Cyril and Methodius. Cyril and Methodius - the creators of Slavic writing

This is the only state and church holiday in our country. On this day, the church honors the memory of Cyril and Methodius, who invented the Cyrillic alphabet.

The church tradition of honoring the memory of Saints Cyril and Methodius originated in the 10th century in Bulgaria as a token of gratitude for the invention of the Slavic alphabet, which gave many nations the opportunity to read the Gospel in English. mother tongue.

In 1863, when the alphabet turned a thousand years old, the holiday Slavic writing and cultures were celebrated on a grand scale in Russia for the first time. At Soviet power The holiday was no longer celebrated, and the tradition was revived in 1991.

The creators of the Slavic alphabet Cyril (before becoming a monk - Constantine) and Methodius (Michael) grew up in the Byzantine city of Thessalonica (now Thessaloniki, Greece) in a wealthy family with seven children in total. Ancient Thessalonica was part of the Slavic (Bulgarian) territory and was a multilingual city in which different linguistic dialects coexisted, including Byzantine, Turkish and Slavic. The elder brother, Methodius, became a monk. The youngest, Cyril, excelled in the sciences. He was fluent in Greek and Arabic, studied in Constantinople, was educated by the greatest scientists of his time - Leo the Grammarian and Photius (the future patriarch). After completing his studies, Konstantin accepted the rank of priest and was appointed curator of the patriarchal library at the church of St. Sophia and taught philosophy at the higher school of Constantinople. The wisdom and strength of Cyril's faith were so great that he managed to defeat the heretic Aninius in the debate. Soon, Constantine had the first students - Clement, Naum and Angelarius, with whom he came to the monastery in 856, where his brother Methodius was the abbot.

In 857, the Byzantine emperor sent brothers to the Khazar Khaganate to preach the gospel. On the way, they stopped in the city of Korsun, where they miraculously found the relics of the Holy Martyr Clement, Pope of Rome. After that, the saints went to the Khazars, where they convinced the Khazar prince and his entourage to accept Christianity and even took 200 Greek captives from there.

In the early 860s, the ruler of Moravia, Prince Rostislav, who was oppressed by German bishops, turned to the Byzantine emperor Michael III with a request to send learned men, missionaries who knew the Slavic language. All divine services, sacred books and theology there were Latin, and the Slavs did not understand this language. “Our people profess the Christian faith, but we do not have teachers who could explain the faith to us in our native language. Send us such teachers,” he asked. Michael III answered the request with consent. He entrusted the translation of liturgical books into a language understandable to the inhabitants of Moravia to Cyril.

However, in order to record the translation, it was necessary to create a written Slavic language and a Slavic alphabet. Understanding the magnitude of the task, Cyril turned to his older brother for help. They came to the conclusion that neither the Latin nor the Greek alphabets corresponded to the sound palette of the Slavic language. In this regard, the brothers decided to remake the Greek alphabet and adapt it to the sound system of the Slavic language. The brothers did a great job of isolating and transforming sounds and inscribing the letters of the new script. Based on the developments, two alphabets were compiled - (named after Cyril) and Glagolitic. According to historians, the Cyrillic alphabet was created later than the Glagolitic and based on it. With the help of a Glagolitic Greek the Gospel, the Psalter, the Apostle and other books were translated. According to official version, it happened in 863. Thus, we are now celebrating 1155 years since the creation of the Slavic alphabet.

In 864, the brothers presented their work in Moravia, where they were received with great honors. Soon, many students were assigned to teach them, and after a while the entire church order was translated into Slavic. This helped to teach the Slavs all church services and prayers, in addition, the lives of the saints and other church books were translated into Slavonic.

The acquisition of its own alphabet led to the fact that Slavic culture made a serious breakthrough in its development: it acquired a tool for recording its own history, for consolidating its own identity back in those days when most modern European languages ​​did not yet exist.

In connection with the constant intrigues of the German clergy, Cyril and Methodius twice had to justify themselves before the Roman high priest. In 869, unable to withstand the stress, Cyril died at the age of 42.

When Cyril was in Rome, he had a vision in which the Lord told him about the approach of death. He took the schema the highest level Orthodox monasticism).

His work was continued by his elder brother Methodius, who shortly thereafter was ordained to the episcopal rank in Rome. He died in 885, having survived several years of exile, abuse and imprisonment.

Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius were canonized as saints in antiquity. In the Russian Orthodox Church, the memory of the Enlighteners of the Slavs has been honored since the 11th century. Ancient Services saints who have come down to our time belong to XIII century. The solemn celebration of the memory of the saints was established in the Russian Church in 1863.

For the first time, the Day of Slavic Literature was celebrated in Bulgaria in 1857, and then in other countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. In Russia, at the state level, the Day of Slavic Literature and Culture was first solemnly celebrated in 1863 (the 1000th anniversary of the creation of the Slavic alphabet was celebrated). In the same year, the Russian Holy Synod decided to celebrate the Day of Remembrance of Saints Cyril and Methodius on May 11 (24 according to the new style). During the years of Soviet power, the holiday was forgotten and restored only in 1986.

