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ST CYRIL AND ST. METHODIUS
THE BEGINNING
 The meeting point of the two different worlds, the Romaic and the Slavonic, at times manifested through actual contacts, at others through a symbiotic link that existing between them, is a key factor in the interpretation of international relations in Eastern Europe in the medieval times. The communication, initiated with violence on both sides, in the Balkans, on the northern coast of the Black Sea and in Russia, where the newcomers had already established themselves, was gradually transformed into a search for common interests in establishing links. The differing cultures met one another and yet retained their characteristic features. Their common denominator was Christianity. Two factors were of great significance in its creation: the Mt. Athos monasteries and the tradition of Cyril and Methodius. An environment which was to serve as a mediator and a catalyst in the establishment of a common Slavonic and Byzantine civilization was created as early as the 10th century on the easternmost of the three extremities of the Peninsula of Chalcidice in the Aegean Sea, in the monastic republic of Mt. Athos, and as early as the 9th century in the homeland of the Macedonian Slavs. The tradition of Cyril and Methodius, and all the materials translated into or originally written in Old Church Slavonic and, secondly, it describes a characteristic attitude towards the world, partly religious, partly political and reflected also in the sphere of culture which determined the specific and widespread domain of the Slavs in the Christian world.
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"Preaching without an alphabet and books is like writing upon the water," said Constantine/Cyril, whom the sources also call Teacher and Philosopher, to the Byzantine Emperor Michael III prior to departing for Greater Moravia, the first, however short-lived, Slavic state, established on the territory of the present-day Czech and Slovak Republics. This happened in 863.
The emperor Michael III was fully aware whom he had assigned the mission of an apostle among the Moravian Slavs who had already been converted to Christianity by German missionaries. When the historic appeal of Prince Rastislaus, who was trapped between the alliance of the Frankish state in the west and the Bulgarian in the south-east, reached the Byzantine Empire, Michael did not hesitate in his choice of people who would preach the gospel in Slavonic in Moravia. Constantine/Cyril , who taught and instructed at the court in the Imperial City, in the Great Magnaura School, a centre of mediaeval scholarship and education, was the younger brother of Methodius, who, certainly with the approval of Constantinople, governed in the Slavic princedom in Macedonia.
The apostles, already experienced in missionary work or, to use the language of modern times, diplomacy, through their missions with the Saracens and Khazars, alone represent the inception of the Slavonic-Byzantine conjunction. Their birthplace, Thessaloniki, the most significant Byzantine centre after the metropolis itself, experienced a considerable boom after the great and ancient cities of Antioch and Alexandria fell under infidel rule. There, on the furthermost edges of the empire, the inhabitants were bilingual. In the language of the Romaics there was a specific term, the word Akritas, denoting a "citizen of a frontier country".
The fifth chapter of Constantine's Life states: "everybody in Thessaloniki speaks Slavonic". The same text reduces the Moravian mission of Constantine and Methodius to fourteen months, between the spring of 864 and the end of the summer of 867. The manuscript also speaks of their work on the territory of present-day Hungary, and the hospitality of Prince Kocel in Pannonia, where they rested on their journey to Rome. To the Holy seat and the Pope Hadrian II, the brothers brought the remains of Clement, the holy Roman pope and a successor to the apostle Peter. The sources claim that it was in Crimea, among the Khazars, that the educators and enlighteners found and recognized Clement's remains. In Rome, Constantine took his monastic vows, the black habit and his spiritual name, Cyril. He also died there, at 42 years of age, on l4th February 869; he was laid to rest by the altar of the Church of San Clemente. |
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The Glagolitic alphabet was designed by Cyril the Philosopher with, of course, the participation of his brother Methodius. The text "Of Letters" (O pismeneh), most probably composed by one of their disciples, who signed himself as Crnorizec Hrabar (the Brave Monk), testifies to the fact that Cyril devised the first Slavonic alphabet of thirty-eight letters. The letters had both a spoken and numerical value just like the prototype which the Educator and Enlightener used, i.e. the Greek minuscule or cursive. The source for the letters for the characteristic Slavonic sounds lay, by all accounts, in the Coptic and ancient Hebrew alphabets. This new alphabet was named after the Old Church Slavonic glagolati (to speak).
It was obviously considered in the Byzantine Empire that the entire Slavonic world spoke the same language. This was not far from the truth. The genealogical tree of the Slavonic languages - Common Slavonic (Slave Commun) had not yet branched off. In the literary and epigraphic documents in Old Church Slavonic this development, which resulted in a new quality in the language, was not registered until after the year 1100. |
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In the meantime, at the beginning of the 10th century, Old Slavonic was expanding rapidly and became the standard language of the liturgy for all the Slavs who had accepted conversion to Byzantine Christianity. Thus as Latin was the "mother-tongue" of all the Romance languages, so was the Common Slavonic language the "mother-tongue" of the languages of the Slavs. The Old Slavonic language, which had the privilege of being the first one to be recorded, enjoys the rights of the first-born. It is the oldest form of a written Slavonic language. The Old Slavonic language is the civilization common denominator of the Slavs. This constitutes the magnitude of the Pan-Slavonic work of the Brothers from Thessaloniki. Based on their native tongue the old literary Slavonic language is, primarily, Old Macedonian. And the entire Slavic world celebrates their name on 11th May, according to the old church calendar. The western world for its part, considering them to be prime-movers of mankind, in accordance with Pope John Paul's decree of 1981, reveres them as "protectors of Europe", thus giving them equal status with that of Benedict, the most renowned of the western saints.
After the death of his brother, Methodius came back among the Slavs at the behest of Pope Hadrian II. Greater Moravia, however, could not persist on its original road: the German pressure was too fierce for it.
Methodius, for his part, found it hard to cope with being a suspicious personage. Had he not started off as a Byzantine emissary? Had not the Pope himself renounced him? Methodius found consolation in a key scholarly activity - translation. He continued where his brother had left off. No autographs have been preserved but the historical accounts say that the brothers were incessantly engaged in translation. Apart from the Holy Scriptures, the Physiologos (a description of nature), and various liturgical and patristic books, they also translated the fundamental document of Byzantine law - the Nomocanon. Methodius worked tirelessly until he died. On 6th April 885, his disciples celebrated a requiem mass for their beloved master in Latin, Classical Greek and Slavonic around his catafalque. Afterwards, the German clergy entered into a merciless conflict with the followers of the brothers from Thessaloniki.
The Holy seat returned to its conservative mythologizing of the sacred languages of the Crucifixion: Hebrew, Classical Greek and Latin. The first of these three was not of sufficient power to support the idea of Pax Christiana; the second, Rome considered to be no more than a lingua franca the purity of which had been irretrievably lost. Thus for the Popes it was: Lingua sacra lingua Latina est. They believed other tongues to be linguae rusticae, which would defile the Word of God. Such an attitude towards the language was the primary source of Rome's conservatism, but was of great advantage to the Eastern Christian Empire.
The Moravian mission was, formally speaking, a failure. It would have been a meaningless episode had it not led to the creation of a Slavonic alphabet and the translation of the Holy Books. As it is, the consequences of the work of Cyril and Methodius are of historic significance. A new era had begun. The waters of tradition had begun to flow |
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