Christian Myths of Origin among the East Slavs: The alleged Apostolic Roots of
*
Christianity in the Kievan Rus’
Enrique Santos Marinas
University Complutense of Madrid
1. Introduction
Since the baptism of prince Vladimir of Kiev in 988, the East Slavic authorities tried to
prove that the Christian roots of their successive states went back much earlier than the
official date. With this aim, the sources that have come down to us show different
attempts to link the alleged old Christian vocation of the Kievan Rus’ to several
apostolic characters. This is the case of the Sermon on Law and Grace of Metropolitan
Ilarion (ca. 1050) and the Primary Chronicle, known as Povest’ Vremennykh Let “Tale
of Bygone Years”, the oldest East Slavic chronicle compiled at the beginning of the 12th
c. from earlier materials. Afterwards, already in modern times during the reign of tsar
Ivan IV “the Terrible” in the 16th c. some of those legends were taken again in order to
support the imperial and messianic ideology of Moscow as the third Rome, as it is
attested in the Book of Degrees of the Royal Genealogy. In this paper we will offer a
review of the Christian myths regarding the apostolicity of the different East Slavic
states since the Kievan Rus’ until the Muscovite Tsardom, showing how they changed
in every historical period as well as the ideological use that was made of them with
different political and religious purposes.
2. The idea of apostolicity in the Sermon on Law and Grace of Metropolitan
Ilarion
Metropolitan Ilarion is one of the most important literary figures of the Kievan Rus’.
However, we don’t know much about his life. In the Primary Chronicle it is said that he
was named metropolitan by prince Jaroslav the Wise1 in 1051, that he was of Rusyn2
origin and that he had been one of the many priests of the Church of the Holy Apostles
in Berestovo3, as well as a monk and ascetic in a cave (Franklin, 1991: xvi-xvii). The
fact that he was a native metropolitan was uncommon, the same as the way of being
appointed by prince Jaroslav and the local bishops, instead of being a Greek named by
the patriarch of Constantinople, as it was always during the period of the Kievan Rus’,
with the only exceptions of Ilarion and Klim Smoljatič a century later. That’s why it has
been interpreted by many scholars as a defiance of Byzantium by the Kievan prince.
Ilarion’s masterpiece, his Sermon on Law and Grace, was written before he became
metropolitan, most likely between 1047-1050 (Franklin, 1991: xix-xxi; Butler, 2002: 67), and it has been preserved only in late copies that date to the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries (Butler, 2002: 4-5). The Sermon has been divided into four constituent parts
that correspond to the different elements mentioned in its title:
*
This paper is a result of the research project “La reconstrucción de la religión eslava precristiana. Los
testimonios textuales y comparativos” FFI2010-16220 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and
Innovation and directed by professor J. A. Álvarez-Pedrosa Núñez.
1
Ruler of Kiev from 1019 to 1054.
2
East Slavic ethnic and linguistic group who inhabited the territory of the Kievan Rus’ (the area that is
now Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia).
3
Princely residence close to Kiev.
Concerning the Law Given by Moses and the Grace and Truth Which Came by
Jesus Christ, and How the Law Departed and Grace and Truth Filled All the Earth
and Faith Spread Forth to All Nations Even unto Our Nation of Rus’, and an
Encomium to Our Kagan4 Volodimer by Whom We Became Baptized, and a Prayer
to God from All Our Land (Franklin, 1991: xxvii).
Its third part is then an Encomium devoted to prince “Volodimer” (Vladimir), the
father of Jaroslav, who introduced the Christian faith in the Russian lands. Not by
chance, this Encomium starts with a paragraph that is related to the idea of apostolicity.
