i'm still here for you.

and we came to the greek land, they led us to where they serve their god, and we did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth, for there is no such spectacle and such beauty on earth, we only know that god dwells there. their service by people is better than in all other countries, we cannot forget the beauty of that, for every person, if he tastes the sweet, will not take the bitter, so in the tale of bygone years , the ambassadors of prince vladimir describe their impressions of visiting the church of hagia sophia in constantinople. hello, we are here today gathered their thoughts about the baptism of rus'.

hello, dear friends, hello, vladimirovich, proteraeus maxim kozlov, chairman of the educational committee of the russian orthodox church, vladislav igorevich petrushko, doctor of church history, professor, i am vladimir ligoida, we are starting, it is no coincidence that i brought this famous quote, because it sounds like , what sergei sergeevich overentsev called a theological argument, beauty as a theological argument, so i would like to start with this, why exactly... this category was mentioned there and it’s so important, verintsev even writes, it’s not so important how historically truthful the story is, it’s important how it is recorded in cultural memory, father maxim, indeed, in this case, the specific historical authenticity of this story fades into the background for us, it’s important, that this is how the church remembers this, remembers the tradition, how it...

proceeded, and architectural proportions, and frescoes and mosaics, we ourselves will use the expression of father paul of florence, the cult actions that take place there, the totality of singing, coding, brilliant clothes, shining clothes of the clergy, exclamations that sound in a precisely calibrated tonality, liturgical singing that has already formed in its harmony, this is

truly an extraordinary experience, which, well, in a thousand times divided world , even today’s visitor, defiled and misused, can experience sophia of constantinople, simply from the harmony of architectural forms and the grandeur of the remains of frescoes and mosaics, and the fact that our very simple compatriots were the first to come into contact with beauty. felt this beautiful, this says that the soul of a christian, according to the words of zertelian, who always seeks the good and right, finds this good and right in the beautiful too. but you can still say that this is, well, not only an aesthetic feeling, because all this creates a feeling of atmosphere, yes, when they say: here god dwells with people, what touched me with confidence, beauty, as a theological argument. of course, you can

use a word that has now become widely used among modern theologians, theoaesthetics, aesthetics, divine. beauty, that beauty which, well, i don’t know if it saves the world according to dostoevsky, but definitely elevates the soul to the heavenly, heavenly world, and which in this sense becomes a step for the meeting of the human soul with god, and for this you do not need to be an intellectual , you don’t necessarily need to read a lot of books, you don’t even need to be theologically educated, you don’t need to be able to read, you may not be able to read, you just need to have a soul ready to respond, thank god.

or maybe not even so much - some religious feelings felt, yes, and above all, the greatness of the byzantine empire, which certainly sought to somehow, so to speak, extend its power over these peoples, but here we see something else, what was impressive was not the power of the empire, not its greatness, so to speak , power, that’s it - our seemingly still semi-wild ancestors, they felt this touch of god, here the text comes to mind: the book of acts, where the holy spirit descended, as we know, and in one of the episodes, on those who had not yet been baptized, on pagans, romans, here, and, there's something here similar, yes, here is some kind of touch, the grace of god on the hearts of these people, it happened, these seemingly

uneducated people, they felt that main meaning of the divine service, which, in fact, was revealed to them in the cathedral of st. sophia, they felt and so... russia, for many centuries, was not primarily a theological state and the russian church was not the center of theological thought, but the beautiful begins to be created, in fact, first with the history of russia as a christian state, from sophia

kiev, sofia novgorod, to the temples of the intercession of the nerl, to the temple of moscow russia to that medieval one.

years, there the author puts into vladimir’s mouth such words that he lived like a beast and thanks god for enlightening him, transforming him, because indeed vladimir, who, as we see, again on the pages of the chronicle in his young years, rules russia , this is something terrible, yes, this is, and i apologize for interrupting here, but you can say that, hypothetically, that he was there when he became a prince, if he were there in a few years died, then, in fact, in the memory of the people he would simply remain as a very cruel ruler, even by the standards of that cruel time, and the founder of a regular pagan cult, moreover, judging by the text of the chronicle, again, yes, as the lithographer says, there never was

such a thing vile idolatry in russia, as under vladimir, means, apparently , the abundance of human sacrifices, something that even paganism before vladimir’s time still did not know to such an extent, and yet, it would seem, yes, then there is a fundamental change taking place personal, first of all, well, for starters, we see a certain apogee of paganism, but suddenly... the same vladimir, who carries out a reform of paganism, yes, establishes a certain all-russian cult led by perun, he, in fact, does not overthrow it, and he brings russia to the light of the gospel, to christianity, this is, of course, in general a feat and a miracle, and this will probably never be fully understood to us, these are some truly inscrutable destinies of god, but they are accomplished through specific people, and ...

