Bev. Cooke

For here the saying holds true, `One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. John 4:36

We’ve all heard of Saints Cyril and Methodius – brothers who are Equal to the Apostles, were named Apostles to the Slavs and co-patrons of Europe. They evangelized the Russian peoples, invented the Cyrillic (named after Cyril) alphabet and generally civilized a number of Slavic nations. But did they really? And if so, how? And what do we really know about them, particularly Cyril, whose feast day is February 14?

EARLY DAYS

For one thing, Cyril wasn’t Cyril. He was born around 827 and baptized Constantine. Like Methodius, the older by eight to ten years, Cyril was born in Thessaloniki to an important Byzantine army officer. Their father died when Cyril was fourteen, and they were put in the care of Theoktistos, a Byzantine official responsible for the postal service, diplomatic relations of the Empire, and education.

Cyril was brilliant – he mastered theology and four languages by the time he was given his first appointment: a mission to the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mutawakkil to discuss the Trinity and to improve diplomatic relations. He was also sent on other diplomatic assignments to various parts of the Islamic world, and to Judaic and Arabic states. He (and possibly Methodius) was assigned to a mission to the Khazar Khagan, where he was first introduced to the Kharar tongue. “Khazars and their tributaries controlled much of what is today southern Russia, western Kazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, Azerbaijan, large portions of the Northern Caucasus (Circassia, Dagestan, Chechnya), parts of Georgia and the Crimea,” notes the Wikipedia article on the Khazars.

After these missions, Cyril taught philosophy in Constantinopole. But it was in 862 that he and his brother were assigned the task that led to their immense accomplishments – the mission to the Slavs.

SOWING THE SEEDS

It’s not quite true that the brothers actually converted the Moravian peoples. Moravia is in the middle of what today is the Czech Republic and had already been introduced to Christianity. The Bavarian Christians, who would, after the Great Schism, be Roman Catholic, had been a presence in Moravia for some time, but insisted, as Fr. Michael Oleksa puts it, that the Moravians had “to learn to be civilized . . . in Latin, a civilized language.” Prince Rastislav, seeking Christian resources in his own tongue, sent envoys down to Byzantium, to see if they would be interested in providing translators. According to tradition, the emperor told the brothers that since they were from Thessaloniki "and all Thessalonians speak pure Slavonic," they were the translators. The problem was that there was no alphabet or written language.

Cyril came up with an alphabet (later called the Glagolitic alphabet) that was specifically suited to the Slavic tongue. They and a hand-picked team translated not only the liturgy and much of the Bible into Slavonic, but also a number of books on art, architecture, biology, and astronomy. Cyril also wrote a Civil Code (code of laws) for the Moravian people which became the basis of the Slavic Civil Code.

Their work was opposed by the Catholic clergy in Moravia who maintained there were only three “civilized” languages in the world: Latin, Hebrew, and Greek. What was so special about those three?, the brothers asked. Those, the Catholics replied, were the languages on the sign that hung on the cross. But, the brothers replied, that doesn’t make sense – “the Copts worship in Coptic, the Armenians worship in Armenian and the Georgians in Georgian.” Why not add the Slavic language to the choir of Christianity? Eventually, the Pope invited both sides to Rome, and held a public debate. The brothers pointed out that not only was Hebrew a dead language, but on Pentecost none of the Apostles suddenly started speaking Latin – yet they spoke in 50 other languages that day.

The Pope decided that Cyril and Methodius had made their case well enough that he would elevate Methodius to the bishopric and send him back to Moravia to continue the brothers’ work. Cyril, who had been ill, chose to stay and join a monastery in Rome, where it’s probable he took the name “Cyril.” He died, not long after, on Feb. 14, 869.

OTHERS WILL REAP

But that’s not the end of his story, because within a hundred years, the Moravian church was Latinized. It would seem all the work Cyril had done was in vain. Yet it wasn’t, because in 988, Prince Vladmir the Great of Kiev wanted his people to be civilized, and after sending emissaries to evaluate Catholicism (too dull), Islam (no vodka allowed), Judaism (they got kicked out of their own country), and Orthodoxy (they couldn’t tell where heaven ended and earth began during the liturgy) he chose the Orthodox faith. Prince Vladimir wanted the books and music and Holy Scriptures translated, and, thanks to the work of Cyril and his brother, the work was already done. By this time, too, the men who had followed Methodius had refined Cyril’s original alphabet into what is now Cyrillic, and the Christianization of Russia, which 800 years later led directly to the conversion of the native Alaskan peoples, began.

Cyril never saw the consequences of his work. He planted the seeds but didn’t see how far and wide-reaching the harvest would be. Not only did he provide the groundwork for the Russian empire’s faith, but he and his brother made the case for the faith to be taught in the language of the people. He never saw St. Innocent, following in his footsteps, invent the alphabet for the Alaskan people and translate, as Cyril had done, the Holy Scriptures and liturgy into those languages. Like us, Cyril planted in the moment, doing what God called him to do. Like us, Cyril didn’t know how his work would turn out. Nor, I suspect, did he much care. It was enough to bring the Word and love of God to a people in their own language. It was enough to do what God set him to do, to do it well and faithfully, counting only God’s blessing as reward enough. May the Lord give us all the patience and gratitude sow His seeds as He wills, not counting cost or looking for the harvest.

Bev. Cooke is a young adult writer and has been Orthodox for about five years. She lives with her husband and son in Victoria, British Columbia Canada and attends All Saints of Alaska OCA church. She has two books out with Conciliar: Keeper of the Light, an historical novel about St. Macrina the Elder, and Royal Monastic, a biography of Princess Ileana, and a mainstream young adult novel, Feral, with Orca Book Publishers.