Sunday, July 31, 2011

A Summary of the Ecumenical Councils




1st Council - 325 - Convened in Niacea against Arian heresy,  which stated that Christ wasn't divine but created.  The Nicene Creed was adopted stating in part: "light of light, true God of God, begotten not made of one essence with Father...".

2nd Council - 381 - Convened in Ephesus against Macedonian heresy which stated the Holy Spirit was created by the Son and subordinate to the Father and Son. The Nicene Creed stated: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father; Who with Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified...".

3rd Council - 431- Convened at Ephesus against the heresy of Nestorius, which stated that Christ two distinct natures and that God's Mother wasn't the Mother of God or Theotokos or (God-bearer) but Mother of Christ (Christ-bearer).  Nestorians tried to rationalize the incarnation of the Divine Logos.

4th Council - 451 - Convened at Chalcedon against the Monophysite heresy which stated that Christ had only one nature.

5th Council - 553 - Convened at Constantinople to reinterpret the Chalcedonian decrees, to explain more constructively the two natures of Christ and to anathematize parts of Origen's teachings.

Chalcedonian decrees addressed the Monophysites who stated that "Christ was in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably" and also at the followers of Nestorius who proclaimed "One and the same Son...indivisibly, inseparably". 
But Chalcedon was more than a defeat for Alexandrian theology: it was a defeat for Alexandrian claims to rule supreme in the east. Canon XXIII of Chalcedon confirmed Canon III of Constantinople, assigning to New Rome the place next in honour after Old Rome.  The council also freed Jerusalem from the jurisdiction of Caesarea and gave it the fifth place among the great sees. The system later known among Orthodox as the Pentarchy was now complete, whereby five great sees in the Church were held in particular honour, and a settled order of precedence was established among them: in order of rank, Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem. A11 five claimed Apostolic foundation. The first four were the most important cities in the Roman Empire; the fifth was added because it was the place where Christ had suffered on the Cross and risen from the dead. The bishop in each of these cities received the title Patriarch. The five Patriarchates between them divided into spheres of jurisdiction the whole of the known world, apart from Cyprus, which was granted independence by the Council of Ephesus and has remained self-governing ever since.

6th Council -  680 - Convened at Constantinople against the Monothelites, who argued that although Christ has two natures, yet since He is a single person, He has only one will. The Council replied that if He has two natures, then He must also have two wills. The Monothelites, it was felt, impaired the fullness of Christ's humanity, since human nature without a human will would be incomplete, a mere abstraction. Since Christ is true man as well as true God, He must have a human as well as a divine will.
7th Council - 787 - Convened at Nicea against the Iconoclast heresy which condemned all religious art of humans or God but deeper issues were involved: the character of Christ's human nature, the Christian attitude towards matter, the true meaning of Christian redemption.
The Iconoclasts may have been influenced from the outside by Jewish and Muslim ideas, and it is significant that three years before the first outbreak of Iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire, the Muslim Caliph Yezid ordered the removal of all icons within his dominions. But Iconoclasm was not simply imported from outside; within Christianity itself there had always existed a 'puritan' outlook, which condemned icons because it saw in all images a latent idolatry. When the Isaurian Emperors attacked icons, they found plenty of support inside the Church.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Great Prince Vladimir



Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Great Prince Vladimir
Commemorated on July 15
      Few names in the annals of history can compare in significance with the name of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Vladimir, the Baptiser of Rus', who stands forever at the onset of the foreordained spiritual destiny of the Russian Church and the Russian Orthodox people. Vladimir was the grandson of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles 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 his murder of her husband Igor, and she took to herself the children of Mal, 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 GreatPrincess Olga at Tsar'grad), but she preserved in herself a bit of the mysterious darkness of the pagan Drevlyani forests. And 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, reckoning as unseemly the marriage of her "housekeeper" and captive servant with her son Svyatoslav, heir to the Great Kiev principality, sent Malusha away to her own native region not far off from Vybut'. And there in about the year 960 was born the boy, called 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 amongst his three sons. At Kiev Yaropolk was prince; at Ovrucha, the centre of the Drevlyani lands, there was Oleg; at Novgorod there was Vladimir. His first years as prince we see Vladimir as a fierce pagan. He heads 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 11 July 978 he enters 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".      Young Vladimir indulged himself in a wild sensuous life, though far from being the libertine that they sometimes portray him. He "shepherded his land with truth, valour 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 campaign, he made for his companions and for all Kiev liberal and merry feastings.      But the Lord prepared him for another task. Where sin increases, there – in the words of the Apostle, – grace abounds. "And upon him did come visitation of the MostHigh, and the All-Merciful eye of the Good God didst gaze upon him, and shine 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 the acceptance of Baptism was facilitated through external circumstances. The Byzantine empire was in upheaval under the blows of the mutinous regiments of Bardas Skliros and Bardas Phokas, each of which sought to gain the imperial throne. In these difficult circumstances the emperors – the co-regent brothers Basil the Bulgar-Slayer and Constantine, turned for help to Vladimir.      Events unfolded quickly. In August 987 Bardas Phokas 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 Russes. They were his enemies, but he besought their help, – writes one of the Arab chronicles of events in the 980's. – And the emperor of the Russes did consent to this, and did make common cause with him".      In reward for his military help, Vladimir besought the hand of the emperors' sister Anna, which for the Byzantines was an unheard of audacity. Princesses of the imperial lineage did not go off to marry "barbarian" rulers, even though they be Christian. At this same time the emperor Otto the Great was seeking the hand of this Anna for his son, and he was refused, but herein regarding Vladimir Constantinople was obliged to consent.      An agreement was concluded, according to which Vladimir had to send in aid to the emperors six thousand Varangians, to accept holy Baptism, and 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 graced bosom of the OEcumenical Church. GreatPrince Vladimir accepted Baptism and dispatched the military assistance to Byzantium. With the aid of the Russians, the mutineers were destroyed and Bardas Phokas killed. But the Greeks, gladdened by their unexpected deliverance, were in no hurry to fulfill their part of the agreement.      Vexed at the Greek duplicity, Prince Vladimir "hastened to collect his forces" and he moved "against Korsun, the Greek city", the ancient Chersonessus. The "impenetrable" rampart of the Byzantine realm on the Black Sea fell, and 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 voevoda-commanders Oleg and Sjbern soon arrived in Tsar'grad 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 Romanoi-Byzantine realm. At Taurida Saint Vladimir awaited her, and to his titles there was added a new one – Caesar (tsar', emperor). It required the haughty rulers of Constantinople to accede also in this – to bestow upon their new brother-in-law the Caesar (i.e. imperial) insignia. In certain of the Greek historians, Saint 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 cathedra-seat metropolitan Michael – ordained by holy Patriarch Nicholas II Chrysobergos, and he came with his retinue and clergy, and many holy relics and other holy things. In ancient Chersonessus, where each stone brings to mind Saint Andrew the First-Called, there took place the marriage-crowning of Saint Vladimir and Blessed Anna, both reminiscent and likewise affirming the oneness of the Gospel good-news of Christ in Rus' and in Byzantium. Korsun, the "empress dowry", was returned to Byzantium. In the Spring of 988 the greatprince with his spouse set out through the Crimea, Taman' and the Azov lands, which had come into the complexion of his vast realm, on the trip of return to Kiev. Leading the greatprincely cortege with frequent moliebens and incessant priestly singing they carried crosses, icons and holy relics. It seemed, that the OEcumenical 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.      There ensued the 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 beforehand, Saint Vladimir declared throughout the city: "If anyone on the morrow goeth not into the river – be they rich or poor, beggar or slave – that one be mine enemy". The sacred wish of the holy prince was fulfilled without a murmur: "all our land all at the same time did glorify Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit".      It is difficult to overestimate the deep spiritual transformation – effected by the prayers of Saint Vladimir, effected within the Russian people, in all the entirety of its life and world-outlook. In the pure Kievan waters, as in a "bath of regeneration", there was realised a mysteried transfiguration of the Russian spiritual element, the spiritual birth of the nation, called by God to yet 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 didst illumine our land". In memory of this sacred event, the renewal of Rus' by water and the Spirit, there was established within the Russian Church the custom of an annual church procession "to the water" on 1 August, combined afterwards with the feastday of the Bring-Forth of the Venerable Wood of the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord, in common with the Greek Church, and likewise the Russian Church feastday of the All-Merciful Saviour and the MostHoly Mother of God (established by Saint Andrei 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, Saint Vladimir gave orders to tumble down the pagan sanctuaries, to flog the idols, and in their place to chop along the hilly woods for churches, in which to consecrate altars 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. As regards the famed church-building activity of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Vladimir, the Kiev Metropolitan Saint Ilarion (author of the "Word about the Law and Grace") exclaimed: "They demolished the pagan temples, and built up churches, they destroyed the idols and produced holy icons, the demons are fled, and the Cross hath 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 practise, Saint Vladimir built the church of Saint Basil the Great upon an hill, where a sanctuary of Perun had been located, and he situated the stone church of the Uspenie-Dormition of the MostHoly Mother of God (Desyatinnaya) on the place of the martyrdom of the holy Varangian-Martyrs (Comm. 12 July). The magnificent temple intended to become the place of serving for the Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus' – and hence the primal-altar of the Russian Church, was built in five years: it was richly adorned with wall-fresco painting, crosses, icons and sacred vessels, brought from Korsun. The day of the consecration of the church of the MostHoly Mother of God, 12 May (in some manuscripts 11 May), was ordered by Saint Vladimir to be inserted as an annual celebration in the Church-kalendar lists. This event was tied in with other previous happenings for the celebration of 11 May, and it provided the new Church a twofold sense of succession. Under this day in the Saints is noted the churchly "renewal of Tsar'grad" – dedicated by the holy emperor Saint Constantine as the new capital of the Roman Empire, the Constantine-city Constantinople, dedicated to the MostHoly Mother of God (330). And on this same day of 11 May, under holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga, there had been consecrated at Kiev the church of Sophia – the Wisdom of God (in the year 960). Saint Vladimir, having had the cathedral church consecrated to the MostHoly Mother of God, followed the example of Saint Constantine in dedicating the capital city of the Russian Land, Kiev, to the Queen of Heaven.      And then there was bestown on the Church a tithe or tenth; and since this church had become the centre of the All-Russian gathering of churchly tithes, they called it the Desyatinnaya (Tithe) church. The most ancient text of the deed-grant document, or churchly ustav-rule by holy Prince Vladimir spoke thusly: "For I do bestow this church of the Holy Mother of God a tenth of all mine principality, and likewise 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 Saviour". The ustav likewise 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 Saint Vladimir, with which he turned to the Almighty at the consecration of the Uspensky Desyatin-Tithe church: "O Lord God, look Thou down from Heaven and behold, and visit Thine vineyard, which Thy right-hand hath planted. And make this new people, whom Thou hast converted in heart and mind – to know Thee, the True God. And look down upon this Thine church, which Thy unworthy servant hath built in the name of the Mother Who hath given birth to Thee, She the Ever-Virgin Mother of God. And whosoever doth pray in this church, let his prayer then be heard, on account of the prayers to the All-Pure Mother of God".       With the Desyatin-Tithe church and bishop Anastasii, certain historians have made a connection with the beginnings of Russian chronicle writing. At it were compiled the Vita-Life of Saint Ol'ga 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 Baptised". Here also there originated the early Greek redaction of the Vitae-Lives of the holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb.      The Kiev Metropolitan cathedra-seat during the time of Saint Vladimir was occupied successively by the Metropolitan Saint Michael (+ 15 June 991, Comm. 30 September), Metropolitan Theophylakt – transferred to Kiev from the see of Armenian Sebasteia (991-997), Metropolitan Leontii (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 Sainted Joakim the Korsunite – + 1030, compiler of the Joakimov Chronicle), Vladimir-Volyn (opened 11 May 992), Chernigov, Pereslavl', Belgorod, and Rostov. "And thus throughout all the cities and villages there were set up churches and monasteries, and the clergy did increase, and the Orthodox Faith did blossom forth and shine like the sun". To advance the faith amongst the newly enlightened people, learned people and schools were needed for their preparation. Saint Vladimir therefore with holy Metropolitan Michael "did command fathers and mothers to take their young children and send them to schools to learn reading and writing". Saint Joakim the Korsunite (+ 1030) set up such a school at Novgorod, and they did likewise in other cities. "And there were a multitude of schools of scholars, and of these were there a multitude of wisdom-loving philosophers".      With a firm hand Saint Vladimir held in check enemies at the frontiers, and he built cities with fortifications. He was the first in Russian history to set up a "notched boundary" – a line of defensive points against nomadic peoples. "Volodimir did begin to set up cities along the Desna, along the Vystra, along the Trubezha, along the Sula and along the Stugna. And he did settle them with the Novgorodians, the Smol'yani, the Chuds and the Vyatichi. And he did war against the Pechenegs and defeated them". But the actual means was often the peaceful Christian preaching amongst the steppe pagans. 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 " there came the Pecheneg prince Kuchug and accepted the Greek faith, and he was baptised in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and did service to Vladimir with a pure heart". Under the influence of the holy prince there were baptised also several apparent foreigners, as for example, the Norwegian "koenig" (king") Olaf Trueggvason (+ 1000) who lived several years at Kiev, and also the reknown Torval'd the Wanderer – founder of a monastery of Saint John the Precursor  along the Dneipr near Polotsk, among others. In faraway Iceland the poet-skalds called God the "Protector of the Greeks and Russians".      Amidst the Christian preaching was also the reknown feastings of Saint Vladimir: after Liturgy on Sundays and Church Great-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 12 May 996, for example, on the occasion of the consecration of the Desyatin-Tithe church, the prince "made a bright feast", "distributing 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 arrayed in honour of the victories of Kievan bogatyr-warriors, and the regiments of Vladimir's retinue – of Dobrynya, Aleksandr Popovich, Rogda the Bold.      In the year 1007 Saint Vladimir transferred the relics of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Ol'ga to the Desyatin-Tithe church. And four years later, in 1011, there was also buried there his spouse and companion in many of his undertakings, the Blessed Empress Anna. After her death the prince entered into a new marriage – with the young daughter of the German Graf Kuno von Enningen, grand-daughter of the emperor Otto the Great.      The era of Saint Vladimir was a crucial initial period for the state formation of Orthodox Rus'. The unification of the Slavic lands and the formation of state boundaries under the domain of the Riurikovichi resulted from a strenuous spiritual and political struggle with neighbouring tribes and states. The Baptism of Rus' by Orthodox Byzantium was a most important step in its state self-definition. 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 still back in the times, 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 X Century are likewise filled with the wars of Vladimir and Boleslav.      After a short lull (the first decade of the XI Century), the "great stand-off" enters into a new phase: in the year 1013 at Kiev a conspiracy against Saint Vladimir is discovered: Svyatopolk the Accursed, who is married to a daughter of Boleslav, yearns for power. The instigator of the conspiracy is the clergyman of Boleslav – 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. Saint Vladimir took decisive measures. All the three involved were arrested, and Reibern soon died in prison.      Saint 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, still not so very much "the Wise" – as he was later to go down in Russian history, in the year 1010 having become ruler of Novgorod, decided to defect from his father the greatprince of Kiev, and he formed his own separate army, moving on Kiev to demand the customary tribute and tithe. The unity of the Russian land, for which Saint Vladimir had struggled all his life, was threatened with ruin. In both anger and in sorrow Saint 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 Baptiser of Rus' fell grievously ill and gave up his spirit to the Lord in the village of Spas-Berestov, on 15 July 1015. He had ruled the Russian realm for thirty-seven years (978-1015), and twenty-eight of these years had been spent since holy Baptism.       Preparing for a new struggle for power and hoping for Polish help in it, and to play for time, Svyatopolk attempted to conceal the death of his father. But patriotically inclined Kievan boyar-nobles, secretly by night, 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 Desyatin-Tithe church the coffin with the relics of Saint Vladimir was met by Kievan clergy with Metropolitan John at the head. The holy relics were placed in a marble crypt, set within the Clement chapel of the Desyatin Uspenie church alongside the marble crypt of Empress Anna...      The name and deeds of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles 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 Saint Ilarion. His deeds were continued by his sons, and grandsons and descendants – rulers of the Russian land over the course of almost six centuries: from Yaroslav the Wise with the taking of the first steps towards the independent existence of the Russian Church – down to the last of the Riurikovichi, tsar Feodor Ioannovich, under whom (in 1589) the Russian Orthodox Church became the fifth independent Patriarchate in the dyptich-lists of Orthodox Autocephalous Churches.      The feastday celebration to holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Vladimir was established under Saint Alexander Nevsky, in memory of the intercession of Saint Vladimir on 15 May 1240, for his help in gaining the reknown victory by Nevsky over Swedish crusaders.      But the first reverencing of the holy prince began in Rus' rather earlier. The Metropolitan of Kiev Saint Ilarion (+ 1053), in his "Word on Law and Grace", spoken on the day of memory of Saint Vladimir at the saint's crypt in the Desyatin-Tithe church, calls him "an apostolic sovereign", "like" Saint Constantine, and he compares his apostolic evangelisation of the Russian Land to that of the evangelisation by the holy Apostles.
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

