Misionári, gentes a christianizácia

Abstract

The view on basic problems of the contemporary research of Christianization in early Middle Ages presented here reveals the complexity and also ambiguity of this process. For its comprehension is important to listen to all the participients and their opinions discussed in the social and cultural context of that time. The change of the belief, which pagan gentes underwent, should be understood in a more complex view as a cultural confrontation of paganism and Christianity, where very strong acculturation influence took its part. Its result did not immediately compact the Christian culture, but the transition was a complex one, took much time and was given by the releasing of the old and coming into existence of the fragile new structures. Conjunction of an early Christianization with elite people of pagan societies gives clear evidence of a political character of this conversing. Christianization was a part of a wider complex of mutually interweaved social processes which in early Middle Ages were changing political, social and cultural habits of the various ethnic groups living in the areas of the European continent. Resembling the red thread is a transformation of the political and social structures of the tribe society into the society of the state, where Christianity played the big role. A new, universal religion not only transited bordiers of local tribal societies and helped integration of them into larger groups, but it also integrated the power into the competence of a Christian ruler and his nobility at the expense of traditional tribal institutions.