A History of the Church of Russia

THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY IN RUSSIA.

THE Russian Church, like the other Orthodox Churches of the East, had an Apostle for its founder. St. Andrew, the first called of the Twelve, hailed with his blessing long beforehand the destined introduction of Christianity into our country. Ascending up and penetrating by the Dnieper into the deserts of Scythia, he planted the first cross on the hills of Kieff, and “See you,” said he to his disciples, “these hills? On these hills shall shine the light of Divine grace. There shall be here a great city, and God shall have in it many Churches to His Name.” Such are the words of the holy Nestor the Monk and Annalist of the Pechersky monastery, that point from whence Christian Russia has sprung.

But it was only after an interval of nine centuries that the rays of Divine light beamed upon Russia from the walls of Byzantium, in which city the same Apostle St. Andrew had appointed Stachys to be the first Bishop, and so committed as it were to him and to his successors, in the spirit of prescience, the charge of that wide region in which he had himself preached Christ. Hence the indissoluble connection of the Russian with the Greek Church, and the dependence of her Metropolitans during six centuries upon the Patriarchal throne of Constantinople, until, with its consent, she obtained her own equality and independence in that which was accorded to her native Primates.