a storm of persecution against the Christians, which swept over all Brandenburg, Mecklenburg,
and Holstein. Defeated and taken prisoner by Bernard of Lower Saxony, he returned to Christianity;
lived afterwards at the court of Canute the Great in Denmark and England; married a Danish
princess, and was made ruler of the Obotrites. A great warrior, he conquered Holstein and
Pommerania, and formed a powerful Wendish empire; and on this solid political foundation, he
attempted, with considerable success, to build up the Christian church. The old bishoprics were
re-established, and new ones were founded at Razzeburg and Mecklenburg; monasteries were built
at Leuzen, Oldenburg, Razzeburg, Lübeck, and Mecklenburg; missionaries were provided by
Adalbert, archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen; the liturgy was translated into the native tongue, and
revenues were raised for the support of the clergy, the churches, and the service.
But, as might have been expected, the deeper Christianity penetrated into the mass of the
people, the fiercer became the resistance of the heathen. Gottschalk was murdered at Lentz, June
7, 1066, together with his old teacher, Abbot Uppo, and a general rising now took place. The
churches and schools were destroyed; the priests and monks were stoned or killed as sacrifices on
the heathen altars; and Christianity, was literally swept out of the country. It took several decades
before a new beginning could be made, and the final Christianization of the Wends was not achieved
until the middle of the twelfth century.
§ 34. Cyrillus and Methodius, the Apostles of the Slavs. Christianization of Moravia, Bohemia
and Poland.
F. M. Pelzel et J. Dobrowsky: Rerrum Bohemic. Scriptores. Prague.
Friese: Kirchengeschichte d. Konigreichs Polen. Breslau, 1786.
Franz. Palacky: Geschichte von Böhmen. Prague, 3d ed., 1864 sqq., 5 vols. (down to 1520).
Wattenbach: Geschichte d. christl. Kirche in Böhmen und Mähren. Wien, 1849.
A. Friud: Die Kirchengesch. Böhmens. Prague, 1863 sqq.
Biographies of Cyrillus and Methodius, by J. Dobrowsky (Prague, 1823, and 1826); J. A. Ginzel
(Geschichte der Slawenapostel und der Slawischen Liturgie. Leitmeritz, 1857); Philaret (in the
Russian, German translation, Mitau, 1847); J. E. Biley (Prague, 1863); Dümmler and F.
Milkosisch (Wien, 1870).
The Moravian Slavs were subjugated by Charlemagne, and the bishop of Passau was charged
with the establishment of a Christian mission among them. Moymir, their chief, was converted and
bishoprics were founded at Olmütz and Nitra. But Lewis the German suspected Moymir of striving
after independence and supplanted him by Rastislaw or Radislaw. Rastislaw, however, accomplished
what Moymir had only been suspected of. He formed an independent Moravian kingdom and
defeated Lewis the German, and with the political he also broke the ecclesiastical connections with
Germany, requesting the Byzantine emperor, Michael III., to send him some Greek missionaries.
Cyrillus and Methodius became the apostles of the Slavs. Cyrillus, whose original name
was Constantinus, was born at Thessalonica, in the first half of the ninth century, and studied
philosophy in Constantinople, whence his by-name: the philosopher. Afterwards he devoted himself
to the study of theology, and went to live, together with his brother Methodius, in a monastery. A
strong ascetic, he became a zealous missionary. In 860 he visited the Chazares, a Tartar tribe settled
on the North-Eastern shore of the Black Sea, and planted a Christian church there. He afterward