Page:Russian Church and Russian Dissent.djvu/30

Rh intercourse between Russians and Greeks, arising from trade and from frequent predatory excursions of the former against the empire, doubtless combined to spread among them some knowledge of Christianity. Efforts for their conversion, attempted by emperors preceding Basil I., were continued by him and by his successors, stimulated by their desire, during the struggles of the Greek Church with Rome, to extend its sway. A treaty, concluded in 945, between Igur of Kiev and Constantine VII., distinguishes Russians who had been baptized from those who were yet pagans, and makes mention of a church at Kiev, dedicated to St. Elias.

From these scanty and confused historical data it would appear that Christianity had penetrated into Russia prior to the middle of the tenth century.

The conversion of the savage tribes who occupied the vast deserts of Dacia and Sarmatia was preceded, and the way for it prepared, by the missionary labors of the Greek Church along the Danube and in the Chersonesus. Slavonic tribes, who had heard of Christ, applied to Constantinople for teachers. Constantine Cypharas, a monk better known as St. Cyril, was sent to them by Michael III. in 860. He called to his assistance his brother Methodius, and they both, animated by true apostolic zeal, extended their mission to the surrounding pagans. They invented a Slavonic alphabet, translated the Scriptures and the Liturgy, and celebrated religious services in the language of the people, according to the rites of the Greek Church. Their lives were devoted with singlehearted earnestness to the conversion of the heathen, and the results of their missionary efforts spread far beyond the sphere of their labors. They had great influence upon the growth and destinies of the Church in Russia, where their translations of the Bible and the Liturgy