On January 30, 1991, May 24 was declared the Holiday of Slavic Literature and Culture, thereby giving it a state status.

The siblings Cyril and Methodius came from a pious family that lived in the Greek city of Thessalonica (in Macedonia). They were the children of the same governor, a Bulgarian Slav by birth. Saint Methodius was the eldest of the seven brothers, Saint Constantine (Cyril is his monastic name) was the youngest.

Saint Methodius at first served, like his father, in a military rank. The king, having learned about him, as about good warrior, appointed him governor in one Slavic principality of Slavinia, which was under the Greek state. This happened at the special discretion of God and so that Methodius could better learn the Slavic language, as a later future spiritual teacher and pastor of the Slavs. Having been in the rank of governor for about 10 years and knowing the vanity of life, Methodius began to dispose his will to renounce everything earthly and direct his thoughts to the heavenly. Leaving the province and all the pleasures of the world, he became a monk on Mount Olympus.

And his brother Saint Constantine from his youth showed brilliant successes both in secular and in religious and moral education. He studied with the young emperor Michael with the best teachers of Constantinople, including Photius, the future patriarch of Constantinople. Having received a brilliant education, he perfectly comprehended all the sciences of his time and many languages, he especially diligently studied the works of St. Gregory the Theologian, for which he received the title of Philosopher (wise). At the end of his teaching, Saint Constantine accepted the rank of priest and was appointed curator of the patriarchal library at the church of Saint Sophia. But, neglecting all the benefits of his position, he retired to one of the monasteries near the Black Sea. Almost by force, he was returned to Constantinople and appointed as a teacher of philosophy in the higher school of Constantinople. The wisdom and strength of faith of the still very young Constantine were so great that he managed to defeat the leader of the heretic iconoclasts, Aninius, in the debate.

Then Cyril retired to brother Methodius and for several years shared monastic deeds with him in a monastery on Olympus, where he first began to study the Slavic language. In the monasteries that were on the mountain, there were many Slavic monks from various neighboring countries, which is why Konstantin could have constant practice here for himself, which was especially important for him, since he, almost from childhood, spent all his time in the Greek environment. Soon the emperor summoned both holy brothers from the monastery and sent them to the Khazars for the gospel sermon. On the way, they stopped for some time in the city of Korsun, preparing for a sermon.

Here the holy brothers learned that the relics of the Hieromartyr Clement, Pope of Rome, were in the sea, and miraculously found them.

In the same place in Korsun, Saint Constantine found a Gospel and a Psalter written in "Russian letters" and a man who spoke Russian, and began to learn from this man to read and speak his language. After that, the holy brothers went to the Khazars, where they won the debate with the Jews and Muslims, preaching the Gospel teaching.

Soon, ambassadors came to the emperor from the Moravian prince Rostislav, who was being oppressed by the German bishops, with a request to send teachers to Moravia who could preach in their native language for the Slavs. The emperor called Saint Constantine and said to him: "You must go there, for no one can do it better than you." Saint Constantine, with fasting and prayer, embarked on a new feat. With the help of his brother Saint Methodius and the disciples of Gorazd, Clement, Savva, Naum and Angelyar, he compiled the Slavic alphabet and translated into Slavonic the books, without which Divine services could not be performed: the Gospel, the Psalter and selected services. Some chroniclers report that the first words written in the Slavic language were the words of the Apostle the Evangelist John: “In the beginning there was (there was) the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word.” This was in 863.

After the completion of the translation, the holy brothers went to Moravia, where they were received with great honor and began to teach Divine Liturgy in the Slavic language. This aroused the anger of the German bishops, who celebrated divine services in the Moravian churches on Latin, and they rebelled against the holy brothers and filed a complaint with Rome. In 867 St. Methodius and Constantine were summoned by Pope Nicholas I to Rome for trial to resolve this issue. Taking with them the relics of Saint Clement, Pope of Rome, Saints Constantine and Methodius set off for Rome. When they arrived in Rome, Nicholas I was no longer alive; his successor Adrian II, learning that they were carrying the relics of St. Clement, met them solemnly outside the city. The Pope of Rome approved Divine services in the Slavic language, and ordered the books translated by the brothers to be placed in Roman churches and to celebrate the Liturgy in the Slavic language.

While in Rome, Saint Constantine, informed by the Lord in a miraculous vision of the approach of death, received the schema with the name Cyril. 50 days after the adoption of the schema, on February 14, 869, Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril died at the age of 42. Before his death, he said to his brother: “You and I, like a friendly pair of oxen, led the same furrow; I am exhausted, but don’t you think to leave the labors of teaching and retire again to your mountain.” The Pope ordered the relics of St. Cyril to be placed in the church of St. Clement, where miracles began to happen from them.