accepted so wholeheartedly that he didn't understands how the death penalty is possible in this case, very sincerely, it is very deep, yes, very, maybe in some ways childish, but the christian faith is very sincerely accepted, in this we see, in general, just the moment, it seems to me that this is a very reliable chronicle narrative, because often, especially in the soviet years , everything was reduced to certain political constructions, to the fact that vladimir was introducing a tax.

in the turning point that he experienced, we also know how this tradition of faith, during the years

of atheistic power, was passed on from his grandmother to grandchildren and granddaughters, often bypassing the generation of children, and also by no means always immediately manifested itself, but how many people then came to church and came to church, just a personal immediate memory of what they were taught as small children, those trips there. orthodox russian grandmothers bringing their grandchildren, grandsons, great-grandsons and great-granddaughters to church, maxim, the church tradition calls them, the church calls them equal-to-the-apostles for vladimir, but this, what does it mean, those are called equal-to-the-apostles in the tradition of church veneration of saints people who contributed to the conversion

of entire nations or states into the fold of the church. holy equal-to-the-apostles nina, enlightener of grunia, st. gregory, enlightener of armenia, in modern times st. nicholas of japan, founder of orthodoxy in japan, or other ascetics of piety of modern times. in this sense, we can say that princess olga and prince vladimir together personally carried out that revolution, without which the conversion of the people of kiev, the original christian community of russia, would not have been possible, because the example of a prince, the example of the first man of the state, the first man in the city, he was then and now, of course, exceptional.

therefore, there was some obvious coercion during the baptism of the kievans, mass coercion, or at least dissatisfaction with what they were, of course. prompted prince vladimir with effort, did not take place, therefore no pagan renaissance, no russian julian apostate would have existed after prince vladimir, and this is thanks to his feat, he is truly in this sense a great equal to the apostles, that is, we can say that in comparison with many other european nations, it was baptism

that we had such a mild option, although the chronicle again says what the phrase means there : the mouth, in my opinion, of prince vladimir, correct me if i’m wrong, that who tomorrow he will not come to the dnieper to be baptized, he is not my friend, no, this is present, but on the other hand, in this phrase one should not see some kind of threat, aggression, daza, we must remember, after all, that the power of the prince at that time was largely patriarchal, the prince was perceived as the head of a certain family, clan, of the entire russian people, the people trusted the choice of the prince in many ways, this is one thing, the second is such an amazing moment, because neither the sources, nor folklore, yes, nor any foreign sources tell us anything about the forced baptism of russia, we know very well what can we say, charlemagne exterminated half of the saxons there in order to baptize the other half, yes, we don’t see anything like that, but on the other hand, it’s true, maybe this was the reason that

paganism still existed somewhere in the world for quite a long time outskirts, but at the same time quite... gently, peacefully, christianity was instilled in russia, and even here the only episode that is often referred to is that in novgorod, yes, the putyata and dobrynya baptized with fire and sword, but this is information that was gleaned from the history of tatishchivo, and which, well, let’s say, is not the most reliable, and much more, so to speak, objective is the fact that in novgorod , just a few years later, an episcopal... is established, which suggests that, of course, in novgorod, too, christianity is quite easy and it took root peacefully and began to develop. but the figure of prince vladimir, as it is perceived there in russian history, in russian culture, that’s what we can say here, well, the church veneration of prince vladimir took place, of course, throughout

most of the history of the russian church, he is not the first russian famous saint, but certainly. recognition of his feat, not only as a feat of state building, but as a feat of holiness, is something that is inextricably linked with the historical path of the russian church. in this sense, one cannot say that this is some kind of new political glorification, accomplished retroactively, not based on personal qualities, but based on the scale and results of the activities of prince vladimir. hero of culture.

that you and i will not be able to, but this may also be affected by the fact that in russian literature and there in other forms of art, in literature especially of the classical age, they preferred not to write about saints in literary literature, and partly the censorship did not welcome this lighting, partly it was the understanding that, well, secular literature is about something else, it’s not about...

if possible, i would add here that, of course, father maxim is right that after all, the nobility, the intelligentsia, yes, this is a slightly different, so to speak, layer with different demands, but nevertheless, in this environment we see memory about prince vladimir , it may be refracted in a slightly different way, yes, this is, first of all, the establishment of the order of st. vladimir in the russian empire, one of the highest, very respected, this is some kind. well, absolutely incredibly large-scale construction of churches in honor of st. vladimir, st. vladimir cathedral in kiev in khersanes tauride in sevastopol admiral.

i was there telling them about this window to europe, suddenly i was like this, i somehow never thought of cutting a window in something, which means that there must be something, that is, there must be some kind of wall, it turns out that again, if we turn to the tale of bygone years, where it is clearly shown that the choice is already taking place not only between christianity and other religions, as we would say today, but between roman christianity and constantinople, it turns out that this is the wall that prince vladimir started building.