It says as follows:
(42) Rome, with the voices of praise, praises Peter and Paul, for through Peter and
Paul Rome came to believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God. Asia and Ephesus and
Patmos praise John the Theologian. India praises Thomas, Egypt praises Mark:
every land and every city and every nation honors and glorifies its teacher that
taught it the Orthodox faith. We too, therefore, let us praise to the best of our
strength, with our humble praises, him whose deeds were wondrous and great, our
teacher and guide, the great kagan of our land, Volodimer, the grandson of Igor’ of
old, and the son of the glorious Svjatoslav. When these reigned in their time, their
renown spread abroad for their courage and valor; and still they are remembered,
renowned even now for their victories and might. For they ruled not some feeble,
obscure, unknown land, but in this land of Rus’, which is known and renowned to
the ends of the earth (Franklin, 1991: 17).
Like this, prince Vladimir is compared to the Apostles of the different nations,
calling him “teacher and guide”, the titles that received both the biblical Apostles and
Constantine-Cyril and his brother Method, the “Apostles of the Slavs”. According to
Butler (2002: 10), Ilarion attempts to integrate two very diferent aspects of the prince’s
image, shifting from an international to a national focus, and moving from the holy men
of other lands to Vladimir’s pagan ancestors, the rulers of the great land of Rus’. This
way, Rus’ is depicted “both as a part of a larger ecumenical whole and as a powerful
and respected independent unit” (ibid.). In the following paragraphs the baptism of
Vladimir is shown as a direct revelation of God, and as a personal decision to convert
himself together with his people, without any intermediary nor foreign missionary,
though with the inspiration of the Greek piety:
(44) Then the visitation of the Most High came down upon him, and the all-merciful
eye of the good Lord looked down upon him, and understanding shone forth in his
heart, so that he understood that the idols were vain and deceitful and false, and he
sought the one God, the creator of all things visible and invisible. (45) And there
was more: for he often hear about the devout land of the Greeks, their love for
Christ, and the strength of their faith (...) When he had heard all this, his soul was
enkindled, and he desired in his heart that both he and his land should be Christian
(Franklin, 1991: 18).
In later passages, the author emphasizes the superiority of Vladimir compared to
those who saw Jesus and did not believe, including the Apostle Thomas, and makes him
worthy of being called “blessed”, for he accomplished the words of Jesus to Thomas:
4
Kagan or Khan, title of Turkic rulers.
(51) (...) You neither saw Christ, nor did you walk in His footsteps; how, then, did
you come to be His disciple? Others had seen Him, yet did not believe; you had not
seen Him, yet you believed. Surely in you our Lord Jesus’ blessing to Thomas came
true: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed!”5 (52) Thus, then,
we can name you, boldly and surely, without hesitation: “O Blessed One!” The
Saviour Himself thus named you (...) (Franklin, 1991: 20).
Similarly, in the subsequent section it is praised that Vladimir believed though he
didn’t even see the Apostles nor their miracles in his land:
(53) (...) You saw no apostle visiting your land and inclining your heart to humility
through his poverty and nakedness, through his hunger and thirst; you saw no
demons cast out through the name of Jesus Christ, nor the sick being healed, nor the
dumb given speech, nor fire made to freeze, nor the dead made to rise. Yet since you
saw none of this, then how did you come to believe? (Franklin, 1991: 21).
By highlighting the fact that there were no apostolic missions in the Rus’ian lands,
Vladimir is compared and made equal indirectly to the Apostles. Such comparison will
be repeated more explicitly at the end of the Encomium:
(64) “Rejoice, O apostle among rulers: you raised not the dead in body, but us who
were dead in spirit. We were dead from the disease of idolatry, and through you we
revived and came to know Christ, who is life. We were bent by demonic delusion,
and through you we stook straight and stepped forth in the way of the life. We were
blind in the eyes of our hearts, blinded by demonic delusion, blinded by ignorance;
and through you we saw through the light, the three Suns of the Godhead. We were
dumb, and through you we found speech, so that now, great and small, we all glorify
the one God in His Trinity. Rejoice, O our teacher, our guide in devotion” (Franklin,
1991: 25).
