olga had
accepted baptism in Constantinople, probably in 957 but perhaps a decade earlier.
However, upon assuming independent rule when he reached his majority around 960,
her son Sviatoslav Igorevich (d. 972) is reported in the Primary Chronicle categorically
to have refused his mother's plea to be baptised. When he signed a further treaty with
the Byzantine emperor in 971, he did so by swearing his oath on his pagan gods.
If Christianity still had any status in society after Sviatoslav s reign, this did not
save the two Varangians in 983, when they fell victim to Vladimir Sviatoslavich's appar-
ent revival of paganism prior to his conversion a few years later. Thus they became the
first recorded martyrs in the emerging church of Rus and were venerated as such. In the
long run, though, their position as 'proto-martyrs' was more or less forgotten, in Rus
as well as in modern scholarship. The Riurikid dynasty, supported by the ecclesiastical
hierarchy, managed to promote their own martyrs in the shape of the two princelings,
Boris and Gleb. Nevertheless, before that happened a Prologue Life describing the two
Varangians' martyrdom seems to have been composed in the second half of the elev-
enth century. So too, it would seem, was a Prologue Life of the man implicated in their
deaths, St Vladimir: a life that likewise stressed Vladimir's Varangian origins.
As Scandinavians returning as Christians from Byzantium, the Varangian father
and son seem typical of those Varangians who, one or two generations earlier, had
4-i£> JOHN H. LIND
made the same journey and thus contributed to the formation of early Christianity
in Rus. Later, towards the end of the eleventh century, the situation was different in
many respects. First and foremost, Christianity had struck root both in Rus and in the
Scandinavian homeland—the former linked to the Orthodox church, the latter to the
Latin. In both regions there seems to have been a growing awareness of differences be-
tween Greek Orthodoxy and the Latin rites of the west. Nevertheless, at the beginning
these differences mattered hardly at all.
In Rus this can be seen in the early history of the Kievan Caves Monastery, as
described in the monastery's Paterik. In addition to the more or less accidental naming
of the two Varangians as 'proto-martyrs' in Rus, other Varangians rooted in the Latin
confession and epitomised by the magnate Simon-Shimon are given prominent roles.
They were instrumental not only in the material foundation of this celebrated monas-
tery but, bestowed with almost Christ-like qualities, these Varangians are also depicted
in the Paterik as co-founders of the Christianity that came to be practised there. As
a result, Christianity is presented in the Paterik as a blend of influences from both
Constantinople and the Latin west, much as I think the term 'Varangian Christianity'
should be understood.
437 9
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES
A d a mo f B r e m e n , Gesta Hammaburgensis eccle- The Laws of Rus': Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries. Ed.
siae pontificum. E d . W . T r i l l m i c h & R . B u c h - a n d tr. D . H . K a i s e r . Salt L a k e C i t y , U T 1992.
ner, Quellen des 9. und 11. Jahrhunderts zur Novgorodskaia pervaia letopis' starshego i mlad-
Geschichte der Hamburgischen Kirche und des shego izvodov. E d . A . N . N a s o n o v . PSRL 3 .
Reiches, 1 3 7 - 4 9 9 . D a r m s t a d t 1 9 6 1 . repr. M o s c o w 2 0 0 0 .
Fontes rerum Bohemicarum. E d . J . E m l e r , 5 v o l s . The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery. Tr. M.
Prague 1873-1893. Heppell. Cambridge, M A 1989.
Gregory VII, The Correspondence ofPope Gregory Photios, Epistulae et amphilochia. E d . B. Laour-
V I I . Tr. E. E m e r t o n . Repr. N e w York 1969. das & L. G. W e s t e r i n k , 6 vols. Leipzig 1983-
The Hagiography of Kievan Rus'. T r . P. Holling- 1988.
sworth. Cambridge, M A 1992. , The Homilies ofPhotius, Patriarch of Con-

Ilarion, "Slovo o zakone i blagodati mitropolita stantinople. T r . C . M a n g o . DOSt 3 . C a m b r i d g e ,
k i e v s k o g o Ilariona". Ed. A . M . M o l d o v a n . Bib- M A 1958.
lioteka Literatury Drevnei Rusi, v o l . 1, 26-60. Pamiatniki drevnerusskogo kanonicheskogo prava.

