Slavic paganism in the context of "Great Moravia"

Religion has been a major influence on the societies, cultures, traditions, philosophies, artistic expressions and laws within present-day Europe. The largest religion in Europe is Christianity. However, irreligion and practical secularisation are also prominent in some countries. In Southeastern Europe, three countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Albania) have Muslim majorities, with Christianity being the second-largest religion in those countries. Transcontinental nations between Europe and Asia also have muslim majorities, such as Turkiye and Azerbaijan, or large muslim minorities, such as Cyprus (including a de facto majority in the generally unrecognised Northern Cyprus) and Georgia.

Little is known about the prehistoric religion of Neolithic Europe. Bronze and Iron Age religion in Europe as elsewhere was predominantly polytheistic and included Ancient Greek religion, Ancient Roman religion, Slavic paganism, Finnish paganism, Celtic polytheism and Germanic paganism. Modern revival movements of these religions, and religions influenced by them, include Heathenism, Rodnovery, Romuva, Druidry, Wicca, and Hetanism.

The Slavs were Christianized in waves from the 7th to 12th century, though the process of replacing old Slavic religious practices began as early as the 6th century. Generally speaking, the monarchs of the South Slavs adopted Christianity in the 9th century, the East Slavs in the 10th, and the West Slavs between the 9th and 12th century. Saints Cyril and Methodius (fl. 860–885) are attributed as "Apostles to the Slavs", having introduced the Byzantine-Slavic rite (Old Slavonic liturgy) and Glagolitic alphabet, the oldest known Slavic alphabet and basis for the Early Cyrillic alphabet.

The simultaneous missionary efforts to convert the Slavs by what would later become known as the Catholic Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Church of Constantinople led to a 'second point of contention between Rome and Constantinople', especially in Bulgaria (9th–10th century). This was one of many events that preceded the East–West Schism of 1054 and led to the eventual split between the Greek East and Latin West. The Slavs thus became divided between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Closely connected to the competing missionary efforts of the Roman Church and the Byzantine Church was the spread of the Latin and Cyrillic scripts in Eastern Europe. The majority of Orthodox Slavs adopted Cyrillic, while most Catholic Slavs adopted the Latin, but there were many exceptions to this general rule. In areas where both Churches were proselytising to pagan Europeans, such as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Croatian Duchy and the Principality of Serbia, mixtures of languages, scripts and alphabets emerged, and the lines between Latin Catholic (Latinitas) and Cyrillic Orthodox literacy (Slavia Orthodoxa) were blurred.

A fairy (also called fay, fae, fae folk, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, generally described as anthropomorphic, found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, and French folklore), a form of spirit, often with magical, metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural qualities.

Myths and stories about fairies do not have a single origin but are rather a collection of folk beliefs from disparate sources. Various folk theories about the origins of fairies include casting them as either demoted angels or demons in a Christian tradition, as deities in pagan belief systems, as spirits of the dead, as prehistoric precursors to humans, or as spirits of nature.

Polytheistic peoples from many cultures have postulated a thunder deity, the creator or personification of the forces of thunder and lightning; a lightning god does not have a typical depiction and will vary based on the culture.

In Indo-European cultures, the thunder god is frequently depicted as male and known as the chief or King of the Gods, e.g.: Indra in Hinduism, Zeus in Greek mythology, Zojz in Albanian mythology, and Perun in ancient Slavic religion.

Vladimir I Sviatoslavich or Volodymyr I Sviatoslavych (Old East Slavic: Володимѣръ Свѧтославичь, romanized: Volodiměr Svętoslavič; Christian name: Basil; c. 958 – 15 July 1015), given the epithet "the Great", was Prince of Novgorod from 970 and Grand Prince of Kiev from 978 until his death in 1015. The Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church both canonised him as Saint Vladimir.

Vladimir's father was Sviatoslav I of the Rurik dynasty. After the death of his father in 972, Vladimir, who was then the prince of Novgorod, was forced to flee abroad after his brother Yaropolk murdered his other brother Oleg in 977 to become the sole ruler of Rus'. Vladimir assembled a Varangian army and returned to depose Yaropolk in 978. By 980, Vladimir had consolidated his realm to the Baltic Sea and solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarians, Baltic tribes and Eastern nomads. Originally a follower of Slavic paganism, Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988, and Christianized the Kievan Rus.

The Christianization of Kievan Rus' was a long and complicated process that took place in several stages. In 867, Patriarch Photius of Constantinople told other Christian patriarchs that the Rus' people were converting enthusiastically, but his efforts seem to have entailed no lasting consequences, since the Russian Primary Chronicle and other Slavonic sources describe the tenth-century Rus' as still firmly entrenched in Slavic paganism. The traditional view, as recorded in the Russian Primary Chronicle, is that the definitive Christianization of Kievan Rus' dates happened c. 988 (the year is disputed), when Vladimir the Great was baptized in Chersonesus (Korsun) and proceeded to baptize his family and people in Kiev. The latter events are traditionally referred to as baptism of Rus' (Russian: Крещение Руси, romanized: Kreshcheniye Rusi; Ukrainian: Хрещення Русі, romanized: Khreshchennia Rusi; Belarusian: Вадохрышча Русі, romanized: Vadokhryshcha Rusi) in Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian literature.