Византийское миссионерство

Summing up, the Early Byzantine period witnessed the birth of a very special kind of mission: very rarely it was the initiative of individuals or groups of monks or even local churches — usually it was a political undertaking carried out by government envoys of religious character. In most cases, such missions were invited by «barbaric» rulers, who visited Constantinople personally and got baptism at the hands of the Emperor. Leaders of primordial «barbaric states» regarded Christianity as a pass to the community of «normal» states, whereas developed political entities tried to reject the excessive Byzantine claims of global tutelage. If we outline all the missionary endeavors of Constantinople implemented outside the imperial borders without any provoking instigation from outside, we will see that they extended to the Crimea, Abkhazia, and Sudan, that is, territories which could be regarded as potential fields of political conquest.

III

Middle Byzantine period began with catastrophic defeats of the Empire both in Asia (from Arabs) and in Europe (from Bulgars). Greek Christianity outside Byzantium declined as well. But even before the Empire began to recover, Byzantines resumed missionary efforts. There was even more space for individual initiative than before. The first preacher of the new epoch was Stephen (8^thC.), bishop of Sugdaia in the Crimea, which belonged to Khazars. Stephen was ardently christianizing Khazars on his own account, without any support from Constantinople, governed by an iconoclastic emperor hostile to Stephen. However, the real revitalization of mission came with the general renaissance of the Empire in the 9^thcentury. This renewed interest in mission can be traced in the renewal of the cult of St. Andrew, proverbial preacher to «barbarians». His new Vita, which was written in the 1 half of the 9^lhcentury, depicts an ideal missionary. The pivot of this trend is the appearance of Cyril and Methodius, «apostles» of Slavs. Hundreds of books were written about them and the author has no intention to go into any details. What is important is that Thessaloniki brothers mattered more to their converts than to the Empire. Constantinople did not care about the fates of the brothers, did not help them — here lies the reason why Byzantine sources never mentioned Cyril and Methodius.