HOLY EQUAL TO THE APOSTLES - PRINCESS OLGA



In the year 862, the Novgorod Slavs asked Rurick to be their prince. Two of his comrades-in-arms, Askold and Dir, left Novgorod to try their luck in the south of the country. They saw Kiev on the bank of the Dniepre and conquered it. In 866 they launched a campaign moving the Russian army from Kiev against Tzargrad (Constantinople). In Constantinople, the Emperor Mikhail the III and the Patriarch Photios prayed to God and after the night service in the Vlakhern Cathedral they carried the cross to the shore of the Bosphorus bay. They dipped the chasuble of the Theotokos into the waters of the bay. The sea that had been calm before that, became suddenly stormy and wrecked the ships of the Russians. Many of them died, and the ones who survived came home impressed and awed by the wrath that the Lord sent upon them. (Later that event began to be celebrated as the Protection of the Most-Holy Theotokos).



Sunday, July 24, 2011

SHE GAVE BIRTH TO HOLY RUS! THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN EARLY RUS. ANOTHER AMAZING STORY!


Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga
Commemorated on July 11
      Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Olga was the spouse of the Kiev GreatPrince Igor. The struggle of Christianity with paganism under Igor and Olga, who reigned after Oleg (+ 912), entered into a new phase. The Church of Christ in the years following the reign of Igor (+ 945) became a remarkable spiritual and political force in the Russian realm. The preserved text of a treaty of Igor with the Greeks in the year 944 gives indication of this: it was included by the chronicler in the "Tale of Bygone Years", under the entry recording the events of the Biblical year 6453 (945).
      The peace treaty had to be sworn to by both the religious communities of Kiev: "Baptised Rus'", i.e. the Christian, took place in the cathedral church of the holy Prophet of God Elias (Comm. 20 July); "Unbaptised Rus'", i.e. the pagans, in turn swore their oath on their weapons in the sanctuary of Perun the Thunderer. The fact, that Christians are included in the document in the first place, indicates their significant spiritual influence in the life of Kievan Rus'.
      Evidently at the moment when the treaty of 944 was being drawn up at Tsar'grad (Constantinople), there were people in power in Kiev sympathetic to Christianity, who recognised the historical inevitability of conjoining Rus' into the life-creating Christian culture. To this trend possibly belonged even prince Igor himself, whose official position did not permit him personally to go over to the new faith, nor at that time of deciding the issue concerning the Baptism of the whole country with the consequent dispersal throughout it of Orthodox Church hierarchs. The treaty therefore was drawn up in the circumspect manner of expression, which would not hinder the prince to ratify it in either the form of a pagan oath, or in the form of a Christian oath.


