Saints Cyril and Methodius were brothers. They were Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries. They are known as the “Apostles to the Slavs” due to their evangelizing of the Slavs. Cyril was born c. 827 AD and Methodius was born c. 815—820 AD in Thessalonica, modern day Greece.
In the year 862 AD Prince Rastislav of Great Moravia requested that the Byzantine Emperor Michael III and the Patriarch of Constantinople Photius send the duo on a missionary expedition to the Khazars. These were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th century established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, and Kazakhstan. Cyril was sent because he was a scholar who could converse with both Jews and Saracens.
For the purpose of this mission the brothers devised the Glagolitic alphabet, the first to be used for Slavic manuscripts. It was suited to match specific features of the Slavic language. Its descendant was the Cyrillic script which continues to be used in many languages today.
Cyril and Methodius wrote the first Slavic Civil Code which was used in Great Moravia. Founded in 833 AD and dissolved in 906 AD, Great Moravia was the first major predominantly Slavic state to emerge in the area of Central Europe. It included areas which today are part of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, and Ukraine.
The brothers translated the New Testament, the Psalms, and lessons from the Old Testament. Their mission was successful because they used the people’s native language rather than Latin and Greek. However problems arose when they encountered missionaries from the western branch of the Church who insisted on the use of the Latin liturgy.
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Saints Cyril, Methodius, Pope John XXIII, Teresa of Calcutta, St. Clement in Peter`s boat, detail of
fresco by Sieger Koder at Church of St. Clement in Primisweiler, Germany
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In 867, the brothers sought support from the new Pope Adrian II who gave Methodius the title Archbishop and jurisdiction over all of Moravia and Pannonia. Very importantly, the Pope authorized him to use the Slavic liturgy. Subsequently Methodius was ordained a priest. With him were ordained five Slavic disciples, three ordained priests and two ordained deacons. They officiated in their own languages at the altars of some of principal churches.
In 869 feeling his end approaching, Cyril became a Basilian monk and died in Rome fifty days later. In 879 Pope John VIII expanded the jurisdiction of Methodius to include Serbia. The lives of Cyril and Methodius were filled with controversy, alienation, conflict, and persecution because they opposed the established ecclesiastical order.
In 1880 Pope Leo XIII introduced their feast, February 14th, into the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church.