chapter 2.

"In 822, Harold, the king of Jutland, and claimant of the crown of Denmark, came to seek the help of Louis the Pious, the son, and one of the successors, of Charlemagne. ... On Harold's return to Denmark he was accompanied by Anskar, who well deserves to be called the apostle of Scandinavia. ... Thus Anskar and Autbert set out in the train of Harold, and during the journey and voyage a kindly feeling sprang up between the royal and the missionary families. Harold got no cordial greeting from his proud heathen subjects when he announced to them that he had done homage to the emperor, and that he had embraced the gospel. He seems to have been very sincere and very earnest in his endeavours to induce his nobles and subjects to abandon idolatry and embrace Christianity. To expect that he was altogether judicious in these efforts would be to suppose that he had those views regarding the relation that ought to subsist between rulers and subjects, ... views regarding liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment. ... {466} The result was that after two years, in 828, he was compelled to abdicate the throne. ... The position of Anskar, difficult as it was while Harold was on the throne, became still more difficult after his abdication. ... But just at the time when the door was shut against him in Denmark, another was opened in Sweden, which promised to be wider and more effectual. ... He was kindly received by the Swedish king, who gave him permission to preach, and his subjects freedom to accept and profess the gospel of Christ. As Anskar had been led to expect, so he found, many Christian captives, who had been brought from other countries,--France, Germany, Britain, Ireland,--and who, having been as sheep without a shepherd, gladly received from Anskar those consolations and exhortations which were fitted to alleviate the sorrows of their captivity. ... After a year and a half's stay in Sweden, Anskar returned home, and gladdened the heart of the good emperor, and doubtless of many others, by the cheering prospect he was able to present of the acceptance of the gospel by the Swedes. He was now made nominally bishop of Hamburg, but with the special design of superintending and conducting missionary operations both in Denmark and Sweden.... Horik, king of Denmark, who had driven Harold from his throne, ... had been hitherto an uncompromising enemy of the gospel. Anskar undertook the management of some political negotiations with him, and in the conduct of them made so favourable an impression on him that he refused to have any other negotiator or ambassador of the German king at his court. He treated him as a personal friend, and gave him full liberty to conduct missionary operations. These operations he conducted with his usual zeal, and by God's blessing, with much success. Many were baptized. The Christians of Germany and Holland traded more freely with the Danes than before, and the Danes resorted in larger numbers as traders to Holland and Germany; and in these and other ways a knowledge of the gospel, and some apprehension of the blessings which it brings with it, were diffused among the people. ... Although the Norwegians were continually coming into contact, in the varying relations of war and peace, with the Swedes and the Danes, the French and the Germans, the English and the Irish, and although in this way some knowledge of the Christian system must have been diffused among them, yet the formal introduction of it into their country was a full century later than its introduction into Denmark and Sweden."

_Thomas Smith, Mediæval Missions, pages 122-138._

"The conversions in Denmark were confined to the mainland. The islands still remained pagan, while human victims continued to be offered till the Emperor Henry I. extorted from Gorm, the first king of all Denmark, in A. D. 934, protection for the Christians throughout his realm, and the abolition of human sacrifices. In Sweden, for seventy years after Anskar's death, the nucleus of a Christian Church continued to be restricted to the neighbourhood of Birka, and the country was hardly visited by Christian missionaries."

_G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The Northmen, chapter 2._

"It is very remarkable that, in the whole history of the introduction of Christianity into Norway and Iceland, extending over a period of a century and a half, we meet not with the name of any noted bishop, or ecclesiastic, or missionary. There were, no doubt, ecclesiastics employed in the work, and these would appear to have been generally Englishmen; but they occupied a secondary place, almost their only province being to baptize those whom the kings compelled to submit to that ordinance. The kings were the real missionaries; and one cannot help feeling a kind of admiration for the ferocious zeal which one and another of them manifested in the undertaking,--even as the Lord commended the unjust steward because he had done wisely, although his wisdom was wholly misdirected. The most persistent and the most successful of these missionary kings was Olaf the Thick, who came from England in 1017, and set himself with heart and soul to the work of the demolition of heathenism, and the substitution of Christianity as the national religion."

_Thomas Smith, Mediæval Missions, pages 140-141._

CHRISTIANITY: 10th Century. The Russian Church.