After the death of Saint Cyril, the pope, following the request of the Slavic prince Kocel, sent Saint Methodius to Pannonia, ordaining him archbishop of Moravia and Pannonia, to the ancient throne of the holy Apostle Anthrodin. At the same time, Methodius had to endure a lot of trouble from heterodox missionaries, but he continued to preach the Gospel among the Slavs and baptized the Czech prince Borivoi and his wife Lyudmila (Comm. 16 September), as well as one of the Polish princes.

AT last years of his life, Saint Methodius, with the help of two disciple-priests, translated into Slavonic the entire Old Testament, except for the Maccabean books, as well as the Nomocanon (Rules of the Holy Fathers) and the patristic books (Paterik).

The saint predicted the day of his death and died on April 6, 885 at the age of about 60 years. The funeral service for the saint was performed in three languages ​​- Slavic, Greek and Latin; he was buried in the cathedral church of Velehrad, the capital of Moravia.

Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius were canonized as saints in antiquity. In Russian Orthodox Church The memory of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Enlighteners of the Slavs has been honored since the 11th century. The oldest services to the saints that have come down to our time date back to the 13th century.

The solemn celebration of the memory of the holy primates Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius was established in the Russian Church in 1863.

In the icon-painting original, under May 11, it says: “Our venerable fathers Methodius and Constantine, named Cyril, Bishops of Moravia, teachers of Slovenia. Methodius is a likeness of an old man, gray hair, a beard of duty like Vlasiev, hierarchal robes and an omophorion, in the hands of the Gospel. Konstantin - monastic vestments and in the schema, in the hands of a book, and in it the Russian alphabet A, B, C, D, D and other words (letters) are written, all in a row ... ".

By decree of the Holy Synod (1885), the celebration of the memory of Slavic teachers was classified as an average church holiday. The same decree determined: in prayers on litia, according to the Gospel at Matins before the canon, on holidays, as well as in all prayers in which the ecumenical saints of the Russian Church are commemorated, to commemorate after the name of St. Methodius and Cyril, Slovenian teachers.

For Orthodox Russia, the celebration of Sts. to the first teachers has a special meaning: “By them, having begun the Divine Liturgy and the whole church service in the language akin to us, Slovenia, and thus an inexhaustible well of water flowing into eternal life has been given to us.”

The holy Equal-to-the-Apostles primary teachers and Slavic enlighteners, the brothers Cyril and Methodius, came from a noble and pious family that lived in the Greek city of Thessalonica.

Saint Methodius was the eldest of the seven brothers, Saint Constantine (Cyril is his monastic name) was the youngest. Consisting on military service, Saint Methodius ruled in one of the Slavic principalities subordinate to the Byzantine Empire, apparently in Bulgarian, which gave him the opportunity to learn the Slavic language. After living there for about 10 years, Saint Methodius then accepted monasticism in one of the monasteries on Mount Olympus.

Saint Constantine from an early age was distinguished by great abilities and studied together with the infant emperor Michael with the best teachers of Constantinople, including Photius, the future Patriarch of Constantinople. St. Constantine perfectly comprehended all the sciences of his time and many languages, he especially diligently studied the works of St. Gregory the Theologian, and for his mind and outstanding knowledge, St. Constantine received the title of Philosopher (wise). At the end of his teaching, Saint Constantine accepted the rank of priest and was appointed curator of the Patriarchal Library at the Church of Saint Sophia, but soon left the capital and secretly retired to a monastery. Searched there and returned to Constantinople, he was assigned as a teacher of philosophy in the higher school of Constantinople. The wisdom and strength of faith of the still very young Constantine were so great that he managed to defeat the leader of the heretic iconoclasts Annius in the debate. After this victory, Constantine was sent by the emperor to debate the Holy Trinity with the Saracens (Muslims) and also won. Returning, Saint Constantine withdrew to his brother, Saint Methodius on Olympus, spending time in unceasing prayer and reading the works of the holy fathers.

Soon the emperor summoned both holy brothers from the monastery and sent them to the Khazars for the gospel sermon. On the way, they stopped for some time in the city of Korsun, preparing for a sermon. There the holy brothers miraculously found the relics of Hieromartyr Clement, Pope of Rome (Comm. 25 November). In the same place in Korsun, Saint Constantine found a Gospel and a Psalter written in "Russian letters" and a man who spoke Russian, and began to learn from this man to read and speak his language. After that, the holy brothers went to the Khazars, where they won the debate with the Jews and Muslims, preaching the Gospel teaching. On the way home, the brothers again visited Korsun and, taking the relics of St. Clement there, returned to Constantinople. Saint Constantine remained in the capital, while Saint Methodius received hegumenship at the small monastery of Polychron, not far from Mount Olympus, where he had asceticised before.