the wife of the french heir to the throne and king, then then all this is still a completely different context than it is seen from a different position, although of course the orientation at

that time was the only real empire, byzantium, which we began to call byzantium there since the 18th century with the suggestion of german historians, that is, the roman, and essentially the roman empire, then the state. which continues throughout its history for thousands of years, joining this entire tradition is in any sense the most important choice, whether consciously or unconsciously by the prince vladimir realized, it was thanks to this choice that russia became the heir to the work of cyril and methodius, everything that came first to the southern slavs, the reading of the sacred...

this is extremely significant for everything that russia later became, and how, thanks to this , the people’s soul was transformed, because indeed we will see how in the near future after the baptism of russia it becomes possible for people like antonia, feodosia, the pecharskys to appear on the one hand, and, perhaps, even more surprisingly, even more inconceivably for paganism, like boris and gleb, the first canonized, glorified russian saints on the other, who chose the law of the gospel, and not even the law of justice of this world, it is amazing how quickly this is happening in our people. and i understand that of course, well, firstly, the search for temporary years was written later than the events, yes, that it describes, i mean in this case the baptism of russia, including i understand that before

the division.

missionaries, but here it seems to me that the hypothesis of shakhmatov and preselkovo that under vladimir the russian church was more likely to in all, it was not strictly dependent on constantinople, and vladimir tried to follow this bulgarian path, creating some kind of church structure within a single church, but without any strict connection to any particular center, be it rome or

constantinople, all this.. but even the fog that we see in the tale of bygone years, in relation to the era of prince vladimir, speaks of some kind of subsequent editing of some initial chronicle texts of that time, which, on the one hand, is emphasized. the significance of the figure of vladimir, on the other hand , we don’t see some kind of... maybe yes, and it seems to me that this is some kind of resentment of the byzantines after the fact, attempts to somehow present it in this way is another point, after all, rurikovich of that time , in many ways still thinks of himself as part of the norman world of the varangian and vorag.

christianity is equally accepted both at the western courts and at the court of emperor rameev, where this varang guard exists, the path to the greeks allowed, in general, these two worlds, western and eastern, to unite two christian poles, and vladimir, probably also somewhere in the middle between them, also refracted this unity in a special way, so somehow i felt, well, you can also remember that the first ... the great theological text of ancient russia, the word of law and grace of metropolitan ilorion, it does not at all concentrate on the theological differences of the east and west, his entire theology of history, all ecclesiology, the word of the law of grace is a clisiology of biblical history and the christian church, as a gift of grace the new testament without all these

insipid differences, and

this was a way out of ethnic-pagan self-isolation, and this was essentially a choice that meant national self-denial, no matter how much we learned.

well, historically this is quite an obvious fact and which, in fact, may be opposed to the political situation, partly today, despite all its difficulties, well, of course , this unity, especially in my opinion

, manifested itself in the pre-mongol period, then, as we know, after the mongol invasion it was very cool the fate of westerners has changed territories of russia, historical, and northeastern russia. if the west fell under the rule of lithuania and poland, then in the northeast of russia, russian statehood nevertheless developed independently slowly, steadily, but still turned into the state that later united the russian lands again, but during this period, yes, relatively small, under foreign influence, of course, some changes took place that led to some isolation... here the population of western russia to the formation of subethnic groups, so to speak, but of course, much more unites us , including the memory of the single dnieper font, of orthodoxy, and no matter how they tried,

say, to impose a union on the western russian lands, this practically failed, except for galicia, which became completely isolated and then came under the rule of austria-hungary here, and then poland again, then in general. even in the west of russia, uniatism, greek catholicism, and, so to speak, it actually could not establish itself to its orthodox origins; the western russian population returned, that’s why, of course, i think political, of course, these dramatic events of recent years, they very, of course, greatly transform the self-awareness of the inhabitants of these regions, but somehow... i still want to believe that sooner or later the awareness of one’s russian origin, russian root, our common roots, origins, it will come to these lands.

protereus maxim kozlov, vladislav igorevich petrushko, i am vladimir ligoido, we have gathered our thoughts about the baptism of russia. let's continue. i would like to have time to talk about such a concept as holy russia. after all, this is also like this unique, just like that.

there was no sin or weakness then, we know perfectly well that there was, and the measure of cruelty, and the measure of betrayal there, it was also often colossal, including in ancient russia between russian princes, but another important thing is that those who sinned knew that they were sinning, the holiness of the way of life was the norm, which even those who did not reach it, or those who retreated in relation to it, are very far away. and this really was determining the consciousness of our compatriots

throughout those centuries that we call centuries of holy russia, and this is the greatest historical heritage and memory, a monument, in particular to prince vladimir, it was thanks to him that this became possible, and this is what we must recreate if we hope for some positive prospect for the development of our society, our...

