The Conversion of Volodimer[1] is a narrative recorded in several different versions in medieval sources about how Vladimir the Great converted from Slavic paganism to Byzantine Christianity in the 980s.
In traditional historiography, it is known as the Baptism of Volodimer,[a] and regarded as the highlight of the Christianization of Kievan Rusʹ (dubbed the Baptism of Rus').
What virtually all accounts agree on is that Volodimer's baptism happened around the same time as two other events: Volodimer's marriage to Byzantine princess Anna Porphyrogenita, sister of co-emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII, and Volodimer's siege and capture of a Byzantine city in the Crimean peninsula called Chersonesus (Medieval Greek: Χερσών, romanized: Chersōn; Church Slavonic: Кърсунь/корсоунь, romanized: Kŭrsunĭ/Korsun', modern Ukrainian and Russian: Херсон(ес) Kherson(es)[b]). What they disagree on is how these three events were related, in which sequence they happened, and why.[1] The entire conversion story covers a large chunk of the Primary Chronicle (PVL): pages 84–121, or 37 out of a total of 286 pages (12.9%) of the entire text.[2]
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