St. Cyril and Methodius

Sts. Cyril and Methodius were brothers born in Thessalonica in the ninth century, Methodius about 815 and Cyril, originally named Constantine, about 826, in a region where Greek and Slavic tongues mingled. Both were learned and devout; Cyril, called "the Philosopher," was a brilliant scholar in Constantinople, and Methodius a monk and administrator. About 863 they were sent by the Byzantine emperor and patriarch as missionaries to the Slavic peoples of Great Moravia, at the request of its prince.

To bring the Gospel and the liturgy to the Slavs in their own language, Cyril devised an alphabet, the Glagolitic, the ancestor of the Cyrillic script that still bears his name, and the brothers translated the Scriptures and the sacred services into Old Church Slavonic. Their use of the vernacular met opposition, but was approved by the pope in Rome, where Cyril died in 869. Methodius, made an archbishop, continued the mission amid great trials until his death in 885. Apostles of the Slavs, they were named co-patrons of Europe by Pope St. John Paul II in 1980, and are celebrated on 14 February.