And before, Vladimir had been equated to the emperor Constantine, who granted
official toleration to Christianity and was the first Christian emperor:
(57) O you likeness of Constantine the Great: of like wisdom, of like love for Christ,
with like honor for His followers! With the blessed fathers of the Council of Nicaea,
he set down the law for the people; and you, with our new fathers –the bishops– in
frequent assembly und utmost humility took counsel on how to establish the law for
these people new in their knowledge of God. He among the Hellenes and Romans
made the kingdom subject to God. And you, O blessed Vasilij6, did likewise in Rus’,
so that now, both for us as for them, Christ is called King. He and his mother Helen
transported the Cross from Jerusalem, and transmitted its glory throughout all their
world, and affirmed and confirmed the faith. And you and your grandmother Ol’ga7
transported the Cross from the New Jerusalem –from the city of Constantine– and
established if throughout all your land, and so you affirmed and confirmed the faith
(Franklin, 1991: 23).
5
John 20:29.
Baptismal name of Vladimir, probably in honor of the reigning Byzantine emperor Basil II, whose sister
Anna he married.
7
The princess Ol’ga, widow of Igor’, was the regent for their son Svjatoslav, being baptised supposedly
during her trip to Constantinople in 946 or 957 with the Christian name of Helen.
6
Therefore, about the idea of apostolicity in the Sermon on Law and Grace of
metropolitan Ilarion, we can say that it fell directly on prince Vladimir himself, and
didn’t need any other apostolic character to act as intermediary. Prince Vladimir is
referred to here as the Apostle of the Rus’ians.
3. The idea of apostolicity in the Primary Chronicle
As I said before, the Primary Chronicle, also known as Povest’ Vremennykh Let [infra
PVL] or “Tale of Bygone Years” is the oldest East Slavic chronicle that has come down
to us. It is the compilation made between 1110 and 1118 of two former works, dating
back to the second half of the 11th century. It has been preserved in two redactions, the
oldest of which is attested in the Laurentian Codex, a late fourteenth century copy.
In the Primary Chronicle there can be found two mythical stories on the origin of
the city of Kiev and the alleged Christian roots of Rus’ alluding two different Apostles.
One, in the introductory section of the chronicle, deals with the journey of the Apostle
Andrew through the “Slavic land”:
This sea8, beside which taught St. Andrew, Peter’s brother, is called the Rus’ Sea.
When Andrew was teaching in Sinope9 and came to Kherson10 (as has been
recounted elsewhere), he observed that the mouth of the Dnieper was nearby.
Conceiving a desire to go to Rome, he thus journeyed to the mouth of the Dnieper.
Thence he ascended the river, and by chance he halted beneath the hills upon the
shore. Upon arising in the morning, he observed to the disciples who were with him.
“See ye these hills? So shall the favor of God shine upon them that on his spot a
great city shall arise, and God shall erect many churches therein.” He drew near the
hills, and having blessed them, he set up a cross. After offering his prayer to God, he
descended from the hill on which Kiev was subsequently built, and continued his
journey up the Dnieper. He then reached the Slavs at the point where Novgorod is
now situated. He saw these people existing according to their customs, and on
observing how they bathed and scrubbed themselves, he wondered at them. He went
them among the Varangians11 and came to Rome, where he recounted what he had
learned and observed. “Wondrous to relate,” said he, “I saw the land of the Slavs,
and while I was among them, I noticed their wooden bathhouses. They warm them
to extreme heat, then undress, and after anointing themselves with an acid liquid,
they take young branches and lash their bodies. They actually lash themselves so
violently that they barely escape alive. Then they drench themselves with cold
water, and thus are revived. They think nothing of doing this every day, and though
tormented by non, they actually inflict such voluntary torture upon themselves.
Indeed, they make of the act not a mere whashing but a veritable torment.” When
his hearers learned this fact, they marveled. But Andrew, after his stay in Rome,
returned to Sinope (Hazzard Cross, Sherbowitz-Wetzor, 1953: 53-54).
