4) Olga (945 – c. 960)

Olga / Ольга / Helga

In the last episode:

After Oleg met his death from a snake living in his dead horse’s skull, Igor finally took his father Rurik’s position as Grand Prince of Russia. Almost straight away, the Drevlyane rebelled, but Igor regained control and increased their tribute. A new nomadic threat arrived – the Pechenegs – but Igor dealt with them, first with diplomacy, five years later, with force. Things go quiet for twenty years until Igor raises an army and fleet to attack the Roman Empire. The raid goes disastrously, but Igor manages to rebuild his forces in two years and starts marching back to Constantinople. The Romans offer a generous deal and, after consulting his commanders, Igor takes it. Igor returns to Kiev to sign a formal treaty with the Romans to continue the previous trading arrangements, but this doesn’t solve his financial difficulties. His warband persuade him to extract more tribute from the Drevlyane, but he goes back for even more after sending most of his forces to Kiev with the bulk of the tribute. Igor’s luck runs out, the furious Drevlyane kill his guard, capture Igor and literally tear him to pieces.

The dreadful news reaches Kiev that Igor is dead. With the support of Sveneld, the military leader and Asmud, Igor’s “feeder” or tutor, Olga takes control of the state on behalf of her young son, Svyatoslav. Whatever plans Olga may have had for the future, the Drevlyane had theirs too. According to the Povest’ Vremennykh Let (PVL), they said “we’ve killed their Grand Prince, we should take his widow Olga as a bride for our Prince Mal and then do with Svyatoslav as we want (I’m guessing what they wanted probably wasn’t very nice).” So they sent twenty of their most noble men down the river to Kiev as envoys to Olga. Olga welcomed them, heard their proposal for her to marry Mal. She noted that she could not resurrect her husband, so suggested they rest for the night on their ship and in the morning, she would have them brought to her by her men, the envoys being carried in the ship itself as a sign of honour.

Night fell, then morning came and, to the slight surprise of the Drevlyane, a large group of men arrived, dragged their ship out of the water and carried it off towards Olga’s hall. Olga’s servants had not been resting all night, but digging a massive pit. When the ship arrived at the palace, the porters laid the ship on the ramp and pushed it into the pit. The ambassadors were then buried alive along with the ship.

Burying a ship full of ambassadors in a pit.

In the meantime, Olga was sending an envoy to Mal, suggesting that the first group of Drevlyane had been insultingly low-born men and demanding he sent a mission of a more exalted status. Mal quickly agreed, sending another twenty of his even more noble men to seal the deal with Olga. When they arrived in Kiev, Olga suggested they take a bath (a banya, a bit like a sauna). When they were all inside, Olga had the door barred and the building burned to the ground, ambassadors and all.

Burn, baby, burn. Olga’s second revenge.

Olga then travelled to Iskorosten’ to mourn her late husband and supposedly to celebrate her new marriage to Mal. As a Grand Princess, obviously Olga would need a considerable entourage with her, those men would also need to be armed – just in case. After the wake at Igor’s grave, the Drevlyane held a feast to celebrate the upcoming wedding. As the evening drew on and the Drevlyane started to slide into drunken torpor, Olga ordered her men to attack. Which they did, killing five thousand of the Drevlyane.¹

A party to end all parties – for the Drevlyane at least. Olga’s third revenge.

You might think Olga had made her point by now, but she didn’t feel that way. In 946, she collects an army to confront the Drevlyane in a fair fight. Little Svyatoslav leads his men into battle and, like Odin in the battle with the Vanir, starts it by throwing the first spear. Being a small boy, the spear didn’t go far, but Asmud and Sveneld encouraged the men, shouting “The Prince has started, let us follow the Prince!” and chased the Drevlyane from the field of battle.

The battle with the Drevlyane.

The Drevlyane took refuge in their walled cities, in particular, Iskorosten’, which was besieged by Olga’s army all summer. Olga suggested that they should, like their fellow Drevlyane from other towns, surrender and pay her tribute. The defenders of Iskorosten’ suggested a payment of furs and honey.  Olga refused, asking for only three sparrows and three pigeons from every household. The defenders collected the birds, delivered them to Olga and waited for the army from Kiev to leave. That night, the night sky above Iskorosten’ glowed red as the city burned. Olga had ordered that the birds have strips of lit tinder fungus tied to their legs and be released. They flew back to their nests in Iskorosten’ and set the whole city alight.

The birds set Iskorosten’ alight and Olga’s army takes the city.