"In the middle of the 10th century, the widowed Princess Olga, lately released from the cares of regency, travelled from Kief to Constantinople. Whether her visit had political objects, or whether she was prompted to pay it solely, as some say, by a desire to know more of the holy faith of which only glimpses had been vouchsafed her at home, cannot be positively decided. But her sojourn in the imperial city was a turning-point in her career. Baptism was administered to her by the patriarch Polyeuctes, the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus officiating as sponsor. Polyeuctes then solemnly addressed the princess, predicting that through her instrumentality Russia should be richly blessed. 'Olga,' writes M. Mouravieff, 'now become Helena by baptism, that she might resemble both in name and deed the mother of Constantine the Great, stood meekly bowing down her head, and drinking in, as a sponge that is thirsty of moisture, the instructions of the prelate.' ... Some latent impressions favourable to Christianity her youngest grandson, Vladimir, doubtless owed to her. Nevertheless when, at the death of his brother Yarapolk, for which indeed he was held responsible, he mounted the throne, no signs of a gracious character revealed themselves. He was, on the contrary, a bitter and bigoted pagan. ... It seems to have occurred to many missionaries of varying types, that a chief of such mark should not be left at the mercy of his own violent passions. The spiritual well-being of Vladimir accordingly became the object of laborious journeys, of much exertion, and of redundant eloquence. ... Last of all came a Greek emissary. He was neither 'a priest nor a missionary, but a philosopher.' ... Like Bogoris, the wild Russian chief was greatly moved. ... The following year the king laid before the elders of his council the rival pleas of these variously recommended forms of faith, and solicited their advice. The nobles mused awhile, and then counselled their master to ascertain how each religion worked at home. This, they thought, would be more practical evidence than the plausible representations of professors. On this suggestion Vladimir acted. Envoys were chosen,--presumably, for their powers of observation,--and the embassy of inquiry started. 'This public agreement,' says the historian of the Russian Church, 'explains in some degree the sudden and general acceptance of Christianity which shortly after followed in Russia. {467} It is probable that not only the chiefs, but the common people also, were expecting and ready for the change.' A report, far from encouraging, was in due time received from the ambassadors. Of the German and Roman, as well as the Jewish, religions in daily life, they spoke in very disparaging terms, while they declared the Mussulman creed, when reduced to practice, to be utterly out of the question. Disappointed in all these quarters, they now proceeded, by command, to Constantinople, or, as the Russians called it, Tzaragorod. ... Singularly enough, the Russian envoys, accustomed, as we must suppose them to have been, only to the barest simplicity of life, had complained not only of the paucity of decoration in the Latin churches, but of a lack of beauty in their appointments. Thus the preparations of the patriarch were accurately fitted to their expectant frame of mind. They were led into the church of S. Sophia, gleaming with variegated marbles, and porphyries, and jasper, at that time 'the masterpiece of Christian architecture.' The building glittered with gold, and rich mosaics. The service was that of a high festival, either of St. John Chrysostom, or of the Death of the Virgin, and was conducted by the patriarch in person, clad in his most gorgeous vestments. ... On their return to Vladimir, they dilated with eager delight on the wonders they had seen. The king listened gravely to their glowing account of 'the temple, like which there was none upon earth.' After sweetness, they protested, bitterness would be unbearable, so that--whatever others might do--they at all events should at once abandon heathenism. While the king hesitated, his boyers turned the scale by reminding him that if the creed of the Greeks had not indeed had much to recommend it, his pious and sagacious grandmother, Princess Olga, would not have loved and obeyed it. Her name acted like a talisman. Vladimir resolved to conform to Christianity. But still, fondly clinging to the habits of his forefathers, he cherished the idea of wooing and winning his new religion by the sword. ... Under the auspices of the sovereign, the stately church of St. Basil soon arose, on the very spot recently occupied by the temple of Perun. Kief became the centre of Christian influence, whence evangelizing energies radiated in all directions. Schools and churches were built, while Michael, the first metropolitan, attended by his bishops, 'made progresses into the interior of Russia, everywhere baptizing and instructing the people.' The Greek canon law came into force, and the use of the service-book and choral music of the Greek communion became general, while, in the Slavonic Scriptures and Liturgy of Cyril and Methodius, a road was discovered which led straight to the hearts of the native population. 'Cyril and Methodius, if anyone, must be considered by anticipation as the first Christian teachers of Russia; their rude alphabet first instructed the Russian nation in letters, and, by its quaint Greek characters, still testifies in every Russian book, and on every Russian house or shop, the Greek source of the religion and literature of the empire.'"

_G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The Slavs,