On February 14, (St. Valentine Day) Slovaks in central and eastern Europe, along with Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and Anglicans celebrate the Feast Day of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, “Missionaries to the Slavs.” Some of my favorite people are missionaries. Here on Passavant’s campus, I could listen for hours to Reverend Ralph Kusserow as he relates his missionary stories of sharing God’s word in Singapore and Africa.

When I served in the Slovak Zion Synod, ELCA, I was privileged to have as a linguist friend Reverend John Goldstein; uniquely a non-Slovak, called to minister to American Slovaks. I relished the faces of old Slovaks who heard God’s word in their native tongue, from one of Jewish descent with an Australian accent. It was priceless!

I was asked to share with you the unique missionary efforts of two Greek brothers who took on the almost insurmountable task of bringing God’s word to the Slavic nation in Central and Eastern Europe. Many of the Slavs had already rejected atheism, but lacked the Holy Scriptures and liturgical resources in a language of their own. In the ninth century A.D., Prince Rastislav of the Great Moravia Empire looked east and requested that Byzantine Emperor Michael III and Orthodox Patriarch Photius send missionaries to his Slavic subjects.

Michael III chose to select Constantine (826-869) and his older brother Michael (815-885) from the city of Thessalonica (modern day Greece). Later in their lives, when becoming monks, their birth names were changed: Constantine to Cyril, just before his death in Rome, and Michael to Methodius. In 862, prior to their missionary work, they created an entirely new alphabet (Glagolitic), using the Greek alphabet, that had many similarities to the what the Slavic people were using. The brothers translated the New Testament, Psalms, and stories. Not all of their efforts were liturgical though. They created a Slavic Civil Code that was used in Great Moravia, for many years, to bring stability to the empire.

Because of those seeds that the brothers planted in central and eastern Europe, a strong foundation was laid upon which the Church of God flourished. And upon that foundation, the Slavic nation built a faith of which Christ predicted “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” I am proud to be a descendent of that faith and the efforts of two missionary brothers from Thessalonica.

Apostles to the Slavs