Sts. Cyril and Methodius

Sts. Cyril and Methodius were brothers born at Thessalonica in the ninth century who became the great apostles of the Slavic peoples and are honored as co-patrons of Europe. Both were learned men of the Byzantine world — Cyril, whose baptismal name was Constantine, a brilliant scholar and philosopher, and Methodius a capable administrator who became a monk — and together they were sent to evangelize the Slavs of Great Moravia.

To bring the Gospel to these peoples in their own tongue, Cyril devised an alphabet suited to the Slavonic language and, with his brother, translated the Scriptures and the sacred liturgy, defending against opposition the right of the Slavs to worship God in their own speech. Cyril died at Rome in 869, and Methodius, made an archbishop, carried on their mission amid great hardships until his own death in 885. From their labors sprang the Christian culture of the Slavic nations, and the Church celebrates them together on 14 February.