St P e t e r s b u r g 1997. E d . A . S . P a v l o v , v o l . 1. S t P e t e r s b u r g 1880.
Ipat'evskaia letopis', 2nd ed. PSRL 2. St Peters- Pamiatniki russkogo prava. Ed. A. A. Zimin, vol.
burg 1908; repr. M o s c o w 1998. 1. M o s c o w 1952.
Kievo-Pecherskii paterik. Ed. L. A. Ol'shevskaia. Widukind Res gestae Saxonicae. E d .

of Corvey,
<http://pushkinskijdom.ru/Default.aspx? and German & R . R a u , Quellen

tr. A . B a u e r
tabid=4945> [ a c c e s s e d 12 N o v e m b e r 2013]. zur Geschichte der sachsischen Kaiserzeit, 2nd

Lavrent'evskaia letopis', 2nd ed. PSRL 1. Lenin- ed., 1-183. D a r m s t a d t 1977.
g r a d 1926; repr. M o s c o w 2001.
SECONDARY LITERATURE
Androshchuk, F. 2013. "Byzantium and the M e l ' n i k o v a ( e d . ) 1 9 9 9 . Drevniaia Rus' v svete
Scandinavian World in the 9th-ioth Centu- zarubezhnykh istochnikov, m - 1 6 . M o s c o w .

ry: Material Evidence of Contacts", in FGV, Birnbaum, H. 1993. "Christianity before Chris-
147-91. tianization: Christians and Christian Activity
Antonsson, H. 2003. "The Cult o f St O l a f r in i n P r e - 9 8 8 R u s ' " , i n CES, 42-62.
the Eleventh Century and Kievan Rus'" Mid- B j o r n f l a t e n , J. I. 2 0 0 6 . " C h r o n o l o g i e s o f t h e Sla-
delalderforum: Tverrfaglig tidsskrift for mid- vicization of Northern Russia Mirrored by
delalderstudier 1 - 2 , 1 4 3 - 6 0 . Slavic L o a n w o r d s in Finnic a n d Baltic" Slav-

. 2004. "Some Observations on Martyr- ica Helsingiensia 27, 50-77.
dom in Post-Conversion Scandinavia" Sa- Brubaker, L. Vision and Meaning in

1999.
ga-Book 28, 7 0 - 9 4 . Ninth-Century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis

St Magnus of Orkney: A Scandinavi-
.2007. in the Homilies of Gregory ofNazianzus. Cam-
an Martyr-Cult in Context. L e i d e n & B o s t o n . bridge.
Antonsson H. & I. H . Garipzanov (eds) 2010. 2 0 1 2 . Jerusalem in the

B y s t e d , A . L. et al. (eds)
Saints and Their Lives on the Periphery: Ven- North. Denmark and the Baltic Crusades 1100-
eration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern 1522. Turnhout.
Europe (ca. 1000-1200). T u r n h o u t . Capelle, T. 2005. " H e d e n s k og kristen tro i Nor-
Bibikov, M . V. 1999. " R u s ' v v i z a n t i i s k o i diplo- den. E n anspsendt sameksistens", in T. Capelle
m a t i i : d o g o v o r y R u s i s g r e k a m i X v.", i n E . A. & C. Fischer (eds) 2005. Ragnarok. Odins

verden, 167-77. Silkeborg.
4-i£>
J O H N H. LIND
Ebersolt, J. 1910. Le grand palais de Constantino- Janson, H. 2011. "Scythian Christianity", in

