Cyril and Methodius

Cyril and Methodius were ninth-century Byzantine brothers who evangelized Slavic peoples and helped establish Slavic-language worship and literary culture.

Old Church Slavonic: The earliest attested Slavic literary language, used in medieval Christian texts and worship. The brothers’ translations helped establish this language as a medium for scripture and liturgy.
Great Moravia: A ninth-century Slavic polity in Central Europe that sought Christian teachers and political independence. Its ruler Rastislav requested missionaries who could teach in a language local people understood.
Pope Adrian II: The bishop of Rome from 867 to 872, who received the brothers and approved their liturgical books. His approval gave the Slavic books and worship a measure of Roman legitimacy.
Slavic Bible translation: The rendering of biblical texts into Slavic, beginning with translations associated with Cyril and Methodius. Translation made Christian teaching accessible in the language of the mission’s communities.
Trilingual heresy: The medieval claim that Christian liturgy should use only Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Opponents invoked this position against the brothers’ use of Slavic in worship.
Glagolitic script: The oldest known alphabet created specifically to write Slavic languages. Cyril devised this script to represent the sounds needed for Slavic translations.
Rastislav of Moravia: A ruler of Great Moravia who sought Byzantine missionaries in the 860s. His appeal to Byzantium initiated the brothers’ Moravian mission.
Pope John VIII: The bishop of Rome from 872 to 882, who supported Methodius’s authority before later restricting Slavic liturgy. His shifting rulings shaped the conditions under which Methodius could continue his work.
Old Church Slavonic grammar: The linguistic structure of Old Church Slavonic, preserved in early religious manuscripts. The language’s grammatical resources allowed translators to express complex Christian texts.
Latin liturgy: Christian worship conducted in Latin, dominant in the Western Church during the Middle Ages. Latin-speaking clergy in Moravia contested the brothers’ Slavic-language services.

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