St. Olga

St. Olga was a princess of Kiev who, after the death of her husband Prince Igor about 945, ruled the land of the Rus' as regent for her young son with a firm and capable hand. Born a pagan, she governed a still-pagan people, yet she was drawn to the Christian faith, and about the year 957 she journeyed to Constantinople, the great capital of Eastern Christendom, where she was baptized, tradition holding that the emperor himself stood as her godfather.

Returning home a Christian, she sought to spread the faith among her people and even to obtain missionaries and bishops, though her efforts met with little success in her own lifetime, and her son Svyatoslav clung to the old gods. Yet the seed she planted bore fruit in her grandson, St. Vladimir, under whom the Rus' embraced Christianity. For this she is honored as "Equal to the Apostles" and the first Christian ruler of the Rus'. She died in 969, and her memory is kept on 11 July.