A Movement to Christianity Through Constantine and Prince Vladimir

The conversion to Christianity from other classical era religions was a common motif through societies in the post-classical era. The conversions of both Constantine and Price Vladimir go to show this. Both Price Vladimir and Constantine chose to convert to Christianity, but were their motives similar? Or were they two unrelated events?

According to legend Constantine converted when he saw a vision going into battle telling him to hail God as the high power, which he did. When his army won the battle he converted and declared himself a Christian. He then issued the "Edict of Milan," which allowed Christianity within the empire, making Roman law neutral to the Christian religion. But is that really the story? Although there is a lot we don't know about Constantine, we do know that his mother was a Christian, and that perhaps he just converted after having a personal awakening, religious battles not included (although we will never know).

Prince Vladimir is a different story though. His legend states that he sent emissaries around Eurasia to observe religions, and that they had been overwhelmed by the beauty of the Hagia Sophia and the mass that took place in it. Assured by the reports of splendor, Vladimir converted to this new, beautiful religion. But there is another story behind Vladimir as well. Vladimir, having a well known reputation for being drunken and having a store of girls, was least likely to be given the hand in marriage of princess Anna. To improve his image, he converted to Christianity as a move to gain Anna's hand in marriage.

So were these conversions similar movements in history or not? In my opinion, they were not. For all practical purposes, it appears that Prince Vladimir converted out of his own self want, and then to make the gesture more grand, encouraged his subjects to follow his example. Constantine, on the other hand, converted because of what appears to have been a personal awakening, not a political agenda. But were the effects of these movements on their empires different? I don't think so. Both Russia and Byzantine accepted Christianity as a religion because of these movements, and in Russia it was strongly encouraged. These movements ultimately lead to the spread of Byzantine influence and culture into Russia. This movement of culture had a great influence on the culture of Russia, which strongly resonated aspects of the Byzantine empire.