The other reference mentions the Apostle Paul and his supposed disciple
Andronicus in the entry for the year 6406 (898) that describes the missionary activity of
8
The Pontus, the Black Sea.
Modern Sinop, city of northern Turkey, on the southern coast of the Black Sea, belonging to the ancient
region of Paphlagonia.
10
City of modern Crimean peninsula, on the northern coast of the Black Sea.
11
Scandinavian warriors and traders who settled along the Dnieper trade route in the 9th c., founding the
first state among the East Slavs and becoming its ruling elite before being assimilated by the Slavic
popularion.
9
Constantine-Cyril and Methodius. Actually, it presents St. Paul and Andronicus as their
predecessors in the role of Apostles of the Slavs of the Danubian region:
Prince Kotsel appointed Methodius Bishop of Pannonia in the see of St. Andronicus,
one of the Seventy, a disciple of the holy Apostle Paul. (...) Now Andronicus is the
Apostle of the Slavic race. He traveled among the Moravians, and the Apostle Paul
taught there likewise. For in that region is Illyricum, whither Paul first repaired and
where the Slavs originally lived. Since Paul is the teacher of the Slavic race, from
which we Russians too are sprung, even so the Apostle Paul is the teacher of us
Russians, for he preached to the Slavic nation, and appointed Andronicus as Bishop
and successor to himself among them. But the Slavs and the Russes are one people,
for it is because of the Varangians that the latter became known as Rus’, though
originally they were Slavs (Hazzard Cross, Sherbowitz-Wetzor, 1953: 63).
As Poppe already remarked (1988-1989: 493), both stories contradict not only the
accounts of Metropolitan Ilarion and Nestor the hagiographer in his Lives of Saints
Boris and Gleb (ca. 1085), but also the entry of the Primary Chronicle sub anno 6491
(983) that deals with the Christian Varangian martyrs, when it says “the Apostles were
not by body here; they did not teach here; and also the prophets did not prophecy here”.
The first one reflects a Greek legend about the missionary journeys of Saint Andrew
through Scythia that dates back to the 3rd or 4th centuries, as it is attested in his Vita
written by the monk Epiphanius in the 9th c., in which are mentioned for the first time
the cities of Sinope and Kherson. This geographic reference was the starting point for
the narrative on St. Andrew’s journey through Rus’ recounted by the PVL (Poppe,
1988-1989: 498; Dvornik, 1958: 188ff., 223-263). The apocryphal legend that adscribed
to this Apostle the foundation of the bishopric in the city of Byzantion12 only became
significant in Byzantine literature at the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th c., just at
the same time of the compilation of the PVL. We can see it in the fact that the legend of
Saint Andrew was not employed neither by Patriarch Photius nor by Patriarch Ignatius
during their controversy with the Papacy claiming the apostolicity of Constantinople in
the second half of the 9th c., linking instead the Byzantion See to the Apostle John the
Theologian, as the founder of the bishopric of Ephesus (Poppe, 1988-1989: 498-499).
This official position is assumed also by Ilarion in his Encomium to Vladimir when he
makes a survey of the different Apostles together with the lands of their respective
missions: to Saint John the Theologian correspond Asia, Ephesus and Patmos (vid.
supra). Ilarion does not even mention Saint Andrew, and it is hard to believe that he did
not know the legends of his journeys in the north of the Black sea, but according to
Poppe (ibid.) he would rather be aware of their lack of reliability, showing his
agreement with the Constantinopolitan hierarchy.
Thus, the acceptance of the legend by the East Slavic tradition would date to the end
of the 11th c., when the PVL was compiled. In its turn, some scholars consider that the
first part of the Slavic legend, the visit of Saint Andrew to the hill where the city of
Kiev would be founded in the future, erecting a cross there and foreseing its foundation,
would be a secondary interpolation, and that the Apostle’s trip through Rus’ was
originally intended only to the northern city of Novgorod. It can be deduced from the
fact that when Saint Andrew arrives to Rome he only tells the anecdocte of the
Novgorodian baths, and not the religious erecting of the cross on the hill of the future
Kiev (Ponyrko, Pančenko, 1987: 52-53). Therefore, the visit of the Apostle to the
12
Later Constantinople.
