ABSTRACT
Less than a decade after instituting a state paganism, signaled by the erection of idols outside the palace yard in Kiev, Prince Vladimir embraced Eastern Christianity and became Russia’s Saint-Baptizer. During the Kievan period Christianity remained largely the religion of the upper classes; but in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, while Russia was under Mongol rule, it became the religion of all classes, though some church historians date the actual conversion of the countryside as late as the fifteenth century.1 For the most part, the peasant accepted the new religion without active resistance; yet at the same time, as ecclesiastical documents from this period attest, the masses clung to their ancient ways, continuing to offer sacrifice and prayer to their pagan deities. By the end of the Muscovite period these ancient personages had all but disappeared from the peasant’s religious nomenclature. Nonetheless, many continued to live on under Christian names.
