Commemorated on July 15
Few names in
the annals of history can compare in significance with the name of St
Vladimir, the Baptizer of Rus, who stands at the beginning of the
spiritual destiny of the Russian Church and the Russian Orthodox people.
Vladimir was the grandson of St Olga, and he was the son of Svyatoslav
(+ 972). His mother, Malusha (+ 1001) was the daughter of Malk
Liubechanin, whom historians identify with Mal, prince of the Drevlyani.
Having subdued an uprising of the Drevlyani and conquered their cities,
Princess Olga gave orders to execute Prince Mal for his attempt to
marry her after he murdered her husband Igor, and she took to herself
Mal's children, Dobrynya and Malusha. Dobrynya grew up to be a valiant
brave warrior, endowed with a mind for state affairs, and he was later
on an excellent help to his nephew Vladimir in matters of military and
state administration.
The "capable girl"
Malusha became a Christian (together with Great Princess Olga at
Constantinople), but she preserved in herself a bit of the mysterious
darkness of the pagan Drevlyani forests. Thus she fell in love with the
austere warrior Svyatoslav, who against the will of his mother Olga made
her his wife. The enraged Olga, regarding as unseemly the marriage of
her "housekeeper" and captive servant to her son Svyatoslav, heir to the
Great Kiev principality, sent Malusha away to her own native region not
far from Vybut. And there in about the year 960 was born the boy with
the Russian pagan name Volodimir, meaning peaceful ruler, ruling with a
special talent for peace.
In the year 970
Svyatoslav set out on a campaign from which he was fated not to return.
He had divided the Russian Land among his three sons. At Kiev Yaropolk
was prince; at Ovrucha, the center of the Drevlyani lands, was Oleg; at
Novgorod was Vladimir. In his first years as prince, we see Vladimir as a
fierce pagan. He headed a campaign, in which the whole of pagan Rus is
sympathetic to him, against Yaropolk the Christian, or in any case,
according to the chronicles, "having given great freedom to the
Christians", on July 11, 978 he entered into Kiev, having become the
"sole ruler" of the Kiev realm, "having subdued the surrounding lands,
some by peaceful means, and the unsubmissive ones by the sword."
Though
Vladimir indulged himself in a wild, sensuous life, he was far from the
libertine that they sometimes portray him as being. He "shepherded his
land with truth, valor and reason", as a good and diligent master, of
necessity he extended and defended its boundaries by force of arms, and
in returning from military campaigns, he made for his companions and for
all Kiev liberal and merry feasts.
But the
Lord prepared him for another task. Where sin increases, there, in the
words of the Apostle, grace abounds (Rom. 5: 20). "And upon him came
visitation of the Most High, and the All-Merciful eye of the Good God
gazed upon him, and shone forth the thought in his heart, of
understanding the vanity of idolous delusion, and of appealing to the
One God, Creator of all things both visible and invisible." The matter
of accepting Baptism was facilitated through external circumstances. The
Byzantine Empire was in upheaval under the blows of the mutinous
regiments of Bardas Skliros and Bardas Phocas, each of whom sought to
gain the imperial throne. In these difficult circumstances the emperors,
the coregent brothers Basil the Bulgar-Slayer and Constantine, turned
for help to Vladimir.
Events unfolded
quickly. In August 987 Bardas Phocas proclaimed himself Emperor and
moved against Constantinople, and in autumn of that same year the
emissaries of Emperor Basil were at Kiev. "And having exhausted his
(Basil's) wealth, it compelled him to enter into an alliance with the
Emperor of the Russians. They were his enemies, but he besought their
help," writes one of the Arab chronicles of events in the 980s. "And the
Emperor of the Russians consented to this, and made common cause with
him."
As a reward for his military help,
Vladimir asked for the hand of the emperors' sister Anna, which for the
Byzantines was an unheard of audacity. Princesses of the imperial
lineage did not marry "barbarian" rulers, even if they were Christians.
At the same time the emperor Otto the Great was seeking the hand of Anna
for his son, and he was refused. However, in Vladimir's case
Constantinople was obliged to consent.
