68 chapter onethe region to the north of the Caucasus and the Crimea was registered
in the early decades of the 1st millennium A.D. Probably the attempts
to convert Jews to Christianity by force during the reigns of Heraclius
(610–641) and Leo III (717–741) in the Byzantine Empire made some
of them seek refuge in Khazaria.^201
Th e successes of the Byzantines in spreading Christianity through
the work of missionaries favored by the state continued until the
mid-sixth century. Later on, as a result of the numerous defeats by
the Arabs, as well as by the Bulgars, and the general crisis in the By -
zantine Empire, the imperial court in Constantinople was not able to
send and support missions. At that time a new type of missionary
appeared—the “solitary” missionary. According to Sergei A. Ivanov,
the bishop of Sugdaya in the Crimea, Stephan of Surozh, was the fi rst
representative of the new trend in the eighth century. Th e missionary
activity, however, did not fl ourish before the next century.^202
We should not omit another important detail concerning the accep-
tance of Judaism as a state religion in Khazaria. Both the Short and
the Long version of the “Answer” of the khagan-beg (king) Joseph
to Hasdai ibn Shafrut of Cordoba (mid-tenth century) were certain
that the ‘beg’ Bulan (Sabriel, according to the letter from the Cairo
Genizah) was already converted to Judaism prior to this act. How-
ever, he needed the consent and the permission of the supreme master
of Khazaria, the khagan, in order to initiate the offi cial establishment
of Judaism in Khazaria. Th is offi cial establishment was possible with
the help of traditional religious disputations in such cases (in the case
with the Khazar khaganate—a disputation among Islamic, Jewish, and
Christian clergymen).^203 Th is case reveals that the fi nal decision for the
establishment of some of the world religions in the steppe depended
on the will of the supreme masters of the ‘Steppe Empires’.
Historical sources contain records of the short period of the conver-
sion to Islam by the khagan aft er the disastrous—for the Khazars—
military campaign of Marwan in 737 A.D. Th ree years later, however,
this act was declared invalid and apparently had no serious eff ect on
(^201) Dunlop 1954, 89–90, 170; Khazanov 1994, 16–17; Artamonov 1962, 276.
(^202) Ivanov 2003, 142–143, 333; esp. for Stephen of Surozh—pp. 120–127.
(^203) Pritsak 1981, 273; Golb and Pritsak 1982, 107–109; Shapira 1998–1999, 232–233
and n. 7, 236–237. Th e passages under study can be seen in the scarce original evi-
dence from Khazaria, namely the so-called Long version of the Letter of the Khazar
king Joseph to Hasdai ibn-Shafrut of Cordoba (mid-tenth century)—see Kokovtsov
1932, 89–103.