Rus’ian lands wouldn’t have originally a missionary goal, and it would have been
formulated later in order to claim an apostolic origin of Kiev.
The second legend complements the former by adding a link both to ConstantineCyril and Methodius, the Apostles of the Slavs, and to their legendary forerunners, Saint
Paul and Saint Andronicus. This story was already present in the chapter 8 of the Vita
Methodii:
Then Kocel13 received Methodius with great honor. And he sent him again, and
twenty men of venerable descent, to the Apostolic Father in order to be consecrated
to the bishopric of Pannonia, to the seat of Saint Andronicus, an Apostle of the
Seventy (Kantor, 1983: 115-117).
The PVL would have taken this episode from the Vita Methodii, though with a
misunderstanding, for it says that Methodius was appointed as bishop of Pannonia by
prince Kocel, instead of by the “Apostolic Father”, that is, the Pope Adrian II. St.
Andronicus is included here among the seventy-two disciples14 who were sent out in
pairs by Christ on the mission of healing the sick and chasing evil spirits (Luke 10:124). In the PVL he is made disciple of Saint Paul on the basis of another biblical
quotation (Romans 16:7) that mentions a certain Andronicus, referring to him as his
kinsman, his fellow prisoner, and as an Apostle, though not as his disciple15.
Andronicus was the legendary founder of the bishopric of Sirmium16, the seat of the
Roman prefect of Illyricum17. He gave the city an “apostolic” origin, being considered
Saint Paul’s disciple, but the PVL goes further and makes Saint Paul himself to be the
founder of the see. He was the Apostle of the Gentiles and hence of the Slavs, and the
Cyrillo-Methodian tradition is full of references to him. This way, when the Episcopal
see was restored by Pope Adrian II in order to consecrate Methodius archbishop of
Sirmium, its apostolic origin was very useful to legitimate this decision. Likewise, the
PVL extends the alleged apostolic teachings among the Danubian Slavs to the East
Slavs (Rus’), for in its own words they were all Slavs, and Panonia is thought to be their
motherland from where they all spread. The main objective of doing this is to strengthen
the apostolicity of the East Slavic lands, already claimed through the character of Saint
Andrew. Poppe (1988-1989: 500) explains this as the naive “desire, typical of
neophytes, to find their place in the genealogy and traditions of Christendom”. But the
insistence can lead us to conclude something else, especially when we associate them
with another “apostolic” character.
In the PVL it is attested sub anno 6496 (988) that prince Vladimir was baptised in
the city of Kherson, taking with him back to Kiev the relics of Saint Clement and those
of his disciple Phoebus (Karskij, 1926-1927: 116, 9-12; Hazzard Cross, SherbowitzWetzor, 1953: 116), which had been discovered more than a century earlier in 861 by
Saint Cyril, the Apostle of the Slavs, as it is told in the Vita Constantini (Angelov,
Kodov, 1973: 96). Like this, the relics of Saint Clement, third Pope after Saint Peter,
played a main role in two important periods of the Christianisation of the Slavs. For
Constantine-Cyril, the transfer of those relics to Rome in 868 would get him the
13
Slavic Prince of the region of Pannonia during the Cyrillo-Methodian mission.
Known in the Eastern Christian tradition as the Seventy Apostles.
15
“Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the
apostles, who also were in Christ before me”.
16
Modern Sremska Mitrovica, in the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina.
17
Ancient Roman prefecture created by emperor Diocletian, and later Christian diocese that included the
provinces of Noricum, Western Panonia, Dalmatia, Moesia Superior, Epirus, Macedonia and the whole
Peloponnesus.