An
agreement was concluded, according to which Vladimir had to send the
emperors six thousand Varangians, and to accept holy Baptism. Under
these conditions he would receive the hand of the imperial daughter
Anna. Thus in the strife of human events the will of God directed the
entering of Rus into the grace-filled bosom of the Ecumenical Church.
Great Prince Vladimir accepted Baptism and sent the military assistance
to Byzantium. With the aid of the Russians, the mutineers were destroyed
and Bardas Phocas killed. But the Greeks, gladdened by their unexpected
deliverance, were in no hurry to fulfill their part of the bargain.
Vexed
at the Greek duplicity, Prince Vladimir "hastened to collect his
forces" and he moved "against Korsun, the Greek city," the ancient
Chersonessos. The "impenetrable" rampart of the Byzantine realm on the
Black Sea fell. It was one of the vitally important hubs of the economic
and mercantile links of the empire. This blow was so much felt, that
its echo resounded throughout all the regions of Byzantium.
Vladimir
again had the upper hand. His emissaries, the commanders Oleg and
Sjbern soon arrived in Constantinople for the imperial daughter. Eight
days passed in Anna's preparation, during which time her brothers
consoled her, stressing the significance of the opportunity before her:
to enable the enlightening of the Russian realm and its lands, and to
make them forever friends of the Byzantine realm. At Taurida St Vladimir
awaited her, and to his titles there was added a new one: Caesar
(Tsar). The haughty rulers of Constantinople had to accede also in this,
to bestow upon their new brother-in-law the imperial insignia. In
certain of the Greek historians, St Vladimir is termed from these times
as a "mighty basileios-king", he coins money in the Byzantine style and
is depicted on it with the symbols of imperial might: in imperial
attire, and on his head the imperial crown, and in his right hand the
sceptre with cross.
Together with the
empress Anna, there arrived for the Russian See Metropolitan Michael
ordained by holy Patriarch Nicholas II Chrysoberges. He came with his
retinue and clergy, and many holy relics and other holy things. In
ancient Chersonessos, where each stone brings to mind St Andrew the
First-Called, there took place the marriage-crowning of St Vladimir and
Blessed Anna, both reminiscent and likewise affirming the oneness of the
Gospel of Christ in Rus and in Byzantium. Korsun, the "empress's
dowry", was returned to Byzantium. In the spring of 988 the Great Prince
and his wife set out through the Crimea, Taman and the Azov lands,
which had come into the complexion of his vast realm on the return trip
to Kiev. Leading the princely cortege with frequent Services of
Thanksgiving and incessant priestly singing they carried crosses, icons
and holy relics. It seemed, that the Ecumenical Holy Church was moving
into the spacious Russian land, and renewed in the font of Baptism, Holy
Rus came forth to meet Christ and His Church.
Then
followed an unforgettable and quite singular event in Russian history:
the morning of the Baptism of the Kievans in the waters of the River
Dneipr. On the evening before, St Vladimir declared throughout the city:
"If anyone does not go into the river tomorrow, be they rich or poor,
beggar or slave, that one shall be my enemy." The sacred wish of the
holy Prince was fulfilled without a murmur: "all our land glorified
Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit at the same time."
It
is difficult to overestimate the deep spiritual transformation of the
Russian people effected by the prayers of St Vladimir, in every aspect
of its life and world-view. In the pure Kievan waters, as in a "bath of
regeneration", there was realized a sacramental transfiguration of the
Russian spiritual element, the spiritual birth of the nation, called by
God to unforeseen deeds of Christian service to mankind.
"Then
did the darkness of the idols begin to lift from us, and the dawn of
Orthodoxy appear, and the Sun of the Gospel illumined our land." In
memory of this sacred event, the regeneration of Rus by water and the
Spirit, the Russian Church established the custom of an annual church
procession "to the water" on August 1. Later, the Feast of the
Procession of the Honorable Wood of the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord,
which Russia celebrated with the Greek Church, was combined with the
Feast of the All-Merciful Savior and the Most Holy Theotokos
(established by St Andrew Bogoliubsky in the year 1164). In this
combination of feasts there is found a precise expression of the Russian
theological consciousness, for which both Baptism and the Cross are
inseparable.