At this point, Olga’s all-encompassing thirst for revenge is almost slaked. She takes the leaders of the city prisoner, kills some, hands some of the citizens over to her followers as slaves, but releases the rest to pay an increased tribute. She imposed a particularly heavy tribute, two thirds of which went to the main treasury in Kiev, but one third was intended for Olga’s own treasury in Vyshgorod. Olga travelled around the land of the Drevlyane, fixing the level of tax and tribute to be paid, so everyone knew where they stood (even if it was on their knees with Olga’s boot on their neck). Having done that, she returned to Kiev and stayed there for a year.

In 947 AD, she set off back to her northern homelands and set up a network of tax and tribute payment points along the Msta and Luga rivers near Novgorod. You will note from the map that the Luga leads from the Baltic Sea almost to Novgorod, while the Msta leads from Lake Il’men’ near Novgorod to Vyshny Volochyok – literally the upper portage leading to the Volga. Olga was making sure she was collecting taxes from both the main trade route through Kiev to Constantinople, as well as the eastern route down the Volga to the Caspian and the Caliphate. According to the PVL, she must have been very keen on hunting and fishing, as the places where she hunted and fished across Russia were still remembered when the PVL was written and Olga’s sled was preserved in Pskov – her home city.

Olga sets up tax collection points.

The reason for setting up tribute payment points was to avoid the sort of conflict that led to Igor’s death. Instead of a skint Grand Prince travelling around to extract what wealth he could by the immediate threat of violence, the tribute system was bureaucratised as far as was possible in mediaeval Russia. The tribute rates were fixed, people came at a fixed time to pay the tribute to an indentured servant of the Grand Prince (called a “tiun” from the Norse word “thiona / to serve”) at a set place called a “pogost / погост”. Essentially a tribute system was turning into a more formalised tax system. This isn’t given much space in the PVL, but this is a huge development, transforming what might have been an ad-hoc personalised power system into a true state that would continue regardless of what happened to whom in Kiev. There is evidence that the system had been developing for some time. However, Olga seems to have systematised it in the wake of her husband’s death.

The pogost system appears to be based on a system developed in Sweden slightly earlier. Previously, the free people of a Swedish tribe would congregate at a formal meeting (thing) that was held at a communal enclosed area called a “tun” cognate with the English word “town” to discuss legal matters, pay taxes and dues, report for military service etc. When some power holders gained control over numerous tribes as kings, instead of collecting tribute at the tribes’ centres of power, the kings would take over a central estate belonging to the old ruler and use it as a tax collection point controlled by their (armed) men, these estates were individually known as “husaby”. In Russia, the pogosts were staffed with garrisons loyal to the Grand Prince in Kiev, they became centres of craft and trade and were often chosen as ecclesiastical centres upon Russia’s conversion to Christianity.

The next episode in Olga’s life that is mentioned in the records is a trip to Constantinople to visit the Roman Emperor Constantine VII (Porphyrogenitus – born in the purple i.e. son of the Emperor even though his parents weren’t married yet). According to the PVL, this happened in 955 AD, although according to Constantine VII’s own record where he gives the days and dates of various events, it could not have been 955, it was most probably 957 AD. The PVL says that when Constantine met Olga, he was struck by her beauty and intelligence and hinted that he wanted to marry her, saying “You are worthy to rule with me in my capital.” Catching what he was driving at, Olga tried to put him off, pointing out that she was a pagan, and that she would only convert if Constantine were to be her godfather. Olga took instruction from the Patriarch and was baptised by him, with the Christian name Helen (like Constantine I’s mother and Constantine VII’s wife), with Constantine acting as her godfather as agreed. When the Patriarch had finished, Constantine brought up the question of marriage again. Olga / Helen must have been paying close attention to the Patriarch’s teaching, because she pointed out that it was not permitted for a man to marry his goddaughter.

Olga meets the Emperor and gets baptised.