Soon, ambassadors came to the emperor from the Moravian prince Rostislav, who was being oppressed by the German bishops, with a request to send teachers to Moravia who could preach in the native language of the Slavs. The emperor called Saint Constantine and said to him: "You must go there, for no one can do it better than you." Saint Constantine, with fasting and prayer, embarked on a new feat. With the help of his brother Saint Methodius and the disciples of Gorazd, Clement, Savva, Naum and Angelyar, he compiled the Slavic alphabet and translated into Slavonic the books without which Divine services could not be performed: the Gospel, the Apostle, the Psalter and selected services. This was in 863.

After the completion of the translation, the holy brothers went to Moravia, where they were received with great honor, and began to teach Divine Liturgy in the Slavic language. This aroused the anger of the German bishops, who celebrated Divine Liturgy in Latin in the Moravian churches, and they rebelled against the holy brothers, arguing that Divine Liturgy could be celebrated only in one of three languages: Hebrew, Greek or Latin. Saint Constantine answered them: “You recognize only three languages ​​worthy of glorifying God in them. But David cries out: Sing to the Lord, all the earth; praise the Lord, all nations; let every breath praise the Lord! And in the Holy Gospel it is said: Go and teach all languages. The German bishops were disgraced, but became even more embittered and filed a complaint with Rome. The holy brothers were called to Rome to resolve this issue. Taking with them the relics of Saint Clement, Pope of Rome, Saints Constantine and Methodius set off for Rome. Having learned that the holy brothers were carrying special holy relics, Pope Adrian with the clergy went out to meet them. The holy brothers were greeted with honor, the Pope of Rome approved divine services in the Slavic language, and ordered the books translated by the brothers to be placed in Roman churches and to celebrate the liturgy in the Slavic language.

While in Rome, Saint Constantine fell ill and, in a miraculous vision, informed by the Lord that his death was approaching, he took the schema with the name Cyril. 50 days after the adoption of the schema, on February 14, 869, Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril died at the age of 42. Departing to God, Saint Cyril commanded his brother Saint Methodius to continue their common work - the enlightenment of the Slavic peoples with the light of the true faith. Saint Methodius begged the Pope of Rome to allow the body of his brother to be taken away for burial on native land, but the pope ordered the relics of St. Cyril to be placed in the church of St. Clement, where miracles began to happen from them.

After the death of Saint Cyril, the pope, following the request of the Slavic prince Kocel, sent Saint Methodius to Pannonia, ordaining him archbishop of Moravia and Pannonia, to the ancient throne of the holy Apostle Andronicus. In Pannonia, Saint Methodius, together with his disciples, continued to distribute Divine services, writing and books in the Slavic language. This again angered the German bishops. They achieved the arrest and trial of Saint Methodius, who was exiled to captivity in Swabia, where he endured many sufferings for two and a half years. Released by order of Pope John VIII and restored to the rights of an archbishop, Methodius continued to preach the gospel among the Slavs and baptized the Czech prince Borivoi and his wife Lyudmila (Comm. 16 September), as well as one of the Polish princes. For the third time, the German bishops raised a persecution against the saint for not accepting the Roman teaching about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and from the Son. Saint Methodius was summoned to Rome, but justified himself before the pope, keeping the Orthodox teaching pure, and was again returned to the capital of Moravia, Velehrad.

Here, in the last years of his life, Saint Methodius, with the help of two disciple-priests, translated into Slavonic the entire Old Testament, except for the Maccabean books, as well as the Nomocanon (Rules of the Holy Fathers) and the patristic books (Paterik).

Anticipating the approach of death, Saint Methodius pointed to one of his disciples, Gorazd, as a worthy successor to himself. The saint predicted the day of his death and died on April 6, 885 at the age of about 60 years. The funeral service for the saint was performed in three languages ​​- Slavic, Greek and Latin; he was buried in the cathedral church of Velegrad.

May 24 is the day of Slavic writing and culture. It is also the day of veneration of the holy enlighteners Cyril and Methodius, who gave the Slavs that script, that alphabet that we still use.

Thessalonica Brothers

Leo and Mary, who lived in the Greek city of Thessaloniki (now called Thessaloniki), had seven children. The eldest of them is Mikhail, the youngest is Konstantin. It was they who later became known as the enlighteners Methodius and Cyril, the inventors of the Slavic alphabet. Thessaloniki, or as the Slavs called Thessalonica, was a port city, and therefore the brothers grew up surrounded by many languages. Moreover, some researchers believe that Mikhail and Konstantin were bilingual, because their father, a local military leader, was Slavic by origin, and their mother was Greek.

Michael Thessalonica

Both Methodius and Cyril did not immediately become enlighteners. The eldest of the Thessaloniki brothers followed in his father's footsteps and chose military career. At the age of twenty, he was appointed manager of Slavinia, one of the Slavic-Bulgarian regions that were subordinate to Byzantium. But ten years later, he decided to radically change his life. Michael left both the military-administrative career and the world in order to go to Olympus and take the veil there as a monk. When he was tonsured, he took the name Methodius.

