Feb 14 – Saints Cyril (1) (d 869) and Methodius (d. 885)
14 February, 2012
These were two brothers from Thessalonica in Greece who became apostles of the Slavs, translated the Scriptures and indigenised the liturgy for the Slav people. In 1980 they were named by Pope John Paul II along with St Benedict as co-patrons of Europe. Slavic peoples celebrate these two saints with a national holiday. Patrick Duffy tells their […]
These were two brothers from Thessalonica in Greece who became apostles of the Slavs, translated the Scriptures and indigenised the liturgy for the Slav people. In 1980 they were named by Pope John Paul II along with St Benedict as co-patrons of Europe. Slavic peoples celebrate these two saints with a national holiday.
Patrick Duffy tells their story.
Evangelisers of the SlavsCyril (827-869) and Methodius (825-885) were the evangelisers of the Slavs. They translated the Bible into the Old Church Slavic language and, against all the odds, created an indigenous Slavic liturgy. They invented an alphabet (first called Glagolitic and later, after some modifications, Cyrillic) that is today used for Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Serbian. Pope John Paul II considered these two saints such pillars of civilisation that in 1980 he proclaimed them “co-patrons of Europe” along with St Benedict and five years later wrote an encyclical letter Slavorum Apostoli commemorating their work. In hindsight after the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, we can now appreciate the prophetic nature of his action.
Administrators and linguistsBorn in Thessaloniki of a Greek military-officer father and a Slavic mother, the brother’s upbringing was multi-cultural. As their father died young, their uncle Theoctistes, who was responsible for the postal services and the diplomatic relations of the Byzantine empire, brought them to Constantinople. Cyril studied philosophy and theology at the university under Photius who later became Patriarch of Constantinople, while Methodius was placed as a commander of a Slavic administrative region of the empire. Both were gifted scholars and linguists.
After his education Cyril was ordained and became a monk. Soon he was teaching philosophy and theology and held the important position of chartophylax (keeper of the archives) and secretary to the patriarch. The fact that he was both a linguist, having learned Arabic and Hebrew, and a theologian led to his being sent first on a diplomatic mission to discuss the Trinity with Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad and later on a missionary expedition to the Khazars in the Crimea.
Meanwhile Methodius had moved through the administrative and political ranks of the Byzantine empire to become a monastic abbot.
Missionaries and inculturation conflictIn 862 the Emperor Michael III (842-867) and the Patriarch Photius received a request from Prince Rastislav of Greater Moravia (a territory that covers present day Czech Republic, Slovakia and parts of Hungary) to send missionaries to evangelise his Slavic people. Rastislav had already had some intrusion from German missionaries and was anxious for support from Constantinople to keep his kingdom independent. He also wanted a teacher who could instruct his people and celebrate the liturgy in the Slavonic language. The brothers Cyril and Methodius were entrusted with the task.
They began their preparation by training assistants and translating the bible into the language that is now known as Old Church Slavonic. They then travelled to Greater Moravia to promote it, but came into conflict with German clerics (Archbishop Theotmar of Salzburg and Passau) firstly because they came from Constantinople which had a reputation for schism but also because of their efforts to create a Slavic liturgy.
Journey to RomeAs a result of this conflict, Pope Nicholas I (858-867) invited the brothers to Rome but he died before they arrived. His successor Adrian II (867-872) warmly received them and approved their project of a Slavic liturgy in Moravia. Pope Adrian also decided to ordain Cyril and Methodius bishops, but Cyril died in Rome on 4th February, 869 and did not return to Moravia.
Cyril buried at San ClementeIn the lower Basilica under San Clemente on Via Labicana Rome, which is cared for by the Irish Dominicans, there is a chapel to Cyril and Methodius and in the 4th century basilica underneath there is an altar to St Cyril under which it is possible that his relics lie. (A legend tells that St Clement had been exiled to the Crimea by the emperor Trajan and was drowned there tied to an anchor, that Cyril found his relics there while on his way to evangelise the Khazars, kept them and brought them to Rome to ensure a good reception for himself and that Pope Adrian II placed them in the high altar. (Unlikely, but there you have it!)
Second mission and more conflictPope Adrian II set up an archdiocese of Moravia ( = Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Pannonia (= Eastern Austria through Western Hungary to the River Danube) at the request of the Moravian princes, Rastislav and Svatopluk, and the Slav Prince Kocel of Pannonia and appointed Methodius archbishop. In 870 King Louis and the German bishops summoned Methodius to a synod at Ratisbon in Germany where he was deposed and imprisoned for three years. The next pope, John VIII (872-882), sent a personal representative to demand his liberation. He was immediately released and reinstated and continued to spread the faith among the Bohemians and the Poles in Northern Moravia.