ple et le livre des ceremonies. Paris. ECWVG, 3 3 - 5 7 .
Eniosova, N. V. & T. A. Pushkina. 2013. "Finds Klein, H. A. 2 0 0 6 . "Sacred Relics and Imperial
of Byzantine Origin from the Early Urban Ceremonies at the Great Palace of Constan-
Centre Gnezdovo in the Light of the Contacts tinople" BYZAS 5 , 7 9 - 9 9 .
Between Rus' and Constantinople (ioth-Ear- Komar, A. V. 2012. "Kiev i Pravoberezhnye Pod-
ly n t h Centuries AD)", in FGV, 2 1 3 - 5 5 . neprov'e", in Rus'AP, 3 0 1 - 3 3 .
Fennell, J. 1988. "The Canonization of Saint Kovalenko, V. 2013. "Scandinavians in the East
Vladimir", in K. C. Felmy et al. (eds) 1988. of Europe: in Search of Glory or a New Moth-
Tausend Jahre Christentum in Russland. Zum erland?", in FGV, 2 5 7 - 9 4 .
Millennium der Tanfe der Kiever Rus', 299- Lehtosalo-Hilander, P.-L. 1992. "Finland", in E.
304. Gottingen. Roesdahl & D. M. Wilson (eds) 1992. From
Garipzanov, I. H. 2 0 1 0 a . "Novgorod and the Viking to Crusader: the Scandinavians and Eu-
Veneration of Saints in Eleventh-Century rope S00-1200, 6 2 - 7 1 . New York.
Rus': A Comparative View", in Antonsson & -I997- "Luistari in Eura. From Pagan Bur-
Garipzanov (eds) 2 0 1 0 , 1 1 5 - 4 5 . ial-Ground to Christian Cemetery", in RBN,
. 2 0 1 0 b . "The Cult of St Nicholas in the v o l . 1, 3 8 9 - 4 0 3 .
Early Christian North (c. 1 0 0 0 - 1 1 5 0 ) " Scan- . 2 0 0 0 . "Finnernes kristning", in N. Lund
dinavian Journal of History 3 5 , 2 2 9 - 4 6 . (ed.) 2 0 0 0 . Viking og Hvidekrist. Et interna-

. 2011. "Early Christian Scandinavia tional symposium pa Nationalmuseet om Nor-
and the Problem of Eastern Influences" in den og Europa i den sene vikingetid og tidligste
ECWVG, 1 8 - 3 2 . middelalder, 3 1 - 3 9 . Copenhagen.
. 2013. "The Journey of St Clement's Cult Lilienfeld, F. von. 1993. "The Spirituality of the
from the Black Sea to the Baltic Region", in Early Kievan Caves Monastery", in CES, 63-
FGV, 369-80. 76.
Gippius, A. A. 2 0 1 2 a . "K rekonstruktsii drevnei- Lind, J. H. 2 0 0 1 a . "Poniatie 'nemtsi' kak nat-

