There were other constraints on Rus aggressiveness besides Pechenegs, Khazars and
the Byzantines’ mix of trading-privileges and Greek Fire. Christianity was known to
the Rus from several quarters, including communities in the Baltic world. But the
Byzantines vaunted their special relationship with heavenly powers and, like their
precursors in the early 860 s, many Rus after 941 probably inclined to link the superior
firepower discharged at their fleet with the Christians’ God. The Byzantines fostered
such tendencies, singling out Christian Rus representatives for special treatment during
the ratification of the post-war treaty and by 946 ‘the baptised Rus’ had a prominent
position in ceremonial receptions (PVL: 26 ; RPC: 76 – 7 ; DC: 579 ). Finds of Christian
cross-pendants in the mid-tenth-century graves of some women and children at Kiev
suggest that families among the elite were adopting Christian rites. The most spectacu-
lar devotee of all was Prince Igor’s widow, who acted as regent for more than a decade.
She is known in Byzantine sources by the Nordic name of ‘Helga’ and in Rus sources
by the Slavic form, ‘Olga’. The exact date of Olga’s baptism is highly contentious. A case
can be made for 946 , mainly on the strength of what seems to be a dossier of materials
for that year contained in Constantine VII’s De cerimoniis (Kresten 2000 : 6 – 19 , 33 – 41 ;
Zuckerman 2000 a: 647 – 60 ). But on balance, and giving weight to general historical
considerations, a somewhat later dating – probably to 957 – seems preferable
(Nazarenko 2001 : 219 – 310 ; Featherstone 2003 ; see overview in Tinnefeld 2005 :
551 – 63 ). Perhaps most telling is the location of Olga’s baptism – not Kiev but Constan-
tinople, probably in the Great Palace itself. She was, together with her entourage of
‘princesses of her kin’, ‘nobler ladies-in-waiting’, ‘envoys of the princes of Rus’ and
‘merchants’, treated to two formal receptions. At one of these Olga ate dessert at table
with Constantine VII and his family (DC: 597 – 8 ), and she took the name of his wife,
Helena, in baptism. She was known by this Christian name to the chronicler Adalbert
of Trier, who himself led a religious mission to Rus on behalf of Otto of Saxony in 961
(Bauer and Rau 2002 : 214 ). Olga-Helena’s bid for this mission in itself shows that
she was not committed to eastern orthodoxy to the exclusion of all other variants of
Christianity: she was then probably reacting to the Byzantines’ failure to provide her
with a bishop and priests. But by having Helena and Constantine for godparents,
adopting Helena’s name and receiving hundreds of Constantine’s silver coins as gifts,
Olga associated herself with this imperial order in ritual fashion, before eminent Rus
traders and the representatives of other princes. Her pre-eminence was recognised by the
fact that she merely ‘nodded her head slightly’ whereas her fellow princesses duly
prostrated themselves before the emperor (DC: 597 ). Yet her gesture also signalled
deference of a sort and, in its way, expressed the relationship of the Rus leadership
towards Byzantium. Their capacity for ‘first strikes’ might give emperors ‘sleepless
nights’, but for sustainable prosperity they needed regular commerce with the Byzan-
tines, on generous yet ultimately imperial terms.
Personal devotion seems to have compounded with Realpolitik in Olga’s reverence
for the God of the Greeks. She maintained a priest, apparently keeping to Christian
observances for the rest of her life; on her deathbed in 969 she forbade any funeral-feast
or the raising of a barrow over her grave (PVL: 32 ; RPC: 86 ; Musin 2002 : 81 – 2 ). But
religious affiliation remained a matter of individual or familial choice and prominent
counter-forces were in play against a religion whose close associations with Greek super-
power could repel as well as attract. The German mission on behalf of another, western,
overlord, was, according to its leader, futile and dangerous, with Adalbert only narrowly
–– Jonathan Shepard––