St. Cyril (and Methodius)

St. Cyril was born Constantine in Thessalonica, Greece, about 826-827, the youngest brother of St. Methodius. Brilliantly gifted, he studied in Constantinople, was ordained, and taught philosophy there with such distinction that he was called "Constantine the Philosopher." His elder brother Methodius served as a provincial governor before withdrawing to monastic life. Together the brothers undertook diplomatic and missionary journeys for the Byzantine church, including a mission to the Khazars, during which Constantine recovered relics venerated as those of Pope St. Clement I in the Crimea. Their great work began in 863, when Prince Rastislav of Great Moravia asked Constantinople for teachers who could instruct his Slavic people in their own tongue. To prepare, Constantine devised the Glagolitic alphabet — the first alphabet for the Slavonic language — and with Methodius translated the Gospels and the liturgy into Old Church Slavonic. Their principle that God should be praised in the people's own language was revolutionary, and it drew fierce opposition from Frankish clergy who held that the liturgy belonged only to Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Summoned to Rome, the brothers carried the relics of St. Clement with them and were received with honor; the pope approved their Slavonic liturgical books. In Rome, Constantine entered a monastery and took the name Cyril, dying there on February 14, 869. He was buried in the Basilica of San Clemente, where his tomb is still venerated, especially by Slavic pilgrims. Methodius, ordained archbishop, returned north to continue the mission despite imprisonment by hostile German bishops, and labored on — translating nearly the whole of Scripture — until his death on April 6, 885. Venerated since antiquity as the "Apostles of the Slavs," the brothers stand at the head of Slavic Christianity and letters; the Cyrillic alphabet, developed by their disciples, bears Cyril's name. Their joint feast in the Roman calendar is February 14, the day of Cyril's death. In 1980 Pope St. John Paul II, in the apostolic letter Egregiae Virtutis, declared them co-patrons of Europe alongside St. Benedict, honoring them as bridges between the Christian East and West.