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Residents of the city of Kiev had to be prepared for the sacrament of baptism. In order for people to know the faith of Christ, Christian priests walked around the city and brought the word of God to people. Not many people agreed to the position of preachers, several local clergy and «priests of Korsun» who came with Vladimir. The prince faced a difficult task, to prepare local citizens in a short period. It had to be done before the summer. With the consent of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Vladimir brought several priests from Bulgaria to Kiev to help with baptism, as indicated in the Joachim Chronicle, he had a difficult task. Such a mass of people could be baptized only in the summer in the waters of the Dnieper. At that time, the temples were not adapted for the rite of the sacrament of baptism.

The baptism took place in the Dnieper River; the river replaced the church font. There were many people who wanted to convert to Christianity, men and women of different ages. The priests divided the people into several groups, they went into the water in turn, the first group went into the water up to the neck, the second up to the chest, and all the others were in shallow water. After the prayers were said, the priests gave each baptized group Christian names; the name was common, one for all, male for men and female for women. After being baptized, people continue to live with the name given at birth. Those who did not want to accept the sacrament of baptism were expelled from the city by the decree adopted above to the «deserts and forests». For the society of that time, which existed in conditions of constant military danger, disagreements and oppositions were unacceptable.