Commontide
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 5th Sunday of Epiphany
O Lord, our heavenly Father, keep your household the Church continually in your true religion, that we who trust in the hope of your heavenly grace may always be defended by your mighty power; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
The Lord's Day
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who on the first day of the week overcame death and the grave, and by his glorious resurrection opened to us the way of everlasting life.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Apostles to the Slavs
Ecumenical Commemoration
Two brothers from Thessalonica, Constantine (called the Philosopher, and Cyril only in the last fifty days of his life) and Methodius, who went to Great Moravia in 863 at a prince's request, made an alphabet for a people who had none, and translated the Gospels and the liturgy into their tongue. Cyril died at Rome in 869; Methodius carried the work sixteen years more, through a synod, a prison, and a second trial, and died in 885.
Constantine (later Cyril) and Methodius were born in Thessalonica around 827 and 815 respectively, sons of a senior Byzantine military officer. Constantine was a brilliant scholar who studied at the imperial university in Constantinople under the great Photius and was appointed librarian of Hagia Sophia. Methodius pursued an administrative career before entering a monastery on Mount Olympus in Bithynia.
In 863, Prince Rastislav of Great Moravia sent a request to the Byzantine emperor for missionaries who could teach his people in their own language — Moravia had been evangelized by Frankish missionaries, but Rastislav wanted liturgy and instruction in Slavonic rather than Latin. Constantine and Methodius were chosen for the mission.
Before departing, Constantine created the Glagolitic alphabet — the first writing system designed for a Slavic language — and began translating the Gospels and liturgical texts into Slavonic. In Moravia the brothers established schools, trained Slavic clergy, and celebrated the liturgy in Slavonic — a revolutionary act that brought them into conflict with Frankish clergy who insisted that worship could only be conducted in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin (the so-called 'trilingual heresy').
The brothers traveled to Rome to defend their use of Slavonic. Pope Adrian II approved the Slavonic liturgy — a decision of enormous significance — and ordained several of their Slavic disciples. Constantine, already ill, entered a monastery in Rome, took the monastic name Cyril, and died on February 14, 869.
Methodius returned to Moravia as papal legate and Archbishop of Sirmium, but spent years in conflict with Frankish bishops who imprisoned him for over two years. Pope John VIII secured his release. He continued his translation work until his death on April 6, 885. After his death, his disciples were expelled from Moravia by the Frankish party but carried the Slavonic tradition to Bulgaria, Serbia, and eventually Russia — where it became the foundation of Orthodox Slavic civilization.
The vitae present the brothers as wonder-workers — particularly Constantine/Cyril, who is credited with discovering the relics of Pope Clement I during a mission to the Crimea and with various signs confirming the validity of the Slavonic liturgy.
The creation of the Glagolitic alphabet is presented in the Vita Constantini as a divinely inspired act — Constantine is said to have worked out the alphabet through prayer and then immediately begun translating the Gospel of John ('In the beginning was the Word'). Modern linguists confirm that the Glagolitic script is a deliberate scholarly creation, not a gradual evolution — consistent with the tradition of a single inventor.
The expulsion of the brothers' disciples from Moravia after Methodius's death and their reception in Bulgaria is well-documented historically. The subsequent development of the Cyrillic alphabet (named after Cyril but created by disciples, probably at the Preslav literary school) extended their legacy across the Orthodox Slavic world.