Constantine of Thessalonica

The youngest of the Thessalonica brothers, Constantine, was twelve years younger than Michael. When the elder had already served in Slavinia for a long time, Constantine, as a capable young man, was accepted into an elite school at the court of the Byzantine emperor Michael III. There, the future enlightener studied philosophy, grammar, rhetoric, all the "Hellenic arts", as well as Slavic, Jewish, Khazar, Arabic, Samaritan, Syriac (Sura) languages.

Library instead of wife

Obviously Constantine was one of the best students at the court school, and brilliant career he was provided. In any case, this opinion was shared by one of the highest officials in the state and its actual ruler, the logothete Theoktist. Therefore, he proposed to the young Konstantin, who had just completed his studies, to marry his, Feoktist, goddaughter. But Constantine refused, and first got a job in a library, then retired to a monastery and, in the end, became a teacher of philosophy in Constantinople. For this he was nicknamed Constantine the Philosopher.

The Miracle of Finding Relics

In 860, Constantine and Methodius were sent on an educational mission to the Khazar Khaganate. Along the way, they stopped in Chersonese, where they replenished their knowledge of the Hebrew language (Konstantin studied the Samaritan script), got acquainted with the mysterious "Russian" letters, which the researchers consider to be Sura, that is, Syrian. Here Constantine performed a miracle. Having learned that for half a century the parishioners could not worship the relics of St. Clement (the patron saint of Rome, the bishop of Rome, exiled to the Inkerman quarries and drowned in the Black Sea), Konstantin invited the local priest to hold a service for the acquisition of incorruptible relics. The service was completed, and Constantine, having brought the Chersonesites to the shore, pointed out a place in shallow water, where, indeed, the remains were found with an anchor chain around their necks. Since Clement was drowned with an anchor tied to his neck, no one had any doubts about the authenticity of the remains found. Subsequently, the relics of St. Clement served the brothers well.

Gospel for the Slavs

Apparently, the invention of the alphabet was not an end in itself for the illuminators. For some reason (maybe because they themselves were half, and according to some versions, exclusively Slavs), Constantine and Methodius sought to spread Slavic as the language of worship. Therefore, by the year 863, when Patriarch Photius of Constantinople sent the Thessalonica brothers on a mission to Moravia, they not only managed to come up with what later became known as Cyrillic, but also translated a number of biblical texts into Slavonic, in particular, the Gospel. In Velehrad, the capital of Moravia, worship in the Slavic language quickly became popular. It is noteworthy that the brothers translated the Bible into a dialect common in Thessalonica, that is, into a language that was very familiar to them. But the Moravians understood the southern dialect with difficulty and therefore began to treat it as a bookish, sacred language. Soon a group of opponents of the actions of Constantine and Methodius, the so-called tri-pagans, arose. These people believed that the biblical texts should be read exclusively in the canonical languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin. For support, the inventors of Slavic writing went to Rome.

Bishop Methodius of Moravia

In Rome, the Enlighteners were received cordially, perhaps largely due to the relics of St. Clement, part of which they took with them when they left Chersonesus, and now brought to the eternal city. The youngest of the brothers died here after a long illness, having taken the monastic vows under the name Cyril before his death. And the elder was ordained a priest, then appointed bishop of both Moravia and Pannonia. Returning to the Slavic lands, he continued the work of popularizing the Slavic language, but despite his efforts, he could not achieve great success: the political situation in the principalities changed, the ruler Roslav, who supported the brothers, was overthrown, and the new authorities looked at the Slavic-language services without enthusiasm. After holding the bishop for two years in prison, they finally allowed him to preach in Slavic.

Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril (†869) and Methodius (†885), Slovenian teachers

Kirill(in the world Constantine, nicknamed the Philosopher, 827-869, Rome) and Methodius(in the world Michael; 815-885, Velegrad, Moravia) - brothers from the Greek city of Thessalonica (Thessaloniki) in Macedonia, the creators of the Slavic alphabet, the creators of the Church Slavonic language and preachers of Christianity.

Origin

Cyril and Methodius came from the Byzantine city of Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki, slavyansk. "Thesalt"). Their father, named Leo, held a high military position under the governor of Thessalonica. The family had seven sons, with Michael (Methodius) being the eldest, and Konstantin (Cyril) being the youngest of them.

Thessalonica, where the brothers were born, was a bilingual city. In addition to the Greek language, they sounded the Slavic Thessalonica dialect, which was spoken by the tribes surrounding Thessaloniki: the Draguvites, Sagudites, Vayunits, Smolyans, and which, according to the research of modern linguists, formed the basis of the language of the translations of Cyril and Methodius, and with them the entire Church Slavonic language .

Prior to being tonsured a monk, Methodius made a good military and administrative career, culminating in the post of strategist (commander-in-chief of the army) Slavinia, a Byzantine province located in Macedonia.

