The saints’ feast day is celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox Church on 11 May and by the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion on 14 February as “Saints Cyril and Methodius Day”. The Lutheran Churches of Western Christianity commemorate the two saints either on 14 February or 11 May.
This public holiday is always celebrated on 5 July in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, who follow the Roman Catholic feast days.
In Bulgaria, this day is known as ‘Bulgarian Education and Culture, and Slavonic Literature Day’, ‘Culture and Literacy Day’ or ‘Alphabet Day’ and is celebrated following the Orthodox calendar on 24 May. It is also a public holiday in Macedonia on 24 May.
Saints Cyril and Methodius were two Byzantine brothers born in Thessalonica in the 9th century. Part of a prominent Christian family, their father was Greek and their mother was Bulgarian.
In 860 Cyril and Methodius went as missionaries to what is today the Ukraine, spreading Christianity among the Slavic peoples of Bulgaria, Great Moravia and Pannonia.
They are credited with devising the Glagolitic alphabet. At the request of the Moravian prince Rastislav, they began to transcribe religious books from Greek into Old Bulgarian.
Their alphabet is seen as the precursor to Cyrillic, which was named after Cyril. Today most of the Slavic countries, including Russia, still use an extension of that alphabet.
Throughout his life, Cyril was known as Constantine, only adopting his religious name of Cyril while on his death bed.
Both brothers are venerated in the Orthodox Church as saints with the title of “equal-to-apostles”.
In 1880, Pope Leo XIII introduced their feast into the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1980, Pope John Paul II declared them co-patron saints of Europe, together with Benedict of Nursia.
