Perhaps Alcohol Trumped Sex

One of the most interesting points from this week’s reading, for me, was covered on pages 186 through 188. In the section, authors Burbank and Cooper discuss a “familiar strategy to consolidate power,”—which they identify as—establishing a state religion.

At first, the Rus’ believed in many gods; they were polytheistic. Comparable to the Romans, they frequently brought in the various deities of other cultures and religions to make them their own. Then, the greatest Rus’ leader, Vladimir, started to like monotheism. And we can assume, converting from many gods to one god is a pretty significant, maybe even unusual, switch. According to “Russian chronicles,” out of the monotheistic religions, Vladimir decided on monogamous Christianity either because “reasons of state must have prevailed…or perhaps alcohol trumped sex.”

Afterwards, the people were baptized, and although the Slavic population continued in polytheism, this newly adopted Christianity transformed the ruling city of the Rus’ and their culture. Unfortunately, the section concludes that “religion was not enough to sustain empire-building by the Rus’,” but I think that the concept is a very interesting one.

Although the Roman empire began with in the same way—polytheistic turned monotheistic Christianity—did it really consolidate power in the way it was temporarily successful for the Rus’? Was that the reason behind declaring Christianity the imperial religion? I also wonder if it really happened the way the Russian chronicles state. Was Christianity the only option because Judaism was the religion of a defeated people and Islam outlawed alcohol?

For some reason I guess, as a practicing historian, I hope that there was more to it than that. Maybe in the long run, it doesn’t matter why Christianity was chosen over Judaism or Islam or even that the Rus’ switched from polytheism to monotheism. And looking at figures like King Henry VIII of England, who began the Church of England because of his desire to dissolve one of his many marriages, I guess it’s possible that a decision concerning religion could be made in such a way. But I’d like to think that there was more to Vladimir’s decision.  Where imperial decisions only made based on the imperial consequences? Was everything done for the benefit of the empire, with complete ignorance to morality?