Konstantin was a very educated person for his time. Even before the trip to Moravia (historical region of the Czech Republic) he compiled the Slavonic alphabet and began translating the Gospel into Slavonic.

Monasticism

Constantine studied with the best teachers of Constantinople in philosophy, dialectics, geometry, arithmetic, rhetoric, astronomy, as well as many languages. At the end of the teaching, refusing to enter into a very profitable marriage with the goddaughter of the logothete (head of the gospodar office and custodian state seal) , Konstantin took the rank of priest and entered the service of hartophylax (literally "keeper of the library"; in reality it was equal to the modern title of an academician) at the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. But, neglecting the benefits of his position, he retired to one of the monasteries on the Black Sea coast. For some time he lived in seclusion. Then he was almost forcibly returned to Constantinople and determined to teach philosophy at the same University of Manavra, where he had recently studied himself (since then, the nickname Konstantin the Philosopher). At one of the theological debates, Cyril won a brilliant victory over the highly experienced leader of the iconoclasts, the former Patriarch Annius, which brought him wide fame in Constantinople.

Around the year 850, Emperor Michael III and Patriarch Photius send Constantine to Bulgaria, where on the river Bregalnitsa he converts many Bulgarians to Christianity.


The following year, Cyril, together with George, Metropolitan of Nicomedia, goes to the court of the Emir of Militia to acquaint him with the basics of Christianity.

In 856, the logothete Theoktist, who was Constantine's patron, was assassinated. Constantine, together with his disciples Clement, Naum and Angelarius, came to the monastery, where his brother Methodius was the abbot. In this monastery, around Constantine and Methodius, a group of like-minded people formed and the idea of ​​creating a Slavic alphabet was born.

Khazar mission

In 860, Constantine was sent for missionary purposes to the court of the Khazar Khagan. According to the life, the embassy was sent in response to the request of the kagan, who promised, if he was persuaded, to convert to Christianity.

Khazar Khaganate (Khazaria)- a medieval state created by the nomadic Turkic people - the Khazars. He controlled the territory of the Ciscaucasia, the Lower and Middle Volga regions, modern northwestern Kazakhstan, the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, the eastern part of the Crimea, as well as the steppes and forest-steppes of Eastern Europe up to the Dnieper. The center of the state was originally located in the coastal part of modern Dagestan, later moved to the lower reaches of the Volga. Part of the ruling elite converted to Judaism. Part of the East Slavic tribal unions was politically dependent on the Khazars. The fall of the kaganate is connected with the military campaigns of the Old Russian state.


Khazar Khaganate

During his stay in Korsun, Konstantin, in preparation for the controversy, studied the Hebrew language, the Samaritan script, and along with them some kind of "Russian" script and language (it is believed that there is a misprint in the life and instead of “Russian” letters one should read “Surian”, that is, Syrian - Aramaic; in any case, this is not the Old Russian language, which in those days was not distinguished from the common Slavic). Constantine's dispute with a Muslim imam and a Jewish rabbi, which took place in the presence of the kagan, ended in Constantine's victory, but the kagan did not change his faith.

Bulgarian mission

In Constantinople, the sister of the Bulgarian Khan Boris was held as a hostage. She was baptized with the name Theodora and was brought up in the spirit of the Holy Faith. Around 860, she returned to Bulgaria and began to persuade her brother to accept Christianity. Boris was baptized, taking the name Michael, in honor of the son of the Byzantine Empress Theodora - Emperor Michael III, during whose reign the conversion of the Bulgarians to Christianity took place. Constantine and Methodius were in this country, and with their preaching, they greatly contributed to the establishment of Christianity in it. From Bulgaria, the Christian faith spread to neighboring Serbia.

In 863, with the help of his brother Saint Methodius and the disciples of Gorazd, Clement, Savva, Naum and Angelyar, Constantine compiled the Slavic alphabet and translated the main liturgical books from Greek into Slavonic: the Gospel, the Psalter and selected services. Some chroniclers report that the first words written in the Slavic language were the words of the Apostle Evangelist John: “In the beginning was (was) the Word, and the Word was to God, and God was the Word”.

Moravian mission

In 862, ambassadors from the Moravian prince Rostislav came to Constantinople with the following request: “Our people profess the Christian faith, but we do not have teachers who could explain the faith to us in our native language. Send us such teachers.” The Byzantine Emperor Michael III and the patriarch rejoiced and, calling on the Thessalonica brothers, invited them to go to the Moravians.

Great Moravia- is considered the first Slavic state that existed in the years 822-907 on the Middle Danube. The capital of the state was the city of Velegrad. Here the first Slavic writing was created and the Church Slavonic language arose. During the period of greatest power, it included the territories of modern Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, as well as Lesser Poland, part of Ukraine and the historical region of Silesia. Now part of the Czech Republic.