I think it is fair to say that this story is unlikely to be true, serving as a literary example of Olga’s quick-wittedness, rather than the chronicler’s historical accuracy. For one thing, Constantine VII was not a young man in search of a wife, or even an old man needing a male heir. As you would have noticed, he was married, with a seventeen-year-old son, Romanus who succeeded him in 959 AD. In addition, the chronicle suggests that Olga’s reception in Constantinople was not as warm as she might have hoped. Olga was permitted not to kneel before the Emperor, just bow. However, bearing in mind that Oleg and Igor had both received riches from the Romans, she was obviously expecting a more “generous” acknowledgement of her status. Upon her return to Kiev, the Romans sent envoys to take possession of the goods she had apparently promised them. The PVL says the Emperor sent the following message: “I gave you many gifts (Constantine’s book “On Ceremonies” says he gave her a cup worth 500 gold coins and 200 gold coins in cash), you told me that when you return to Russia, you would send me many gifts: slaves, wax, furs and soldiers.” Olga sent a reply through the ambassadors: “If you come and wait at our docks like I had to wait for you in the Golden Horn, then I’ll send the gifts.”

The Roman ambassadors leave empty handed.

As further evidence of cool relations between the Roman Empire and Russia, in 959 AD an embassy from Kiev arrived at the court of the King of Germany (and soon to be Holy Roman Emperor) Otto, asking for him, rather than the far closer Church in Constantinople, to send a bishop to Russia to instruct the people in Christianity as they wished to abandon paganism and take up the true religion. The original candidate as evangelist to the Russians died before setting off. The second choice, Adalbert, was consecrated Bishop of Rügen (an island in the Baltic, at that time inhabited by pagan Slavs), and set off for Russia, arriving in 961 only to find that Olga was no longer regent and that her son Svyatoslav had grown up and was quite happy being a pagan, thank you very much. The mission seemed to have little state protection, some of Adalbert’s priests were attacked and killed, so Adalbert returned to Germany in 962, having failed to convert the Russians. As a recompense, on the way back he got to consecrate the second Bishop of Prague, became Archbishop of Magdeburg and eventually became a Saint in both the Western and Eastern churches.²

The PVL says that Olga tried to convince her son to accept Christianity, hoping he may take as much joy in it as she did. He was reluctant, thinking that if he did, his warband would mock him for it. Olga pointed out, probably entirely correctly, given the experience of other Kings in similar situations, that if he converted, his men would all convert too. Olga continued to pray for her son and that God may give him and Russia as a whole the same gift he had given her. For his part, although Svyatoslav never converted himself, he did not try to prevent anyone from converting, although he did laugh at them for doing so.

Olga tries and fails to convert Svyatoslav.

At this point, it is generally accepted that Svyatoslav was now ruling as Grand Prince in his own right, although the PVL notes that when he left Kiev on campaign in 967-8 AD, he left his mother in charge of the city, much as Oleg had left Igor in charge when he was out fighting. While these events occurred under Svyatoslav’s rule, I’ll briefly run through the rest of Olga’s life here. While Svyatoslav was in Pereyaslavets on the Danube in 967 and 968, the Pechenegs attacked Kiev, besieging it with a large army. With a cunning plan, a local commander managed to bluff the Pechenegs into withdrawing by giving the impression Svyatoslav was coming back, they got a message to him, shaming him for leaving his aged mother and children in danger. He returned to Kiev and allowed Olga to convince him to remain in Kiev rather than return to Pereyaslavets which he thought was a much better place. Olga asked him to remain in Kiev for as long as she lived, then he could do what he liked. Three days later, on 11^th July 969 AD, she died. Rather than hold a pagan wake for her, Svyatoslav allowed her to have a Christian burial.

As with so much at this time, there are a lot of questions about the dates and facts of Olga’s life. The PVL gives the date that Oleg brings Igor a wife called Olga from Pskov as 903 AD. The Ustyug Chronicle states that she was ten years old at the time (so born around 893 AD), and a hagiography says she was seventy-five at the time of her death, giving a birth date around 894 AD as well. However, it is also believed that Svyatoslav was only three in 945 when Igor died, which means Olga had her only surviving child at nearly fifty. A couple of specialists, Boris Rybakov and Aleksey Karpov, think Olga was born much later, in the 920s, making her around twenty at the birth of Svyatoslav and explaining her youthful vigour in wreaking her vengeance upon the Drevlyane, as well as possibly justifying the tale of Constantine VII taking a fancy to her in the late 950s when she would have still been in her thirties. However, if Svyatoslav had been a few years older than believed (and he was supposed to have ridden to battle and at least attempted to throw a spear at the enemy in 946 at the age of four), that might at least take one objection away from the traditional dating. It would also explain how Svyatoslav had time to father three sons old enough to engage in civil war soon after his death at a relatively young age.

