Saturday, July 11

Byzantine · c. 890 – 969

St Olga of Kiev

Equal-to-the-Apostles, first Christian ruler of Rus

Olga was the wife of Prince Igor of Kiev and, after his death, regent of Kievan Rus for their son Svyatoslav. The chronicles remember her early rule for its shrewdness and severity toward those who had killed her husband, which makes her transformation the more striking. Around 957 she traveled to Constantinople and was baptized there, receiving the name Helen after the mother of Constantine; the emperor and patriarch marveled at her wisdom. Returning to Kiev, she built churches and sought to bring the Gospel to her people, though her son remained a pagan and her efforts seemed at the time to have failed. She died in 969, asking for a Christian burial without pagan rites. Her grandson Vladimir, whom she had helped raise, led Rus to baptism in 988. The Church therefore honors her as Equal-to-the-Apostles — the dawn, as the chronicle says, before the sunrise of the Christian faith in Russia.

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