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Vladimir the Great

Also called: Volodymyr the Great, Vladimir I of Kiev

Grand Prince of Kyiv (r. 980–1015) who adopted Orthodox Christianity in 988 and brought Rus’ into the Christian world

The son of Grand Prince Sviatoslav of Kyiv, he first ruled Novgorod. Victorious in a struggle with his brothers, he became Grand Prince of Kyiv in 980. Before his conversion he had set up shrines to the Slavic gods, but after baptism he had the old idols thrown into the river and built churches. The Church of the Tithes he built in Kyiv is counted as the first stone church of Rus’. Ukraine and Russia both honour him almost as a founding father.

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1 related event

  1. 1
    AD 988Vladimir I Adopts Orthodox Christianitymonarch

    In 988 Vladimir I of Kievan Rus’ converted to Orthodox Christianity on marrying the Byzantine emperor’s sister, bringing Rus’ into the Byzantine cultural world.

Themes this person appears in

  • Medieval Europe and ByzantiumAD 476 – 1077

    From the fall of Rome in the West to Canossa — the feudal West built by the Franks and the papacy, Byzantium as heir of Rome, and a church divided east and west