05/24/2026
The HOLY EQUALS-TO-THE-APOSTLES, SAINTS CYRIL and METHODIOS
Christ is Ascended!
While according to the Pentecostarion, today we celebrate the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, according to the fixed calendar we celebrate the memory and divinely inspired accomplishments of two brothers who literally changed the world by their efforts.
Saints Cyril and Methodios, Equals of the Apostles and Enlighteners of the Slavs, came from illustrious and pious and aristocratic parents, Leo and Maria, living in the Greek city of Thessalonika. Methodios was the oldest of seven brothers, Constantine [Cyril was his later monastic name] was the youngest. Their father, Leon, was Drungarios (a Divisional Commander) of the Military Thema of Thessalonika, whose jurisdiction included the Slavs of Macedonia. Their mother is believed to have been a Slav. Being raised in an area with both Greek and Slavic speakers endowed the brothers with a good knowledge of both languages. As befitting their family's position, they were well educated. At a young age the brothers lost their father, and they were raised under the protection of their uncle Theoktistos, who was a powerful official in the government, responsible for postal services and the diplomatic relations of the Empire.
At first Methodios followed his father in service to the Empire, as military governor in one of the Slavic principalities dependent on the Byzantine Empire, probably Bulgaria. After living there for about ten years, Saint Methodios later received monastic tonsure at one of the monasteries on Mount Olympus (Asia Minor).
Constantine distinguished himself by his great aptitude, and beginning in 843, at his uncle’s invitation, studied he with the future Emperor Michael under the finest teachers in Constantinople, including Saint Photios, who went on to become Patriarch of Constantinople. Constantine studied all the sciences of his time and also knew several languages. He also studied the works of Saint Gregory the Theologian. Because of his keen mind and penetrating intellect, Constantine was called “Philosopher”. Upon the completion of his education, Constantine was ordained to the holy priesthood and was appointed curator of the patriarchal library at the church of Hagia Sophia. He soon left the capital and went secretly to a monastery.
Discovered there, he returned to Constantinople, where he was appointed as instructor in philosophy. The young Constantine’s wisdom and faith were so great that he won a debate with Ananias, the leader of the heretical iconoclasts. After this victory Constantine was sent by the Emperor to discuss the Holy Trinity with the Muslims, and again he gained the victory. When he returned, Constantine went to his brother Methodios on Olympus, spending his time in unceasing prayer and reading the works of the holy Fathers.
The Emperor soon summoned both the holy brothers from the monastery and sent them to preach the Gospel to the Khazars, who lived in an area that is now from southern Ukraine over to Kazakhstan. Along the way they stayed in the city of Korsun, preparing for their missionary activity. There, the holy brothers miraculously discovered the relics of the 1st Century exiled Hieromartyr, Clement, Pope of Rome.
The holy brothers went to the Khazars, where they prevailed in debates with Jews and Muslims by preaching the Gospel. On the way home, the brothers again visited Korsun and, taking the relics of Saint Clement, they returned to Constantinople. Constantine remained in the capital, but Methodios was made igumen of the small Polychronion monastery near Mount Olympus, where he lived a life of asceticism as before.
Soon messengers came to Emperor Michael III from Prince Rastislav of Moravia. The neighboring Germanic prince Louis II was intent on expanding his political control over the Slavs of Moravia and was using German Latin-Rite bishops to lay his groundwork. Rastislav requested the Emperor send teachers to Moravia who would be able to preach in the native Slavic tongue, to bring them to the Faith without having his realm drawn farther into German influence. The Emperor summoned Constantine and said to him, “You must go there, but it would be better if no one knows about this.” At this time, tensions were high between Rome and Constantinople. The mission received the blessing of Patriarch St. Photios the Great.
Constantine prepared for the new task with fasting and prayer. With the help of his brother Methodios and the disciples Gorazd, Clement, Savva, Nahum and Angelyar, he devised a Slavonic alphabet, based on Greek and Hebrew letters and translated the books which were necessary for the celebration of the divine services: the Gospel, Epistles, Psalter, and collected services, into the Slavic tongue. This occurred in 863.
After completing the translation, the holy brothers went to Moravia, where they were received with great honor and welcomed enthusiastically, and they began to teach the people and celebrate services in the Slavonic language. This aroused the hatred of the German bishops, who celebrated divine services in the Moravian churches only in Latin. They realized this would clearly frustrate their plans to aid the German prince in gaining control of Moravia. These German bishops opposed the holy brothers, falsely asserting that divine services could be conducted in only three languages: Hebrew, Greek or Latin, since these were the three languages used on the inscription above Christ’s head as he hung on the Cross. This position was subsequently condemned as the “trilingual heresy.”
Constantine said, “You only recognize three languages in which God may be glorified. But David sang, ‘Praise the Lord, all nations, praise the Lord all peoples (Psalm 116/117:1).’ And the Gospel of Saint Matthew (28:18) says, ‘Go and teach all nations....’” The German bishops were humiliated, and they became bitter and complained to Rome.
The holy brothers were summoned to Rome for a decision on this matter. Moravia was a no-man’s land in terms of the canonical allegiance of its territory – it neither clearly belonged to Rome nor to Constantinople – this was the reason for the Emperor’s recommendation of discretion and secrecy about the mission. Taking with them the relics of Saint Clement, Constantine and Methodios set off for Rome. Knowing that the holy brothers were bringing these relics with them, Pope Adrian met them along the way with his clergy. The holy brothers were greeted with honor, the Pope gave permission to serve divine services in the Slavonic language, and he ordered the books translated by the brothers to be placed in the Latin churches, and to serve the Liturgy in the Slavonic language.
