The Christianisation of Russia in the Tenth Century: a Unique Missiological Story
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THE CHRISTIANISATION OF RUSSIA IN THE TENTH CENTURY: A UNIQUE MISSIOLOGICAL STORY William Van den Bercken The majority of church histories dealing with Europe allow only a mar- ginal position to Russia and the Balkans. The concept of "christian Europe" is a Western concept and ends with Poland and Hungary. The baptism of the rulers Mieszko of Poland and Gero of Hungary is a religio- political landmark in the christianization of Europe, but the baptism of the Russian ruler Vladimir, which took place at the same time, and the earlier baptism of Boris of Bulgaria have as it were been devalued by the subse- quent division of christianity into the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. Medieval kings like SS. Stephen of Hungary and Louis of France have been given a place on the altar of the christian royal pantheon of Europe, but no holy heroic part in general European church historiography has been assigned to the defenders of christianity in Russia, SS. Aleksandr Nevsky and Dmitry Donskoy. For a long time the idea prevailed in medieval historiosophy that civilization is moving from the East to the West by way of subsequent world empires. From Babylon to Egypt, to Greece, to the Roman Empire and finally to the Frankish empire of Charlemagne. The christian history of salvation was also put in this perspective, so that one may speak of what Ernst Benz called Heilsgeographie, the geographical way of salvation which began in the East and ended in the West.' Hugo of Saint-Victor and Otto von Freising are its spokesmen. The westward movement of salvation reached its highest goal in the imperium christianum of the German emperors, predestined by Providence. Dante in his Monarchia envisages a similar Divine destination for christian Italy as the heir to the Roman Empire. Even more strongly than in catholicism, it is in protestantism that the eyes are turned away from the East. In puritan protestantism there is a continuation of the westward movement from the European continent to England and from there to the United States of America, "God's own country". The Americanist J.W. Schulte Nordholt called this "the myth of the West", denouncing it critically in a study.' Strangely enough, the author, in analyzing this myth, almost fell victim to it himself. The first sentence of his book is: "For centuries European mankind believed that 1 E. Benz, Endzeiterwartungzwischen Ost und West:Studien zur christlichenEschatolo- gie, Freiburg 1973, p. 91. 2 J.W. Schulte Nordholt, De Mythe van het Westen,Amsterdam 1992. 262 civilization had marched on from the east to the west, that at one time it " had started in the east and was to attain its completion in the west." The generalizing expression "European mankind" has to refer to the Western European one, for the Orthodox part of European mankind, also part of Christian Europe, has never believed this. On the contrary, it held the opposite point of view. No less one-sided. It must be added that Schulte Nordholt was indeed aware of the existence of a Russian part of christian Europe, for at the end of his book he calls attention to the idea of an eastward movement of christianity. However, among the numerous English and American authors, clergymen and politicians quoted by him, Russia was nonexistent. This was in fact also the case in European cultural-historical conscious- ness in the Middle Ages. It is true that Russia was not entirely unknown to the great medieval chroniclers, such as Thietmar of Merseburg, Adam of Bremen and Helmold of Bozau, but their coverage of Rucia, Ruscia, Ruzzia, Rugia, Rutenia, Rossia, or Russia is minimal. A case in point is Helmond of Bozau's observation on Russia in his Chronica Slavorum (Chronicle of the Slavs, 1170). In the first chapter he introduces the Slavic peoples, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, telling about them and Rucia: All these nations, with the exception of the Prussians, adorn themselves with the name of christianity. It is a long time ago, since Russia adopted the faith...I have not the faintest idea, however, by what teachers it was con- verted to the faith, except for the fact that it seems that in all their observ- ances they follow the Greeks rather than the Latins. For it is only a short distance across the Russian sea to Greece.33 After the important national conversions in the ninth and tenth centuries the identification of catholic Europe with the corpus christianum became a matter of course. All the European kings defended true christianity in their own way, within that unconscious and zigzagging concept of westward- oriented christianity and civilization which started with Charlemagne as the devotus ecclesiae defensor, and continued by way of the German piissimus rex and christianissimus imperator of the empire which was still called "holy", the Spanish reyos catholicos and the English defender of the faith. Meanwhile Kievan Russia with its own religio-historical perspective was ruled by a "God-beloved" prince who later on in the Moscow empire 3 "Omnes hee naciones preter Pruzos christianitatistitulo decorantur. Diu enim est ex quo Rucia credidit...Quibus autem doctoribus ad fidem venerint, minime compertum habeo, nisi quod in omnibus observantiis suis Grecos magis quam Latinos imitari videntur. Nam Rucenum mare brevi in Greciam transmittit." Helmold of Bozau, Chronica Slavorum, I. MonumentaGermaniae Historica, Scriptorum (hereafter MGH SS), XXI, p. 12. .