Who were Saints Cyril and Methodius?

Everyone associates 14 February with Valentine’s Day but did you recognize it’s also the day to recollect Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Cyrillic alphabet utilized in many eastern European countries. This is the story …

Monastic Brothers

Two brothers called Constantine and Michael were born about 815 and about 826 in Salonica, today the port of Thessaloniki in Greece. Here they grew up amid Byzantium’s mix of Greek learning and Slavic neighbours. The two brothers took the names Cyril and Methodius after they became monks. Cyril was a scholar and court preacher, while Methodius was a capable administrator turned monk.

Mission

In 862, Prince Rastislav of Great Moravia (based in what’s today the Czech Republic) begged Constantinople for eastern missionaries who could teach within the Slavic vernacular, bypassing western clergy who used Latin. The Byzantine Emperor Michael III commissioned Cyril and Methodius to take the Gospel to the Slavic people. It could also be that they already knew the local Slavic language spoken in Macedonia. The two brothers arrived in Moravia in 863 and shortly created an alphabet and translated the Gospels, liturgy, and key texts into Slavonic, which were the primary Scriptures in any Slavic language. They trained local preachers, celebrated the Eucharist within the people’s tongue, and planted self-sustaining churches, defying critics who insisted Latin alone was sacred.

Alphabet

These two Thessalonian monks created the Glagolitic alphabet to translate the Bible into the Slavonic language. First, they used Greek letters where the Slavonic sounds were similar to Greek, but for sounds that weren’t in Greek they borrowed from the Roman, Armenian, Hebrew, and Coptic scripts.

Opposition

Their mission provoked fierce opposition from German bishops wedded to Latin and to Frankish political interests. Cyril and Methodius faced slander and were imprisoned in a Swabian monastery in 867 and 868. They were then taken to be interrogated in Rome by Pope Adrian II (also often known as Hadrian), who, perhaps surprisingly, agreed with their work, approved their Slavonic liturgy, ordained them, and in 869 appointed Methodius as archbishop.

Cyrillic

Later, the alphabet was simplified to form what became often known as the Cyrillic alphabet, named after Cyril. The old language, now called Old Church Slavonic, remains to be used as the bottom for the liturgical language in Eastern Orthodox churches. Today in Europe, a simplified type of the Cyrillic alphabet is used for writing Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Macedonian. The Cyrillic alphabet was also adapted during Soviet times for most of the languages of Central Asia, equivalent to Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, Tatar, and Mongol. Although in some countries this alphabet got here to be related to communism and, to a certain extent, atheism, the origin of the alphabet was Christian.

Saints’ Day

Cyril died on February 14, 869, and was buried within the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome. Methodius died on April 6, 885, and was buried in Moravia, and the location has been lost. The brothers were never formally canonised but were soon considered saints. They are considered the patron saints of Bulgaria and Macedonia and among the many patron saints of the Czech and Slovak people. In 1980, Pope John Paul II, who was Polish and the primary Pope with Slavic heritage, declared Saints Cyril and Methodius co-patron saints of Europe.

In 1880, Pope Leo XIII introduced their feast into the Roman Catholic calendar, based on the death date of St Cyril. Today, Saints Cyril and Methodius, often known as the “Apostles to the Slavs”, are remembered on February 14 within the Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran traditions. They are remembered on May 24 in Russia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia.

There are many churches dedicated to Saints Cyril and Methodius, which are frequently Orthodox. The most famous is probably the Orthodox church in Prague, famous for being the last holdout of some members of the Czech Resistance in 1942 throughout the war.

Collect

14 February marks the day once we remember two Byzantine monks who showed like to their neighbours, learnt their language, and shared the gospel with them in their very own language. The Anglican collect for “Cyril and Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs” is:

“Lord of all, who gave to your servants Cyril and Methodius the gift of tongues to proclaim the gospel to the Slavs: make your whole Church one as you’re one, that each one Christians may honour each other, and east and west acknowledge one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and also you, the God and Father of all; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who’s alive and reigns with you, within the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.”