Saints Cyril and Methodius were natives of Thessaloniki, Macedonia. Their father, Leo, and mother, Maria, were wealthy; their father served in the army of the Greek emperor and held the rank of assistant to the military commander. He was of Bulgarian Slavic descent, but while serving in the Greek army, he was completely reborn, becoming completely Greek himself and raising his children in Greek. Leo's eldest son, Methodius, grew up and entered military service, served very successfully, attained high rank, and was made governor of a significant Slavic region in the northeastern reaches of Macedonia. While Methodius served honorably in the military, his younger brother, Constantine (the name given to Cyril at baptism), led a completely different life. Even in swaddling clothes, he showed something special about himself. Thus, when his mother gave him over to a wet nurse, he refused to suckle, so his mother was forced to nurse him at her own breast. And when he was seven years old and had already begun to learn to read and write, he once had a wondrous dream, which he described to his parents the following morning: "A certain commander appeared to me in a dream and, gathering the maidens from all over our city, said, 'Choose yourself a companion.' I looked and chose one, distinguished by her beauty and adorned with various precious garments; her name was Sophia." The parents realized that this Sophia was the Wisdom of God and that God, through this vision, was foretelling their son's great intellect, and they began to devote particular attention to their son's education. And, indeed, Constantine's intellectual abilities proved to be most brilliant; he quickly and easily understood and assimilated everything his teachers taught him, and he especially loved reading the works of St. Gregory the Theologian .
Meanwhile, upon the death of the Greek Emperor Theophanes, his young son Michael ascended the throne, under the guardianship of his mother Theodora and two nobles. One of them, named Theoctistus, assumed the education of the young emperor. Theoctistus was well acquainted with the parents of Methodius and Constantine; learning of the latter's brilliant abilities, already a 15-year-old boy, he summoned him to the imperial court in Constantinople to study with the young Michael. Thus, naturally gifted with great talent, God sent young Constantine the most renowned tutors of the time in the Greek Empire. Studying alongside the emperor, Constantine, to the astonishment of his tutors, quickly mastered all the secular wisdom of the time: poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, astronomy, and other sciences, as well as many languages. Constantine's benefactor, Theoctistus, fell deeply in love with him and planned to marry him to his goddaughter, a beautiful and wealthy maiden of illustrious birth. But the learned and pious youth was not captivated by the splendor of the imperial court with its honors, nor by the maiden's beauty. He secretly left his patron's home and hid in a monastery on the Black Sea. Constantine's flight astonished the young emperor and his tutor, and they undertook a thorough search for him. For six months, the emperor and Theoctistus searched for their beloved fugitive, and, having finally located him, they with difficulty persuaded him to return to Constantinople. Afterward, they persuaded Constantine to accept holy orders and appointed him librarian at the Church of Hagia Sophia and teacher of philosophy at the main school of Constantinople, where he remained for several years.
One day, an Arab ruler, the emir of the city of Miletus, sent an embassy to Emperor Michael, requesting that the Greeks send skilled men who could debate the Christian faith with Arab scholars. The emperor, knowing his fellow scholar well, consulted with the patriarch and decided to send Constantine to the Arab ruler. Arriving before the emir of Miletus, Constantine displayed such wisdom and profound knowledge in his debates with the Muslim scholars that the Muslims, humbled by him in a debate that lasted several days, decided to poison him. But God preserved His chosen one, and the poison did him no harm. The emir then sent Constantine home with rich gifts.
Returning to Constantinople, Constantine resigned his previous positions at the Church of St. Sophia and the Constantinople School and retired to a secluded spot, where he lived for several years, devoting himself to prayerful endeavors and scholarly pursuits. It was probably during this time that he invented an alphabet for the Slavic language, using the Greek alphabet with the addition of several new letters to express Slavic sounds not found in Greek. This invention opened the door for Constantine to translate the Gospel, the Epistles, and various liturgical books into Slavic.