Soon, however, he was called to Rome again to answer allegations of unorthodoxy brought against him by a German priest, Wiching. Again, he was vindicated and the Slavonic liturgy approved, but with a new requirement that at Mass the Gospel should be read, first in Latin, and then in Slavonic.
Wiching, in the meantime, had been nominated as one of the suffragan bishops of Methodius and continued to oppose his metropolitan. Methodius then returned to Constantinople where, with the help of several priests, he completed the translation of the Bible into Slavonic. Worn out by his long struggle and with no let-up in the antagonism of his opponents, he died on 6th April, 885.
Subsequent and present day influenceMethodius’s influence in Moravia was wiped out after his death but was carried on to Bulgaria, Serbia, and Russia, where the southern Slavonic language of Cyril and Methodius is still the liturgical language of both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. The Cyrillic alphabet used in those countries today, traditionally ascribed to St. Cyril, was probably the work of his followers. It was based on the Glagolithic alphabet used by Cyril himself and still used by certain Croatian and Montenegrin Catholics.
Both brothers were canonised in Eastern Orthodoxy as “equal-to-apostles” and were included in the universal Roman Catholic Church Calendar by Pope Leo XIII in 1880.
A national holiday in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Macedonia
In the Czech Republic and in Slovakia today, 5th July is believed to be the date of the arrival of the two brothers to Greater Moravia in 863 and is kept as Saints Cyril and Methodius Day – a national holiday. In Bulgaria Cyril and Methodius Day is on 24th May. It is a national holiday celebrating Bulgarian culture and the invention of the Slavic alphabet. This date is also a national holiday in the Republic of Macedonia and is known as the day of “Salonica Brothers” (in Macedonian: Solunski braka) from their place of origin.
Patrons of indigenisation of the Christian message and liturgy
Since their inculturation of Christianity was so successful in Eastern Europe and they were well received in Rome, it is easy to see how they have become not just pillars of European solidarity, but also patrons of indigenisation of the Christian message and liturgy in all the cultures to which it is brought.
Feb 14 – Ss Cyril and Methodius (2) – Patrons of Europe
14 February, 2012
Summaries of Ss Cyril and Methodius, Missionaries. Cyril: A monk who was born about 826 in Thessalonica (Greece); died at Rome in 869. Methodius (his brother) : Born about 815; died in Velehrad (Czech Republic) in 885. With papal approval they preached the gospel in Moravia using their own translations of the Scriptures and the liturgy […]
Summaries of Ss Cyril and Methodius, Missionaries. Cyril: A monk who was born about 826 in Thessalonica (Greece); died at Rome in 869. Methodius (his brother) : Born about 815; died in Velehrad (Czech Republic) in 885. With papal approval they preached the gospel in Moravia using their own translations of the Scriptures and the liturgy in the local language. These translations into Slavonic were based on an alphabet they invented, now called Cyrillic. The success of their preaching aroused jealous Frankish opposition. Honoured as apostles of the Slavic peoples, for their contribution to Slavic culture, their missionary inculturation of the Christian faith, and for establishing links between East and West.
Fr John Murray PP tells the story of the two Greek monks who became evangelisers of the Slavic people and how Pope John Paul II made them co-patrons of Europe with St Benedict.
From the very beginning of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II frequently spoke of Europe as ‘breathing with two lungs’. In that first decade from his election in 1978, Europe was still divided and people in the west had forgotten about the countries behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ as belonging to Europe.
Saint Benedict’s place as patron of Europe was never in question. So it must have given the Pope, the ‘man from a far country’, great pride to declare two co-patrons of Europe on 31 December 1980.
Tradition tells us that the two brothers, Methodius and Constantine (he did not take the name Cyril until just before his death), grew up in Thessaloniki (Greece) as sons of a prominent Christian family. We know that Constantine was born in 827. Both were highly intelligent men and while Methodius became an important civil official, his brother became a scholar and professor in the great city of Constantinople.
Because many Slays came to live in their area of Greece, the brothers had become proficient in the Slavic languages. Their first missionary journey was into Ukraine. Later Rastislav, a prince in Moravia (modern-day Czech Republic), invited them into his territory. The motive was not entirely spiritual; the prince was struggling for independence from German influence. He felt that Christian missionaries from the east, replacing the German missionaries, would help him to consolidate power in his own country, especially if they spoke the Slavonic language. Before they even left on their mission, Constantine constructed a script for Slavonic, a script which became the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet named after him.
