Christianity has won many converts since the…
988 CE
Christianity has won many converts since the rule of Olga Prekrasa, who either in 945 or in 957 became the first Rus ruler to convert to Christianity, but her grandson Vladimir, grand prince of Kiev since 980, has remained a thoroughgoing pagan, taking eight hundred concubines (besides numerous wives) and erecting pagan statues and shrines to gods.
It is argued that he had attempted to reform Slavic paganism by establishing thunder-god Perun as a supreme deity.
The Primary Chronicle reports that in the year 987, as the result of a consultation with his boyars, Vladimir had sent envoys to study the religions of the various neighboring nations whose representatives had been urging him to embrace their respective faiths.
The result is amusingly described by the chronicler Nestor.
Of the Muslim Bulgarians of the Volga, the envoys had reported there is no gladness among them; only sorrow and a great stench, and that their religion was undesirable due to its taboo against alcoholic beverages and pork; supposedly, Vladimir said on that occasion: "Drinking is the joy of the Rus'."
Russian sources also describe Vladimir consulting with Jewish envoys (who may or may not have been Khazars), and questioning them about their religion but ultimately rejecting it, saying that their loss of Jerusalem was evidence of their having been abandoned by God.
The Primary Chronicle, describing a visit of Khazar missionaries to Kiev in the year 986, relates that the Khazar Jews came to the court of Prince Vladimir and said 'We have heard that Bulgarians (Muslims) and Christians came to teach you their religion... We, however, believe in the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.'
Vladimir asked them 'What kind of law do you have?'
They answered 'We are required to be circumcised, we may not eat pork or hare meat, and we must observe the Sabbath.'
And he asked, 'Where is your land?'
They answered 'In Jerusalem.'
And again he asked 'It is really there?'
They replied, 'God got angry with our fathers and therefore scattered us all over the world and gave our land to the Christians.'
Vladimir asked, 'How is it that you can teach people Jewish law even while God rejected you and scattered you.
If God had loved you and your law, you would not be scattered throughout foreign lands.
Or do you wish us Russians to suffer the same fate?'
The common writing system among the Khazars is Hebrew script (according to Muhammad ibn Ishaq an-Nadim, writing in 987 or 988).
Ultimately, Vladimir settles on Christianity.
In the churches of the Germans his emissaries had seen no beauty; but at Constantinople, where the full festival ritual of the Church had been set in motion to impress them, they had found their ideal.