Meanwhile, Constantine's older brother, Methodius, left military service and retreated to Mount Olympus, where he became a monk. Constantine, hearing of this, hastened to his older brother, the new monk, and together they began a solitary life of fasting, prayer, and scholarly pursuits, continuing his translation of sacred books into Slavic.
At this time, ambassadors from the Khazar kohan came to Emperor Michael, asking him to send a learned man to Khazaria who would teach the Khazars the true faith, as both Jews and Muslims were trying to convert them to their own faiths. The Emperor again turned to Constantine and invited him to travel to the Khazars. Ready to do anything for the Church of Christ, Constantine gladly accepted the commission and, persuading his older brother Methodius to accompany him, set out with him. After sailing across the Black Sea, they landed at Chersonesus, in present-day Crimea, and stayed there for a while. Chersonesus was then a Greek city and had its own Christian archbishop, but many Khazars lived nearby. Therefore, Constantine and Methodius stopped in Chersonesus, intending to learn the Khazar language there. While living in Chersonesos, Constantine heard that the relics of the holy martyr Clement of Rome were located in the sea near the city. He had been exiled to Chersonesos, tortured there, and cast into the sea with an anchor tied to him. Moved by local Christians' stories of miracles that had been performed annually from the relics of St. Clement for 50 years previously, Constantine and Methodius convinced the archbishop to take measures to uncover the relics. Through the prayers of the entire church of Chersonesos, the precious relics of St. Clement, by God's will, floated from the depths of the sea, where they had remained for several centuries, and surfaced. They were then taken aboard a ship and reverently brought to the city, where they were placed in the Church of the Holy Apostles. Constantine separated a portion of the holy relics and took them with him. After this, the brothers did not remain long in Chersonesos, but traveled to the Khazars, where they were honorably received by the kohan. At the kohan's court, Constantine began his debates on faith, both with the Khazar pagans, the Jews, and the Muslims. A Khazar, boasting of his natural wisdom, was the first to engage him in argument. "You Greeks," he said, "argue and debate with books in your hands, but we do not do so: we have wisdom within us and expound it from our souls." But Constantine quickly defeated this boastful wisdom, and the boastful sage departed in disgrace. Then, at dinner with the kohan, the kohan himself entered into a dispute about the meal, arguing from Jewish books. Constantine forced the kohan to yield, citing those same Jewish books. The learned Jews living at the Kohan's court also began debating the same matter, but they were also forced to remain silent before Constantine. After the debate, the Kohan, along with some nobles and some of the people, accepted holy baptism. When releasing Constantine and Methodius to Constantinople, he wanted to bestow rich gifts upon them, but they refused, instead asking for the release of several Greek captives languishing in Khazar captivity. The Kohan agreed to their request and released 200 Greek captives with them.
Returning to Constantinople, Constantine and Methodius continued translating sacred books into Slavic, primarily for the liturgical services of the newly baptized Slavs. They had already translated the ancient readings from the Gospel and the Epistle, and now they also translated the liturgical Psalter, Matins, Vespers, Compline, the Hours, and the Liturgy. Meanwhile, ambassadors from Moravia and Pannonia, representing the Slavic princes Rostislav, Svyatopolk, and Kocel, came to Emperor Michael and Patriarch Photius, who was then Patriarch, asking for teachers capable of explaining the Christian faith in their native language, which they could understand. The emperor and patriarch turned to Constantine and Methodius as before, and they readily agreed to undertake new labors for the benefit of the Church of Christ. Before their departure, Patriarch Photius, Constantine's former mentor and friend, consecrated him as a bishop. On their way to Moravia, the brothers passed through the lands of the Bulgarian Tsar Boris, and here Methodius succeeded in initiating Christian preaching and convinced the Tsar himself to accept holy baptism. Thereafter, the work of converting the Bulgarians to Christianity was continued by other teachers sent from Constantinople at the request of Tsar Boris. The Slavic literacy invented by Constantine and the brothers' translation of church books contributed most to the success of this endeavor.