In Rome, Constantine fell ill, and the Lord revealed to him his approaching death. He was tonsured into the monastic schema with the name of Cyril, by which we know him today. On February 14, 869, fifty days after receiving the monastic schema as Cyril, the Saint died at the age of forty-two.
Cyril commended his brother Methodios to continue with their task of enlightening the Slavic peoples with the light of the True Faith. Methodios entreated the Pope to send the body of his brother back to Thessaloniki for burial in their native land, but the Pope ordered the relics of Saint Cyril to be placed in the church of Saint Clement, where miracles began to occur from them.
After the death of Saint Cyril, the Pope sent Methodios to Pannonia, (a region now including all of Hungary, parts of Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia) consecrating him as Archbishop of Moravia and Pannonia, to the ancient apostolic throne of Saint Andronikos. This Diocese was to be completely independent of the Germans, at the request of the Slavic princes Rastislav, Svatopluk, and Kotsel. In Pannonia Saint Methodios and his disciples continued to distribute services books written in the Slavonic language. This again aroused the wrath of the German bishops. They arrested and tried Methodios, who was sent in chains to the German province of Swabia, where he was imprisoned in a monastery and endured many sufferings for two and a half years.
After being set free by order of Pope John VIII of Rome, and restored to his archdiocese, Methodios continued to preach the Gospel among the Slavs. He baptized the Czech prince Borivoi and his wife the future St. Ludmilla, and also a Polish prince. The German bishops began to persecute the saint for a third time, because he did not accept the heretical teaching spreading through the Roman Church about the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father and the Son. Methodios was summoned to Rome, but he justified himself before the Pope, and preserved the Orthodox teaching in its purity, and was sent again to the capital of Moravia, Velehrad.
In the remaining years of his life Methodios, assisted by two of his former pupils, translated the entire Old Testament into Slavonic, except for the Book of Maccabees, and even the Nomocanon (Rule of the Holy Fathers) and Paterikon (Lives of the Holy Fathers).
Sensing the nearness of death, Methodios designated one of his students, Gorazd, as a worthy successor to himself. The holy bishop predicted the day of his death and reposed on April 6, 885 when he was about sixty years old. The saint’s burial service was served in three languages: Slavonic, Greek, and Latin. He was buried in the cathedral church of Velehrad. Sadly, the site has been lost to history.
Both holy brothers were glorified by the Orthodox Church as saints shortly after their repose. They were not canonized as saints by the Roman Church until 1888, and belatedly, only in 1980, they were proclaimed “co-patrons of Europe” by Rome.
Only a few decades after the death of St. Methodios, events seemed to destroy their work. Through German intrigue, Prince Rastislav lost control of the realm, and new Pope, Stephen V, was elected in Rome. He was heavily biased toward the Germans. The simmering animosity erupted into an open conflict. Gorazd was not recognized by Pope. The same Pope forbade the use of the Slavonic Liturgy and placed the long-time rival, the German bishop Wiching, as St. Methodios' successor. Wiching exiled the disciples of the two brothers from Great Moravia in 885, and immediately, all their accomplishments were undone. The Moravians (Czechs, Bohemians, and inhabitants of some Polish regions) were fully subjected to the Roman Rite and Latin Liturgy. The Cyrillic Alphabet was replaced by the Latin alphabet for their language, and in fact it was centuries before their native Slavic languages regained any respect – only Latin was considered an “educated’ language.
However, the banished disciples, known as the “Five Followers”, did not give up. With St. Clement the bishop at their head, they crossed the Danube River and traveled to the east, establishing a diocese at Peremyshl/Przemysl, now on the border of Poland and Ukraine, then south into Macedonia, to Ochrid, where they continued the labor among the Slavs begun by Cyril and Methodios in central Europe. Through their divinely guided efforts, the Holy Church was established and the Faith confirmed among the Ukrainians, Carpatho-Rusyns, Serbians, Macedonians and Bulgarians, and later the Belarusians and Russians, bringing millions of souls from the darkness of paganism to the light Salvation.
Their work became the foundation of Slavic civilization in eastern and south-eastern Europe and provided the language footings for the missionary efforts in the coming centuries. The simplified and adapted version of the alphabet they created (now known as the Cyrillic alphabet) became the basis for the literary culture of all these nations. The language they codified, known as Old Church Slavonic, evolved over the centuries into the modern Slavic languages. Some Churches still use it today.
For their continuation of the practice of the Holy Apostles of proclaiming the Gospel and teaching the Faith in the languages of all the nations, as well as the sheer size of the population to whom they brought the Holy Faith – half of Europe - Saints Cyril and Methodios are remembered as Equal to the Apostles.
It seems perfectly normal to us today, but they established the precedence that it is appropriate to pray and worship God in the everyday spoken language of the people.
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Troparion, Tone 4
Divinely wise Cyril and Methodios, you became Equals-to-the-Apostles by your lives. As the Teachers of the Slavs, intercede with the Master of All that He might strengthen all Slavic people in the Orthodox Faith and unity of mind; that He may grant peace to the world and salvation to our souls.
Kontakion, Tone 3
Let us praise the two priests of God who enlightened us and poured out on us the torrent of divine knowledge by translating the Divine Scriptures. Cyril and Methodios, because we still draw abundant learning from this translation, we exalt you, who now stand before the Most High interceding fervently for the salvation of our souls.
The Reading is from the Epistle of the Holy Apostle Paul to the Hebrews (Chapter 7 and 8)
Brethren:26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; 27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people's, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever. 1 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.
The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew (Chapter 5)
The Lord said: 14”You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. 17 Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