      But when the Byzantine emissaries arrived in Kiev, conditions along the River Dneipr had essentially changed. A pagan opposition had clearly emerged, at the head of which stood the Varangian voevoda (military-leader) Svenel'd (or Sveinald) and his son Mstislav (Mtsisha) to whom Igor had given holdings in the Drevlyani lands.      Strong also at Kiev was the influence of the Khazar Jews, who could not but be displeased with the thought of the triumph of Orthodoxy in the Russian Land.      Unable to overcome the customary inertia, Igor remained a pagan and he concluded the treaty in the pagan manner – with an oath on his sword. He refused the grace of Baptism and was punished for his unbelief. A year later, in 945, rebellious pagans murdered him in the Drevlyanian land, cut down betwixt two trees. But the days of paganism and the lifestyle of the Slavic tribes basic to it were already numbered. The burden of government fell upon the widow of Igor – the Kiev Great-princess Olga, and her three year old son Svyatoslav.       The name of the future enlightener of the Russian Land and of her native region is first to be met with in the "Tale of Bygone Years", – in the phrase where it speaks about the marriage of Igor: "and they brought him a wife from Pskov, by the name of Ol'ga". She belonged, so specifies the Joakimov Chronicle, to the lineage of the Izborsk princes, – one of the obscure ancient-Russian princely dynasties, of which in Rus' during the X-XI Centuries there numbered no less than twenty, but who were all displaced by the Rurikovichi or merged otherwise with them through marriage. Some of them were of local Slavic descent, others – Varangian new-comers. It is known, that the Scandinavian Viking "koenigs" (kinglets) called to become princes in the Russian cities – invariably assimilated to the Russian language, and often, they soon became genuinely Russian with Russian names and lifestyle, world-outlook and even physical appearance of attire.      The spouse of Igor thus also had the Varangian name "Helga", which in the Russian "rendering" of pronunciation, is Ol'ga, Vol'ga. The feminine name Ol'ga corresponds to the masculine name "Oleg" (Helgi), which means "holy" [from Germanic "heilig" for "holy"]. Although the pagan understanding of holiness was quite different from the Christian, it also presupposed within man a particular frame of reference, of chasteness and sobriety, of mind and of insight. It reveals the spiritual significance of names, that people termed Oleg the Wise-Seer ("Veschi") and Ol'ga – the Wise ("Mudra").      Rather later traditions regard her a native of a village named Vybuta, several kilometers from Pskov up along the River Velika. They still not so long ago used to point out at the river the Ol'ga Bridge, the ancient fording place, Where Olga was met by Igor. The Pskov geographic features have preserved not a few names, connected with the memory of this great descendent of Pskov: the village of Ol'zhinets and Ol'gino Pole (Ol'ga Field); the Ol'ga Gateway – one of the branches of the River Velika; Ol'ga Hill and the Ol'ga Cross – near Lake Pskov; and the Ol'ga Stone – at the village of Vybuta.      The beginning of the independent rule of Princess Olga is connected in the chronicles with the narrative about her terrible revenge on the Drevlyani, who murdered Igor. Having sworn their oaths on their swords and believing "only in their swords", the pagans were doomed by the judgement of God to also perish by the sword (Mt. 26: 52). Worshipping fire amongst the other primal elements, they found their own doom in the fire. And the Lord chose Olga to fulfill the fiery chastisement.      The struggle for the unity of Rus', for the subordination to the Kievan centre of mutually divisive and hostile tribes and principalities paved the way towards the ultimate victory of Christianity in the Russian Land. For Olga, though still a pagan, the Kiev Christian Church and its Heavenly patron saint the holy Prophet of God Elias [in icons depicted upon a fiery chariot] stood as a flaming faith and prayer of a fire come down from the heavens, and her victory over the Drevlyani – despite the severe harshness of her victory, was a victory of Christian constructive powers in the Russian realm over the powers of a paganism, dark and destructive.      The God-wise Olga entered into history as a great builder of the civil life and culture of Kievan Rus'. The chronicles are filled with accounts of her incessant "goings" throughout the Russian land with the aim of the well-being and improvement of the civil and domestic manner of life of her subjects. Having consolidated the inner strengthening of the might of the Kiev great-princely throne – with the consequent weakening of the influence of the jumbled hodge-podge of petty local princes in Rus', Olga centralised the whole of state rule with the help of the system of "pogosti" (administrative trade centres). In the year 946 she went with her son and retinue through the Drevlyani land, "imposing tribute and taxes", noting the villages, inns and hunting places, liable for inclusion in the Kiev great-princely holdings. The next year she went to Novgorod, establishing administrative centres along the Rivers Msta and Luga, everywhere leaving visible traces of her activity. "Her lovischa (hunting preserves) were throughout all the land, the boundary signs, her places and administrative centres, – wrote the chronicler, – and her sleighs stand at Pskov to this very day, as are her directed places for snaring of birds along the Dneipr and the Desna Rivers; and her village of Ol'zhicha stands to the present day".      The "pogosti" established by Olga, as financial-administrative and law-court centres, represented sturdy props of great-princely power in these places.      Being first of all, and in the actual sense of the word, centres of trade and exchange (the merchant as "guest") gathered together and became organised around the settlements (and in place of the "humanly arbitrary" gathering of tribute and taxes, there now existed uniformity and order with the "pogosti" system). Olga's "pogosti" became an important network of the ethnic and cultural unification of the Russian nation.       Later on, when Olga had become a Christian, they began to erect the first churches at the "pogosti"; from the time of the Baptism of Rus' the "pogost" and church (parish) became inseparably associated. (It was only afterwards with the existence of cemeteries alongside churches that there developed the current meaning of the Russian word "pogost" to nowadays signify "parish graveyard".)      Princess Olga exerted much effort to fortify the defensive might of the land. The cities were built up and strengthened, Vyshgorod (or Detintsa, Kroma) they enclosed with stone and oak walls (battlements), and they bristled them with ramparts and pallisades. Knowing how hostile many were to the idea of strengthening the princely power and the unification of Rus', the princess herself lived constantly "on the hill" over the Dneipr, behind the trusty battlements of Kievan Vyshgorod ("Verkhna-gorod" or "Upper-city"), surrounded by her faithful retainers. Two thirds of the gathered tribute, as the chroniclers testify, she gave over for the use of the Kiev "veche" (city-council), and the remaining one third went "to Olga, for Vyshgorod" – for the needs of building fortifications. And to the time period of  Olga, historians note the establishment of the first state frontiers of Russia – to the west, with Poland. Heroic outposts to the south guarded the peaceful fields of the Kievans from the peoples of the Wild Plains. Foreigners hastened to Gardarika ("the land of cities"), as they called Rus', with merchandise and craftwares. Swedes, Danes, Germans all eagerly entered as mercenaries into the Russian army. The foreign connections of Kiev spread. This furthered the developement of construction with stone in the city, the beginnings of which was initiated under Olga. The first stone edifices of Kiev – the city palace and Olga's upper enclosure – were discovered by archaeologists only but in this century. (The palace, or more properly its foundations and remains of the walls were found in excavations during the years 1971-1972).      But it was not only the strengthening of the civil realm and the improvement of domestic norms of the manner of life for people that attracted the attention of the wise princess. Even more urgent for her was the fundamental transformation of the religious life of Rus', the spiritual transfiguration of the Russian nation. Rus' had become a great power. Only two European realms could compare with it during these years in significance and might: in Eastern Europe – the ancient Byzantine empire, and in the West – the kingdom of Saxony.      The experience of both empires, connected with the exaltation in spirit of Christian teaching, with the religious basis of life, showed clearly, that the way to the future greatness of Rus' lay not through military means, but first of all and primarily through spiritual conquering and attainment. Having entrusted Kiev to her teenage son Svyatoslav, and seeking grace and truth, Great-princess Olga in the Summer of 954 set off with a great fleet to Tsar'grad. This was a peaceful "expedition", combining the tasks of religious pilgrimage and diplomatic mission, but the political considerations demanded that it become simultaneously a display of the military might of Rus' on the Black Sea, which would remind the haughty "romanoi" [Byzantine Greeks] of the victorious campaigns of Askol'd and Oleg, who in the year 907 advanced in their shields "to the very gates of Tsar'grad".      The result was attained. The appearance of the Russian fleet in the Bosphorus created the necessary effect for the developing of Russo-Byzantine dialogue. In turn, the southern capital struck the stern daughter of the North with its variety of beauty and grandeur of architecture, and its jumbled mixture of pagans and peoples from all over the world. But an especial impression was produced by the wealth of Christian churches and the holy things preserved in them. Tsar'grad-Constantinople, "the city of the imperial Caesar-tsar", the Byzantine Greek empire, strove in everything to be worthy for its Heavenly Mediatrix. At its very foundation (or more precisely, restoration), the city had been consecrated in the year 330 by the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine the Great (Comm. 21 May) to the MostHoly Mother of God (this event occurred in the Greek Church on the date of 11 May and from there passed over into Russian commemoration). The Russian princess was present at Divine-services in the finest churches of Constantinople – Saint Sophia, the Mother of God Blakhernae, and others.      