Who is the author of the Ancient Greek alphabet? Who invented written Phoenician, Hebrew, and Latin? Historians are not likely to establish their names beyond reasonable doubt, ever. Yet most Slavic peoples know the precise date (863 AD) and names of those that made a gift of The Word to the forefathers of today’s Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians, Bulgarians, Serbs, and Macedonians. The Holy Bible in Slavonic became the cultural backbone of each. Sts. Cyril (827-869) and Methodius (815-885) were brothers, born in Thessaloniki, Greece. Before taking his vows, Cyril’s name was Constantine. The Orthodox Christian world celebrates May 24 as the Day of Slavic Literacy and Culture, commemorating the immortal exploit of the two brothers as evangelists and enlighteners of Slavs.
If one were to believe an old Bulgarian source called “The Assumption of Cyril,” Cyril and Methodius were Bulgar subjects of the powerful Byzantine Empire. Both were remarkably well educated for their epoch. Constantine (Cyril) had a good command of all the Slavic languages even as a librarian with the Patriarch of Constantinople. He was also fluent in Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew. He was well versed in ancient and modern philosophy (hence his nickname Constantine the Philosopher). His elder brother Methodius showed administrative talent at an early stage and spent ten years as governor of one of the empire’s Slavic provinces.
Both were devout Christians and their true calling was promulgating His Teachings (In the beginning was the Word...) among the pagans, primarily Slavs. In 863, Prince Rostislav of Greater Moravia invited the brothers to help him spread Christianity, and especially to translate the Holy Bible and other theological literature into Slavonic. Their first, most important step was the development of the Slavic alphabet. A contemporary chronicler, the monk Khrabr, wrote: “When the Slavs received baptism they had to write in their mother tongue using Roman and Latin characters and had no grammar of their own.” Then came the brothers Cyril and Methodius (Cyril’s role was the most important) and made an epochal breakthrough, developing a written Slavonic based on the Macedonian vernacular and using elements of the Greek alphabet.
Scholars are still divided about the notions of Cyrillic alphabet and Glagolitic, but this does not seem as important as what the brothers did at the time. They were courageous and risked their lives on more than one occasion (Constantine was imprisoned by the Khazar khagan and Methodius, ordained archbishop in the twilight of his life, was tried and imprisoned by German Bishop Germanaric of Passau). They performed a Promethean feat; just like the Greek titan that gave people the gift of fire, which had originally belonged to the gods, they gave the Slavs The Word. From that time dates the burning Slavic spirit, this “fire clothed in words,” in the words of Ivan Franko.