14
approval from the Pope for his mission in Moravia, including the translation of the
canonical church writings and liturgy into Old Church Slavonic. For prince Vladimir,
the transfer of the relics, some of which apparently still remained, would help him to
convey legitimacy to the newly embraced state religion, similarly as the emperor
Constantine and his mother Helen with the relics of the Holy Cross. In Kiev, the relics
were kept in the first Christian temple of the Kievan Rus’: the church devoted to the
Holy Mother of God (Karskij, 1926-1927: 122, 1-3; Hazzard Cross, SherbowitzWetzor, 1953: 119), the so called “Tithe” Church (Franklin, 1991: 23). At the beginning
of the 11th c. this church was called ecclesia Christi martiris et papae Clementis “the
church of Clement, pope and martyr of Christ” by Thietmar of Merseburg (Holtzmann,
1935: 488-489). And the Roman Pope became the first patron saint and “eternal
defender of the Rus’ian land”, as he is referred in the Sermon on the restoration of the
Tithe Church, whose composition dates back to the sixties of the 11th c. (Begunov,
1974: 39). The cult of Saint Clement in the Kievan Rus’ is also witnessed by the
particular liturgical service devoted to him that was meant to be sung during his holiday
in January the 30th (Santos Marinas, 2007: 97). This date was signaled already in the
oldest Kievan calendar included in the Ostromir Gospel (1056-1057).
Like this, we see how at the very moment of their christianisation, the East Slavic
authorities were already aware of the importance of the apostolic link and its material
expression, the relics, in order to legitimate and, following Ilarion’s words, “to affirm
and confirm the faith” (vid. supra). The claiming of the apostolicity of Kiev emphasized
in the PVL with the legends on Saint Andrew, Saint Paul and Saint Andronicus can be
viewed also as a desire of keeping the religious and political autonomy from
Byzantium, and the fact that the first apostolic character related to the Kievan Rus’ was
a Roman pope can be very significant. However, it seems unlikely to assume such wish
of autonomy as early as the reign of Vladimir, we must not forget that the East-West
Schism did not take place until 1054, though we find a similar shift between Rome and
Constantinople in the christianisation process of the Bulgarians, taking advantage of the
growing rivalry because of the controversy of filioque (Álvarez-Pedrosa, 2009: 24-36).
Nevertheless, Vladimir could desire just to link with the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition by
taking the supposed relics discovered by the same Cyril, who, being a byzantine monk,
carried them to Rome seeking the aproval of the Pope.
On the contrary, such wish of independence is shown more clearly in the last
mention of the relics of Saint Clement by a Russian chronicle, that is to be found in the
Hypatian Codex (Šakhmatov, 1908: 340-341, 15-17) on the occasion of the election of
the Metropolitan Klim Smoljatič in 1147, without the consent of the Constantinopolitan
hierarchy. Then, the bishop Onufrij of Černigov argued that the local synod did have the
authority to elect its own metropolitan, on the basis of the following argument: “We
have the head of St. Clement, just as the Greeks appoint by the hand of St. John”
(Franklin, 1991: xlvi-xlvii).
The relevance given in the PVL to other apostolic figures, makes appear the role of
prince Vladimir himself in the Christianisation of the Rus’ in a secondary place.
According to professor Ostrowski (2006, 567-580), the account of Vladimir’s
conversion is the combination of at least five traditions: “(1) missionaries from Islam,
Judaism, Western Christianity, and Eastern Christianity came to Kiev to convert
Volodimir; (2) envoys of Volodimir were sent to gather information about Islam,
Western Christianity, and Eastern Christianity; (3) Volodimir vowed to be baptized
upon the successful taking of Kherson; (4) Volodimir agreed to be baptized in order to
wed Anna, the sister of the Byzantine co-emperors; and (5) Anna instructed Volodimir
to be baptized to cure his blindness”. We see how it shifts all the time between external
converting actors (mostly Byzantine) and internal actors (the same Vladimir), while in
the Sermon on Law and Grace of Metropolitan Ilarion the conversion was due only to
Vladimir’s own initiative and will motivated by direct divine revelation.