In her heart the wise Olga found the desire for holy Orthodoxy, and she made the decision to become a Christian. The sacrament of Baptism was made over her by the Constantinople Patriarch Theophylaktos (933-956), and her godfather was the emperor Constantine Porphyrigenitos (912-959). At Baptism there was entrusted to her the name Elena (Helen) in honour of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Helen (Comm. 21 May), the mother of Saint Constantine, and she also had been the discoverer of the Venerable Wood of the Cross of the Lord. In an edifying word spoken at the conclusion of the sacramental rite, the patriarch said: "Blessed art thou amongst Russian women, in that thou hast forsaken the darkness and hast loved the Light. The Russian people shalt bless thee in all the future generations, from thy grandson and great-grandson to thine furthermost descendants". He instructed her in the truths of the faith, the churchly rules and the rule of prayer, he explained the commands about fasting, chastity and charity. "She however, – says the Monk Nestor, – bowed her head and stood, literally like a sponge absorbing water she hearkened to the teaching, and bowing down to the Patriarch, she did say: By thine prayers, Vladyka, let me be preserved from the wiles of enemies".       It is precisely thus, with a slightly bowed head, that Saint Olga is depicted on one of the frescoes of the Kiev Sophia cathedral, and likewise on a Byzantine miniature contemporary to her, in a manuscript portrait of the Chronicles of John Scilitius in the Madrid National Library. The Greek inscription, accompanying the miniature, terms Olga "Archontessa (i.e. ruler) of the Russes", "a woman, Helga by name, who came to the emperor Constantine and was baptised". The princess is depicted in special head attire, "as a newly-baptised Christian and venerable deaconess of the Russian Church". Alongside her in the same attire of the newly-baptised – is Malusha (+ 1001), the mother later on of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Saint Vladimir (Comm. 15 July).      For one who had originally so disliked the Russians as did the emperor Constantine Porphyrigenitos, it was no trivial matter for him to become the godfather to the "Archontessa of Rus'". In the Russian chronicles are preserved narratives about this, how resolutely and on an equal footing Olga conversed with the emperor, amazing the Greeks by her spiritual depth and wisdom of governance, and displaying that the Russian nation was quite capable of accepting and assimilating the highest attainments of the Greek religious genius, the finest fruition of Byzantine spirituality and culture. And thus by a peaceful path Saint Olga succeeded in "taking Tsar'grad", something which no other military leader before her had ever been able to do. According to the witness of the chronicles, the emperor himself had to admit, that Olga "had given him the slip" (had outwitted him), and the popular mind, jumbling together into one the traditions about Oleg the Wise and Olga the Wise, sealed in its memory this spiritual victory in the bylina or folk-legend entitled "Concerning the Taking of Tsar'grad by Princess Olga".      In his work "About the Ceremonies of the Byzantine Court" – which has survived to the present-day in but one copy, Constantine Porphyrigenitos has left us a detailed description of the ceremony surrounding the stay of Saint Olga at Constantinople. He describes a triumphant reception in the famed Magnaura palace, beneathe the singing of bronze birds and the roars of copper lions, where Olga appeared with an impressive retinue of 108 men (not counting the men of Svyatoslav's company). And there took place negotiations in the narrower confines of the chambers of the empress, and then a state dinner in the hall of Justinian. And here during the course of events, there providentially met together at one table the four "majestic ladies": the grandmother and the mother of holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Saint Vladimir (Saint Olga and her companion Malusha), and the grandmother and the mother of Saint Vladimir's future spouse Anna (the empress Helen and her daughter-in-law Theophano). Slightly more than half a century would pass, and at the Desyatin church of the MostHoly Mother of God at Kiev would stand aside each other the marble tombs of Saint Olga, Saint Vladimir and "Blessed Anna".      During the time of one of these receptions, – relates Constantine Porphyrigenitos, – the Russian princess was presented a golden plate inset with jewels. Saint Olga made an offering of it at the vestry of the Sophia cathedral, where at the beginning of the XIII Century it was seen and described by the Russian diplomat Dobrynya Yadeikovich (who afterwards was to become the Novgorod archbishop Antonii): "The large golden official plate of Ol'ga of Russia, when she took it as tribute, having come to Tsar'grad; upon the plate be precious stones, and upon it is written in these stones the name Xpictoc-Christ".      Moreover, the wily emperor, having reported such details as would underscore how "Olga had given him the slip", likewise presents a difficult riddle for historians of the Russian Church. The matter involves this, – that the Monk Nestor the Chronicler relates in the "Tale of Bygone Years" that the Baptism of Olga took place in the Biblical year 6463 (955 or 954), and this corresponds to the account of the Byzantine chronicles of Kedrinos. Another Russian Church writer of the XI Century, Yakov Mnikh, – in his work "Eulogy and Laudation to Vladimir... and how Vladimir's Grandmother Ol'ga was Baptised", speaks about the death of the holy princess (+ 969) and he notes, that she lived as a Christian for fifteen years, and he places the actual date of Baptism as the year 954, which likewise corresponds within several months to that indicated by Nestor. In contrast to this, describing for us the stay of Olga at Constantinople and providing the precise dates of the receptions given in her honour, Constantine Porphyrigenitos has us to understand in no uncertain terms that all this occurred in the year 957.       To reconcile the cited chronicles, on the one hand, with the testimony of Constantine on the other hand, Russian Church historians are led to suppose either one of two things: either Saint Olga journeyed a second time to Constantinople in the year 957 to continue negotiations with the emperor, or that either – she was in no wise baptised at Constantinople, having previously been baptised at Kiev in 954, and that she was merely making pilgrimage to Byzantium, being already a Christian. The first supposition is the more credible.      As for the immediate diplomatic outcome of the negotiations, there were basic matters for Saint Olga that had been left unsettled. She had gained success on questions concerning Russian trade within the territories of the Byzantine empire, and also the reconfirmation of the peace accord with Byzantium, concluded by Igor in the year 944. But she had not been able to sway the emperor on two issues of importance to Rus': the dynastic marriage of Svyatoslav with a Byzantine princess, and the conditions for restoring an Orthodox metropolitan to Kiev as had existed at the time of Askol'd. The evidently inadequate outcome of her mission is detected in her answer, when she had already returned home, which was given to emissaries sent out by the emperor. To the emperor's inquiry about promised military aid, Saint Olga through the emissaries curtly replied: "If thou hadst spend a time with me similarly at Pochaina, as I did at the Court, then would I give the soldiery in aid".       Amidst all this, in spite of her failed attempts at establishing the Church hierarchy within Rus', Saint Olga in having become a Christian zealously devoted herself to efforts of Christian evangelisation amongst the pagans, and also church construction: "demanding the distressing of demons and the beginning of life for Christ Jesus". She erected churches: of Saint Nicholas and Saint Sophia at Kiev, of the Annunciation of the MostHoly Mother of God at Vytebsk, and of the Holy Life-Originating Trinity – at Pskov. Pskov from that period has been called in the chronicles the Domicile of the Holy Trinity. The church, built by Olga at the River Velika at a spot pointed out to her from on high, – according to the chronicler, – by a "light-beam of the Thrice-Radiant Divinity", stood for more than one and an half centuries. In the year 1137 holy Prince Vsevolod-Gabriel (+ 1138, Comm. 11 February) replaced this wooden temple with one made of stone, which in turn in 1363 was rebuilt and replaced finally with the presently existing Trinity cathedral.       Another verymost important monument of Russian "Monument Theology", – a Church architecture frequently is termed, – connected with the name of Saint Olga, is the temple of Sophia Wisdom of God at Kiev, which was started soon after her return from Tsar'grad, and consecrated on 11 May 960. This day was afterwards observed in the Russian Church as a special Church feastday.      In the Mesyatseslov (calendar supplement)of a parchment Epistle-book from 1307, under 11 May is written: "On this day was consecration of Saint Sophia at Kiev in the year 6460". The year-date of memory is indicated in the so-called "Antioch" rather than generally-accepted Constantinople manner of chronology, and it corresponds to the year 960 from the Birth of Christ.      It was no mere co-incidence that Saint Olga received in Baptism the name of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Helen (Elena), who was the one to find the Venerable Wood of the Cross at Jerusalem. The foremost sacred item in the newly built Kiev Sophia temple was a piece of the Holy Cross, brought by this new Helen from Tsar'grad, and received by her in blessing from the Constantinople Patriarch. The Cross, by tradition, was hewn out from an entire piece of the Life-Creating Wood of the Lord. Upon the Cross-Wood was inscribed: "The Holy Cross for the Regeneration of the Russian Land, Received by Noble Princess Ol'ga".      