Cyrillos & Methodios - Cyril and Methodius

[Tsontos]

We all know about skopjeans but theres also the Bulgarians who claim the brothers. they say that they were called the "slav apostles" and therefore they are slavic. yet they forget that if you are a saint and you go to mongolia to convert the mongols you will be known as the mongolian apostle lol


Keep posting. All this will go into the medival revisionism section as well as the medival history section of the wiki

[akritas]

The term “Slav Apostles” or the “Apostles of the Slavs” does not mean that the two brothers were Slavs. St. Thomas is called “the Indian Apostle,” but we all know that he was not an Indian. He simply taught Christianity to the Indians. The Greek brothers from Thessaloniki taught Christianity to the Slavs, they gave them the alphabet (presently called Cyrillic), and they translated the sacred and liturgical books of Christianity into the Old Church Slavonic, otherwise known as Old Bulgarian.

Marcus Templar also add that the Bulgarians Professors Ivan Lazaroff, Plamen Pavloff, Ivan Tyutyundzijeff and Milko Palangurski of the Faculty of History of Sts. Cyril and Methodius University in Veliko Tŭrnovo, Bulgaria in their book, Kratka istoriya na bŭlgarskiya narod (Short History of the Bulgarian Nation, pp 36-38), state very explicitly that the two brothers were Greeks from Thessaloniki. The late Oscar Halecki, Professor of Eastern European History, in his book Borderlands of Western Civilization, A History of East Central Europe (chapter Moravian State and the Apostles of the Slavs) agrees with the authors of Kratka istoriya na bŭlgarskiya narod.

[Tsontos]

What about primary sources? are their any inscriptions to do with the brothers or medival writing about them we can refer to? with samuil there is the Bitola inscription

[Ptolemy]

How sad for Slavs!!! Both their parents were Greeks.

[Tsontos]

nice. post a bigger version if you can

[akritas]

Originally Posted by Voulgaroktonos

What about primary sources? are their any inscriptions to do with the brothers or medival writing about them we can refer to? with samuil there is the Bitola inscription

The fisrt inscriptions that mention the life of the Saints are the 7 Slavonic. All the others (12 cent) are untrustworthy. Unfortunely non of them are in Greek hands. Bulgaria,Russia and Vatican have those. I will try to find pics but is difficult. I will post the sources that TAHIAOS mention these useful infos but I have to scan because they are in the Cyrillic. Books from 1911 and after

[Ptolemy]

From R. L. Wilkens book "Judaism and the Early Christian Mind" (1971)

Cyril and Methodius, Saints (muth..us) [key], d. 869 and 884, respectively, Greek missionaries, brothers, called Apostles to the Slavs and fathers of Slavonic literature. Their history and influence are obscured by conflicting legends. After working among the Khazars, they were sent (863) from Constantinople by Patriarch Photius to Moravia. This was at the invitation of Prince Rostislav, who sought missionaries able to preach in the Slavonic vernacular and thereby check German influence in Moravia. Their immediate success aroused the hostility of the German rulers and ecclesiastics. Candidates from among their converts were refused ordination, and their use of the vernacular in the liturgy was severely criticized. According to one source, when Photius was excommunicated by Rome the brothers were called there. Their orthodoxy was established, and the use of Slavonic in the liturgy was approved. Cyril died while in Rome, but Methodius, consecrated by the pope, returned to Moravia and was made archbishop of Sirmium. Despite the papal sanction the Germans contrived to have him imprisoned, and, though released two years later, his effectiveness appears to have been blocked. His last years were spent translating the Bible and ecclesiastical books into Slavonic. His influence in Moravia was wiped out after his death but was carried to Bulgaria, Serbia, and Russia, where the southern Slavonic of Cyril and Methodius is still the liturgical language of both Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. The Cyrillic alphabet. used in those countries today, traditionally ascribed to St. Cyril, was probably the work of his followers. It was based probably by Cyril himself upon the glagolithic alphabet, which is still used by certain Croatian and Montenegrin Catholics. Feast: July 7.

[Orphic_Hymn]

Some quotes

The Significance of the Missions of Cyril and Methodius
Francis Dvornik
Slavic Review > Vol. 23, No. 2 (Jun., 1964) page: 196


Moravian Christianity even had species of ecclesiastical organization before the arrival of the Greek brothers

The Significance of the Missions of Cyril and Methodius
Francis Dvornik
Slavic Review > Vol. 23, No. 2 (Jun., 1964) page: 211


This short sketch of the cultural development of the Slavic nations in the Middle Ages seems necessary to show the real significance of the mission of the two Greek brothers. Its aim in Moravia was, above all, cultural.

Slavic Translations of the Scriptures
Matthew Spinka
The Journal of Religion > Vol. 13, No. 4 (Oct., 1933), pp. 415

When those ancient precursors of Bible translators, the Greek brothers Constantine and Methodius, translated certain parts of the Scriptures and the liturgical books into Slavic for the use of their Moravian converts

Slavic Translations of the Scriptures
Matthew Spinka
The Journal of Religion > Vol. 13, No. 4 (Oct., 1933), pp. 415

Thus in a sense the two Greek brothers and their disciples fought a fight in behalf of all the later Bible translators and liturgical vernacularists, the English among them.

Slavic Translations of the Scriptures
Matthew Spinka
The Journal of Religion > Vol. 13, No. 4 (Oct., 1933), pp. 416-17

In co-operation with Patriarch Photius they selected the renowned teacher of philosophy at the court school of Magnaura, Constantine, and his elder brother, Methodius, Greeks from Thessalonica, who were well acquainted with the language of the Macedonian Slavs, as best-fitted missionaries for the Moravian field.

Slavic Translations of the Scriptures
Matthew Spinka
The Journal of Religion > Vol. 13, No. 4 (Oct., 1933), pp. 424

The Slavic liturgy was, beyond any doubt, a radical innovation which the Greek brothers could not have justified except as an essential element in insuring the success of their work.

[Christov]

Ptolemy, I am very much interested in genealogy. Can you provide, please, some more sources as the one you’ve posted? Thanks

[akritas]

Writer mention as about the Cyril funeral in Rome

“Apostolic (Pope) ordered everyone in the Rome Hellenes, as also and the Romans to come with wax candle and chant for Him”
Bios Cyril (9TH Cent), XVIII, page 14

Pope ordered first the Greeks (not Byzantines) to honor theirs Saint and after call the Romans.

“give all the prisoners that you have, Hellenes; will be the best gift of me”
Bios Cyril (9TH Cent), XI, page 19

Hahanos of the Hazar Land proposed to Cyril to give to him many gifts.He asked the Greeks.