Christianity and paganism in the context of the formation of Byzantine statehood. Review of the monograph: Mikhail A. Vedeshkin “The pagan opposition to the christianization of the Roman empire (4th - 6th centuries)”

The article is a polemical review of the monograph: Mikhail A. Vedeshkin “The pagan opposition to the Christianization of the Roman Empire (4th - 6th centuries)” in which the author analyzes the formation of the ideology of the pagan opposition in the late Roman Empire as well as its main stages. This research is based on a wide range of sources such as works of Christian and pagan writers, philosophers, historians and rhetoricians, works of the Holy Fathers of the Church, Christian hagiography, etc. This aspect of the Late Antique civilization is rather poorly studied in the Russian scientific literature, and it makes the reviewed work particularly interesting.