During the episode of Vladimir’s baptism in Kherson, in the story of the miracle of
the healing from his blindness through baptism he is likened implicitly to Saint Paul and
the emperor Constantine the Great. It tells as follows:
By divine agency, Vladimir was suffering at that moment from a disease of the eyes,
and could see nothing, being in great distress. The Princess declared to him that if he
desired to be relieved of this disease, he should be baptized with all speed, otherwise
it could not be cured. When Vladimir heard her message, he said, “If this proves
true, then of a surety is the God of the Christians great,” and gave order that he
should be baptized. The Bishop of Kherson, together with the Princess’s priests,
after announcing the tidings, baptized Vladimir, and as the Bishop laid his hand
upon him, he straightway received his sight. Upon experiencing this miraculous
cure, Vladimir glorified God, saying, “I have now perceived the one true God.”
When his followers beheld this miracle, many of them were also baptized (Hazzard
Cross, Sherbowitz-Wetzor, 1953: 113)
Following Butler (2002: 43-46), while the motif of his blindness and healing by
touch of someone’s hans is reminiscent of the story of the conversion of Saint Paul on
his way to Damascus (Acts, 9:18), the direct association of the healing of a bodily
illness with baptism is reminiscent of the story of Constantine, as described in the Greek
chronicle of George Hamartolos, a work that was translated very early into Church
Slavonic, being very succesful and influential in the different Slavic medieval
literatures. This way, prince Vladimir is given an apostolic character also in the PVL,
and we can conclude that it was used to reinforce the apostolicity of Kiev that had been
claimed before with the aforementioned figures. This image of prince Vladimir equated
to Saint Paul and the emperor Constantine will be developed and enlarged in the
sixteenth century Book of Degrees.
4. The idea of apostolicity in the Book of Degrees of the Royal Genealogy
The Book of Degrees of the Royal Genealogy was composed between 1555-1563 at the
initiative of the Metropolitan Makarij of Moscow, a decade after he himself had
crowned tsar Ivan IV “the Terrible” in 1547, who was the first ruler in bearing this title.
Thus, the Book’s aim was to legitimate the ruling dinasty of the tsar, the Riurikids, as
well as Ivan’s imperial aspirations in the framework of the messianic ideology of
Moscow as the third Rome. Once the Byzantine empire had fallen defeated by the Turks
in 1453, the Great Duchy of Muscovy claimed to be its legitimate heir as well as the
defender of the true Christian faith. For them, the Byzantine had been punished by God
with the Turkish conquest because they had quited the Orthodoxy by associating
themselves with the Catholics in the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1445), a union
that the Muscovite authorities never accepted.
The Book is a sequence of seventeen degrees that correspond to different sovereigns
of the dinasty, showing its continuity along the centuries. The first degree contains the
history of the pre-Christian Rus’ian rulers starting with the mythic founder of the
dinasty, the Varangian Riurik, and including the Lives of the princess Ol’ga and of her
grandson the prince Vladimir. It compiles almost all the material about them available at
that time, though it adds some new elements. However, sometimes it is very difficult to
distinguish whether the additions are so or just adaptations of lost sources.
In the first degree it can be found again the legend of the journey of Saint Andrew
though Rus’, but with some changes:
With Grace and love for the humankind God our Lord and and Saviour Jesus Christ
fulfilled the prophecy and blessing of the great and saint among the Apostles
Andrew the First-called, when preaching the Word of the Lord in Sinope and
Kherson, and thence being on the river Dnieper, and there on the mountains he
prayed and set up a cross, and blessing them he prophesied that on that place there
will be the city of Kiev and that the whole Rus’ian land will be baptised. Hence he
went to the place where now stands Novgorod the Great, and there he set up his rod
in a village called Gruzino, where there is now a church devoted to the Saint Apostle
Andrew the First-called. Having prefigurated with the divine cross in the Rus’ian
land the sacred order (Lenhoff, Pokrovskij, 2007: 150-151).
