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 Baptism of Kievan Rus Millenium Prince St Vladimir the Great (450L stamp) Cathedral of St. Sophia, Kiev (650L stamp) "Mother of God in Prayer" (2500L stamp) Scott 813-815 (1988) On July 16, 1988, Vatican City issued the three-stamp set shown above to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the "Baptism of the Kievan Rus". The Scandinavian ‘Rus’ emerged as leaders of the province of Kiev, located on the Dnieper River, one of the great highways the Varangians (Vikings) utilized in their voyages throughout Europe to such locations as Kiev, Normandy, Constantinople, Sicily, as well as Iceland, Greenland, and North America. The traditional Varangian founder of Kiev is Rurik. His grandson, Vladimir of Kiev (c. 955-1015), was baptized ca. 989. His grandmother, St Olga (d. 969) was an early convert to Christianity (c. 957) and exerted influence on Vladimir’s conversion. Vladimir sent envoys to Constantinople. They evaluated Judaism, Islam, and Catholicism before determining that Greek Christianity was preferred due to the beauty of its liturgy, which they reported, almost recreated heaven on earth. Vladimir married a daughter of the Byzantine emperor, thereby establishing a link to Constantinople. The conversion of others ruled by Vladimir followed, by both example and sometimes by force. The Kievan state dates from Vladimir’s conversion, and the ‘Conversion of the Rus,’ is often the name given to this era, with Kiev as the first center of Christianity in the territory that was to become Russia. The Monastery of the Caves, a vast underground community (founded 1050), is today a museum in Kiev, Ukraine. The era of the Mongol Invasion (13th-15th centuries) significantly reduced Kiev’s importance. Christianity spread from Kiev to other areas of Russia thereafter, with Moscow becoming a separate patriarchate in the later 15th century. Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584) was proclaimed as Russia’s first ‘Tsar of all Russia,’ and the Russian Orthodox patriarchate dates from that era. Historian Donald Attwater writes: "Vladimir’s life had been brutal, bloodthirsty, and dissolute, but, as well as a new personal purity, he became a beneficent ruler, generous towards the poor and in mercy to criminals. He supported the Greek missionaries among his subjects, though he sometimes sought to impose Christianity on the unwilling. St Olga and St Vladimir were regarded as the first-born of a new Christian people, and Vladimir was celebrated in heroic poems and folklore."He also promoted relationships with Western Europe and a descendant ruler (Vladimir Monomakh) married a daughter of King Harold of England. Vladimir had numerous wives. Boris and Gleb, two of Vladimir’s sons, were the first saints of Kiev, murdered in 1015, and termed the ‘passion-bearers,’ because they did not resist martyrdom during a struggle within their father’s family over control of Kiev. Boris and Gleb were declared saints by the Church of the Rus’ in 1071 and their relics placed in the Church of St. Basil in Vyshhorod, a site restored (2011) after the fall of the Communist regime. References: Technical Details: Scott Catalogue - 813-815 Date Issued - 16 June 1988 Face Value - €1.25 Perforations - 13.25x14 Printer - Polygraph Institute of the Italian State |
