Ukrainians flock to Rome to take part in festivities to celebrate the establishment of Christianity.

Around 988, Waldemar, a prince of the Viking Riurik dynasty known to Ukrainians as Volodymyr the Great, established Christianity as the state religion of Kyivan-Rus. Christianity had been present in the area which is now southern Ukraine and Crimea for some time, as Byzantine missionaries spread took the faith along the coasts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov in the ninth century.

Ukrainian legend has it that St Andrew travelled up the Dnipro River to visit the site which later became Kyiv after preaching along the Black Sea coast. Volodymyr's grandmother, Princess Helga (known to Ukrainians as Olha), converted to Christianity some time before her grandson and took the Christian name of Helen. Volodymyr's motives for conversion were less about spirituality than politics and marriage.

In the 10th century, Byzantium was the strongest country in the region, where the ruler, Basil, was an ecclesiastical leader as well as an emperor. Kyivan Rus had trade links with Byzantium along the Dnipro River and had both attacked and provided military support to the empire. There had been previous attempts to Christianise the Slavs before Volodymyr's reign, most notably by the despatch of brothers Cyril and Methodius to the area where they developed the Glagolithic alphabet to translate Christian texts into Slavic languages.

In Kyivan-Rus, this came to a head after Volodymyr seized the city of Chersonesus in revenge for a lack of acknowledgement from Basil of previous military support provided to Byzantium and demanded the hand of Anna, the emperor's sister. Basil agreed, as long as Volodymyr rejected paganism and converted to Christianity. The Christianisation of Kyivan Rus took centuries to complete, but provided a structure for the development of a law code, civic and religious architecture, monasteries and learning.

The Ukrainian diaspora held a series of events in Rome in July 1988 to celebrate the millennium of Kyivan-Rus in 988, including church services and concerts. This extract features three millennium choirs performing Mnohaya Lita (Many Years) in front of a large audience which included Pope John Paul II who gathered for a concert held at the Paul VI Audience Hall, Vatican City. The choir sings and the Pope makes a short speech before joining all the performers for a commemorative photograph.