On the question of the first centers of the spread of Christianity among the Eastern Slavs

In the absence of accurate source data on the time and place of the first baptism, researchers are trying to connect it with the campaign of the Rus against Constantinople in 860 or the journey of Sts. Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius to Khazaria (860-861), despite the absence of even hints in the texts written at that time that have come down to us. For this, information from later sources is used, the creators of which allegedly transferred information about the events of the 860-870s to the era of Saint Vladimir. All this has no serious grounds. The campaign of 860 was successful for the pagan Rus and could not induce them to accept Christianity. They most likely made another raid on Byzantium c. 865, which ended in failure, after which some of them decided ca. 866 to believe in Christ, which was noted in the “District Epistle” of Patriarch Photius of Constantinople. However, the first “sprouting” of the Christian faith in Rus was not viable enough and soon died. In 881/882, a center for the spread of Christianity arose in the basin of the Upper Tisza, where the ancestors of the modern Subcarpathian Rusyns lived. It was there that the first “Russian rite” of worship arose, the spread of which to the Czech Republic was feared by the Roman papal curia in the 960s.