The traditional date in the Christianization of Russia is 988, the year of the
baptism of Prince Vladimir of Kiev. Vladimir received Christianity from the
Byzantine Empire (traditionally, after investigating the religious beliefs and
practices of neighbouring countries). By the tenth century, Byzantine
Christianity was an elaborate construction of beliefs, practices both liturgical
and ascetic, philosophy, art and culture, and everything that had come to be
associated with the monastic life, which played an especial role in the Eastern
Church. With the example of Bulgaria (and probably Serbia)—as well as
more anciently Georgia—behind them, the Byzantines brought to Kiev
Byzantine Christianity in a Slav dress (unlike the West, where
Christianization entailed Latinization). This meant that there was what might
be called a ‘linguistic filter’: the Slavs absorbed more readily aspects of
Byzantine Christianity that did not need translation—the ceremony of the
liturgy, the art of icons, music (though we know little about this), and the
practice of monasticism—rather than the complexities of Byzantine theology
and philosophy, with the result that Slav Orthodoxy had a different
complexion from its parent Byzantine Orthodoxy. Within Slav Orthodoxy,
icons and ceremonial, in particular, assumed greater significance than within
Byzantine Orthodoxy, as the intellectual culture fell into the background. The
sense that Slav Orthodoxy was dependent on Byzantine Orthodoxy remained
significant, and led to the Nikonian reforms of the seventeenth century, when
the Slavonic liturgical and iconographic traditions were adjusted to
correspond with current Greek practice. Many refused to accept these
changes, and became known as ‘Old Ritualists’ or ‘Old Believers’, a
persecuted minority, whose preservation of ancient iconographic traditions is
now greatly valued.