The Moravian princes and people had already been baptized. The first preachers of Christianity in Moravia and the neighboring Slavic lands were Latin priests. But these priests, having baptized the Slavs, made no attempt to instruct them in the rules of Christian life or explain the dogmas of the Christian faith. They merely conducted services, in Latin, a language incomprehensible to the people, corrected the rites, and diligently collected various taxes for the benefit of their bishops and themselves. Therefore, Princes Rostislav, Svyatopolk, and Kocelj turned to Greece for teachers of Christianity, having heard that the Greeks acted more prudently and conscientiously in this matter. Constantine and Methodius, upon arriving in Moravia, began immediately by celebrating the liturgy and other church services in Slavonic, a language understood by the people. They immediately established schools where they taught reading and writing in Slavonic to both children and adults willing to learn, expounded on the Holy Scriptures, and generally sought to enlighten their crude minds with wise, heartfelt speech. They traveled from one place to another, everywhere instructing the people and princes in Slavonic and establishing Slavic schools. Within four and a half years, they had amassed a large number of students prepared to be good teachers of the people, worthy of the priesthood and other ranks of ecclesiastical service. And the people turned to them, abandoning the self-seeking and poorly educated Latin priests. Such successes of the great enlighteners of the Slavs strongly armed the Latin priests against them, but, lacking the means to wage a moral and rational struggle, these latter almost all left Moravia and went with complaints against the holy brothers: some to their closest superiors, the bishops, and others to Rome.
Pope Nicholas, then in Rome, learned of the extraordinary success of Constantine and Methodius' preaching in Moravia and Pannonia and, desiring to attract such great preachers to his own cause, and in part because of complaints he had received about them, invited them both to Rome by special letter. Constantine and Methodius departed in response to this invitation, but while they were en route to Rome, Pope Nicholas died and was succeeded by Pope Adrian. Arriving in Rome, Constantine and Methodius presented the Pope with a portion of the relics of the holy martyr Clement of Rome , taken by Constantine from Chersonesos. The Pope received the newcomers very kindly, commending their apostolic labors in Moravia and Pannonia, and retaining them for a time in Rome, where they remained for about a year. During this time, Constantine, exhausted by his constant, intense activity and already feeling ill before his journey to Moravia, took to his bed and died at the age of 42. During this illness, 50 days before his death, he took monastic vows and took the name Cyril, by which he remained primarily known. Pope Adrian gave Cyril a lavish funeral, in which both Greek and Latin clergy participated in magnificent vestments. At Methodius's request, the Pope also ordered Cyril's burial in the Church of St. Clement of Rome.
After burying his brother, Methodius left Rome and, with the pope's consent, returned to the Slavs to continue his preaching work. Meanwhile, civil strife broke out in Moravia, in which Germans and Latin bishops, who had been the first Christian preachers there, intervened. Rostislav, the patron saint of the holy brothers, was captured by his rebellious nephew, Svyatopolk, and handed over to the Germans, who blinded him and locked him in a remote monastery. Methodius, seeing that Latin priests had regained power among the feuding Moravians, withdrew to the Pannonian prince Kocel, who received him favorably and persuaded the pope to consecrate him as Archbishop of Pannonia. Methodius remained in Pannonia for about three years, continuing his zealous work preaching the word of God, establishing church services, distributing schools, and translating liturgical books. This lofty and beneficial activity of Methodius greatly embittered the ignorant Latin clergy, who began to persecute the zealous educator by any means necessary. Finally, having armed the German Emperor and the Moravian Prince Svyatopolk against Methodius with various slanders, they succeeded in having the slandered Methodius exiled to prison, where he remained for two and a half years. Pope John VIII, then Pope, interceded for the innocently persecuted ascetic, freed him from imprisonment, and restored his archbishopric in Pannonia. He also forbade the priesthood of the willful German bishops who had persecuted him.
