The baptism of Russia and the baptism of man: "There is no such spectacle and such beauty on earth"

The year is now jubilee - 1030 years of the Baptism of Rus, and this number, like any round date, is a good reason to think: what is the important episode for us, what role it had on our history ... There is no arguing: the Baptism of Rus became a state-forming for our country, both a people-forming and a culture-forming event. But I would like to talk not about what happened ten centuries before our birth, but about what each of us has in common with the holy Prince Vladimir, Equal to the Apostles. After all, Christianity is personalistic, and how faith affects a particular person is no less important than the question of its historical significance.

I will argue from my own experience. This is clearer.

Thirty years ago a thick art album dedicated to the millennium of the Baptism of Rus appeared in my house. On the first cover - the famous Novgorod icon "The Miracle of George about the Dragon", and on the last - "St. George" by Wassily Kandinsky. I don’t know what it was possible there at the age of five, only having learned to read, to understand Russian art, but I leafed through this album for hours. From the temporal rings of the X century to Suprematism. From shards from Staraya Ladoga to Nesterov's "Philosophers". Silver and gold censers, the icon "Rejoices in You ...", tabernacles of the 18th century, the incomprehensible phrase "Deesis rank" ... Fascinated.

Pretty soon I asked to be taken to church and baptized. I think this was my first conscious decision. Faith, even in a naive "aesthetic" form, is an important stage in growing up. Religion works in much the same way in history. There are a lot of strange episodes in hagiographic literature: subtle dreams, strange coincidences, strong emotions, under the influence of which people turn to God - these are not rational comprehension of reality, but simply vivid impressions. While a person is young and inexperienced, until he is very good at logic or does not want to use it at all, he builds his worldview on vivid impressions.

A young man, including a historically young man, could not become the hero of an anecdote about finding a parking space: "Lord, if you help me put my car in the parking lot ... Oh, no, thanks, I found it myself." A coincidence is always a miracle for him. A young person, including a historically young person, could not enter Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, like a tourist to Hagia Sophia in Istanbul - and simply admire the beautiful mosaics and the architectural perfection of the building. Beauty for him is sacred, it is Heaven on earth.

This is not stupidity or simple-mindedness. This is, if you will, childishness. The wonderful psychotherapist Natalya Inina explains that a person is not a straight line on which events of the past and present are marked, but a matryoshka doll, inside which there is a basic "I" - a child who gains experience and grows up, but remains the same. I agree with this definition. Faith also appeals to our basic "I" - pre-speculative, pre-logical, pre-rational, even pre-reflective, so that conversion through personal experience before any analysis is worthy of no less respect than conversion after reading Rambam, Al-Ghazali, Gregory Palamas and Karl Marx with the aim of choosing the most correct religion.

If we recall the circumstances of the baptism of Prince Vladimir according to The Tale of Bygone Years, we will not see almost anything “reasonable” in them, although in principle he tried to choose faith very soberly: he listened to representatives of various religions, sent his ambassadors to meet ... However, the decisive role it is not the mind that plays, but the heart.

The first argument of the ambassadors is based on aesthetics: "There is no such spectacle and such beauty on earth." The latter refers to the authority of the "wisest grandmother" - Saint Olga. Vladimir goes to Korsun, already intending to be baptized. Skeptics, of course, will shrug their shoulders: what kind of Christianity is this, if you can go to war against your fellow believers, and even win a victory not in a completely honest way. Yes, very simple: still unformed Christianity, naive, spontaneous, precisely what is unreasonable. The prince will wisdom in mind and soul after receiving baptism, and not the last role in his churching will be played, probably, by the Greek wife Anna - it is not for nothing that the brothers send her in marriage to a "barbarian", convincing them: "Maybe God will turn the Russian land to repentance."

We will not now raise the question of the detailed accuracy of the presentation - most historians believe that events did not develop quite like that. The canonical version is useful for describing models and attitudes that are ultimately relevant for any era. This is exactly what is surprising, illustrative, and valuable - in such a seemingly personal event as the acquisition of faith, a five-year-old girl of the late 20th century and a medieval prince turned out to be extremely similar.

And there is no particular surprise. Everything is clear: not only 1030 years ago the Lord called this medieval prince to serve Himself, but today He calls all of us. So if the faith "caught up" - there is no need to be afraid of its inconsistency and "strangeness". The neophyte can safely trust his religious feeling - like true love, at first it does not require proof.

Inokina Evgeniya (Senchukova)
07/28/18