Everyone associates 14 February with Valentine's Day but did you know it is also the day to remember Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Cyrillic alphabet used 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 blend of Greek learning and Slavic neighbours. The two brothers took the names Cyril and Methodius when 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 is today the Czech Republic) begged Constantinople for eastern missionaries who could teach in 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 may be that they already knew the local Slavic language spoken in Macedonia. The two brothers arrived in Moravia in 863 and soon created an alphabet and translated the Gospels, liturgy, and key texts into Slavonic, which were the first Scriptures in any Slavic language. They trained local preachers, celebrated the Eucharist in 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 the same as Greek, but for sounds that were not 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 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 known as the Cyrillic alphabet, named after Cyril. The old language, now called Old Church Slavonic, is still used as the base for the liturgical language in Eastern Orthodox churches. Today in Europe, a simplified form 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 many of the languages of Central Asia, such as Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, Tatar, and Mongol. Although in some countries this alphabet came to be associated with 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 in the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome. Methodius died on April 6, 885, and was buried in Moravia, and the site has been lost. The brothers were never formally canonised but were soon regarded as saints. They are considered the patron saints of Bulgaria and Macedonia and among the patron saints of the Czech and Slovak people. In 1980, Pope John Paul II, who was Polish and the first 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, known as the “Apostles to the Slavs”, are remembered on February 14 in 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 usually Orthodox. The most famous is perhaps the Orthodox church in Prague, famous for being the last holdout of some members of the Czech Resistance in 1942 during the war.
Collect
14 February marks the day when we remember two Byzantine monks who showed love to their neighbours, learnt their language, and shared the gospel with them in their 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 are one, that all Christians may honour one another, and east and west acknowledge one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and you, the God and Father of all; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.”