shikh etapov istorii russkogo letopisaniia", in sional'no-konfessional'noe predelenie. Ego
A. O. Chubar'ian et al. (eds) 2012. Drevniaia proiskhozhdenie i rannie sluchai upotrebleni-
Rus' i srednevekovaia Evropa: Vozniknovenie ia" Srednie veka 6 2 , 9 6 - 1 0 2 .
gosudarstv, 4 1 - 5 0 . Moscow. . 2 0 0 1 b . "Scandinavian Nemtsy and Rep-
. 2 0 1 2 b . "Do i posle Nachal'nogo svoda: aganized Russians. The Expansion of the Lat-
ranniaia letopisnaia istoriia Rusi kak ob'ekt in West During the Baltic Crusades and its
tekstologicheskoi rekonstruktsii", in Rus'AP, Confessional Repercussions", in Z. Hunyadi
37-62. & J. Laszlovszky (eds) 2001. The Crusades and
Golubinskii, E. E. 1903. Istoriia kanonizatsii the Military Orders: Expanding the Frontiers
sviatykh v russkoi tserkvi. Repr. Farnborough ofMedieval Latin Christianity, 4 8 1 - 9 7 . Buda-
1969. pest.
Hammarstedt, N. E. 1917. "Elias, askguden: . 2 0 0 1 c . "Consequences of the Baltic Cru-
Annu ett tillagg till 'Olsmessa och Torsblot'" sades in Target Areas: the Case of Karelia", in
Fataburen: Kulturhistorisk Fidskrift 1916, A. V. Murray (ed.) 2001. Crusade and Conver-
21-29. sion on the Baltic Frontier 1150-1500, 1 3 3 - 5 0 .
Hollingsworth, P. A. 1999. "Holy Men and the Aldershot.
Transformation of Political Space in Medieval . 2 0 0 6 . "Reflections on Church Histori-
Rus'", in J. Howard-Johnston & P. A. Hayward ans, Archaeologists and Early Christianity in
(eds) 1999. The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity Finland", in M. Suhonen (ed.) 2 0 0 6 . Arkeo-
and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribu- logian liunoa synkkyyteen: Artikkeleita Chris-
tion of Peter Brown, 1 8 7 - 2 1 5 . Oxford. tian Carpelanin juhlapdivdksi [Lighting the
Jackson, T. N. 2010. "The Cult of St Olaf and Darkness: the Attraction ofArchaeology. Papers
Early Novgorod", in Antonsson & Garip- in Honour of Christian Carpelan], 6 8 - 7 4 . Hel-
zanov (eds) 2 0 1 0 , 1 4 7 - 6 7 . sinki.
43 9
. 2010. "Problems of Ethnicity in the In- Nauchnaia konferentsiia: Kniga reziume, 33-
terpretation of Written Sources on Early Rus'" 36. Moscow.
DG 2009,184-96. . 2001 "Metropolia totius Sclavorum gen-
. 2011. '"Vikings' and the Viking Age", tis", in Drevniaia Rus' na mezhdunarodnykh
in N. Y. Gvozdetskaia et al. (eds) Visy druzh- putiakh, 311-38. Moscow.
by. Sbornik statei v chest' Tat'iany Nikolaevny . 2009. '"Zelo nepodobno pravover-
Jackson [1Stanzas ofFrietidship. Studies in Hon- nym': mezhkonfessional'nye braki na Rusi v
our of TatjanaN. Jackson], 201-22. Moscow. XI-XII vekakh', in Drevniaia Rus' i slaviane
. 2013. "Darkness in the East? Scandina- (istoriko-filologicheskie issledovaniia), 269-83.
vian Scholars on the Question of Eastern In- Moscow.
fluence in Scandinavia during the Viking Age Ol'shevskaia, L. A. 1987a. "Paterik kievskogo
and Early Middle Ages", in FGV, 341-67. monastyria" SKKDR, vol. 1, 308-13.
. 2015. "The 'First' Finland Crusade: a . 1987b. "Polikarp" SKKDR, vol. 1, 370-
Part of the Second Crusade?", in J. T. Roche & 73-
J. M. Jensen (eds) 2015. The Second Crusade: . 1987c. "Simon" SKKDR, vol. 1, 392-96.
Holy War on the Periphery of Latin Christen- Ostrowski, D. 2007. "The Nacal'nyj Svod Theory
dom, 303-22. Turnhout. and the Povest' Vremennyx Let" Russian Lin-
Loseva, O. 2009. Zhitiia russkikh sviatykh v guistics 31, 269-308.
sostave drevnerusskikh Prologov Xll-pervoi Paramonova, M. 2010. "The Formation of the
tretiXVvv. Moscow. Cult of Boris and Gleb and the Problem of
Lukin, P. V. 2009. "Skazanie o variaga- External Influences", in Antonsson & Garip-
kh-muchenikakh v nachal'nom letopisanii zanov (eds) 2010, 259-S2.
i prologe: tekstologicheskii aspekt" DRVM Petrukhin, V. I. & T. A. Pushkina 1998. "Old
4/38. 73-96. Russia: the Earliest Stages of Christianiza-
. 2011-2012. "Narration on the Varangian tion", in RBN, vol. 2, 247-5S.
Martyrs in the Primary Chronicle and in the . 2009. "Novye dannye o protsesse khris-
Synaxarion (Prologue)" Scrinium: Journal of tianizatsii Drevnerusskogo gosudarstva", in L.
Patrology, Critical Hagiography and Ecclesias- Beliaev (ed.) 2009. Archeologia Abrahatnica:
tical History 7-8, 258-304. issledovaniia v oblasti arkheologii i khudozhest-