As for Olga’s background, she has a couple of stories attached to her. Her hagiography states Igor first met her while hunting and she was boating near Vybuty. He called her over to get her to ferry him to the other side of the river. While in the boat, Igor was overwhelmed by her beauty and charm and tried to convince her to give in to her baser nature. She pointed out that it is below the dignity of a Prince to behave like this and although she was not of noble blood, she would rather throw herself into the river than be dishonoured. A rather disappointed Igor finished his hunt, returned to Kiev but when Oleg tried to find him a wife, none of the candidates were to his liking. He remembered the girl from near Pleskov / Pskov, and got Oleg to bring her to him. The Ioachim Chronicle, on the other hand, claims she was related to the rulers of Izborsk – also near Pskov, so not a common ferrygirl, but a noble woman. This is the source that claims her original Slavic name was Prekrasa and was given a Norse name in honour of Oleg.

Her name suggests a possible familial link to Oleg, in that the two names are essentially the masculine and feminine forms of the Norse word for “holy” or even “Saint”. A couple of later chronicles say that Olga was Oleg’s daughter, which does not necessarily contradict other versions of the story: we don’t know who Rurik put in charge of Izborsk after Truvor died. Oleg was obviously a trusted lieutenant, so would have been a good candidate. Essentially, this is all speculation, so don’t take any version too much to heart – it’s probably wrong at least somewhere.

RATINGS

Length of Reign: Olga didn’t actually reign but she was the regent of Russia for about 15 years. As Svyatoslav was the actual reigning monarch, I’ll treat Olga’s regency as the equivalent of rule of a minor principality, so the equivalent of 1/3 the time, giving her 1 point of out 10.

World Fame: As is well deserved, Olga has a few more translations of her biography than her husband: 56, giving her 6 points out of 20.

Achievements: I’ll discuss her dealings with the Drevlyane under Defence of the Realm, but even leaving that aside, she really stands out. Regencies for young monarchs are very often times of instability, but Olga seems to have managed to avoid that, retaining power as her son matured to adulthood. The chronicles show she had a confidence in her position that allowed her to travel around the country and even to Constantinople for a couple of months without having to worry about someone launching a coup while she was away.

The two men mentioned at the beginning of her regency – the military leader Sveneld and Svyatoslav’s guardian / tutor Asmud – were obviously men of repute and standing, for them to have achieved their status in the first place. Maybe a front-row seat at Olga’s plans for revenge convinced them she was someone not to be crossed, maybe her possible family ties to the lucky / holy Oleg meant she would act as a luck-bringer to them. Whatever the reason, two men who could easily have taken power either together, or one removing the other, did not.

Aside from successfully keeping the throne warm for her son for well over a decade, Olga’s main long-term achievement was her re-organisation of the tribute system into something more like a formalised tax collection system. Instead of a Grand Prince travelling around the country to demand money, furs, wax, honey and slaves from tributary communities, what was owed would be delivered to stations controlled by servants of that Grand Prince. The monarch could be a child, out on campaign, dying or dead, but the taxes would still be paid and the state would keep on running. This is a development of enormous significance. Igor had discovered the limits of the system Rurik and Oleg set up and Olga made it her business to fix the problems. And fix them she did. I’m going to give her 25 out of 30.

Defence of the Realm: Olga’s first enemy was an internal one, the Drevlyane. A year after they killed her husband and summoned her to share their Prince’s bed, Olga had butchered their elite, slaughtered their fighting men and reduced their main city to ashes. To cap it all, she imposed a higher tribute than previously and set up payment centres to make sure the wealth came to the monarch – the monarch wasn’t going to travel to ask for it any more.

The rest of her time in charge seems to have been relatively peaceful – after what happened to the Drevlyane, one can understand the reluctance of Russia’s neighbours to risk calling the same misfortune upon themselves as the Drevlyane had. In her old age, when Svyatoslav was out fighting, she had the presence of mind to maintain the defence of Kiev against a Pecheneg siege and to come up with a crafty plan to get a messenger out and use the limited reinforcements he summoned to bluff the Pechenegs into lifting the siege. That there was a siege goes down on Svyatoslav’s account, but the lifting of it is, in part, Olga’s achievement. For defence, she gets a healthy 16 out of 20.

