Healing the Tatar soul
TATARSTAN Winter 2008
When Ivan the Terrible conquered the Tatar homeland of Kazan in 1552 and brought it under Russian domination, he did so with two weapons: the sword and the cross.
Ivan understood that it wasn’t enough to capture people’s bodies; he wanted their souls as well. But acts of terror—forcing the Muslim Tatars to be baptized or drowned—may have bought their allegiance to a country, but it only embittered them toward Russian Orthodoxy.
*Names changed to protect believers.