One of the most obscure of Vladimir's 980 idols; his name is probably an Iranian loanword, but scholars still dispute whether he was a sun god, a moon god, or something else, especially since Dazhbog already covers the sun.
Khors is named second among Vladimir's six idols in the Russian Primary Chronicle's entry for 980, and appears again in a few later manuscript variants of the Tale of Igor's Campaign, where a prince is said to cross Khors's path by night — read by some scholars as implying a lunar association, since crossing the sun's path would make less sense at night.
An unresolved problem
Most specialists in Slavic philology (following Max Vasmer and later Ivanov and Toporov) treat "Khors" as a borrowing from an Iranian language current among steppe neighbors of the early Rus', related to words for "sun." That creates a puzzle: Dazhbog, standing right next to him in the same 980 list, is also solar. Proposed solutions include Khors as a moon god complementing solar Dazhbog, as a separate solar epithet borrowed through Iranian or Khazar contact, or as a more abstract personification of the sun-disc distinct from Dazhbog's role as "giver." None of these has become a scholarly consensus, and this site does not assign Khors a confident domain beyond what the idol list itself supports.
Source Notes
These records lack edition and translator details. Their wording has not been verified as a direct quotation.
And he set up idols [...] Khors [...] on the hill outside the palace.
Worship & Cult
How Khors was venerated in ancient times
Worship Practices
No medieval source records a rite, temple, or festival for Khors; he is known only from his place in the 980 idol list and a disputed nocturnal reference in some Tale of Igor's Campaign manuscripts, and his function remains an open scholarly question.
