862–927

The Mission of Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs and the Christianization of Bulgaria

In 862/863 Prince Rastislav of Moravia, wary of Frankish influence, asked Constantinople to send teachers. The brothers Cyril and Methodius had been raised among Slavs. They devised a Slavic alphabet and translated the Bible and liturgy into Slavic. This gave the people worship in their own tongue. German missionaries had claimed it was possible only in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

Despite their Byzantine origin the brothers went to Rome in 868 and secured the pope's backing. Moravia fell to the Magyars in 906. But the brothers' work bore fruit among all the Slavs.

Prince Boris of Bulgaria was baptized and wavered between Rome and Constantinople. He sought the greatest independence for his church. From Rome he got only a promise of an archbishopric. In 865 he was baptized by missionaries of Photios. He secured for Bulgaria a Byzantine archbishopric with Slavic-language worship. His son Symeon took the title of tsar in 917. A decade later the Bulgarian church gained patriarchal status.