Re: Lucus (was: Re: Judajca)

Hello,

> It's probably not applicable to this situation, but it's always struck
> me that an interesting point of departure for a parallel conhistory
> would be the adoption of orthodox Christianity by prince (and,
> subsequently, saint) Volodymyr of Kiev in 987-88.
Yep. But please don't use the form _Volodymyr_ too often. It is the
Ukrainian form of the (not exactly) Russian _Vladimir_ (my dad's name
:-)), Old Russian _Volodimer(')_, and using it outside radical
pro-Ukrainian circles is rather ridiculuous.

> For one reason or another*, he felt the need for a modern,
> monotheistic faith to replace paganism in his country.
The reason is pretty simple: the formation of a decent state had been an
ongoing process for over a century and a half by then, so he needed a
unifying force (and wisely so: the northern area of Novgorod would rebel
very soon)

> To this end,
> he is supposed to have sent envoys to the lands of Islam, Judaism, and
> western and eastern Christianity**.  He ultimately chose eastern
> Christianity, because the envoys were impressed by the religious
> architecture of Constantinople (also his grandmother had been
> converted some years previously).
Well, rally he chose it for other reason, that's how the legend runs
(according to the legend, he refused Islam because he said (a byword
now) _Veseliye Rusi yest' pitiye_ "Drinking is Russia's cheer", and
Judaism because "God has expelled you and scattered you all over the
face of the earth"). The actual reason, as I suppose are more political,
to wit:

The Kiev princes' constant plans of southwestern expansion, i.e. towards
the Orthodox Balkans.
More importantly, Byzantine Christianity assigned a much greater role to
the worldly ruler, with its doctrine of "symphony", unlike Romam
Catholicism, which prescribed the Papal influence, or Judaism, which at
that point was dismissing anything non-religious at doctrinal level.

> Thereby, in a no-doubt-
> rather-simplified version of history, we get the influence of the
> orthodox church throughout the slavic world.
Not really, Moravia and Poland were alreadu close to being converted
into Catholicism by the time.

> But he could have chosen differently.  He's supposed to have quite
> liked Islam, apart from the prohibition of alcohol.  It's probably
> naive to suppose that if he'd chosen differently, the Eastern European
> world would necessarily have ended up dominated by religion X, but
> it's a plausible basis for a conhistory.  Cyrillic was only ~100 years
> old at this time, so I guess Russian might have ended up being written
> in a script derived from Arabic or Hebrew.
An intersting thought, though :-) Why not join Slaviconlang on this? :-)

Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@mail.ru

Is mall a mharcaicheas am fear a bheachdaicheas
                 --Scottish proverb

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