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 Grandson of
Saint Olga. Son of the pagan Norman-Rus prince Svyatoslav of Kiev and his
consort Malushka. Grand prince of Kiev. Prince of Novgorod in 970. On the
death of his father in 972, he fled to Scandinavia, enlisted help from an
uncle, and overcame Yaropolk, another son of Svyatoslav, who had attempted
to seize Novgorod and Kiev. By 980 Vladimir had consolidated the Kievan
realm from Ukraine to the Baltic Sea, and had solidified the frontiers
against Bulgarian, Baltic, and Eastern nomads.
Christianity had made some progress in Kiev, but Vladimir remained pagan,
had seven wives, established temples, and participated in idolatrous rites,
possibly involving human sacrifice. Around 987, Byzantine Emperor Basil II
(976-1025) sought military aid from Vladimir. The two reached a pact for aid
that involved Basil's sister Anne in marriage, and Vladimir becoming a
Christian. He was baptized, took the patronal name Basil, then ordered the
Christian conversion of Kiev and Novgorod. Idols were thrown into the
Dnieper River, and the new Rus Christians adopted the Byzantine rite in the
Old Church Slavonic language. Legend says Vladimir chose the Byzantine rite
over the liturgies of German Christendom, Judaism, and Islam because of its
transcendent beauty; it probably also reflected his determination to remain
independent of external political control.
Byzantines maintained ecclesiastical control over the new Rus church; the
Greek metropolitan for Kiev reported to both the patriarch of Constantinople
and of the emperor. Rus-Byzantine religio-political integration checked the
influence of the Roman Latin church in the Slavic East, and determined the
course of Russian Christianity.
Vladimir expanded education, judicial institutions, and aid to the poor. He
and Anne had the martyr sons Saint Boris and Saint Gleb. Following the death
of Anne in 1011, another marriage affiliated him with the German Holy Roman
emperors. His daughter became the consort of Casimir I the Restorer of
Poland (1016-58).
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