Everywhere throughout Holy
Rus, from the ancient cities to the far outposts, St Vladimir gave
orders to destroy the pagan sanctuaries, to flog the idols, and in their
place to clear land in the hilly woods for churches, in which altars
would be consecrated for the Bloodless Sacrifice. Churches of God grew
up along the face of the earth, at high elevated places, and at the
bends of the rivers, along the ancient trail "from the Variangians to
the Greeks" figuratively as road signs and lamps of national holiness.
Concerning the famed church-building activity of St Vladimir, the
Metropolitan of Kiev St Hilarion (author of the "Word on Law and Grace")
exclaimed: "They demolished the pagan temples, and built up churches,
they destroyed the idols and produced holy icons, the demons have fled,
and the Cross has sanctified the cities."
From
the early centuries of Christianity it was the custom to raise up
churches upon the ruins of pagan sanctuaries or upon the blood of the
holy martyrs. Following this practice, St Vladimir built the church of
St Basil the Great upon a hill, where a sanctuary of Perun had been
located, and he built the stone church of the Dormition of the Most Holy
Theotokos (Desyatinnaya) on the place of the martyrdom of the holy
Varangian Martyrs (July 12). The magnificent temple was intended to
become the cathedral for the Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus, and thus
the primal altar of the Russian Church. It was built in five years, and
was richly adorned with frescoes, crosses, icons and sacred vessels,
brought from Korsun. The day of the consecration of the church of the
Most Holy Theotokos, May 12 (in some manuscripts May 11), was ordered by
St Vladimir to be inserted into the Church calendar as an annual
celebration. This event was linked with other events celebrated on May
11, and it provided the new Church a twofold sense of continuity. Under
this day in the calendar is noted the churchly Founding of
Constantinople "dedicated by the holy emperor St Constantine as the new
capital of the Roman Empire, the city of Constantine is dedicated to the
Most Holy Theotokos (330). On this same day of May 11, the church of
Sophia, the Wisdom of God was consecrated at Kiev (in the year 960 under
St Olga). St Vladimir, having had the cathedral church consecrated to
the Most Holy Theotokos, followed the example of St Constantine in
dedicating the capital city of the Russian Land (Kiev) to the Queen of
Heaven.
Then a tithe or tenth was bestown
on the Church; and since this church had become the center of the
All-Russian collection of churchly tithes, they called it the Tithe
church. The most ancient text of the grant, or church rule by holy
Prince Vladimir spoke thus: "For I do bestow on this church of the Holy
Mother of God a tenth of all my principality, and also throughout all
the Russian Land from all the princely jurisdiction a tithe of
squirrel-pelts, and from the merchant, a tithe of the week, and from
households each year, a tenth of every herd and every livelihood, to the
wondrous Mother of God and the wondrous Savior." The grant also
specified "church people" as being free from the jurisdictional power of
the prince and his "tiuni" (officials) and placed them under the
jurisdiction of the Metropolitan.
The
chronicle has preserved a prayer of St Vladimir, with which he turned to
the Almighty at the consecration of the Dormition Tithe church: "O Lord
God, look down from Heaven and behold, and visit Your vineyard, which
Your right hand has planted. And make this new people, whom You have
converted in heart and mind to know You, the True God. And look down
upon this Your church, which Your unworthy servant has built in the name
of the Mother Who gave birth to Thee, the Ever-Virgin Theotokos. And
whoever prays in this church, let his prayer be heard, through the
prayers of the All-Pure Mother of God."
With
the Tithe church and Bishop Anastasius, certain historians have made a
connection with the beginnings of Russian chronicle writing. At it were
compiled the Life of St Olga and the account of the Varangian Martyrs in
their original form, and likewise the "Account, How in the Taking of
Korsun, Vladimir came to be Baptized." Here also originated the early
Greek redaction of the Lives of the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb.
