The Magyars have meanwhile established pacific, almost friendly relations with the duchy of Bavaria, which they had earlier in the century constantly ravaged and all but depopulated.
New influences, in particular Christianity, have begun to operate on this coalescent new nation of east-central Europe.
Both the Eastern and Western churches strive to draw them, with the other peoples of the region, into their orbits.
Géza, a great-grandson of Árpád, succeeds to the hereditary leadership in 972 and reestablishes the authority of that office over the tribal chiefs; he is the first to consolidate the Magyar tribes north and west of the Danube.
Géza is the son of Taksony of Hungary, Grand Prince of the Hungarians and his Cuman, Pecheneg, or Bulgur wife.
His marriage with Sarolt, the daughter of Gyula of Transylvania, had been arranged by his father.
After his father's death (before 972), Géza had followed him as Grand Prince of the Magyars.
Shortly afterwards, a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Sankt Gallen, Bruno, who had been ordained Bishop of the Hungarians, arrived to his court where he baptized Géza. (His father-in-law Gyula, descended from a family whose members held the hereditary title gyula, which was the second in rank among the leaders of the Hungarian tribal federation, had traveled to Constantinople to be baptized; Emperor Constantine VII had lifted him from the baptismal font.)
Although Géza probably never becomes a convinced Christian, during his rule Christianity begins to spread among the Magyars.
According to Thietmar of Merseburg, Géza continued to worship pagan gods; a chronicle claims that when he was questioned about this he stated he is rich enough to sacrifice to both the old gods and the new one.
Taking the decisive step in 973, Géza had sent an embassy to the German emperor Otto II at Quedlinburg (now in Germany), and in 975, Géza and his family are received into the Western church.
