page_title: Christianity in the Middle Ages
section_title: Conversion of East and South Slavs
hierarchical_section_title: Christianity in the Middle Ages / High Middle Ages (800–1300) / Spread of Christianity / Conversion of East and South Slavs
caption_attribution_description: English: Statue of SS Cyril and Methodius by Albín Polášek on Radhošť Mt., Czech Republic. Čeština: Sousoší sv. Cyrila a Metoděje od Albína Poláška na hoře Radhošť.
context_page_description: Christianity in the Middle Ages covers the history of Christianity from the Fall of the Western Roman Empire until the Fall of Constantinople, which is usually taken to mark the end of the Middle Ages in the History of Europe.
  In Christianity's ancient Pentarchy, five patriarchies held special eminence: the sees of Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. The prestige of most of these sees depended in part on their apostolic founders, or in the case of Byzantium/Constantinople, that it was the new seat of the continuing Eastern Roman, or Byzantine Empire. These bishops considered themselves the successors of those apostles. In addition, all five cities were early centres of Christianity.
context_section_description: Though by 800 Western Europe was ruled entirely by Christian kings, Eastern Europe remained an area of missionary activity. For example, in the ninth century SS. Cyril and Methodius had extensive missionary success in Eastern Europe among the Slavic peoples, translating the Bible and liturgy into Slavonic. The Baptism of Kiev in the 988 spread Christianity throughout Kievan Rus', establishing Christianity among the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
  In the ninth and tenth centuries, Christianity made great inroads into Eastern Europe, including Kievan Rus'. The evangelisation, or Christianisation, of the Slavs was initiated by one of Byzantium's most learned churchmen — the Patriarch Photius. The Byzantine emperor Michael III chose Cyril and Methodius in response to a request from Rastislav, the king of Moravia who wanted missionaries that could minister to the Moravians in their own language. The two brothers spoke the local Slavonic vernacular and translated the Bible and many of the prayer books. As the translations prepared by them were copied by speakers of other dialects, the hybrid literary language Old Church Slavonic was created.
  Methodius later went on to convert the Serbs. Some of the disciples returned to Bulgaria where they were welcomed by the Bulgarian Tsar Boris I who viewed the Slavonic liturgy as a way to counteract Greek influence in the country. In a short time the disciples of Cyril and Methodius managed to prepare and instruct the future Slavic clergy into the Glagolitic alphabet and the biblical texts. Methodius and Cyril were mainly living and working in the Macedonian city of Ohrid, which they made the religious capital of the Balkans.
  Bulgaria was officially recognised as a patriarchate by Constantinople in 945, Serbia in 1346, and Russia in 1589. All these nations, however, had been converted long before these dates.
  The missionaries to the East and South Slavs had great success in part because they used the people's native language rather than Latin as the Roman priests did, or Greek.
caption: St. Cyril and St. Methodius Monument on Mt. Radhošť
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