During
the time of St Vladimir, the Kiev Metropolitan See was occupied
successively by the Metropolitan St Michael (September 30), Metropolitan
Theophylactus, who transferred to Kiev from the See of Armenian Sebaste
(991-997), Metropolitan Leontius (997-1008), and Metropolitan John I
(1008-1037). Through their efforts the first dioceses of the Russian
Church were opened: at Novgorod (its first representative was St Joachim
of Korsun (+ 1030), compiler of the Joachimov Chronicle),
Vladimir-Volyn (opened May 11, 992), Chernigov, Pereslavl, Belgorod, and
Rostov. "And thus throughout all the cities and villages there were set
up churches and monasteries, and the clergy increased, and the Orthodox
Faith blossomed forth and shone like the sun."
To
advance the Faith among the newly enlightened people, learned people
and schools were needed to help prepare them. Therefore, St Vladimir and
the holy Metropolitan Michael "commanded fathers and mothers to take
their young children and send them to schools to learn reading and
writing." St Joachim of Korsun set up such a school at Novgorod, and
they did the same in other cities. "And there were a multitude of
schools of scholars, and of these were there a multitude of
philosophers."
With a firm hand St Vladimir
held in check enemies at the frontiers, and he built fortified cities.
He was the first in Russian history to set up a "notched boundary," a
line of defensive points against nomadic peoples. "Volodimir began to
set up cities along the Desna, along the Vystra, along the Trubezha,
along the Sula and along the Stugna. And he settled them with the
Novgorodians, the Smolyani, the Chuds and the Vyatichi. He made war
against the Pechenegs and defeated them." But the real reason for his
success was the peaceful Christian preaching among the pagans of the
steppes.
In the Nikol'sk Chronicles under
the year 990 was written: "And in that same year there came to Volodimir
at Kiev four princes from the Bulgars and they were illumined with
Divine Baptism." In the following year "the Pecheneg prince Kuchug came
and accepted the Greek faith, and he was baptized in the Name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and served Vladimir with a
pure heart." Under the influence of the holy prince several apparent
foreigners were also baptized. For example, the Norwegian "koenig"
(king) Olaf Trueggvason (+ 1000) who lived several years at Kiev, and
also the renowned Torvald the Wanderer, founder of a monastery of St
John the Forerunner along the Dneipr near Polotsk, among others. In
faraway Iceland the poet-skalds called God the "Protector of the Greeks
and Russians."
In addition to the Christian
preaching, there were the renowned feasts of St Vladimir. After Liturgy
on Sundays and Church Feasts there were put out abundant feasting
tables for the Kievans, they rang the bells, choirs sang praise, the
"transported infirm" sang bylini-ballads and spiritual verses. On May
12, 996, for example, on the occasion of the consecration of the Tithe
church, the prince "made a bright feast." He distributed goods "to many
of the poor, and destitute and wanderers, and through the churches and
the monasteries. To the sick and the needy he delivered through the
streets casks and barrels of mead, and bread, and meat, and fish, and
cheese, desiring that all might come and eat, glorifying God". Feasts
were likewise celebrated in honor of the victories of Kievan warriors,
and the regiments of Vladimir's retinue: of Dobrynya, Alexander
Popovich, Rogda the Bold.
In the year 1007
St Vladimir transferred the relics of St Olga to the Tithe church. Four
years later, in 1011, his spouse and companion in many of his
undertakings, the Blessed Empress Anna, was also buried there. After her
death the prince entered into a new marriage with the young daughter of
the German Graf Kuno von Enningen, granddaughter of the emperor Otto
the Great.
The era of St Vladimir was a crucial
period for the formation of Orthodox Rus. The unification of the Slavic
lands and the formation of state boundaries under the domain of the
Rurikovichi resulted from a strenuous spiritual and political struggle
with neighboring tribes and states. The Baptism of Rus by Orthodox
Byzantium was a most important step in its self-definition as a state.
The chief enemy of Vladimir became Boleslav the Brave, whose plans
included the extensive unification of the West Slavic and East Slavic
tribes under the aegis of Catholic Poland. This rivalry arose back when
Vladimir was still a pagan: "In the year 6489 (981). Volodimir went
against the Lakhs and took their cities, Peremyshl, Cherven, and other
cities, which be under Rus." The final years of the tenth century are
likewise filled with the wars of Vladimir and Boleslav.
