rites, and using the Latin language, began to work beside the Slavic priests who represented Greek
doctrines and rites and used the native language, and when finally the Polish church was placed
wholly under the authority of Rome, this was not due to any spontaneous movement within the
church itself, such as Polish chroniclers like to represent it, but to the influence of the German
emperor and the German church. Under Mieczyslav’s son, Boleslav Chrobry, the first king of
Poland and one of the most brilliant heroes of Polish history, Poland, although christianized only
on the surface, became itself the basis for missionary labor among other Slavic tribes.
It was Boleslav who sent Adalbert of Prague among the Wends, and when Adalbert here
was pitifully martyred, Boleslav ransomed his remains, had them buried at Gnesen (whence they
afterwards were carried to Prague), and founded here an archiepiscopal see, around which the Polish
church was finally consolidated. The Christian mission, however, was in the hands of Boleslav,
just as it often had been in the hands of the German emperors, and sometimes even in the hands of
the Pope himself, nothing but a political weapon. The mass of the population of his own realm was
still pagan in their very hearts. Annually the Poles assembled on the day on which their idols had
been thrown into the rivers or burnt, and celebrated the memory of their gods by dismal dirges,^133
and the simplest rules of Christian morals could be enforced only by the application of the most
barbarous punishments. Yea, under the political disturbances which occurred after the death of
Mieczyslav II., 1034, a general outburst of heathenism took place throughout the Polish kingdom,
and it took a long time before it was fully put down.
§ 35. The Conversion of the Bulgarians.
Constantinus Porphyrogenitus: Life of Basilius Macedo, in Hist. Byzant. Continuatores post
Theophanem. Greek and Latin, Paris, 1685.
Photii Epistola, ed. Richard. Montacutius. London, 1647.
Nicholas I.: Responsa ad Consulta Bulgarorum, in Mansi: Coll. Concil., Tom. XV., pp. 401–434;
and in Harduin: Coll. Concil., V., pp. 353–386.
A. Pichler: Geschichte der kirchlichen Trennung zwischen dem Orient und Occident. München,
1864, I., pp. 192 sqq.
Comp. the biographies of Cyrillus and Methodius, mentioned in § 34.
The Bulgarians were of Turanian descent, but, having lived for centuries among Slavic nations,
they had adopted Slavic language, religion, customs and habits. Occupying the plains between the
Danube and the Balkan range, they made frequent inroads into the territory of the Byzantine empire.
In 813 they conquered Adrianople and carried a number of Christians, among whom was the bishop
himself, as prisoners to Bulgaria. Here these Christian prisoners formed a congregation and began
to labor for the conversion of their captors, though not with any great success, as it would seem,
since the bishop was martyred. But in 861 a sister of the Bulgarian prince, Bogoris, who had been
carried as a prisoner to Constantinople, and educated there in the Christian faith, returned to her
native country, and her exertions for the conversion of her brother at last succeeded.
Methodius was sent to her aid, and a picture he painted of the last judgment is said to have
made an overwhelming impression on Bogoris, and determined him to embrace Christianity. He
(^133) Grimm:Deutsche Mythologie, II. 733.