Constantine and Methodius stayed in Moravia for more than 3 years and continued to translate church books from Greek into Slavonic. The brothers taught the Slavs how to read, write and conduct worship in the Slavic language. This aroused the anger of the German bishops, who celebrated divine services in Latin in the Moravian churches, and they rebelled against the holy brothers and filed a complaint with Rome. Among some theologians of the Western Church, a point of view has developed that praise to God can only be given in three languages, in which the inscription on the Cross of the Lord was made: Jewish, Greek and Latin. Therefore, Constantine and Methodius, who preached Christianity in Moravia, were perceived as heretics and summoned to court to resolve this issue in Rome to Pope Nicholas I.

Taking with them the relics of St. Clement, Pope of Rome, found by Constantine on the Chersonese journey, the brothers set off for Rome. On the way to Rome, they visited another Slavic country - Pannonia (the territory of modern western Hungary, eastern Austria and partly Slovenia and Serbia) where the Blaten principality was located. Here, in Blatnograd, on behalf of Prince Kotsel, the brothers taught the Slavs book business and worship in the Slavic language.

When they arrived in Rome, Nicholas I was no longer alive; his successor Adrian II, learning that they were carrying the relics of St. Clement, met them solemnly outside the city. After that, Pope Adrian II approved worship in the Slavic language, and ordered the books translated by the brothers to be placed in Roman churches. At the behest of Adrian II, Formosus (Bishop of Porto) and Gauderic (Bishop of Velletri) consecrated three brothers who traveled with Constantine and Methodius as priests, and the latter was ordained a bishop.

last years of life

In Rome, Constantine fell seriously ill, at the beginning of February 869 he finally fell ill, took the schema and a new monastic name Cyril. 50 days after the adoption of the schema, On February 14, 869, Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril died at the age of 42.. He was buried in Rome in the church of Saint Clement.


The chapel (side altar) of the Basilica of St. Clement is dedicated to the memory of Sts. Equal-to-the-Apostles Brothers Cyril and Methodius

Before his death, he said to Methodius: “We are with you, like two oxen; one fell from a heavy burden, the other must continue on his way ". The Pope ordained him Archbishop of Moravia and Pannonia. Methodius with his disciples, who received the priesthood, returned to Pannonia, and later to Moravia.

By this time the situation in Moravia had changed dramatically. After Rostislav was defeated by Louis the German and died in a Bavarian prison in 870, his nephew Svyatopolk, who submitted to German political influence, became the Moravian prince. The activity of Methodius and his disciples proceeded in very difficult conditions. The Latin-German clergy in every way prevented the spread of the Slavic language as the language of the church. They even managed to imprison Methodius for 3 years in one of the Swabian monasteries - Reichenau. Upon learning of this, Pope John VIII released him in 874 and restored him to the rights of an archbishop. Coming out of prison, Methodius continued to preach the gospel among the Slavs and worship in the Slavic language (despite the prohibition), baptized the Czech prince Borivoi and his wife Lyudmila, as well as one of the Polish princes.

In 879 the German bishops organized new process against Methodius. However, Methodius brilliantly justified himself in Rome and even received a papal bull allowing worship in the Slavic language.

In 881, Methodius, at the invitation of Emperor Basil I the Macedonian, arrived in Constantinople. There he spent 3 years, after which he returned to Moravia with his students.

Methodius of Moravia

In the last years of his life, Saint Methodius, with the help of two disciple-priests, translated the entire Old Testament (except for the Maccabees) and the patristic books into Slavonic.

In 885, Methodius fell seriously ill. Before his death, he appointed his disciple Gorazd as his successor. 6/19 April 885, on Palm Sunday, he asked to be carried to the temple, where he read a sermon and on the same day died(at the age of about 60 years). The funeral of Methodius took place in three languages ​​- Slavic, Greek and Latin. He was buried in the cathedral church of Velehrad, the capital of Moravia.

After death

After the death of Methodius, his opponents managed to achieve the prohibition of Slavic writing in Moravia. Many students were executed, some moved to Bulgaria and Croatia.

In Bulgaria and subsequently in Croatia, Serbia and Old Russian state the Slavic alphabet created by the brothers became widespread. In some regions of Croatia until the middle of the 20th century, the liturgy of the Latin rite was served in Slavonic. Since liturgical books were written in the Glagolitic alphabet, this rite was called Glagolitic.

Pope Adrian II wrote to Prince Rostislav in Prague that if anyone becomes contemptuous of books written in Slavic, then let him be excommunicated and brought to trial by the Church, for such people are “wolves”. And Pope John VIII in 880 writes to Prince Svyatopolk, ordering that sermons be delivered in Slavonic.

Heritage

Cyril and Methodius developed a special alphabet for writing texts in the Slavic language - Glagolitic.

