A few more years of violence and crime passed away, when Vlademer became the subject of that marvelous change which, nine hundred years before, had converted the persecuting Saul into the devoted apostle.  The circumstances of his conversion are very peculiar, and are very minutely related by Nestor.  Other recitals seem to give authenticity to the narrative.  For some time Vlademer had evidently been in much anxiety respecting the doom which awaited him beyond the grave.  He sent for the teachers of the different systems of religion, to explain to him the peculiarities of their faith.  First came the Mohammedans from Bulgaria; then the Jews from Jerusalem; then the Christians from the papal church at Rome, and then Christians from the Greek church at Constantinople.  The Mohammedans and the Jews he rejected promptly, but was undecided respecting the claims of Rome and Constantinople.  He then selected ten of the wisest men in his kingdom and sent them to visit Rome and Constantinople and report in which country divine worship was conducted in the manner most worthy of the Supreme Being.  The embassadors returning to Kief, reported warmly in favor of the Greek church.  Still the mind of Vlademer was oppressed with doubts.  He assembled a number of the most virtuous nobles and asked their advice.  The question was settled by the remark of one who said, “Had not the religion of the Greek church been the best, the sainted Olga would not have accepted it.”

This wonderful event is well authenticated; Nestor gives a recital of it in its minute details; and an old Greek manuscript, preserved in the royal library at Paris, records the visit of these ambassadors to Rome and Constantinople.  Vlademer’s conversion, however, seems, at this time, to have been intellectual rather than spiritual, a change in his policy of administration rather than a change of heart.  Though this external change was a boundless blessing to Russia, there is but little evidence that Vlademer then comprehended that moral renovation which the gospel of Christ effects as its crowning glory.  He saw the absurdity of paganism; he felt tortured by remorse; perhaps he felt in some degree the influence of the gospel which was even then faithfully preached in a few churches in idolatrous Kief; and he wished to elevate Russia above the degradation of brutal idolatry.

He deemed it necessary that his renunciation of idolatry and adoption of Christianity should be accompanied with pomp which should produce a wide-spread impression upon Russia.  He accordingly collected an immense army, descended the Dnieper in boats, sailed across the Black Sea, and entering the Gulf of Cherson, near Sevastopol, after several bloody battles took military possession of the Crimea.  Thus victorious, he sent an embassage to the emperors Basil and Constantine at Constantinople, that he wished the young Christian princess Anne for his bride, and that if they did not promptly grant his request, he would march his army to attack the city.