[6] Western sources also indicate that Olga's grandson, Prince Vladimir sent emissaries to Rome in 991 and that Popes John XV and Sylvester II sent three embassies to Kyiv.

[7] At this same time, Bishop Reinbert of Kolberg accompanied the daughter of Boleslaus the Intrepid to her wedding when she married Vladimir's son Sviatopolk, (known to history as "the Damned" for his later murder of his half-brothers Boris and Gleb).

[7] Bruno of Querfort was sent as a missionary bishop to the Pechenegs and spent several months in Kyiv in 1008; he wrote a letter to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II in 1009.

Thus, Archbishop Nifont of Novgorod (1135–1156) in the instructional "Questions of Kirik", responded that a woman who took her children to be baptised by a Catholic (the term "Varangian", that is, Viking, is used) priest was to incur the same penance as one who took them to be blessed by a pagan sorcerer.

[11] Other sources, including the Kormchaia Kniga (the code of canon law of the medieval Russian Church) attacked Catholicism as a heresy to be shunned.

The Teutonic Knights and the Brothers of the Sword (absorbed into the Teutonic Order in 1227), Swedes, Danes, and other Catholic powers launched a series of crusades against Pskov, Novgorod, and other towns in northwestern Russia and the Novgorodians fought hard to keep westerners out of the Novgorodian Land, not merely due to religious differences, but also because they would pay taxes to the Catholic monarchies' administrative structures.

Taxes, tribute, or military levies would then go to the Scandinavian kingdoms or the Germanic city-states of Livonia, or to the Lithuanians, and thus reduce Novgorod's wealth and overall security.

[15] There were reports of Irish monks fleeing the Mongol onslaught on Kyiv in 1240, and the Dominican Order was also dispatched by Pope Alexander IV to central Russia in an effort to convert the region to Catholicism in the 14th century.

[17] Prince Iziaslav Yaroslavich (1054–68; 1069–73; 1076–78) sent his son to Pope Gregory VII, asking for papal assistance and promising to make Russia a vassal of the Holy See.

Smolensk covered all of Russia until the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mohilev was established by Catherine the Great in 1772 without Papal authority, but it was approved by Pope Pius VI in 1783.

Catherine the Great valued the contribution of the Jesuits to learning, and invited them to Russia, where they remained active until they were expelled in 1820 at the instigation of Russian Orthodox hierarchs.

[2] After the Soviet Union collapsed, there were an estimated 500,000 Catholics in the country, but most have since died or emigrated to their ethnic homelands in Europe, such as Germany, Belarus, or Ukraine.

[26] Despite the recent thawing of relations with the election of Pope Benedict XVI, there are still issues such as the readiness of the police to protect Catholics and other minorities from persecution.

[27] One thousand Russian Catholics gathered in the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Moscow to watch the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

There is a separate jurisdiction for those of the Byzantine Rite (see Russian Greek Catholic Church), called the Apostolic Exarchate of Russia, but it has few followers.