| |
Most scholars now agree that Glagolitsa was
the first alphabet known to the Slavs. We don't know who invented it, but we
know that Glagolitsa was first recorded in Moravia. It was also here that
Saints Cyril and Method, two brothers and Byzantine missionaries, disseminated
the Slavonic alphabet - Kirilitsa and translated Church books into the new
Slavonic written language. The brothers were born to a well-to do military
ruler (drungariya) called Levin Salonika and presumably were of Slavic origin
as the locality was Slavic and they spoke the dialect from childhood. The date
of birth of Method had been pin pointed to 815. Saint Cyril, 827-869, was at
one time archbishop of Moravia and played considerably more important role in
spreading new literacy among the Slavs than his older brother Method, who died
in 885. Method was thought to have served the Emperor in a
military-administrative capacity and upon retirement took up vestments. The
emperor followed his career closely and approved of his decision to become a
missionary. He spent the last years of his life in Biphinia on Mount Olympus
(the northwest of Asia Minor). In recognition for the success of "The
Khazar mission," he was granted the title of "Polykhron. "The
younger brother Constantine received a very good education in Constantinople at
the famous Magnaursk school, where he hung around the young emperor Michel and
made a lasting friendship with the future Patriarch Fotii, and then served as a
khartofilaks (docent of the Patriarchal library), taught philosophy, as well as
fulfilling missionary goals in the arab caliphate and in Khazaria.
|
|
