mission · 867 · Kyiv
In 867 Photius announced to the eastern patriarchs that the Rhos, lately raiders under the walls of Constantinople, 'have accepted a bishop and pastor'. Later Rus' tradition tied this first baptism to the princes Askold and Dir. Whatever took root was scattered in the pagan reaction that followed — but the church remembered that the seed went north a century before Volodymyr.
A first bishop among the Rus' — a hearth lit, and largely lost, a century before 988.