Bonus points: Warning: this section will be a lot longer than usual. Olga is our first Russian ruler to be acknowledged as a Saint, obviously because of her actions after conversion, rather than how she dealt with the Drevlyane. As such, she has a number of churches dedicated to her: Wikipedia lists 18 churches, Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Uniate. These include a cathedral in Kiev, a chapel in Pskov and the church in the lower level of the cathedral in Korosten’, the city she burned to ashes. Apparently the cathedral was built on the site of a church Olga had built to atone for her acts of vengeance. As a by-product of her sainthood, she also has a number of orders of chivalry named after her, including an Imperial Russian award, a Ukrainian award, an award of the Greek royal house and an award of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Olga has been honoured with a number of statues, including a monument in Korosten’, a place on the Millenium of Russia monument in Novgorod, a statue in Pskov, she takes centre stage in a monument to her, Saints Andrew, Cyril and Methodius in Kiev, just in case one monument isn’t enough, a second statue in Pskov, she’s in the Alley of Russian Leaders in Moscow and has a bust in Vladimir.

And that’s not all. Olga has an airport and a bridge in Pskov named after her, the bridge leads from the Krom to Princess Olga Embankment. There is a bay on the Pacific coast of Russia and a town there named after her. There is even a variety of larch named after the bay. A village in the north west of Russia has the name Ol’gin Krest after the cross Olga raised there in thanks for her not drowning when her boat overturned on the river Narva in 947.

Olga appears on the same Russian stamp mentioned before, as well as a Ukrainian one from 1997. She also appears on a 10 grivnya coin from 2000, but doesn’t appear to have a Russian equivalent.

In popular culture, Olga appears in many of the same TV series as her predecessors, Rurikovichi, Kreshchenie Rusi, she is the main character in Legenda o Knyagine Ol’ge, and also has a modern ballet written about her in 1981: Knyaginya Ol’ga. She was the hero of the first in a series of cartoons about the history of Russia and the Volga Bulgars, Saga Drevnykh Bulgar: Skazaniye Ol’gi Svyatoy.

Oleg inspired a song, Olga inspired an entire album: A Perfect Absolutism by Gorod. She is also the muse for the authors of a large number of novels and poems, from Ryleev to the modern day. In addition to all of these, Olga has inspired a number of artists to draw her, a Google search of “Olga of Kiev” will come up with far more than I have time or place to put here. Like the best Grand Princes of Russia, she even has a ship: the St Olga.

Given this relatively large impact on popular culture for a lady who died over a thousand years ago, I’ll giving Olga the full 20 points. Well done!

Reflected Glory: This time, we have a couple of gentlemen to discuss, Asmud and Sveneld. Asmud is most probably a Russification of the Norse name Asmundr, the equivalent of the English name Osmund. Asmud is mentioned only twice, once mentioning his presence in Kiev at the time of Igor’s death and then shortly after, when accompanying Svyatoslav to battle against the Drevlyane in 946 AD.

Sveneld (probably Sveinaldr) is mentioned rather more often. In the Novgorod Chronicle, he is said to have helped conquer the Ulichi under Igor (940AD) and to have collected tribute from vassal tribes. Because of this, Sveneld and his warband had got rich, prompting the envy among Igor’s men that led to Igor’s death. Sveneld, like Asmud, was mentioned as being in Kiev with Olga in 945 and accompanying Svyatoslav into battle in 946. However, his career continues into Svyatoslav’s reign. He accompanies Svyatoslav on his last campaign and survives into Yaropolk’s rule, appearing in a 971 AD treaty between Russia and the Roman Empire. After a decades long career, Sveneld loses favour around 875 AD after inciting a war between Yaropolk and his brother Oleg in which Oleg dies.

OLGA’S RATING: 68 out of 100

In our next episode, discover how Svyatoslav copes with running the country now he’s all grown up.

