Compare and contrast western and eastern methods of converting non-Christian peoples during the tenth century

Résumé du document

In the 10th century, Byzantium and the East Frankish Empire led by a German family were the two most powerful states. The Carolingians had been crowned Emperors of the Romans since 800. Byzantium had never fully recognized the creation of this rival Empire since this title was their possession, being the natural heir of the Roman Empire, and thus considered the Frankish ambition as illegitimate. Now in the 10th, both Empires carried on the policy of spreading the Christian faith started in the 9th century, as their duty as Emperors commanded them to . Between the two states, a vast pagan territory was to be conquered to Christianity. Bulgaria had been Christianised by the Byzantines, while in the West missions were sent among the Slavs and the Scandinavians . I have in this introduction to briefly present the peoples to whom Christianity was destined for a purpose of further clarity.

Several peoples were living on the border of the Byzantine state. What I have called the Bulgars was the settlement of a Turkish tribe upon the Slavs of the Southern Balkans.

They had created a state by annexing some Byzantine lands as northern Macedonia and Thrace. The Rus were also a growing power all along the 10th century. What is called Rus is actually the settlement of Scandinavians rulers upon the Slavs in the region of the Middle Dnieper, who took over the leadership of Khazaria in Kiev, to settle there and extend the so-called lands of Rus . Khazaria was a powerful state in the Caucasus in the 9th but lost power in the 10th and was composed of an elite who gradually fell into the arms of Judaism. The Pechenegs were a Turkish pagan people who were, like the Alans, allies of Byzantium and helped them controlling the rising power of the Rus.

Extraits

[...] Bohemia was placed under the influence of the Ottonians, and it seems like the Byzantines did not have the willingness to contest the Latin leadership over these Western territory[12]. Nevertheless presence upon Western Slavs did not completely disappear because Hungary, as Bulgaria had been, was in the middle of Western and Eastern influences and therefore first had to look both ways. Byzantium had entered in contact with the Magyars as early as 929 by sending them the missionary Gabriel. In 948, a chieftain, Bulcu, was baptised in Constantinople, though he renounced his faith as soon as he left. [...]

[...] The Ottonian took the advantage when they succeed to convert an important ruler, Geza (945-997), in the 970's. It is his son, Stephen (967-1038), who took the final decision to bring Hungary into the Latin Church in 1000. We shall now look further in the process of conversion itself, this time not from the imperial offices, but in the field of missionary work. For Hamburg-Bremen, but also for Byzantium, the creation of outposts for missionary work was indispensable. In the West, Otto I created the monastery of Magdeburg in 937 and officially made it in 968 the archbishopric of the Wends converted or still to be converted. [...]

[...] He also pushed eastwards and northwards by invading Jutland in the Dane kingdom in 974. He imposed Christianity among the Wends and Danes, maybe using his missionary duty as a pretext to gain lands. In this regard, the strong power of Otto I was ruined by Otto II (967-983) who, by losing a battle against the Arab in Calabria in 982, precipitated a year later the revolt of the Wends and the Danes who regained all their lost lands, for the Wends returned to heathenism, and plundered Hamburg[29]. [...]

[...] It played an important role with the Alans, maybe taking the initiative to convert them. The patriarch Nicholas helped with their evangelization, sending missionaries. The clerics sent in the unfamiliar Caucasus, were not in the same position as their counterparts in Europe. Peter and Euthymius had a correspondence of letters with Nicholas where we can for once read of Greek missionaries complaining and having more trouble to convert the barbarians. Nicholas advised them to adapt their teaching dogmas for the elite, especially in the matter of polygamy[16]. [...]

[...] 15-29 Alexandra Sanmark, chap.34: Role of secular rulers in the conversion of Sweden”, pp. 551-559 - Franklin Simon and Shepard Jonathan, The Emergence of Rus 750-1200, Longman, 1996: Dnieper Rus (920-960), Organize or Die : Securing the way to Byzantium”, p.112-139 “U-Turns and Conversion pp.139-169 - Fletcher Richard, The Conversion of Europe, from Paganism to Christianity, 371-1386 AD, HarperCollinsPublishers chap.8: “Rising by Steps: Christian Consolidation”, pp. 228-285 chap.10: Certain Greek Named Methodius”, pp. 327-369 chap.11: “Scandinavians abroad and at pp. [...]