Returning from captivity, Methodius set about educating the Pannonian Slavs with renewed zeal and establishing church services in the Slavic language. Word of Methodius's exploits soon reached Moravia, and the Moravian Slavs, comparing Methodius's activities to those of their German bishops, who were more concerned with extortion and strengthening their own power than with spreading Christian enlightenment, drove out the Germans and asked the Pope to send Archbishop Methodius to them. The Pope granted the Moravians' request, and Methodius arrived in Moravia. The divine teachings of Christ the Savior then began to spread rapidly throughout Moravia. People joyfully flocked to hear Methodius's teachings and abandoned their pagan customs. But the enraged German bishops could not forgive Methodius for their shameful expulsion from Moravia and the accompanying loss of all their income. Unable to combat Methodius in Moravia among the Slavic people loyal to him, they appealed to the Pope with the denunciation that Methodius was an apostate, did not confess the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, as the Western Church taught , and did not preach not only the universal authority of the pope, but even his dependence on him, specifically by promoting church services in the Slavic language and attracting people to himself. Pope John VIII, who agreed with Methodius on the Holy Spirit, was greatly alarmed by the bishops' report regarding the weakening of his authority over Moravia and immediately forbade Methodius from conducting services in the Slavic language, soon summoning him to Rome.
The Germans, having sent Methodius to Rome, triumphed: they returned to Moravia and began spreading the word among the people that the Pope had taken the Moravian diocese from Methodius and given it to them, and that the Moravians should now listen to them. But in reality, things were far from what the Germans had claimed: the Pope was not satisfied with the denunciations of the German bishops alone, but convened a council in Rome, where he duly examined both the denunciations and Methodius's replies and explanations. Methodius was recognized as fully Orthodox, granted permission to conduct services in Slavonic, and authorized to resume the administration of the Moravian diocese. Returning to Moravia, Methodius took up his pastoral ministry with the same zeal. The people, as before, were devoted to him and zealously listened to his instructions, while the German clergy hated him more and more and sought an opportunity to bring about his downfall. Having failed in Rome, they now turned their attention to Svyatopolk. Wishing to create a quarrel between him and Methodius, they flattered the prince, pandering to his passions and weaknesses, while Methodius, with pastoral zeal and impartiality, denounced vices wherever he saw them. Little by little, the Germans won Svyatopolk's favor and armed him against Methodius. By setting the prince at odds with the archbishop, they simultaneously managed to cool his stance toward the Orthodox Church and sway him toward Latinism. But neither the Germans' machinations nor Svyatopolk's coldness halted Methodius' tireless apostolic work. Under his direct guidance, the Orthodox faith not only quickly spread across the vast Moravian land, but also other Slavic tribes, from Croatia and Dalmatia to the borders of Poland, attended services conducted from the Slavic books of St. Methodius. Methodius himself persuaded one of the princes within Poland to accept baptism, and even during his reign, his disciples managed to penetrate into Bohemia and baptize the local prince, Borivoy, as well as sow the seeds of Christianity and Orthodoxy among the Serbs. Finally, after 16 years of governing the Pannonian and Moravian churches, Methodius, amid tireless labors, died in old age.
Despite the passage of more than 1,000 years since the death of the holy apostles of the Slavs, and the many historical upheavals that have occurred during this time, the sacred memory of the great and pious deeds of Cyril and Methodius has not only not disappeared among the Slavic tribes, but grows stronger year by year. There is not a single Slavic people, whether belonging to the Western or Eastern confessions, that does not honor the glorious memory of these enlighteners of the Slavs. Some Slavs have built churches in the name of Saints Cyril and Methodius, while in other places, schools and brotherhoods dedicated to their memory have been established. And the Russian Church , grateful to these first teachers of the Slavs for the great blessing they received from them in the translation of Holy Scripture and liturgical books, always reveres their memory. Having revived the Christian Slavs, Cyril and Methodius became, as it were, the harbingers of the spiritual unity of all Slavs and now serve as a banner of unity for them.
The Orthodox Church canonized Cyril and Methodius, named them equal to the apostles for their great apostolic labors, and established feast days: May 11 in honor of both of them; in honor of St. Cyril on the day of his death, February 14; and in honor of St. Methodius on the day of his death, April 6.
Source: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Istorija_Tserkvi/zhizn-i-trudy-apostolov/137