labored among the Bulgarians and finally went, in company with his brother, to Moravia, on the
invitation of Rastislaw, in 863.
Cyrillus understood the Slavic language, and succeeded in making it available for literary
purposes by inventing a suitable alphabet. He used Greek letters, with some Armenian and Hebrew,
and some original letters. His Slavonic alphabet is still used with alterations in Russia, Wallachia,
Moldavia, Bulgaria, and Servia. He translated the liturgy and the pericopes into Slavic, and his
ability to preach and celebrate service in the native language soon brought hundreds of converts
into his fold. A national Slavic church rapidly arose; the German priests with the Latin liturgy left
the country. It corresponded well with the political plans of Rastislaw, to have a church establishment
entirely independent of the German prelates, but in the difference which now developed between
the Eastern and Western churches, it was quite natural for the young Slavic church to connect itself
with Rome and not with Constantinople, partly because Cyrillus always had shown a kind of
partiality to Rome, partly because the prudence and discrimination with which Pope Nicholas I.
recently had interfered in the Bulgarian church, must have made a good impression.
In 868 Cyrillus and Methodius went to Rome, and a perfect agreement was arrived at between
them and Pope Adrian II., both with respect to the use of the Slavic language in religious service
and with respect to the independent position of the Slavic church, subject only to the authority of
the Pope. Cyrillus died in Rome, Feb. 14, 869, but Methodius returned to Moravia, having been
consecrated archbishop of the Pannonian diocese.
The organization of this new diocese of Pannonia was, to some extent, an encroachment on
the dioceses of Passau and Salzburg, and such an encroachment must have been so much the more
irritating to the German prelates, as they really had been the first to sow the seed of Christianity
among the Slavs. The growing difference between the Eastern and Western churches also had its
effect. The German clergy considered the use of the Slavic language in the mass an unwarranted
innovation, and the Greek doctrine of the single procession of the Holy Spirit, still adhered to by
Methodius and the Slavic church, they considered as a heresy. Their attacks, however, had at first
no practical consequences, but when Rastislaw was succeeded in 870 by Swatopluk, and Adrian
II. in 872 by John VIII., the position of Methodius became difficult. Once more, in 879, he was
summoned to Rome, and although, this time too, a perfect agreement was arrived at, by which the
independence of the Slavic church was confirmed, and all her natural peculiarities were
acknowledged, neither the energy of Methodius, nor the support of the Pope was able to defend
her against the attacks which now were made upon her both from without and from within. Swatopluk
inclined towards the German-Roman views, and Wichin one of Methodius’s bishops, became their
powerful champion.
After the death of Swatopluk, the Moravian kingdom fell to pieces and was divided between
the Germans, the Czechs of Bohemia, and the Magyars of Hungary; and thereby the Slavic church
lost, so to speak, its very foundation. Methodius died between 881 and 910. At the opening of the
tenth century the Slavic church had entirely lost its national character. The Slavic priests were
expelled and the Slavic liturgy abolished, German priests and the Latin liturgy taking their place.
The expelled priests fled to Bulgaria, whither they brought the Slavic translations of the Bible and
the liturgy.
Neither Charlemagne nor Lewis the Pious succeeded in subjugating Bohemia, and although
the country was added to the diocese of Regensburg, the inhabitants remained pagans. But when
Bohemia became a dependency of the Moravian empire and Swatopluk married a daughter of the
rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
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