Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius among Western Christians (14/02)

Cyril and Methodius — educators of the Slavs, patrons of Europe, creators of the Slavic alphabet. The Catholic Church honors their memory on February 14th.

Around 861, both brothers, as part of the Byzantine embassy to the Khazar Khaganate, visited Chersonesos twice, then were sent by Emperor Michael III to Great Moravia, one of the largest states in Central Europe at that time.

This mission was organized at the request of the Moravian prince Rostislav (846 - 879), who sought to limit the influence of the German clergy in his principality and wanted Christian teaching to be preached in a language understandable to the Slavs, and not in Latin.

Cyril and Methodius translated the books of the Holy Scriptures from Greek into Slavic, as well as the literature necessary for worship. The translation was based on the Eastern Bulgarian dialects well known to them.

Unlike other methods of recording Slavic speech practiced in that era, the Slavic writing of Cyril and Methodius was a special complete system created taking into account all the specific features of the Slavic language. They created a special alphabet for the texts of translations - the verb. The brothers also trained local clergymen to worship in Slavic. This experience also became widespread in neighboring lands inhabited by Slavs.

As a result of the translation activities of Cyril and Methodius, a corpus of texts in the Slavic language was created, which gave an idea of the basic norms of the Christian world, at the same time a literary language was created that was capable of serving all spheres of life at the same high level as Greek and Latin Slavic society.

In fact, according to the chronicles, writing already existed among the Slavs, and this has been confirmed several times by different sources. Both scientists and writers are now pointing this out. And in previous centuries this was confirmed by both Lomonosov and Tatishchev.

It should be noted that Cyril and Methodius did not actually create Slavic writing. They created the Church Slavonic alphabet for the Christian church. Cyril and Methodius took an ancient Slavic letter, which contained 49 letters, threw away 5 letters because there were no such sounds in the Greek language, and for 4 they gave Greek names.

The contribution of these saints, equally revered by both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, is undoubtedly great.

The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the Day of Equal-to-the-Apostles Methodius and Cyril, Slovenian teachers, on May 24.

644