Conversion
to Christianity of Polack and Turau Eparchies in the 10th—14th centuries
Rascislaŭ Baravy
«Christening in Rus’» is one of the crucial
events in the early history of the Eastern Europe, which was represented well
and rather comprehensively in a good range of historic sources. Unfortunately,
all the remained–till–date written sources of that period show considerable
information gaps, generally reasoned by a highest range of socio–cultural
realities in direct interest by the authors of such written works.
There are lots of works related to the subject
of this article, however, the local and very specific aspect of the subject of
our interest — spatio–temporal simulation of the orthodox churches spreading
over the modern Belarus’ territory in the first centuries of the «conversion to
Christianity» — has not been well presented in the sources and in
historiography thereafter.
Taking into consideration the traditional
written sources only, the orthodox parishes of Polack and Turau Eparchies in
the 10th—14th
centuries can be neither chronologically recounted nor mapped, unlike those of
the Roman Catholic Church (14th—16th
centuries). Thus, the dense mapping of the 14th—16th
century Roman Catholic churches may contrast to the «almost–blank» Christianity
progress in the 11th—13th
centuries, as well as to the history of the Orthodox Church in the 14th—16th
centuries, and, consequently, it may result, to a certain extent, in some
inadequate understanding of the historic reality of that period.
This article has tried to «substantiate» the
conversion–to–Christianity process by associating it to the well–known
elements of the social and political structure of this region. For this
purpose, in addition to few direct written and archeological informants about
location of the 11th—14th
century churches and monasteries, we have also applied a wider information
range of sources (and — partly — some methods) at our disposal due to historic
geography.
During our study we have worked out a map, which
demonstrates vividly the main tendencies of the orthodox perishes network
spreading over the territory under research, as related tightly to the
structural differentiation progress in this ethno–geographical area.
Thus, we can make a reasonable conclusion that a
priori systematic process of the Ancient Rus’s conversion to Christianity shows
a tight spatio–temporal correlation between the recognised realities of the
Belarusian historic geography of the 10th—14th
centuries and the orthodox parishes network spreading in this region in the
first centuries of the «conversion to Christianity».