The Moon Before the Sun

In 945, a Viking-born princess named Olga became regent of Kievan Rus' after her husband was murdered by a neighboring tribe. She answered that murder with a revenge so total it passed into legend --- including a story about sparrows carrying fire home to a burning city that has been told for a thousand years. But the more important fire Olga carried was a quieter one. A decade after the siege, she traveled to Constantinople and returned baptized --- the first ruler of her land to convert to Christianity. Her son refused to follow. Her mission, by every visible measure, looked like failure when she died in 969. Thirty years later, her grandson Vladimir made Christianity the state religion of Kievan Rus', in an echo of what Constantine had done six centuries earlier at Nicaea. This episode explores the pattern that repeats itself across civilizations and centuries --- the single turned conscience that prepares the ground for a transformation it will not live to see --- and asks what it means to hold your place on the arc of history in a world that has not yet caught up to what you are carrying. Transcript available at: https://harmonia.email/podcast-episode/moon-sun Share and read comments: https://harmonia.email/podcast-comments?field_podcast_feed_value=the_golden_thread&from_node=378