Cyril and Methodius Bring Christianity and a New Alphabet to the Slavs
Two Byzantine brothers invent a script to translate scripture for Slavic-speaking Moravia
Quick facts
- Missionaries
- Cyril (Constantine) and Methodius
- Sent by
- Emperor Michael III
- Mission began
- 863 CE
- Script created
- Glagolitic, ancestor of Cyrillic
What happened
Constantine, later known by his monastic name Cyril, was born in Thessaloniki and educated in Constantinople, where he studied under the Patriarch Photios and taught philosophy at the Magnaura university, earning the title Constantine the Philosopher. In 863 CE, Prince Rastislav of Moravia requested Byzantine missionaries, and Emperor Michael III sent Cyril along with his older brother Methodius to preach Christianity to the Slavs. Because no writing system existed that could accurately represent Slavic sounds, Cyril devised the Glagolitic alphabet, borrowing elements from Hebrew and Greek cursive script, to translate scripture and liturgy into the Slavic vernacular. Their students at the Preslav Literary School later simplified Glagolitic into what became the Cyrillic alphabet, named for Cyril, drawing more heavily on Greek letterforms.
Why it matters
The Cyrillic alphabet that descended from Cyril's work is still used today across Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and other Slavic-language countries, and the brothers' mission tied the Slavic world's religious and literary culture to Byzantine Christianity rather than the Latin west.
How we know
The World History Encyclopedia's biography of Saint Cyril documents his education, the 863 CE mission at Rastislav's request, and his creation of the Glagolitic script as the direct ancestor of Cyrillic.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Saint Cyril · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Dumbarton Oaks. Michael III (856-867) · Primary source (author-declared)doaks.org · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Part of a timelineThe Byzantine Empire27 events · How the eastern half of Rome outlived the west by a thousand years, then fell to Ottoman cannonView all →