Magdalino, P. 1987. "Observations on the Nea vennoi traditsii Iudaizma, Khristianstva i Isla-
Ekklesia of Basil I "JOB 37,51-64. ma, 157-68. Moscow.
Malingoudi, J. 1994. Die russisch-byzantinisehen Picchio, R. 1988-1989. "From Boris to Volodim-
Vertrage des 10. Jhds. aus diplomatischer Sicht. er: Some Remarks on the Emergence of Pro-
Thessalonica. to-Orthodox Slavdom" HUS12-13, 200-13.
. 1995. "Russko-vizantiiskie sviazi v X Pichkhadze, A. A. et al. 2005. "Zhitiia kniag-
veke s tochki zreniia diplomatiki" KK 56(81), ini Ol'gi, variazhskikh muchenikov i kniazia
68-91. Vladimira v sostave Sinaiskogo palimpsesta
. 1997. "Russko-vizantiiskie dogovory v X (RNB. Q.p.I.63)", in T. R. Rudi & S. A. Semi-
veke vsvete diplomatiki" 1^57(82), 58-87. achko (eds), Russkaia agiografiia: Issledovani-
Mel'nikova, E. A. 2004. "The Lists of Old Norse ia, publikatsii, polemika, 288-308. St Peters-
Personal Names in the Russian-Byzantine burg.
Treaties of the Tenth Century" SAS 22, 5-27. Podskalsky, G. 1996. Khristianstvo i bo-
Miiller, L. 1995. "O vremeni kanonizatsii svi- goslovskaia literatura v kievskoi Rusi (gSS-i2^y
atykh Borisa i Gleba" Russia Mediaevalis 8, gg.). St Petersburg.
5- 20. Poppe, A. 1994. "Politik und Heiligenverehrung
Nazarenko, A. V. 1996. "Elementy zhitiinoi tra- in der Kiever Rus'. Der apostelgleiche Herr-
ditsii o sv. Vladimire v zapadno-evropeiskoi scher und seine Martyrersohne", in J. Peter-
literature pervoi poloviny XI v." in V. M. sohn (ed.) 1994. Politik und Heiligenverehrung
Kirillin (ed.) 1996. Drevniaia Rus' i Zapad: im Hochmittelalter, 403-22. Sigmaringen.
JOHNH. UND
44°
. 2007. "Sv. Gleb na breeze. Zametka o Stender-Petersen, A. 1953. "The Varangians and
remesle issledovatelia" Ruthenica 6, 308-14. the Cave Monastery", in Varangica, 139-50.
Preobrazhenskii, A. S. 2009. "Vladimir (Vasilii) Aarhus.
Sviatoslavich", in Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, Tarvel, E. 1997. "Mission und Glaubenswechsel
vol. 8 , 6 9 0 - 7 i 8 < http://www.pravenc.ru/text/ in Estland und Livland im 11.-13. Jahrhundert
BAaAHMHp%20(BaCHAHH)%20CBST0CAaBH<!. aufgrund sprachlicher Quellen", in RBN, vol.
html> [accessed 25 August 2015]. 2, 57-67.
Prokopenko, L. V. 2012. "Prolog i Sinaksar'" Thomson, F.J. 1988-1989. "The Bulgarian Con-
Russkaia literatura 2012/4, 87-100. tribution to the Reception of Byzantine Cul-
Purhonen, P. 1997. "East and West in Early Finn- ture in Kievan Rus': The Myths and the Enig-
ish Christianity", in RBN, vol. 1, 373-87. ma" HUS12-13, 214-61.
Reisman, E. S. 1978. "The Cult of Boris and Gleb: Tolochko, O. P. 2011. '"Varangian Christianity'
Remnant of a Varangian Tradition?" Russian in Tenth-Century Rus'", in ECWVG, 58-69.
Review 37,141-57. . 2013. "Church of St Elijah, 'Baptized
Shakhmatov, A. A. 1897. "Kievo-Pecherskii pa- Ruses' and the Date of the Second Ruso-Byz-
terik i Pecherskaia letopis'" Izvestiia Otdele- antine Treaty" BSl 71,111-28.
niia russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti Imperatorskoi Tolochko, P. P. 2009. "Istoricheskaia topografi-
akademii nauk 2, 795-844. ia rannego Kieva: real'naia i vymyshlennaia"
. 1907. "Kak nazyvalsia pervyi russkii Ruthenica 8,151-83.
sviatoi muchenik" Izvestiia Imperatorskoi Toporov, V. N. 1995. Sviatost' i sviatye v russkoi
akademii nauk 1/9, 261-64. dukhovnoi kul'ture, vol. 1. Moscow.
Shepard, J. 2007. "Rus"', in CRCM, 369-416. Tvorogov, O. V. 1987. "Zhitie Antoniia Pecher-
. 2009. "The Coming of Christianity to skogo" SKKDR, vol. 1,135-36.
Rus: Authorized and Unauthorized Versions" Vvedenskii, A. M. 2009. "Zhitie Var-
in C. B. Kendall et al. (eds) 2009. Conversion iagov-muchenikov (funktsionirovanie leg-
to Christianity from Late Antiquity to the Mod- endy v letopisi i v Prologe)" DRVM 4/38,
ern Age, 185-222. Minneapolis. 63-72.
. 2010. "From the Bosporus to the Brit- White, M. 2010. "Byzantine Saints in Rus' and
ish Isles: The Way from the Greeks to the Va- the Cult of Boris and Gleb", in Antonsson &
rangians", DG 2009,15-42. Garipzanov (eds) 2010, 95-114.
SBVSO, M. 2010. "Tidligkristne begravelser Zhivov, V. M. 2002. Razyskaniia v oblasti istorii i
ved Ribe Domkirke—Ansgars kirkegard?" predistorii russkoi kul'tury. Moscow.
Arkaologi i Slesvig/Archaologie in Schleswig 13,
147-64.

