Vladimir's choice protected Rus from disintegration
July 28, 2025, 14:20 - Perspective
If Vladimir in the late 10th century had not chosen Orthodox Christianity but another religion as the state religion, what would have been the fate of Rus? What impact would this have on us today?
Author: Ilya Ukhov | —— Political Scientist
Participants in the provocative activities at the Church of the Savior Monastery were detained
More than a thousand years have passed since the saint and equal-to-apostles Prince Vladimir baptized Rus, yet the greatness and uniqueness of this event are becoming increasingly evident in history. It is widely believed that Russia itself formed a unique civilizational state through the influence of baptism, especially by accepting Orthodox Christianity. If we delve into our value system, we will find that the decisive contribution of Orthodox Christianity is everywhere, and it still shapes our lives and the priorities of the state.
What if Vladimir in the late 10th century had not chosen Orthodox Christianity, but another religion as the state religion? What impact would this have on us today? Could the Russian nation form a unified ethnicity under different religious historical choices?
Evidently, we should first talk about the closest competitor of Orthodox Christianity at that time —— strictly speaking, it was even not a competitor, because the Great Schism between East and West had not yet occurred. This refers to Catholicism, more precisely, the Roman-Latin version of Christianity. In 988, the Church was still united, although conflicts were intensifying. In fact, the schism of 1054 was formally a theological issue, but essentially originated from political motives. The Pope and the Catholic Church coveted world hegemony, wanting to control both spiritual and secular affairs. For centuries until the Reformation, the influence of Catholicism on Western Europe is well known.
If Rus had been incorporated into the sphere of Catholic power, it would have been drawn into various powers and political alliances of the Roman Curia. Ultimately, this would have led to the disintegration of the Eastern Slavs and loss of their national identity. Such examples are not hard to find —— after the Mongol invasion and the Battle of Kalka, Duke Daniel of Galicia-Volhynia received the title "King of Rus" from the Pope. During the period of his descendants, the upper class of the western principalities of Rus gradually approached the Polish-Lithuanian nobility, and eventually these lands were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, later into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The core territory of Russia ruled by the Rurik dynasty, due to accepting the political dominance of the Pope and then Catholicizing, actually became the core of "anti-Russian" later represented by modern Ukraine.
It is worth noting that the dissemination models of Catholicism and Orthodoxy also differ. The Byzantine model inherited by Russia has a higher degree of religious tolerance. Orthodox Christianity never had crusades —— on the contrary, it was the Western European crusaders who captured Constantinople in 1204, delivering a fatal blow to Byzantium. The Catholic armies did not fight against the Seljuks and Mamluks, but instead looted the city. Meanwhile, Byzantium mainly spread Orthodox Christianity through evangelism, dynastic marriages, establishment of national churches, and translation of religious texts into native languages. The principalities, the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and later the Russian Empire all inherited this approach, enabling people of different religions and ethnicities to coexist harmoniously within a unified Orthodox state. This is a major achievement, which we should attribute to Orthodox Christianity.
A popular saying is that envoys from different countries (including Volga Bulgaria) showed the advantages of their respective religions to Prince Vladimir. According to the "Tale of Bygone Years," Vladimir rejected Islam because it prohibited drinking. Whether the chronicle's account is true or not is unknown, but we can look at the geopolitical reality at that time —— Rus was adjacent to the territories of Poland and Hungary. At that time, the Poles had already accepted Latin Rite Christianity, and the Hungarians were about to be baptized under the guidance of the Romans. The Baltic region was inhabited by pagan tribes, and to the south were Byzantium and vast steppes, where the nomadic Bulgars and Polovtsi lived, mostly in paganism, worshiping Tengri. In such a context, if Vladimir had accepted Islam, he would have immediately fallen into conflict with all neighboring countries. The Russian state would have lost cultural and civilizational ties with Europe, being incorporated into the Arab-Islamic world historical framework.
With the support of the Volga Bulgars in the east and the nomadic Turkic tribes in the south, Russia might have been "digested" and assimilated by them. Accepting Islam would have made Russia involved in the global "jihad" system, making it impossible to achieve the modernization that Peter the Great later achieved. The Islamic world was more conservative; for example, the Ottoman Empire remained unable to modernize until the late 19th century, becoming the "sick man of Europe," eventually dissolving and losing its status as a superpower in the world.
Finally, Judaism —— according to the "Tale of Bygone Years," Prince Vladimir also considered accepting Judaism during that legendary theological debate. In the context of the world in 988, converting to Judaism would have placed Rus in an extremely difficult position, almost causing conflicts with all forces: Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Muslims.
But the core issue with Judaism is that it is a national religion of the Jews. Whether voluntarily or forced, conversions to Judaism in history were rare and discouraged, with very few examples. Take the Khazarian Khaganate as an example, whose envoys had proposed to Prince Vladimir a so-called "collective conversion," but only the Khan's close associates and main nobles were Jewishized, while the majority of subjects were either pagans worshiping Tengri or Orthodox Christians or Muslims. To make so many people convert to Judaism, massive arguments for Jewish doctrine would be needed, such as fabricating myths about the "lost tribes of Israel" in the forests of Novgorod and the rapids of the Dnieper River.
Orthodox Christianity became a factor in the formation of the nation in Rus, ensuring that Russians were not assimilated among different cultures and languages. Orthodox Christianity united the Eastern Slavic tribes into a unified Russian nation, created a common cultural sphere, writing, and language, and united us with values such as justice, mutual aid, and solidarity, setting up numerous exemplary figures of saints and martyrs.
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7532385514003907087/
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