Saint Olga did much to eternalise the memories of the first Russian confessors of the Name of Christ: over the grave of Askol'd was erected the Nikol'sk (Nicholas) church, where according to certain accounts, she herself was afterwards interred. Over the grave of Dir – was built the afore-mentioned Sophia cathedral, which stood for half a century and burned in the year 1017. On this spot Yaroslav the Wise later on built a church of Saint Irene in 1050, but the sacred items of Olga's Sophia temple were transferred into a stone church of the same name – standing at present as the Kiev Sophia, started in 1017 and consecrated in about the year 1030. In the Prologue account of the XIII Century, it said about the Olga Cross: "for It be now at Kiev in Saint Sophia in the altar on the right side". The plundering of Kiev's holy things, which after the Mongols was continued by the Lithuanians who captured the city in 1341, did not spare even this. Under Jagiello in the period of the Liublin Unia, which in 1384 united Poland and Lithuania into one state, the Olga Cross was snatched from the Sophia cathedral and carried off by the Catholics to Liublin. Its further fate is unknown.      But even in Olga's time there were at Kiev amongst the boyar-nobles and retinue-retainers no few people who, in the words of Solomon, "hated Wisdom", and also Saint Olga, for having built Wisdom's temple. Zealots of the old paganism became all the more emboldened, viewing with hope the coming of age of Svyatoslav, who decidedly spurned the urgings of his mother to accept Christianity, and even becoming angry with her over this. It was necessary to hurry with the intended matter of the Baptism of Rus'. The deceit of Byzantium, at the time not wanting to promote Christianity in Rus', played into the hands of the pagans. In search of a solution, Saint Olga turned her gaze to the west. No contradiction here yet existed. Saint Olga (+ 969) belonged still to the undivided Church (i.e. before the Great Schism of 1054), and she had scant possibility to study the theological points involved between the Greek and Latin faith-confessions. The opposition of West and East presented itself to her first of all as a political rivalry – of secondary importance in comparison with her pertinent task – the establishing of the Russian Church and the Christian enlightenment of Rus'.      Under the year 959, the German chronicler named "the Continuant of Reginon", records: "to the king came emissaries of Helen, queen of the Russes, who was baptised in Constantinople, and which did seek for their nation to have bishop and priests". King Otto, the future founder of the German empire, willingly acceded to the request of Olga, but he bid the matter not be in haste, in quite German the ponderence. It was only on Nativity of the following year 960, that there was established a Russian bishop Libutius, from the monastery brethren of Saint Alban am Mainz. But he soon died (15 March 961). In his place was ordained Adalbert of Trier, whom Otto "generously furnishing all needs" dispatched, finally, to Russia. It is difficult to say, what would have happened, had the king not delayed for so long a while, but when in 962 when Adalbert showed up at Kiev, he "did not succeed in the matter for which he had been sent, and did consider his efforts to be in vain". Furthermore, on the return journey "certain of his companions were murdered, and the bishop himself escaped not mortal danger".       It turned out that after the passage of years, as Olga indeed had foreseen, matters at Kiev had twisted ultimately in favour of paganism, and Rus' – having become neither Orthodox nor Catholic, had second thoughts altogether about accepting Christianity. The pagan reaction thus produced was so strong, that not only did the German missionaries suffer, but also some of the Kiev Christians who had been baptised with Olga at Tsar'grad. By order of Svyatoslav, Saint Olga's nephew Gleb was killed and some of the churches built by her were destroyed. It seems reasonable, that this transpired not without Byzantium's secret diplomacy: given the possibility of a strengthened Rus' in alliance with Otto, the Greeks would have preferred to support the pagans, with the consequent intrigues against Olga and various disorders.      The collapse of the mission of Adalbert had providential significance for the future Russian Orthodox Church, escaping papal dominion. Saint Olga was obliged to accede to the humiliation and to withdraw fully into matters of personal piety, handing over the reigns of governance to her pagan-son Svyatoslav. Because of her former role, all the difficult matters were referred over to her in her wisdom of governance. When Svyatoslav absented himself from Kiev on military campaigns and wars, the governance of the realm was again entrusted to his mother. But the question about the Baptism of Rus' was for the while taken off the agenda, and this was ultimately bitter for Saint Olga, who regards the good-news of the Gospel of Christ the chief matter in her life.      She meekly endured the sorrow and grief, attempting to help her son in civil and military affairs, and to guide matters with heroic intent. The victories of the Russian army were a consolation for her, particularly the destruction of an old enemy of the Russian state – the Khazar kaganate. Twice, in the years 965 and 969, the armies of Svyatoslav went through the lands of "the foolish Khazars", forever shattering the might of the Jewish rulers of Priazovia and lower Povolzhia. A subsequent powerful blow was struck at the Mahometan Volga Bulgars, and then in turn came the Danube Bulgars. Eighteen years were spent on the Danube with the Kiev military forces. Olga was alone and in worry: it was as though, absorbed by military matters in the Balkans, Svyatoslav had forgotten about Kiev.      In the Spring of 969 the Pechenegs besieged Kiev: "and it was impossible to lead out the horses to water, for the Pechenegs stood at the Lybeda". The Russian army was far away, at the Danube. Having sent off messengers to her son, Saint Olga herself headed the defense of the capital. When he received the news, Svyatoslav rode quickly to Kiev, and "he hugged his mother and his children and was distressed, with what had happened with them from the Pechenegs". But after routing the nomads, the warrior prince began anew to say to his mother: "It doth not please me to sit at Kiev, for I do wish to live at Pereslavl' on the Dunaj (Danube) – since there be the centre of my lands". Svyatoslav dreamed of creating a vast Russian holding from the Danube to the Volga, which would unite all Rus', Bulgaria, Serbia, the Near Black Sea region and Priazovia (Azov region), and extend his borders to those of Tsar'grad itself. Olga the Wise understood however, that all the bravery and daring of the Russian companies could not compare against the ancient empire of the Byzantine Romanoi, and that the venture of Svyatoslav would fail. But the son would not heed the admonitions of his mother. Saint Olga thereupon said: "Thou dost behold, that I am ill. Why wishest thou to forsake me? When thou buriest me, then set out whitherso thou dost will".       Her days were numbered, and her burdens and sorrows sapped her strength. On 11 July 969 Saint Olga died: "and with great lament they bewept her, her son and grandsons and all the people". The final years, amidst the triumph of paganism, for her as once haughty ruler transpired with having a priest secretly by her, so as to not evoke new outbursts of pagan fanaticism. But before death, having found anew her former firmness and resolve, she forbade them to make over her the pagan celebration of the dead, and she gave final instructions to bury her openly in accord with Orthodox ritual. Presbyter Gregory, who was with her at Constantinople in 957, fulfilled her request exactly.      Saint Olga lived, died, and was buried as a Christian. "And thus having lived and well having glorified God in Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, having worshipped in the blessed faith, she did end her life in the peace of Christ Jesus, our Lord". As her prophetic testament to succeeding generations, with deep Christian humility she confessed her faith concerning her nation: "God's will be done! If God be pleased to have mercy upon my native Russian Land, then shalt they be turned in heart towards God, as for me also wast this gift".      God glorified the holy toiler of Orthodoxy, the "initiator of faith" in the Russian Land, by means of miracles and incorrupt relics. Yakov Mnikh (+ 1072), an hundred years after her death, wrote in his work "Memory and Laudation to Vladimir": "God hath glorified the body of His servant Olena, and her venerable body be in the grave, incorrupt to this day".       Saint Olga glorified God with good deeds in all things, and God glorified her. Under holy Prince Vladimir, ascribed by some as occurring in the year 1007, the relics of Saint Olga were transferred into the Desyatin church of the Uspenie (Dormition) of the MostHoly Mother of God and placed within a special sarcophagus, into suchlike as was customary to enclose the relics of saints in the Orthodox East. "And hear ye concerning a certain miracle about her: the grave of stone is small in the church of the Holy Mother of God, this church built by blessed Prince Vladimir, and in the grave is Blessed Ol'ga. And atop the grave was an opening wrought – for to behold the body of Blessed Ol'ga lying there whole". But not everyone was given to see this miracle of the incorrupt relics of the saint: "For whosoever with faith did come, the aperture opened up, and there was beheld the venerable body lying intact, and one would marvel at such a miracle – the body lying there for so many years without decay. Worthy of all praise be this venerable body: in the grave whole, as though sleeping at rest. But for another, who not in faith shouldst approach, the grave aperture would not open up, and they would not catch sight of this venerable body, but only the grave".      Thus even after death Saint Olga espoused life eternal and resurrection, filling believers with joy and confounding non-believers. She was, in the words of the Monk Nestor the Chronicler, "a precursor in the Christian land, like the dawn before sunrise or light the twilight before the light".       The holy Equal-to-the-Apostles GreatPrince Vladimir, himself giving thanks to God on the day of the Baptism of Rus', witnessed before his countrymen concerning Saint Olga with the remarkable words: "The sons of Rus' do bless thee, and also the generations of thine ultimate lineage".

