Section 06: Church and Realm

The section treating the institutional founding of the Rus’ Church under Vladimir and the shape of his Christian rule. It sets out how the new Church was organized — as a metropolitanate of Kyiv under the Patriarchate of Constantinople — together with the genuinely uncertain question of who its first hierarchs were; the Cyrillo-Methodian inheritance of Slavonic letters, liturgy, and books that came chiefly through Bulgaria and gave Rus’ Christianity its native-language character; and Vladimir’s school-founding. The companion file draws together his Christian rulership: the convergence of faith and statecraft in the reign of the prince the tradition would call Equal-to-the-Apostles.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (Equal-to-the-Apostles)

Contents

File Topic
The Church of Rus The organization of the Rus’ Church under the Patriarchate of Constantinople; the metropolitanate of Kyiv and the disputed identity of its first hierarchs (Michael; Leontius/Leon; Theophylact; the first firmly documented, Theopemptos c. 1037); the Cyrillo-Methodian inheritance — Church Slavonic liturgy, Scripture, and books via Bulgaria; the founding of schools and “book learning”
The Christian Prince The shape of Vladimir’s Christian rule: the convergence of faith and statecraft; the prince as patron and protector of the Church; the law and the social order; Vladimir as the model of the baptized ruler in the Byzantine Commonwealth

How to Use

  • Read The Church of Rus for the institutional and cultural founding of the Church — the metropolitanate, the disputed first hierarchs, and the Slavonic inheritance that shaped everything after.
  • Read The Christian Prince for the synthesis of Vladimir’s Christian rulership, the bridge from the works of Section 05 to the veneration of Section 08.

A Note on Sources

The identity of the first metropolitan of Kyiv and the date the metropolitanate was formally established are genuinely uncertain; the early names rest on late and partly legendary attestation, and the first hierarch on solid documentary ground belongs to the reign of Vladimir’s son. Following methodology §3, that uncertainty is presented as a structured [Disputed: ...] note naming the positions. What is undisputed — the canonical dependence of Kyiv on Constantinople — is stated as such.

Cross-References