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DIVISION III

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH

CHAPTER I

THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY IN RUSSIA

 

(a) Nestor, and later Chroniclers; French translations by L. Leger, 1884.

(b) Mouravieff, Hist. of the Russian Church, English trans., 1842; Ralston, Early Russian History, 1874; Morfill, Russia ("Story of the Nations"), 4th edit., 1890; Histories in Russian Language: Karamzin, Ustrialov, Sergius Soloviev, Bestryhev-Riumin, etc.

 

After the fall of Constantinople in the year 1453 the centre of gravity of Oriental Christianity gradually moves northwards. The process is slow, at first imperceptible, occupying one or two centuries, and only to be recognised as continuous and ultimate by after reflection. Nevertheless it is now the chief outstanding fact in the history of the Eastern Churches. The Sclav supersedes the Greek as the dominant race in Eastern Christendom; Moscow takes the primacy so long held by Constantinople; Russia becomes the most important part of the holy orthodox Church and the protector of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire.

"The conversion of Russia by the Greek Church," says Mr. Hore, "is the mightiest conquest the Christian Church has ever made since the time of the apostles."^[1] When we recollect what the conversion of the Teutonic races has

1. Eighteen Centuries of the Orthodox Greek Church, p. 7.

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