Cyril and Methodius

Saints Cyril (c. 827–869) and Methodius (c. 815–885) were Byzantine Greek brothers from Thessalonica whose missionary work among the Slavic peoples earned them the title 'Apostles to the Slavs.' Their father was a high-ranking Byzantine military officer, and their mother may have been of Slavic descent — an origin that gave both brothers early exposure to the language they would later put into writing for the first time. Cyril (born Constantine) was a scholar and linguist who served as librarian at the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Methodius pursued a career in civil administration as a provincial governor before both brothers withdrew to monastic life. Their complementary skills — one a theologian and inventor, the other an administrator and diplomat — would prove essential to everything that followed. In 863, Prince Rastislav of Great Moravia appealed to Byzantine Emperor Michael III for missionaries who could teach Christianity in the Slavic vernacular rather than in Latin or German. The emperor chose Cyril and Methodius. Before departing, Cyril created the Glagolitic alphabet — the first writing system designed specifically for Slavic languages — and translated the Gospels and liturgical texts into Old Church Slavonic. Most Western churchmen held that only Hebrew, Greek, and Latin were fit for worship; the brothers rejected that view and built their entire mission on the opposite premise. Frankish clergy in the region saw the Slavic liturgy as a direct challenge to their ecclesiastical jurisdiction and campaigned against it vigorously. To defend their work, Cyril and Methodius traveled to Rome, where Pope Adrian II examined and approved the Slavic liturgy in 867. Cyril died in Rome in 869 and was buried in the basilica of San Clemente. Methodius returned to the Slavic lands as Archbishop of Sirmium, continuing the mission alone through years of harassment and even a period of imprisonment by German bishops, until his death in 885. Though political upheaval eventually drove their disciples out of Moravia, those disciples carried the Glagolitic tradition to Bulgaria, Serbia, and Russia. There a revised script — Cyrillic, named in Cyril's honor — was developed from their foundational work and remains in use across Eastern Europe and Central Asia today. Pope John Paul II declared Cyril and Methodius co-patron saints of Europe in 1980, alongside Benedict of Nursia.