Glagolitic- one of the first Slavic alphabets. It is assumed that it was the Glagolitic alphabet that was created by the Bulgarian educator St. Konstantin (Kirill) Philosopher for recording church texts in Old Church Slavonic. In Old Church Slavonic it is called "Kѷrїllovitsa". A number of facts indicate that the Glagolitic alphabet was created before the Cyrillic alphabet, and that, in turn, was created on the basis of the Glagolitic alphabet and the Greek alphabet. The Roman Catholic Church, in the fight against the service in the Slavic language among the Croats, called the Glagolitic "Gothic scripts".

Usually they speak of two types of Glagolitic: the older “round”, also known as Bulgarian, and the later “angular”, Croatian (so named because, until the middle of the 20th century, it was used by Croatian Catholics when performing divine services according to the Glagolitic rite). The alphabet of the latter was gradually reduced from 41 to 30 characters.

AT Ancient Russia The Glagolitic alphabet was practically not used, there are only occasional inclusions of Glagolitic letters in texts written in Cyrillic. The Glagolitic alphabet was the alphabet for transmitting, first of all, church texts; the surviving ancient Russian monuments of everyday writing before the baptism of Russia use the Cyrillic alphabet. There is a use of the Glagolitic script as a cryptography.

Cyrillic- Old Slavonic alphabet (Old Bulgarian alphabet): the same as the Cyrillic (or Cyrillic) alphabet: one of two (along with the Glagolitic) ancient alphabets for the Old Slavonic language.


The Cyrillic alphabet goes back to the Greek statutory script, with the addition of letters to convey sounds that were absent in the Greek language. Since its inception, the Cyrillic alphabet has adapted to linguistic changes, and as a result of numerous reforms in each language, it has acquired its own differences. Different versions of the Cyrillic alphabet are used in Eastern Europe and Central and North Asia. As an official letter, it was first adopted in the First Bulgarian Kingdom.

In Church Slavonic it is called "klimentovitsa", in honor of Clement of Ohrid.

Cyrillic-based alphabets include the alphabets of the following Slavic languages:

  • Belarusian language (Belarusian alphabet)
  • Bulgarian language (Bulgarian alphabet)
  • Macedonian language (Macedonian alphabet)
  • Rusyn language/dialect (Rusyn alphabet)
  • Russian language (Russian alphabet)
  • Serbian (Vukovica)
  • Ukrainian language(Ukrainian alphabet)
  • Montenegrin language (Montenegrin alphabet)

At present, V. A. Istrin’s point of view prevails among historians, but is not generally recognized, according to which the Cyrillic alphabet was created on the basis of the Greek alphabet by the disciple of the holy brothers Clement of Ohrid (which is also mentioned in his Life). Using the created alphabet, the brothers translated the Holy Scriptures and a number of liturgical books from the Greek language. At the same time, it should be noted that even if the Cyrillic letter styles were developed by Clement, he relied on the work on isolating the sounds of the Slavic language done by Cyril and Methodius, and this work is the main part of any work to create a new script. Modern scholars note high level this work, which gave designations for almost all scientifically distinguished Slavic sounds, which we owe, apparently, to the outstanding linguistic abilities of Konstantin-Cyril, noted in the sources.

Sometimes it is asserted that there was a Slavic script before Cyril and Methodius. However, it was a non-Slavic language. It should be remembered, at the same time, that in the time of Cyril and Methodius and much later, the Slavs easily understood each other and believed that they spoke a single Slavic language, which some modern linguists agree with, who believe that one can speak of the unity of the Proto-Slavic language until XII century. Metropolitan Macarius (Bulgakov) also points out that Konstantin was the creator of Slavic writings and there were no Slavic writings before him.

veneration

Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius were canonized as saints in antiquity. In the Russian Orthodox Church, the memory of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Enlighteners of the Slavs has been honored since the 11th century. The oldest services to the saints that have come down to our time date back to the 13th century.

In 1863, a solemn celebration of the memory of the holy primates Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius was established in the Russian Church.

The holiday in honor of Cyril and Methodius is a public holiday in Russia (since 1991), Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Republic of Macedonia. In Russia, Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, the holiday is celebrated May 24; in Russia and Bulgaria it bears the name Day Slavic culture and writing, in Macedonia - the Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the holiday is celebrated on July 5th.


Troparion, tone 4
As the Apostle of the same morality and the Slovenian countries, the teacher, Cyril and Methodius of God's Wisdom, pray to the Lord of all, affirm all the Slovenian languages ​​\u200b\u200bin Orthodoxy and like-mindedness, pacify the world and save our souls.

Kontakion, tone 3
Let us honor the sacred pair of our educators, who have exuded divine scriptures as a source of knowledge of God for us, from worthless even to this day we indulge you, Cyril and Methodius, who are coming to the Throne of the Most High and praying warmly for our souls.

magnificence
We magnify you, Holy Apostles Cyril and Methodius, who enlightened all the Slovenian countries with your teachings and led you to Christ.

Information from the site hram-troicy.prihod.ru

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