05 — The Kievan and Georgian Traditions
Two further national foundation-traditions attached to Andrew: that he sailed up the Dnieper and blessed the hills where Kiev would rise, prophesying a great Christian city (the Russian Primary Chronicle), and that he preached in Georgia and the Caucasus. These files name each source, date it honestly, and read each tradition for its character as the prefacing of a much later Christianization with apostolic dignity.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)
The northern reach of the Scythian mission gave the Slavic and Caucasian Churches a claim on the First-Called. The Kievan tradition is preserved in a single famous passage of the Russian Primary Chronicle (the Povest’ vremennykh let, “Tale of Bygone Years”), compiled in Kiev in the early twelfth century, which has Andrew journey from the Black Sea up the Dnieper, set up a cross on the hills above the future Kiev, and foretell the grace of God upon that place — a narrative prefixed to the account of a Rus’ that was not in fact baptized until the 980s under Vladimir. The Georgian tradition, likewise, claims Andrew (with other apostles) as a first preacher in a land whose definitive enlightenment the Church credits to St. Nina in the fourth century. These files treat both with the source named and its legendary character noted, per METHODOLOGY §3.5.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Andrew and the Hills of Kiev | The passage in the Russian Primary Chronicle (early 12th c.) on Andrew’s journey up the Dnieper and his blessing of the Kievan hills; the source named and its legendary, etiological character noted; its relation to the actual Baptism of Rus’ under Vladimir; the later use of the tradition in Russian Church history. |
| Andrew in Georgia and the Caucasus | The Georgian tradition of Andrew’s preaching in Iberia and along the eastern Black Sea; its sources and date; its relation to the enlightenment of Georgia by St. Nina; the place of the tradition in the Georgian Church’s apostolic self-understanding. |
See Also
- The Mission to Scythia — the wider journey of which these are the northern arms
- The Founding of Byzantium — the parallel foundation-tradition handled the same way
- The Baptism of Rus’ — the actual Christianization the Kievan legend prefaces
- The Church of Georgia — the Church claiming Andrew among its first preachers
- St. Nina of Georgia — the equal-to-the-apostles enlightener beside whom the Georgian tradition is read
References
- The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text. Trans. and ed. Samuel H. Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1953.
- Dvornik, Francis. The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium and the Legend of the Apostle Andrew. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958.
- Rapp, Stephen H. Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography. CSCO 601. Louvain: Peeters, 2003.