Faithful Friday: Cyril and Methodius

By Sarah Levesque (G)

St. Cyril and St. Methodius were brothers who became known as the Apostles to the Slavs and are celebrated on the same day – February 14th in the West, May 11th in the East. St. Methodius was born around 815 while St. Cyril, originally named Constantine, was born around 827, both in Thessalonica. 

Constantine (later Cyril) was a priest and linguist who taught philosophy at the Magnaura university in Constantinople and was sent on diplomatic and evangelical missions; Methodius became an abbot of a monastery. In 862, when Prince Rostislav of Great Moravia (now the Czech Republic) requested missionaries to catechize his people, Cyril and Methodius were sent. One year later they were preaching to the Slavs, using the local language the liturgy and for the Bible, for which they created the Glagolitic alphabet and later the Cyrillic alphabet (named by Methodius after his late brother).

In 867, the brothers were called to Rome to meet with Pope Nicholas I, as certain bishops had claimed control of the area they were ministering to, and these bishops had complained about their use of the vernacular in the liturgy rather than Latin. By the time Cyril and Methodius arrived, Nicholas had died and Adrian (or Hadrian) II had become Pope. Adrian backed the brothers against the bishops, formally allowing the use of the Slavic liturgy. Cyril died in Rome in 869, but Adrian appointed Methodius as archbishop of Sirmium (which included all of Great Morovia), where he ministered until his death in 884.

May we, like Cyril and Methodius, be willing to travel, to learn, or to create as God asks us, regardless of those who would stand in our way.

Sources:

• britannica.com/biography/Saints-Cyril-and-Methodius
• worldhistory.org/Saint_Cyril/