Cyril and Methodius

Saints Cyril and Methodius were brothers and 9th century Christian missionaries. They Christianized the Slavic peoples of the Danube.Lorraine Murray, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia (New York: Britannica Educational Publishing/Rosen Educational Services, LLC, 2014), p. 35 They influenced the culture and religion of all Slavic peoples. They received the title "Apostles to the Slavs".

 Secular lives 
The brothers were both born in Thessalonica. Methodios was born  and died in 885.Mike Dixon-Kennedy, Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1998), p. 56 Cyril was born  and died (under his adopted name Constantine) in 869. 

Cyril was educated at the university at Constantinople under Photios I of Constantinople. He later taught there when he replaced Photios. Methodios became governor of the province of Opsikion around the same time.

Missionaries
In 861 the Byzantine Emperor Michael III sent the two brothers to convert the Khazars to Christianity. They continued their religious conversion of the Tatars along the Black Sea for two years.Matthew Bunson, Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Catholic History (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, 2004), p. 269 
Contribution to Slavic languages
Afterwards, the Emperor Michael sent them to Moravia as missionaries. They taught in the Slavic languages and translated the Scriptures into Slavonic. Cyril invented an alphabet called the Glagolitic alphabet.Tanya Popovic, Prince Marko: The Hero of South Slavic Epics (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1988), p. 188 This became the basis for the Cyrillic alphabet. Old Church Slavonic was written in Cyrillic and Glagolitic.The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity, ed. Ken Parry (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), p. 231

Related pages
 Saint
 Christianity
 Church Father
 Eastern Christianity
 Eastern Orthodox Church

 References 

Category:Christian saints
Category:Slavic languages
Category:Cyrillic script
Category:People from Constantinople
Category:810s births
Category:820s births
Category:860s deaths
Category:880s deaths