Sts. Cyril and Methodius

Who they were

Cyril and Methodius were brothers of Thessalonica, Cyril the brilliant philosopher and linguist and Methodius the administrator turned monk, sent in 863 to Moravia, whose prince wanted the faith taught in a tongue his people spoke.

The brothers' answer changed the map of civilization. Cyril devised an alphabet for Slavonic, the Glagolitic, and the Cyrillic that followed bears his name. Together they translated the Scriptures and the liturgy, then defended in Rome itself the scandalous principle that God could be worshipped in a new vernacular, and won papal approval for it. Cyril died in Rome at forty two, a monk of fifty days. Methodius went back as archbishop into a career of obstruction, imprisoned over two years by hostile neighbouring bishops and undermined constantly, and kept translating until his death in 885. Their disciples, expelled from Moravia, carried the work into Bulgaria and beyond, and the Slavic Christian world descends from their alphabet. John Paul II named them co patrons of Europe.

Why people turn to Sts. Cyril and Methodius

Slavic Catholic families, and Polish parishes in particular. Translators and language teachers, beside St. Jerome. And they are the Church's patrons of unity between East and West, a patronage prayed harder now than in centuries.

How to ask their intercession

In your own first language, deliberately, since their whole mission was that this is allowed. And one decade for the unity of East and West, which is their unfinished work.