Editing Yaropolk I of Kiev (section)

==Purported baptism==
As for contemporary foreign sources, [[Lambert of Hersfeld]] records that, on the [[Easter]] of 973, the [[Holy Roman Emperor]] was visited by envoys from Rus' (''legati gentium Ruscorum''). In later centuries it was said that Yaropolk also exchanged ambassadors with the [[Pope]]. The ''Chronicon'' of [[Adémar de Chabannes]] and the life of [[Romuald|St. Romuald]] (by [[Peter Damian|Pietro Damiani]]) document how St. [[Bruno of Querfurt]] was sent to Rus' (Latin: ''Russia'') and succeeded in converting a local king (one of three brothers who ruled the land) to [[Christianity]]. As both texts are rife with anachronisms, [[Vladimir Parkhomenko]] reasons that Bruno's deeds were conflated with those of his predecessors, [[Adalbert of Prague]] and several anonymous missionaries active in Eastern Europe during [[Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor|Otto II]]'s reign.<ref>Parkhomenko V. ''Nachalo khristianstva na Rusi: Ocherki iz istorii Rusi IX-X vekov''. Poltava, 1913. Page 162.</ref>

Following this line of thought, [[Aleksandr Nazarenko|Alexander Nazarenko]] suggests that Yaropolk went through some preliminary rites of [[baptism]], but was murdered by his [[Paganism|pagan]] half-brother (whose own rights to the throne were questionable) before he could be formally received in the Christian faith. Any information on Yaropolk's baptism according to the Latin rite would be suppressed by later Orthodox chroniclers, zealous to keep Vladimir's image of the Russian Apostle untarnished for succeeding generations.<ref>{{cite book|last=Nazarenko|first=A. V.|title=Drevniaia Rus' na mezhdunarodnykh putiakh: mezhdistsiplinarnye ocherki kul'turnykh, torgovykh, politicheskikh sviazei IX-XII vekov|year=2001|publisher=Russian History Institute|location=Moscow|isbn=5-7859-0085-8|language=Russian}} Pages 339-391.</ref> It is known that Vladimir's son [[Yaroslav the Wise|Yaroslav]] had Yaropolk's bones exhumed, christened and interred in the [[Church of the Tithes]].<ref>''The Notion of "Uncorrupted Relics" in Early Russian Culture'', Gail Lenhoff, '''Christianity and the Eastern Slavs: Slavic cultures in the Middle Ages''', Vol. I, ed. B. Gasparov, Olga Raevsky-Hughes, (University of California Press, 1993), 264.</ref>