SUCH A BEAUTIFUL STORY!


Remembrance of the Miracle of Saint Euphemia the All-Praiseworthy
Commemorated on July 11
      The holy GreatMartyress Euphemia (the account about her is located under 16 September) suffered martyrdom in the city of Chalcedon in the year 304, during the time of the persecution against Christians by the emperor Diocletian (284-305). One and an half centuries later, – at a time when the Christian Church had become victorious within the Roman empire, God deigned that Euphemia the All-Praiseworthy should again be an especial witness and confessor of the purity of the Orthodox teaching. 
      In the year 451 in the city of Chalcedon, in the very church wherein rested the glorified relics of the holy GreatMartyress Euphemia – there took place the sessions of the Fourth OEcumenical Council (the account about it is under 16 July). The Council was convened for determining the precise dogmatic formulae of the Orthodox Church concerning the nature-composition of the God-Man Jesus Christ. This had been necessitated because of the widely-dispersed heresy of the Monophysites ["mono-phusis" meaning "one nature"], who opposed the Orthodox teaching about the two natures in Jesus Christ – the Divine and the Human natures [but in one Divine Person as Son of God within the Holy Trinity of three Divine Persons]. The Monophysites falsely affirmed that within Christ was only one nature – the Divine [i.e. that Jesus is God but not man, by nature], causing discord and unrest within the Church. At the Council were present 630 representatives from all the Local Christian Churches. On the side of the Orthodox in the conciliar deliberations there participated Sainted Anatolios, Patriarch of Constantinople (Comm. 3 July), Sainted Juvenalios, Patriarch of Jerusalem (Comm. 2 July), and representatives of Sainted Leo, Pope of Rome (Comm. 18 February). The Monophysites were present in large numbers, headed by Dioscoros, the Alexandrian patriarch, and the Constantinople archimandrite Eutykhios.