1. I suspect these three acts of revenge may have been a confused explanation of a single massacre / sacrifice, described by monks who were a bit hazy on how angry pagans might arrange a ship burial. Ibn Fadlan described how a slave girl volunteered to be her master’s companion in the after-life. She was killed, placed on a ship, burned and a burial mound raised over the collected ashes. I speculate that the two sets of twenty ambassadors might be one set, killed, maybe along with a large number of prisoners, placed on a ship with Igor, then burned. If this is the case, the actual series of events might have been the opposite to the one in the PVL – first Olga comes to Iskorosten’ on the pretext of marrying Mal, has a feast where she kills and captures the Drevlyane élite, then has the choicest of them sacrificed and burned on Igor’s ship to act as his slaves in the next life. ↩︎
2. Now seems to be a good time and place to discuss the differences between Catholicism and Orthodoxy and why the choice between the two had such an effect. The ancient church was initially an urban organisation with bishops in towns and cities, aided by assistants (priests and deacons) and bishops of the capital cities of provinces having an authority over the other bishops of their province. The metropolitan bishops of the greatest cities of the Empire: Rome, Antioch and Alexandria had a similar prestige and authority over the nearby provinces, their positions grew into those of the original Patriarchates of the early church. Early additions to this “big three” are Jerusalem, as an acknowledgement of the honour due to the city in which Christ dies and rose again and Constantinople, due to its status as capital of the (Eastern) Empire.
   When Constantine converted, he was very keen to get the decentralised church structure to adopt a united statement of faith, so people knew what “true” Christianity was, calling the first of the seven Ecumenical Councils. These discussed various points of doctrine, formulated the Nicene Creed, condemned various forms of heresy etc. Importantly, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches accept these seven councils as valid. However, these councils were called in part to deal with heresy and from time to time, the Patriarchs of some churches fell away from orthodox (rather than specifically Orthodox) Christianity. While I make no comment on which denomination best reflects the traditions and beliefs of the early Church, the church in Rome had been a reliable stronghold of what ended up as mainstream Christianity at the time of the seventh Ecumenical Council in 787 AD which condemned the Iconoclast movement. Despite this decision of the council, Iconoclasm (a refusal to pray before icons or other images of Christ and the saints) still had its proponents in the Roman Empire and there was a further period of official iconoclasm in the first half of the ninth century.
   However, while the church in the East was undergoing doctrinal conflict, in the West things were changing too. For one thing, the Papacy’s role as the bedrock of doctrinal orthodoxy had massively increased its prestige. Secondly, the other Patriarchs were far more subject to political control – Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem were subject to the Caliphate, while Constantinople was  heavily influenced by the Emperor, especially in the appointment of candidates. In the West, the Pope and the church administration in Rome had been almost the only thing holding together a common post-Roman identity and an over-all unity of Christian doctrine.
   Except for one thing. As a response to a local form of heresy in Spain in the 6th century AD, local churches had started adding in an extra phrase into the Nicene Creed. Instead of the original claim that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, it was stated that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and from the Son. This addition gained in popularity, becoming common across the West and eventually being declared official Roman Catholic doctrine in 1014. Although many Church Fathers, accepted as orthodox, had written works implying this double-precession, the Eastern churches generally refuted the change, pointing out that the general councils of the Church tasked with setting out doctrine said that the Holy Spirit only proceeds from the Father and that a local council in Spain, or even the Pope himself, has no right to change that which had been formally set down in a council recognised as having been inspired by the Holy Spirit.
   So, as we get to the middle of the ninth century, we have a church in Constantinople which had only just sorted out its last Iconoclastic falling from orthodox belief and a church in Rome that felt like it had the authority to lay down the law to the other Patriarchs, but which was itself falling into something the other Patriarchs considered to be heresy. On top of this, the Islamic take-over of the east and south of the Mediterranean from the 7^th century and the simultaneous dropping away of Greek language scholarship in the west and the use of Latin in the Roman Empire had all led to divergences in church practices and general culture. In the fourth and fifth centuries, the Church had been united, if not always in doctrine, at least in a general cultural outlook of citizens of a single Empire. By the ninth century, this was no longer the case and there was a huge rivalry between the churches in Rome and Constantinople over who would get to control the churches founded as the Slavs started to convert to Christianity. The papacy tried and failed to “get” Bulgaria and later Russia, the Patriarch of Constantinople tried and failed to “get” Moravia (modern Czechia). There was even a temporary schism between the two churches in the 860s, which was patched up, but the rivalry and disagreements remained. In the end, the line that split the Roman Empire into West and East ended up being the line that delineated Roman Catholic and Orthodox at least in the Balkans. The final split in 1054 didn’t even look that final at the time from a legal point of view. Cardinal Humbert, a personal representative of a Pope who had already died (removing any authority the Cardinal had) excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople. This could have been smoothed over almost immediately, or given the lack of legal standing, simply ignored, but Patriarch Cerularius was particularly annoyed by the presumption of the accusations pointed at him and his church. Among other things, the excommunication accused the Orthodox Church of removing the phrase “and from the Son” from the Creed. In reality, the excommunication reflected a sad fact: the churches’ doctrines, cultures and practices had diverged to the extent that they no longer felt a unity between them.
   The rival attempts to convert Russia under Olga fell almost exactly half way between the first schism and the second, final one. It was another symptom of a church that was no longer truly united, but which hadn’t quite found the will to formally split. ↩︎