After
a brief lull (the first decade of the eleventh century), the "great
stand-off" entered into a new phase: in the year 1013 a conspiracy
against St Vladimir was discovered at Kiev. Svyatopolk the Accursed, who
was married to a daughter of Boleslav, yearned for power. The
instigator of the conspiracy was Boleslav's cleric, the Kolobzheg
Catholic bishop Reibern.
The conspiracy of
Svyatopolk and Reibern was an all-out threat to the historical existence
of the Russian state and the Russian Church. St Vladimir took decisive
measures. All the three involved were arrested, and Reibern soon died in
prison.
St Vladimir did not take revenge
on those that "opposed and hated" him. Under the pretense of feigned
repentance, Svyatopolk was set free.
A new
misfortune erupted in the North, at Novgorod. Yaroslav, not yet "the
Wise," as he was later to be known, in the year 1010 having become ruler
of Novgorod, decided to defect from his father the Great Prince of
Kiev. He formed his own separate army, moving on Kiev to demand the
customary tribute and tithe. The unity of the Russian land, for which St
Vladimir had struggled all his life, was threatened with ruin. In both
anger and in sorrow St Vladimir gave orders to "secure the dams and set
the bridges," and to prepare for a campaign against Novgorod. His powers
were on the decline. In the preparations for his final campaign,
happily not undertaken, the Baptizer of Rus fell grievously ill and
surrendered his soul to the Lord in the village of Spas-Berestov on July
15, 1015. He had ruled the Russian realm for thirty-seven years
(978-1015), twenty-eight of these years after his Baptism.
Preparing
for a new struggle for power and hoping for Polish assistance, and to
play for time, Svyatopolk attempted to conceal the death of his father.
But patriotically inclined Kievan nobles, by night, secretly removed the
body of the deceased sovereign from the Berestov court, where
Svyatopolk's people were guarding it, and they conveyed the body to
Kiev. At the Tithe church the coffin with the relics of St Vladimir was
met by Kievan clergy with Metropolitan John at the head of the
procession. The holy relics were placed in a marble crypt, set within
the St Clement chapel of the Dormition church beside the marble crypt of
Empress Anna.
The name and deeds of the
holy Equal of the Apostles St Vladimir, whom the people called the
Splendid Sun, is interwoven with all the successive history of the
Russian Church. "Through him we too have come to worship and to know
Christ, the True Life," testified St Hilarion. His deeds were continued
by his sons, and grandsons and descendants, rulers of the Russian land
for almost six centuries, from Yaroslav the Wise, who took the first
steps towards the independent existence of the Russian Church, down to
the last of the Rurikovichi, Tsar Theodore Ioannovich, under whom (in
1589) the Russian Orthodox Church became the fifth independent
Patriarchate in the dyptichs of Orthodox Autocephalous Churches.
The
festal celebration of the holy Equal of the Apostles Vladimir was
established under St Alexander Nevsky, in memory of the intercession of
St Vladimir on May 15, 1240, for his help in gaining the renowned
victory by Nevsky over Swedish crusaders.
But
the first veneration of the holy prince began in Rus rather earlier.
The Metropolitan of Kiev St Hilarion (+ 1053), in his "Word on Law and
Grace," spoken on the day of memory of St Vladimir at the saint's crypt
in the Tithe church, calls him "an apostolic sovereign", like St
Constantine, and he compares his apostolic evangelisation of the Russian
Land to the evangelisation by the holy Apostles.
Troparion - Tone 4
Holy
Prince Vladimir,you were like a merchant in search of fine pearls.By
sending servants to Constantinople for the Orthodox Faith, you found
Christ, the priceless pearl. He appointed you to be another Paul,washing
away in baptism your physical and spiritual blindness.We celebrate your
memory,asking you to pray for all Orthodox Christians and for us, your
spiritual children.
Kontakion - Tone 8
Most
glorious Vladimir, in your old age you imitated the great apostle
Paul:he abandoned childish things, while you forsook the idolatry of
your youth.Together with him you reached the fullness of divine
wisdom:You were adorned with the purity of holy baptism.Now as you stand
before Christ our Savior, pray that all Orthodox Christians may be
saved.
SOURCE:
SAINT OR FEAST POSTED THIS DATE 2014(with 2013's link here also and further:, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and even 2008!):
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