The history of the conversion of the Russians (now called Muscovites)
to the faith of Christ, has been perplexed by the mistakes of many
who have treated this point of history. The learned Jesuit F.
Antony Possevin was betrayed into many falsities concerning this
people.[271] And upon his authority some have pretended that the
Muscovites received the faith from the Greek schismatics, and at the
same time adhered to their schism; than which, nothing can be more
notoriously false, as Henschenius and Papebrochius[272] show. F.
Stilting, another learned Bollandist, has demonstrated by an express
dissertation,[273] that the Muscovites were at first Catholics,
and that even in the time of the Council of Florence the Catholics
and schismatics in Russia made two equal halves. The Greek schism
was formed by Cerularius several years after the conversion of the
Russians. The schism indeed of Phocius was a short prelude to it.
Cedrenus, Zonaras, and some others relate, that an army of Russians
besieged Constantinople in the time of the emperor Michael III.,
when Photius held that see; and that being obliged to raise the
siege, they obtained certain Greek priests from Constantinople, who
instructed them in the Christian faith. This first mission Baronius
places in 853, Pagi in 861; but this must either be understood of
some tribe of Russians in Bohemia, where St. Cyril then preached; or
these authors must have confounded together things which happened
at different times; for the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenetta,
who lived near that time, and could not but be acquainted with this
transaction, says both in his life of his grandfather, Basil the
Macedonian, and in his book, On administering the Empire, that the
Russians besieged the city in the time of Photius, but that they
were converted to the faith by priests sent at their request from
Constantinople in the time of Basil the Macedonian and the patriarch
St. Ignatius, whom that prince restored upon his ascending the throne
in 867; which also appears from Zonarus.
The first plant of the faith in this nation was the holy queen Helen,
called before her baptism Olga. She was wife to the duke Ihor or
Igor, who undertook an expedition against the city of Constantinople,
as Simeon Metaphrastes, the monk George, Cedrenus, Zonaras, and
Curopalates relate. Having been repulsed by the generals of the
emperors Romanus and Constantine, he was slain by the Dreulans in
his return. His widow, Olga, with great valor and conduct, revenged
his death, vanquished the Dreulans, and governed the state several
years with uncommon prudence and courage. When she was almost seventy
years old, she resigned the government to her son Suatoslas, and
going to Constantinople, was there baptized, taking the name of
Helen.[274] Many place this event in 952, which date seems most
agreeable to the Greek historians; but Kulcinius and Stilting infer
from the chronology of the dukes of Russia, that she seems to have
been baptized in 945. We are expressly assured by Constantine
Porphyrogenetta that it happened in 946. She returned into her own
country, and by her zealous endeavors brought many to the faith; but
was never able to compass the conversion of her son, who was probably
withheld by reasons of state. She died in 970 or 978. Her grandson,
Uladimir, who succeeded Suatoslas, asked by a solemn embassy, and
obtained in marriage, Anne, sister to the two emperors Basil and his
colleague and brother Constantine. Nicholas Crysoberga, the orthodox
patriarch of Constantinople, a person always zealous in maintaining
the communion of the see of Rome, at that prince’s request, sent into
Muscovy one Michael with other preachers, who baptized Uladimir,
and married him to the princess about the year 988.[275] This duke
founded near Kiow the great monastery of the Cryptæ in favor of the
abbot St. Antony, and died, according to Kulcinius, in 1008. His two
sons SS. Boris and Hliba or Cliba, called in Latin Romanus and David,
were murdered by the usurper Suatopelch, their impious brother, in
1010. It was their zeal for the faith of Christ which gave occasion
to their death. Jaroslas, another brother, defeated the usurper, and
obtained the principality; his daughter Anne was married to Henry
I., king of France, in 1044, and became the foundress of the church
of St. Vincent at Senlis. Romanus and David are honored in Muscovy
on the 24th of July. Their remains were translated into a church
which was built in their honor at Vislegorod in 1072, the ceremony
being performed with great pomp, by George the fifth archbishop of
Kiow, and several other bishops, in presence of Izazlas, Suatoslas,
and Usevolod, princes of Russia, and a great train of noblemen. The
synod of Zamoski, in 1720, which was approved by the Congregation
de Propagandâ Fide, and confirmed by pope Benedict XIII., reckons
among the holidays of precept which are kept by the Catholic Russians
in Lithuania and other provinces, the feast of these two martyrs,
celebrated on the 24th of July; and that of the translation of their
relics on the 2d of May.[276] The Catholic Russians in Lithuania and
Poland keep no festival of any other Muscovite saints except of these
two martyrs.[277] But the Muscovites honor several other saints of
their own country; several among whom flourished, and doubtless were
placed by them in their Calendar before their schism, as Papebroke
and Jos. Assemani observe. Such are the queen Helen or Olga, on the
11th of July, who died, according to Kulcinius, in 978. Uladimir,
her grandson, duke of the Russians, and son of Suatoslas on the 15th
of July, who was baptized in 990, died in 1014, and was buried in
our Lady’s church at Kiow.[278] Antony, abbot, a native of Russia,
who embraced the monastic state upon Mount Athos, and returning to
Kiow, became the patriarch of that Order in his own country, and on
a mountain half a mile from the town founded, about the year 1020,
the great Russian monastery of Pieczari or the Cryptæ, in which the
archimandrite of all the Russian monks resides, and the archbishop
of Kiow has an apartment. Antony died in 1073, on the 10th of July,
on which his festival is kept in Muscovy.[279] This monastery is
famous for the Cryptæ or vaults, in which the bodies of many saints
and monks who lived above six hundred years ago, remain uncorrupted
and fresh. Agapetus, disciple of Antony, at the Cryptæ, famous for
miracles, honored on the 1st of June. Athanasius, monk at the Cryptæ,
on the 2d of December; he was a native of Trapesond, who, by the
liberality and protection of the emperor Nicephorus Phocas, founded
the great monastery on Mount Athos in Macedonia. He is honored by the
Greeks and Muscovites on the 5th of July.[280] The lives of these and
several other ancient monks of this house were written by Polycarp,
who died in 1182. The grand duke Alexander, surnamed Newski, who died
in 1262, and is honored on the 30th of April. Sergius, an abbot, is
honored by the Muscovites on the 25th of September. He died in 1292,
and was never involved in the schism, as Papebroke, Kulcinius, and
Jos. Assemani show. This Sergius was born at Roslow, founded the
monastery of the Holy Trinity at Rudosno (sixty Italian miles from
Moscow), the richest and most numerous in Muscovy, in which are
sometimes two or three hundred monks. The body of Sergius is kept
there incorrupt, and is much visited out of devotion from Moscow,
sometimes by the czars. These and several others who are named in the
Muscovite Calendar with the most eminent saints of the eastern and
western churches, lived either before or when this nation was not
engaged in the Greek schism. But to these saints the Muscovites add
some few who died since their separation from the catholic communion,
as Photius, archbishop of Kiow, whose principal merit consisted in
the obstinacy with which he maintained the schism. See Kulcinius,
Specimen Ecclesiæ Ruthenicæ; Papebroke in the beginning of May, Comm.
in Ephem. Jos. Assemani, in Calend. Univ. ad 25 Sept. t. 5, p. 254,
&c.