Here Melnikov-Pechersky[64]writes about the activities of the Roman Catholics in Russia:
"In the Moscow State all people had still fresh memory of recent events of trouble times andfanatical atrocities of the Roman Catholics in the very walls of the Kremlin."
Romanovs come to power
In 1613 Mikhail Romanov comes to power.
This was the result of Filaret collusion with Sigismund, and Englishmen.
Patriarch Filaret (Feodor Romanov) father of Michael was arrested by the Poles in 1611 and returned to Russia in 1619.
Kessler[65]:
"This man managed to organize the election Tsar of All Rus` of his underage son Michael, in addition he (Filaret) was "elected Velikiy Gosudar` (Great Sovereign, Great Prince)", i.e. Tsar, while remaining the Patriarch, and single-handedly ruled Muscovy until his death in 1633".
It is clear, that Romanov dynasty become tsars in Muscovy asthe result of a Europe-wide political agreement. The actual founder of the new Russian dynasty Filaret probablybought prospective autocracy from Catholic Europe, i.e. political and religious independence of Muscovy, in exchange for the replacement of "corrupt doctrine" to "correct" Catholic doctrine.
Filaret, staying in captivity, was forced to accept the demands of the Catholics, under the condition, that his claim to the Russian throne would be supported by the West.
He began his activity with immediate correcting religious books and in fact created the correct-believing (pravorernuyu) church, which was later renamed the Orthodox.
This caused the resistance of society, and resulted, Filaret didn`t manage to achieve the final goals set by the Vatican.
Kessler:
Modern Christianity didn`t exist in Rus` before Romanovs, it is proved by the fact, that thecity of St. Michael the Archangel, the current Arkhangelsk, was the first city in Russian history received a name of the saint. The city was founded in1613in honor of Mikhail Romanov start reigning, but previously it was called Novyye Kholmogory (New Kholmogory) (city was founded in 1597). (For comparison: the name of the Catholic cities named in honor of various saints with prefixes San-, Santa-, Saint- appeared onlyin the second half of the XVI century.). "
It is known, that Mikhail Fedorovich took a loan of 20 thousandrubles from James I King of England in orderto pay mercenaries for his coming to power.
Filaret starts to struggle against Arianism by means of printing.
A.V. Kartashev reports that "... during the time of Patriarch Filaret the Moscow printing house published printed books more than during the whole time of Russian printing from its beginning at time of Ivan the Terrible. Gospel, Psalms, Apostle and so on., When caring about the fullness of worship, and on bringing it to unification, the Tsar and the patriarch generously sent books to the churches without commercial gain, at prime cost, and even completely free to the distant Siberia[66]. "
Set of old books was taken away from all the churches and burned publicly.
Then, the relations with the Catholics were broken off, apparently to calm the public.
These relations were renewed "in the early 70-ies of XVII century.Papal ambassadors were sent to Moscowafter Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich (1645-1676) personally appealed to the Pope with a proposal to conduct a joint struggle against the Ottoman Empire.
Creation of Rus` baptism myth - hand of the Vatican is obvious
Although there wasn`t evident relations with the Vatican, however, work on introduction of the Latin version of Christianity was continued.
They began to act in other way. They decided to impose a version of the Rus` baptism from the Greeks, and then to make Church to correct doctrinal church books according Greek samples, which had already been replaced for Latin variants. They operated via Kiev, its priests and theologians.
There is a common version of the Rus` baptism by Prince Vladimir.
But it is also known, that the Russian chronicles are silent about the canonization of Vladimir the Baptist.
ChurchhistorianYevgeny Golubinsky considered,that the described version of the Rus` Baptism by Vladimir was a fairy tale, "that it is the latest fantasy and fiction, even though, in all probability, it was not the Russian fiction, but the Greek one." It is logical, that the story of the baptism of Rus' was invented by the Greeks and inserted later into the Tale of the Past Years (Primary Chronicle) . If this is Greek insert, and the Greeks began to operate in Russia at the time of Nikon's reforms, it is most probable time of insertion in the Primary Chronicle.
Catholic, Greek and our church adhere to one version of the Baptism of Rus`, set out in the Primary Chronicle.
The term "baptism of Rus" is not correct: you can baptize a person. One becomes a member of the church through baptism. The sacrament of baptism is immersion (single or three-fold - depending on denomination) of a person into water.
All baptism procedures are related to a person, but not to the state or territory.
Also meaning of word "Rus`” at ancient times is not known veraciously, so it is impossible to speak about baptism of state as a whole. You can talk about the baptism of a group of people, for example, the prince's retinue, but not a country.
Wikipedia: "A single list of the Constantinople Patriarchate dioceses for the period from 969 till 1118 has not survived. Kiev archdiocese was listed the 62nd in the list for period from 1170 till 1179. "
So, there is no reason to talk about the baptism of Rus' before the XII century.
But in the XII century Kiev Metropolis was something like the modern sect "Jehovah's Witnesses", because the 62-th place in the Constantinople patriarchy means small number of believers.
Next, we see, that from 1458 till 1620 Kiev Metropolis stayed with a short break in The Union of Florence and the Union of Brest, i.e. obeyed the Pope. Then, it existed in the structure of the Constantinople Orthodox Church, until the incorporation into the Moscow Patriarchate in 1687.
In 1461 the Metropolitan of Moscow appeared, which had been existing till 1589, when the Moscow Patriarchate was established.
So we can talk about the beginning of the Christianization of Russia only after 1589. Lithuania has almost the same chronology.
Lithuanian nobility converted to Catholicism in 1386, together with the Grand Duke Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila), but the Catholic faith prevailed over paganism only at the end of the XVII century, when the Counter-Reformation was completed (1645).See Wikipedia.
But back to Vladimir Baptist of Rus`.
According to church historians, there is no accurate data about the beginning of church worship of Prince Vladimir.
In 1635 the Metropolitan of Kiev Peter Mogila (Pyotr Mogila) found relics of Vladimir in the ruins of the Church of the Tithes, it started the veneration of his remains[67].
And who is Peter Mogila?
Let`s investigate the work of the Kiev Metropolitan Peter Mogila.
ArchpriestGeorges Florovskyconsidered, that Peter Mogila was not a sincere supporter of Orthodoxy, but rather he supported spreading the Catholicism in Russia. It is possible, that he sincerely believed, that the Latin doctrine was correct, early orthodoxy.
Mogila was one of the conductors of the Roman Catholic doctrine, at first - in Kiev, then - in Russia.