Methodius of Moravia
Saint Methodius, Equal-to-the-Apostles, Archbishop of Moravia and Enlightener of the Slavs
Equal to the Apostles · Bishop · b. c. 815 — d. 885
Commemorated 6 April — Repose of the Enlightener of the Slavs, 11 May — Joint feast of Cyril and Methodius, the Slav-apostles
Methodius (c. 815–885) was, with his younger brother Cyril the Philosopher, the apostle of the Slavs — the elder of the two "Thessalonian brothers" who devised the Slavonic letters, translated the Scriptures and the services of the Church into the Slavonic tongue, and carried the Gospel to Great Moravia and the peoples of central Europe. After Cyril's death Methodius laboured on for sixteen years as archbishop, translating almost the whole Bible into Slavonic, defending the right of the Slavs to worship God in their own language against fierce opposition, and enduring imprisonment for the faith. He is honoured as Equal-to-the-Apostles; from the work of the two brothers and their disciples flows the whole tradition of Slavonic Orthodoxy.
From governor to monk
Methodius was born about 815 at Thessalonica, the eldest of seven sons of a well-placed military family; the city's mixed Greek-and-Slav population gave the brothers the Slavonic tongue from childhood. Methodius entered the imperial service and was for a time governor of a Slavonic province (an archon of a Slav principality under Byzantine authority), gaining an experience of administration and of the Slavs that would later serve the mission. But drawn to the monastic life, he laid down his office and withdrew to a monastery on Mount Olympus in Bithynia, where his brother Constantine (Cyril) in time joined him.
The mission to Moravia
About 862 Prince Rastislav of Great Moravia, seeking to establish the Church among his people in their own language and to be free of the tutelage of the Frankish clergy, sent to the emperor Michael III for teachers. The emperor and the Patriarch Photius chose the two brothers. Before setting out (863) Cyril devised an alphabet for the Slavonic tongue (the Glagolitic) and began the translation of the Gospel and the liturgical books; Methodius laboured with him. In Moravia they taught, translated, and trained native clergy, and the Divine services were sung for the first time in Slavonic — a thing that scandalised the Frankish bishops, who held that God might be worshipped only in Hebrew, Greek and Latin (the "trilingual heresy," which the brothers refuted).
Rome, the episcopate, and imprisonment
Summoned to Rome, the brothers were received honourably by Pope Adrian II, who approved the Slavonic books and the Slavonic Liturgy. There Cyril, worn out, took the monastic name and died (869), charging Methodius on his deathbed not to abandon their common work for the quiet of the monastery. Methodius was consecrated archbishop of Pannonia and Moravia (with his seat reckoned to the ancient see of Sirmium) and sent back to continue the mission. But the Frankish bishops, whose jurisdiction he crossed and whose language he displaced, seized him, tried him in a synod, and held him imprisoned in harsh conditions in Bavaria for some two and a half years, until the Pope intervened for his release.
Restored to his flock, Methodius laboured on amid continual opposition and intrigue, now upheld, now hindered by successive popes and princes. In his last years, with a few disciples, he completed the great labour of his life: the translation into Slavonic of nearly the whole of the Scriptures (save a few books), together with a collection of church law (the Nomocanon) and homilies. He reposed in Moravia on April 6, 885, and was buried in the cathedral church, his funeral sung in Slavonic, Greek and Latin.
The fruit of the mission
After his death his disciples were driven out of Moravia by the Frankish party, but they carried the work south and east — to Bulgaria, to the Serbs, and in time to the Rus' — so that the seed the brothers had sown bore its greatest fruit not where it was planted but among the Slavs of the Balkans and of Kiev. The Cyrillic alphabet, devised by their disciples and named for Cyril, and the Slavonic Scriptures and services they created, remain to this day the foundation of Orthodox worship among the Slavic peoples.
Feast and commemoration
April 6 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 19) — his repose — and the great joint feast with his brother Cyril on May 11, the day especially kept among the Slavic Churches as the feast of the Slav-apostles and of Slavonic letters.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Equals of the Apostles and teachers of the Slavonic lands, Cyril and Methodius inspired of God: entreat the Master of all to establish all the Slavonic peoples in Orthodoxy and concord, to grant peace to the world, and to save our souls.
Original translation from the Slavonic
Kontakion — Tone 3
Let us honour the sacred pair, our enlighteners, who by translating the divine writings poured forth for us a fountain of the knowledge of God, from which even to this day we draw abundantly; and we call thee blessed, O Methodius, together with Cyril, thou intercessor before the throne of the Most High for our souls.
Original translation from the Slavonic
Iconography
Methodius is shown as an archbishop in the omophorion, holding the Gospel or a scroll of Slavonic letters; he and Cyril are most often depicted together, the two brothers holding between them an unrolled scroll of the Slavonic alphabet or a church, Cyril in monastic dress and Methodius in the vesture of a bishop. No identity-verified pre-1900 icon of Methodius alone has yet been secured for this collection (their joint icons are common but largely modern).
Disputed questions
- The see of Methodius is variously given as Sirmium, Pannonia, or Moravia; the exact canonical arrangements amid the rivalry of Rome, Constantinople and the Franks are tangled, but his apostolic labour among the Slavs is beyond dispute.
- Not to be confused with his near-contemporary Methodius the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople (†847, June 14), the hierarch who restored the icons and instituted the Sunday of Orthodoxy — a confusion made easy by the fact that both are ninth-century bishops named Methodius; nor with Methodius of Peshnosha, the disciple of Sergius of Radonezh (†1392, June 4 and June 14); nor with Methodius of Patara, the hieromartyr of Lycia and first systematic opponent of Origen (†c. 312, June 20).