It continues in the following section dealing with the founder of the dinasty, the
“first Rus’ian Great Prince Riurik”:
With his rod he prefigurated in Rus’ the autocratic regime of the schepter of the
tsars, that began with Riurik, the aforementioned, who came from the Varangians to
Novgorod the Great with his two brothers and their clans, being of the lineage of
Prus, in honor of whom was named the Prussian land. Prus was the brother of the
monarch of the earth, the Roman Caesar Augustus, during whose reign took place
on the earth the ineffable birth of God our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the first
and eternal Son of God born of the most Holy Spirit and of the most pure Virgin
Mary (Lenhoff, Pokrovskij, 2007: 151).
In contrast with the related episode in the PVL, in the first paragraph we find the
following differences. First of all, the visit of Saint Andrew to Rus’ is not by chance on
his way to Rome, but on purpose. His prophecy about the baptism refers to the whole
Rus’ian land, and not only to the city of Kiev. In Novgorod the Great the anecdote of
the baths is omitted, adding instead the set up of a rod in the village of Gruzino18 close
to the city, that parallels the set up of the cross on the ground of the future Kiev. With
these two symbols, the cross of Kiev and the rod in Novgorod the Great is legitimated
not only the conversion of Rus’ and its apostolicity, as in the PVL, but also the tsarist
autocracy established by the first tsar Ivan IV. In the consecutive passage, this autocracy
is said to go back to Riurik, linking his lineage, Ivan’s dinasty, with the first Roman
emperor Caesar Augustus. This way, it justifies too the imperial and messianic
aspirations of Ivan, as well as his official ideology of Moscow as the third Rome, and
his tsardom as the legitimate successor of the Roman empire. Ivan IV is thus the new
Christian emperor, the millennialist “king of the Romans and the Greeks” of the End
Times during whose reign shall happen the Second Coming of Christ and the
establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. Not by chance, starting from the 15th c.,
the apocryphal Revelation of Methodius of Patara19 had an enormous success among
the East Slavs as a result of the millennialism of the Orthodox countries, who saw the
approaching of the year 7000, that is the year 1492 according to the Byzantine
chronology, as the date of the End of the World (Santos Marinas, forthc.). Similar
18
According to Golubinskij (1880: 7) the name of the village Gruzino or Druzino would have its origin in
the same legend that mentions it, for it would come from the Russian words for the action of “raising, set
up” вoдpyжeниe or вoгpyжeниe.
19
Also known as Pseudo-Methodius.
myths of origin can be found in other cultures, as for instance in the first dinasty of the
Frankish kings, the Merovingians, who claimed descent from the Trojan king Francio
(Bietenholz, 1994: 190).
Finally, in what concerns the story of Vladimir’s baptism as it is recounted in the
Book of Degrees, the similarities between the Kievan prince, the emperor Constantine
the Great and St. Paul that were implicit in the PVL, are made explicit in the Life of
Vladimir belonging to the First Degree, giving long and elaborate explanations and
interpretations of the fact (Butler, 2002: 98-99).
To summarize, we can say that the idea of apostolicity in the East Slavic countries
has changed over time, being associated to different “apostolical” characters. While it
was represented by St. Clement of Rome at the moment of the conversion of prince
Vladimir at the end of the 10th c., it was embodied by Vladimir alone in the middle of
the 11th c. in the Sermon on Law and Grace of Metropolitan Ilarion, and shared by
Vladimir and other figures at the beginning of the 12th c. in the PVL, together with St.
Andrew, St. Paul and St. Andronicus, and during the 16th c. in the Book of Degrees,
again with St. Andrew. Likewise, we remark that the ideological use of the notion of
apostolicity becomes more clear and explicit with the passing of time.
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