Episode 3 - 988 — Baptism of Rus’-Ukraine

Christianity came to the Ukrainian lands already in the first century. One of the earliest witnesses to this presence was Pope Clement, the fourth bishop of Rome and third successor of the Apostle Peter, who died as a martyr in Crimea around the year 100 — a distant frontier of the Roman Empire. Over the centuries, many beginnings of church life reached these lands from the Greek Christian world, quietly preparing the soil for a decisive moment. 

That moment came in 988 with the Christianization of Kyiv. Through the will of Grand Prince Volodymyr, the people of the capital were baptized, and the course of history was changed. To a pagan nation came not only faith and salvation in Christ, but also culture — a written language, the translation of Scripture and the liturgy, the lives of saints, and a Christian literature that allowed people to communicate and share a common ethos. 

The Gospel soon put its stamp on virtually everything. Time itself began to be measured by the feasts and mysteries of salvation. The ethical principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition became a norm to which society aspired. Prince Volodymyr took this new faith with great seriousness. A man who once kept a harem embraced one wife; a fierce soldier abolished capital punishment, judicial torture, and mutilation. Such radical changes in his attitude to life reveal how deeply the Gospel had touched his soul. 

The fruit of this conversion was seen in the next generation. Volodymyr’s sons, Borys and Hlib, became the first canonized saints of the Church of Kyiv. The prince also adopted the biblical practice of tithing, and during his reign the Church of the Tithes was built — one of the first great sanctuaries of the capital. Soon scores of churches rose in Kyiv, and the Christian faith spread throughout the land. 

Thus Christianity became the matrix of the civilization of Rus’-Ukraine — an empire centered in the city of Kyiv, today the capital of Ukraine. Faith shaped law, culture, family life, and national identity, laying foundations that continue to inspire the Ukrainian people to this day. 

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