The brothers were keen to help and were firm believers in translating the liturgy into the local language, whereas the custom in the west was to use Greek or Latin (as it was until Vatican II). When the brothers appealed to Rome – in the issue of having some Slavic candidates ordained for the priesthood – , the Pope – with his own reasons too – approved the use of Slavonic in services and ordained the men Methodius and Constantine had forwarded. The brothers also translated the New Testament and the Psalms into the Slavonic language.
Sadly, Constantine would never return to Moravia, and he died in Rome where he had assumed the monastic habit and taken on the name by which history remembers him. There is also an Irish slant to Cyril’s story. Cyril had laboured hard during his lifetime to return the relics of Saint Clement (the fourth bishop of Rome) to the city and this he did in 867. The martyred Pope was interred in the church of his name on the street which runs from the Colosseum to St. John Lateran Basilica. Cyril died not long afterwards (14 February 869) and was buried also in the same church.
San Clemente Basilica in Rome holds the tombs of Ss Cyril and Methodius in an underground Basilica.
Ironically the tomb of Cyril was somehow ‘lost’ when the 12th century basilica was later built on top of the 4th century one. It wasn’t until Fr. Joseph Mullooly, the Irish Dominican prior of St. Clement’s, did some excavations in 1868-70 that the tomb of the Slav saint – as well as the 4th century church and 1st century buildings – was rediscovered. In 2007 the Irish Post Office honoured Fr. Mullooly, featuring him on a number of stamps.
Methodius meanwhile was grief-stricken with the death of his brother and he too, wanted to retire to a monastery but his brother’s dying wish was that he should return to his missionary endeavours. Cyril had said to him, ‘Listen, my brother, we have shared the same destiny, ploughing the same furrow… I know your love for your mountain (monastery) but do not for the sake of the mountain give up your work of teaching.’
Methodius continued to spread the gospel to other regions of Eastern Europe and seminaries were founded in Bulgaria and what is modern-day Belarus and Ukraine. Methodius himself was ordained as archbishop of Pannonia (modern Hungary) and became Papal legate for the Slavic peoples. However his life was not without difficulty, even to the point of spending two years in prison, only being set free by the personal intervention of Pope John VII. The work of inculcating the scriptures and the liturgy into the language of the people he served was continually being regarded with suspicion. In latter years he also translated further books of the Bible into the languages he and his brother loved so much.
In his encyclical, Slavorum Apostoli (‘the Apostles of the Slavs’, June 1985) Pope John Paul II spoke of the brothers as ideal examples of the true missionary spirit – faithful to the traditions which had formed them and yet endeavouring to understand the peoples to whom they were sent. They had endeavoured successfully to create an alphabet and a literature for the languages which they encountered. Yet constantly they submitted their work to the judgement of the Apostolic See which they saw as the visible sign of the Church’s unity. The prayer of Jesus, ‘that they may be one’, was indeed their motto.
Pope John Paul II concluded his encyclical with a beautiful prayer: ‘Great God, One in Trinity, I entrust to you the heritage of the faith of the Slav nations. Preserve and bless this work of yours! Grant to the whole of Europe, O most Holy Trinity – through the intercession of the two holy brothers – to feel the need for religious and Christian unity and for a communion of all its peoples. The Pope of Slav origin thanks you for calling the Slav nations into the communion of the faith. May it never fail!’
The feast of Cyril and Methodius, co-patrons of Europe with Benedict, is celebrated each year on 14 February.
This article first appeared in
The Messenger (February 2008), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
The LORD God said:
“It is not good for the man to be alone.
I will make a suitable partner for him.”
So the LORD God formed out of the ground
various wild animals and various birds of the air,
and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;
whatever the man called each of them would be its name.
The man gave names to all the cattle,
all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals;
but none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.
So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,
and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs
and closed up its place with flesh.
The LORD God then built up into a woman
the rib that he had taken from the man.
When he brought her to the man, the man said:
“This one, at last, is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called ‘woman,’
for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”
That is why a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife,
and the two of them become one flesh.
The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.
Jesus went to the district of Tyre.
He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it,
but he could not escape notice.
Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.
She came and fell at his feet.
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth,
and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She replied and said to him,
“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”
Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go.
The demon has gone out of your daughter.”
When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed
and the demon gone.
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