WHITE - Byzantium and The Viking World

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

WHITE - Byzantium and The Viking World

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

WHITE - Byzantium and The Viking World

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

BYZANTIUM

PART I: CONTACTS AND CULTURAL TRANSFER BETWEEN

PART II: CONTACTS REFLECTED IN THE MATERIAL CULTURE

PART III: CONTACTS REFLECTED IN THE WRITTEN SOURCES

PART IV: CHRISTIANITY AND THE INTENSIFICATION OF CONTACTS

DeCer Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, The Book of Ceremonies. Ed. J. J.

Mork. Morkinskinna. Ed. Armann Jakobsson & PorSur Ingi Gudjonsson, 2

Rus'AP N . A. Makarov (ed.) 2012. Rus' v IX-X vekakh. Arkheologicheskaia Pano-

SOME INITIAL REMARKS ON TERMINOLOGY

* M o s t renderings are the author's, but for c o n v e n i e n c e r e f e r e n c e is g i v e n t o t h e s t a n d a r d transla-

129). U n l i k e 'Varangian', t h e t e r m ' V i k i n g ' w a s n e v e r u s e d at t h e t i m e a b o u t S c a n d i n a v i a n s as

m a n i c p e o p l e as pirates or e n e m y warriors ( L i n d 2011).

advanced (in D a n i s h ) in 1994 a n d s u m m a r i s e d i n L i n d 2 0 x 0 , 185 n . 2, t h e r e c a n b e n o doubt

that for the early period the Novgorod First Chronicle ( y o u n g e r r e c e n s i o n ) c o n t a i n s a t e x t t h a t

ans, n o t least A n g l o - S a x o n s ; see, f o r e x a m p l e , E B ; S h e p a r d 2010.

vera variazhskaia, u s e d in later R u s texts as equivalent t o Latin Christianity.

origins in O l d East Slavonic, perhaps with O l d C h u r c h Slavonic as a m e d i u m . They

pappi < p o p (nom>) = priest;

risti < krest (KpecTt) = cross;

Bulgarian influence, see also T h o m s o n 1988-1989.

EARLY CHRISTIANITY BEFORE THE CONVERSION OF RULERS

age of Christ, King H a r a l d made several claims in the stone's inscription, o n e of w h i c h

in m e m o r y o f T h y r a [I>yrve], his m o t h e r ; t h a t H a r a l d w h o w o n f o r h i m s e l f all o f D e n m a r k and

Norway and made the Danes Christian": <http://runer.ku.dk/VisGenstand.aspx!Titel=Jell-

ing-sten_2> [accessed n January 2014].

has b e e n identified as A r c h b i s h o p V o l k m a r o f C o l o g n e (965-969).

