Chrystianizacja i elity władzy Wielkich Moraw: wybrane aspekty

From the position of Christian rulers, faith expansion concerned not only individuals, but also entire communities. A decision appertaining to the choice of Rome or Constantinople as a place of importation of Christianity was both signifi cant and political. Following a number of failed attempts of Christian missions among the Slavic tribes, the ninth and eleventh century saw the emergence of the foundations of statehood along with a number of conversions acts of rulers and their milieux. The eighth century saw the development of stronghold centres on the Morava river (Mikulčice, Staré Město, Uherske Hradiste). The strongholds were rapidly remodelled in the late eighth/early ninth century, hence even prior to the Moravians putting in an appearance in Frankfurt in 822. At the time in the area of western Slovakia occurred the most aggressive expansion into the territory of the Avars located on the left bank of the Danube and new Moravian strongholds (Pobedim, Devin, Smolenice–Molpír) were erected east of the White Carpathians, at least as far as The Váh. These phenomena can be regarded as social upheavals within the political elite of the Moravians, centred on the Morava River, which resulted in the expansion into the territories in south-western Slovakia occupied by the Avars and the ensuing construction of new stronghold centres. That expansion presumably presaged the creation of a base against the Khaganate in Pannonia. The erection of the fi rst churches in the area on the initiative of the princes and nobles attests to the scale of the changes which occurred among the Moravians, having probably stemmed from very intensive, yet unmentioned in written sources, contacts between the tribal Moravian aristocracy and the Frank Counts from the borderland. It is reasonable to conjecture that there was not any organised mission, as evidenced by the ethnical diversity of the Moravian clergy emerging at the time. It consisted, apart from the Bavarians, also of the clergy from Italy and the Greeks of the Dalmatian cities.