i would say that the de-churching of our nobility, the intelligentsia, nevertheless, in the 19th century we are seeing, albeit not a total, but such a return, but the return of very many representatives, the best representatives of our intelligentsia, indeed, yes, rulers. thoughts, such as gogol, are there, first of all, yes, like dostoevsky, like many similar figures, yes, still to, well, again, those spiritual foundations that nourished. in the middle ages, russian society,

some kind of rethinking, perhaps of this, and, accordingly, an understanding of holy russia, this is what, it seems to me, was somehow reflected in the karamazov brothers, especially vividly, you know, in at the end of our conversation, that ’s what for us today, i’ll probably ask, means loyalty to this choice, which then the things the prince did for himself...

a feeling of some incredible unity and unity of the russian people led by their prince, and this feeling of a single family in which, well, the people trust the prince. the prince does not rape the people, does not, so to speak, harshly impose his choice on them, yes, this is a big family in which everyone has their own destiny, everyone does their own thing, together there is a feeling of some kind of very special amazing unity, here it seems to me that this is some kind of commerton with which one should compare our lives with the era of prince vladimir. well, as for the celebration,

indeed, it should not be limited to a narrow church celebration, yes, of course orthodox people should probably attend a service on this day, but this holiday is much broader, i think, and non-believers of other religions are representatives of all -we should probably also realize that russia was formed as a state.

vladimir ligoyda we gathered our thoughts about the baptism of russia, this and other episodes of the podcast gathered our thoughts, you can look at the official pages of the podcast lab project.

well, today we have alexander nevsky, a figure in many ways... mythologized, well, a classic example, whoever comes to us with a sword will die by the sword, this is the grand duke, of course he didn’t say this, this is from a film from einstein, and a lot of other things such, so to speak, that does not coincide with real history, in the old days , in general, alexander nevsky was glorified first of all by the church, not as a warrior, naturally no one denies his valor, but first of all. his wisdom was appreciated patience and even humility, that’s why yes, we need to deal with this figure. well, indeed, there are discussions around alexander nevsky among historians, and not only historians, there are a lot of myths, and these myths are difficult to separate from the truth, especially since there are not many sources, this is our task, i

think this is the task of historians first of all , yes, it’s to compare all these few data, to choose something...

about the threat of the west and the fact that the forces inspired by the vatican were advancing towards russia, so to speak, but even more a terrible danger threatened from the east, this was a horde, because in those days just a lot of cities were destroyed and people fell into slavery. a significant part of russia paid tribute, so alexander nevsky inherited what he inherited, as they say, he got. it was not he who created this situation, but when he matured and became, one might say, governor in novgorod, and then headed the principality, he

had to solve these two problems, two threats that were approaching russia, west and east, he solved them differently, he had an approach, if in the west he could resist, this is what he did with a sword. hands, then in the east he had to conduct a very flexible, difficult, humiliating policy, because he was on the losing side, he was the losing side, here is klyuchevsky regarding alexander nevsky, he quite rightly said that he had to demonstrate when to combine incompatible qualities, on the one hand , military valor, on the other...

what we are not aware of now is how he resolved issues of relations with the horde. let's talk about it of course, but first, probably, about the context related to western europe. here the struggle was going on in estonia, the territory of latvia, livonia , this struggle began, it must be said that the west,

the germans, actually considered the territory to be the baltic lands then, but before , strictly speaking, the spheres of influence of the russian princes, the russian princes took tribute there, maybe not regularly , but nevertheless they took tribute, when catholic missionaries appeared there, then initially there was no conflict ... with themselves, this was not a challenge to the russian principality, they actually they asked to preach the word of god in these lands, and the russian princes, who influenced these lands, who took tribute from them, generally did not particularly object. the conflict arose after the penetration became more aggressive. bishop meingard, who was appointed by the pope to the bishopric, interestingly, is an exclusive in russia, that is, this territory was considered, as it were, already russia. ruthenia, to be precise, who brought christianity to livonia, he was uh, at first, he made a treaty with the livonians, yes, accordingly, he began to build stone

castles there, uh, in the territory of christianized tribes, but he was not satisfied with the christian zeal of these tribes, uh, they even threatened to kill him, and his successor , bishop berthold schulty, was distinguished by even greater zeal, which ended with , that he was killed 2 years later, after which he became a bishop after the death of his... predecessor in 1698, which in turn led to the first crusade in the baltic lands against the pagans. of course, these are not the crusades that against the arabs, and for the liberation of the holy sepulcher, but subsequently it must be said that riga, which the germans would rebuild to penetrate these territories, was perceived as such a northern jerusalem , far from the southern one, especially since the crusaders had setbacks there just at that moment, jerusalem was lost, here accordingly ... a new application of forces, the crusades were then repeated in the baltic lands, on the initiative of the monk theodoric, an associate

of these bishops, the order of mechins was organized.