Corvey, Res gestae Saxonicae III.65,168.

v e n e r a t i o n o f St Vitus, p a t r o n saint o f C o r v e y M o n a s t e r y , w a s t r a n s f o r m e d i n t o t h e p a g a n ven-

Bysted 2012, 76-77.

o f T a u . T h a t s e e m s at least to b e t h e case w h e n t h e y a p p e a r a l o n g s i d e ' n o r m a l ' crosses o n a Dan-

ish R o m a n e s q u e b a p t i s m a l font, depicted in Capelle 2 0 0 5 , 1 7 6 . A c c o r d i n g to Capelle, syncretism

w a s n o t a d o m i n a n t feature in D e n m a r k , w h e r e p a g a n i s m a n d Christianity d i d n o t m e r g e but

co-existed over a long period.

articles in a r e c e n t a n t h o l o g y : A n d r o s h c h u k 2013; Eniosova & P u s h k i n a 2013; K o v a l e n k o 2013

a n d papers in the present volume. J o n a t h a n S h e p a r d has recently s u m m a r i s e d the archaeological

data: Shepard 2009,193-95, 205-06, w h e r e h e suggests at least an e l e m e n t o f religious syncre-

t i s m a n d e c l e c t i s m a m o n g Rus. B u t as w e shall see, t h e R u s - B y z a n t i n e t r e a t y o f 9 4 4 m a k e s a clear

distinction between Christian or "baptised" Rus o n the one h a n d a n d p a g a n or "unbaptised" Rus

o n the other, as seen f r o m a B y z a n t i n e perspective.

t o t h e west, as H o l l i n g s w o r t h suggests, O l g a m a y have a t t e m p t e d to organise a national church:

nates, o n w h o s e behalf the treaties were c o n c l u d e d ( m o r e t h a n seventy n a m e s are m e n t i o n e d in

t h e 9 4 4 treaty), see M e l ' n i k o v a 2004.

t o b e p r e s e n t e d as "Riurik's m e n " a n d t h e r e b y illegitimate rulers in K i e v a r o u n d 8 6 0 , t h e compil-

er of t h e Primary Chronicle m a k e s his g e n e a l o g y o f t h e early Riurikids l o o k highly suspect, with

Riurik fathering Igor before 879 a n d Igor m a r r y i n g O l g a in 9 0 3 b u t only fathering Sviatoslav in

also suggested by J o n a t h a n Shepard, w a s at the t i m e an oligarchy rather t h a n a m o n a r c h y : Shep-

ard 2009, 201-04.

in t h e m o r n i n g , Igor s u m m o n e d the envoys, a n d w e n t to a hill o n w h i c h there w a s a statue of

( N e a E k k l e s i a ) in t h e G r e a t Palace, w h i c h w a s a m o n g s t o t h e r s d e d i c a t e d t o St Elijah or, p e r h a p s ,

a s e p a r a t e C h u r c h o f St Elijah close by, b o t h e r e c t e d b y Basil I: E b e r s o l t 1910, 1 3 0 - 3 7 . See also

k h r e s t e i a n u i u R u s ' v o d i s h a r o t e v t s e r k v i s v i a t o g o I l ' i " ; RPC 77.

THE RATIFICATION OF THE 944 TREATY IN THE CHURCH OF ST ELIJAH, KIEV

O n t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of t h e t o p o g r a p h y in K i e v o n this p o i n t , see T o p o r o v 1995, 285-86.

of the treaty's ratification s u p p o s e d l y held in Kiev. This invented story w a s b a s e d entirely on

t h e idea of w h a t p r o t o c o l s h o u l d l o o k like, w h i c h w a s s u p p l i e d by t h e text of t h e treaty itself":

T o l o c h k o 2011, 65. In a r e c e n t article T o l o c h k o h a s e l a b o r a t e d h i s p o i n t o f v i e w f u r t h e r : Toloch-

o f its e n d o r s e m e n t in K i e v b y t h e p r i n c e a n d his m e n " , w h e r e t h e first is " d o c u m e n t a r y " , while

t h e s e c o n d o n e is " o v e r t l y n a r r a t i v e " . T h i s , a c c o r d i n g t o T o l o c h k o , is " a t y p i c a l a r r a n g e m e n t for