      After prolonged discussions the two sides could not come to a decisive agreement.      The holy Patriarch of Constantinople Anatolios thereupon proposed that the Council submit the decision of the Church dispute to the Holy Spirit, through His undoubted bearer Saint Euphemia the All-Praiseworthy, whose wonderworking relics had been discovered during the Council's discussions. The Orthodox hierarchs and their opponents wrote down their confessions of faith on separate scrolls and sealed them with their seals. They opened the tomb of the holy GreatMartyress Euphemia and placed both scrolls upon her bosom. Then, in the presence of the emperor Marcian (450-457), the participants of the Council sealed the tomb, putting on it the imperial seal and setting a guard to watch over it for three days. During these days both sides imposed upon themselves strict fast and made intense prayer. After three days the patriarch and the emperor in the presence of the Council opened the tomb with its relics: the scroll with the Orthodox confession was held by Saint Euphemia in her right hand, and the scroll of the heretics lay at her feet. Saint Euphemia, as though alive, raised her hand and gave the scroll to the patriarch. After this miracle many of the hesitant accepted the Orthodox confession, while those remaining obstinant in the heresy were consigned to the Council's condemnation and excommunication.      After an invasion by the Persians during the VII Century, the relics of Saint Euphemia were transferred from Chalcedon to Constantinople, into a newly built church dedicated in her name. Many years later, during the period of the Iconoclast heresy, the reliquary with the relics of the saint was cast into the sea – by order of the Iconoclast emperor Leo the Isaurian (716-741). The reliquary was rescued from the sea by the ship-owning brothers Sergios and Sergonos, who gave it over to the local bishop. The holy bishop ordered that the relics be preserved in secret, beneathe a crypt, since the Iconoclast heresy was continuing to rage. A small church was built over the relics, and over the reliquary was put a board with an inscription stating whose relics rested therein. When the Iconoclast heresy was finally condemned at the holy Seventh OEcumenical Council (in the year 787), – during the time of Sainted Tarasios, Patriarch of Constantinople (784-806) and the emperor Constantine VI (780-797) and his mother Saint Irene (797-802), – the relics of the holy GreatMartyress Euphemia were once again solemnly transferred to Constantinople.