Cyril
Scholar of Thessalonica, known in his lifetime as Constantine the Philosopher, sent with his brother Methodius to Moravia. He devised letters for Slavonic, translated the liturgy, and died a monk at Rome under the name Cyril.
His Life says that the emperor Michael III chose him to answer the request of Rastislav for a teacher, that he composed letters for the Slavonic language before he set out, and that in Moravia he translated the services of the church and defended worship in Slavonic against Latin clergy (Life of Constantine 14–15). A decade after his death Pope John VIII, permitting the Slavonic liturgy, praised the Slavonic letters as the invention of Constantine the Philosopher (John VIII, Letters, 255 (June 880)).
At Rome he was received by Pope Hadrian II, fell ill, took the monastic habit and the name Cyril, and died fifty days later, on 14 February 869, aged forty-two (Life of Constantine 17–18). See Cyril and Methodius among the Slavs.
In the timeline
- AD 863 to AD 885, estimated dateCyril and Methodius among the Slavs
Two brothers from Thessalonica, sent from Constantinople to Moravia, give the Slavs an alphabet, the Scriptures and the liturgy in their own language. Rome’s attitude to the Slavonic liturgy shifts from approval to prohibition and back, and ends in a ban.