The Slavic Letters of
St.Jerome
The History of the Legend and Its Legacy,
or,
How the Translator of the Vulgate Became an
Apostle of the Slavs
Julia Verkholantsev
N I U P r e ss / DeKalb, IL
St. Cyril creates the
Glagolitic alphabet
1
Origins
Enigmatic Apostolate
In una fide nil officit sanctae ecclesiae consuetudo diversa.
(Where faith is one, difference in custom does no harm to the Holy Church.)
—Gregory the Great, Registrum Epistularum 1.41
Когда же, кем и которые буквы первее изобретены, о том между учеными
распря неоконченная.
(When, by whom, and which letters were invented first is a matter of
an ongoing feud among scholars.)
—V. N. Tatishchev, The History of Russia 1.1
The “Mission”
The Croatian Glagolite tradition dates back to the very beginning
of Slavic writing, which remains more a matter of legend
than of established fact. The origins of the two Slavic alphabets—
Glagolitic and Cyrillic—seem to have provoked more scholarly research
and debate than any other subject in Slavic medieval studies,
and yet there remains great uncertainty. The main difficulty
in resolving the questions of which alphabet appeared first and
who invented it lies in the very limited data and the scarcity of unambiguous
documented information. Although all scenarios that
have been suggested rely on various degrees of speculation, most
scholars agree that the letters now called Glagolitic were created
by the Byzantine scholar and philosopher Constantine-Cyril1
for
the purpose of the Christian mission to establish the Slavonic liturgy
in Great Moravia, which he undertook with his elder brother
Methodius in the early 860s. It is also generally agreed that after
Cyril’s death in 869, Methodius, in his capacity as archbishop,
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
12
continued to disseminate the Slavonic liturgy among the Slavs.2
The word“mission,” although an accepted term in relation to the
embassy of Cyril and Methodius, is somewhat misleading. By the
860s, having received Christianity from the Bavarian missionaries
of Passau in the course of the ninth century, Moravia was already
considered a Christian territory.3
Therefore, the task of the holy
brothers was delicate, going beyond mere evangelization. Interpreting
available sources, historians reconstruct this affair in the
following way. The Moravian ruler Rostislav (846–870), weary of
Frankish supervision, sought ways to make his church (and state)
more independent. Not long before 863, he turned first to Rome
and then to Constantinople with a request for a bishop and teacher
for his land, someone capable of instructing Moravians about the
Christian faith in their own language.4
Indeed, several previous
attempts at the introduction of institutional Christianity in these
territories had limited success. Governed by foreign bishops, the
Christian church did not become fully incorporated into the state
structure and possibly failed to attract many followers among the
local Slavic population.5
Rostislav felt a need to establish a local
diocese and educate the local clergy. The rendition of Rostislav’s
letter to the Byzantine emperor Michael III in chapter 5 of the Life
of Methodius reflects this concern:
We have prospered through God’s grace, and many Christian teachers
have come to us from among the Italians,Greeks and Germans,teaching
us in various ways. But the Slavs are a simple people, and have no one to
instruct us in the truth, and explain wisely. Therefore, O kind lord, send
the type of man who will direct us to the whole truth.6
While the pope does not seem to have acted on Rostislav’s request,
the Byzantine emperor evidently appreciated the chance to spread
his influence to lands already claimed by Western clergy.
The choice of the emperor’s ambassadors demonstrates the importance
of the Moravian mission to Byzantium. Both Cyril and
Methodius were experienced missionaries and celebrated holy
men. Cyril (ca. 826–869), a teacher of philosophy (didaskalos) at
the patriarchal academy, was one of the most distinguished scholars
in Byzantium at that time. His brother Methodius (ca. 815–
884), formerly a governor of a Slavic province (theme), spent several
years at a monastery on Asia Minor’s Mount Olympus as a
monk before he was appointed abbot of the Monastery Polykhron
Byzantine mission in
Great Moravia
Rostislav asks Emperor
Michael III for a teacher
& a bishop
Cyril & Methodius
12
13
Origins
shortly before the mission to Great Moravia.7
Both brothers had
previously been entrusted with imperial Christian missions and,
most important, both were proficient in a Slavic dialect spoken in
their native city of Thessaloniki.
The brothers used their native East South Slavic dialect as the
foundation for making Slavic translations of the liturgical and selected
biblical books necessary for ministering and conducting services.
In this important task, they were most likely helped by their
disciples and assistants. In order to record these translations, Cyril
devised a special script, which rendered the sounds of the Slavic
tongue. A number of Slavic manuscripts dating from the tenth to
twelfth centuries are thought to represent these original translations,
made by Cyril, Methodius, and their followers for the Moravian
mission (fig. 2). The language of these translations is usually
termed “Old Church Slavonic.”8
The later regional varieties of this
language, which developed in the literary production of diverse
Old Church Slavonic
language & biblical
translations
Figure 2. Codex Assemanianus (11th c.),Vatican Library (Cod.Vat. Slav. 3), fol. 106v, fragment
13
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
14
Slavic peoples who continued the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition, are
considered to be variants (also called “recensions” or “types”) of
Church Slavonic (e.g., the Croatian variant of Church Slavonic).9
“And every tongue shall confess to God”10
Thus, the key part of the Moravian project, unlike other evangelizing
undertakings among the Slavs, was the introduction of the
complete liturgy and biblical texts in a native tongue. Theologically
speaking, the Moravian mission was conducted in the spirit of
the Eastern patristic belief in the Pentecostal abrogation of Babel,
identifying the emergence of the Slavonic liturgy and writing with
the gift of tongues.11
The right of understanding the word of God
in a native language was associated with the feast of the universal
Church commemorating the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the
apostles in the shape of “tongues as of fire,”50 days after the Resurrection
of Christ, on the Jewish holiday called Shavu’ot (The Festival
of Weeks) or Pentecost in Greek:“And they were all filled with
the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit
gave them utterance.”12
The appearance of the Slavonic liturgy and books was, therefore,
regarded as a fulfillment of the Pentecostal gift of tongues,
which removed the divine curse of the confusion of languages at
the Tower of Babel. The equality of languages in the eyes of God,
presented in the New Testament and advocated by the early church
fathers, was a theological premise.13
The creators of the Slavonic
rite claimed that the Lord’s message should be comprehensible and
accurately understood. The Prologue (also known as Proglas), a
poetic introduction to the Church Slavonic translation of the Gospels,
most commonly ascribed to Constantine of Preslav, a disciple
of Methodius, eloquently expresses the ideological foundations of
the Byzantine mission in Moravia:
[. . .] so that you, whose mind is not yet enlightened,
hearing the Word [preached] in a foreign language,
take it for the call of a copper bell.
St. Paul, teaching, said this:
“As I offer my prayer to God,
I would rather utter five words
which everyone will comprehend,
Romans 14:11
equality of languages in
the Pentecostal gift of
tongues
Prologue: “People without
books are naked.”
15
Origins
than a thousand words no one will understand.”
[. . .] People without books are naked,
possessing no armor to fight against
the enemy of our souls,
ready for the imprisonment of the eternal sorrows.14
Unlike Western missionaries, whose aggressive preaching and foreign
Latin rituals forced the Slavic converts to keep their distance,
the Greeks offered accessible instruction in the nuances of the
Christian doctrine, coupled with the Byzantine cultural authority
and sophistication, and—importantly—a vernacular rite.15
The most significant source, apart from Cyril’s and Methodius’s
vitae, that views the invention of the Slavic alphabet as
divinely inspired was written in Bulgaria at the end of the ninth
or the beginning of the tenth century. This treatise is often ascribed
to the monk Khrabr after its title, On the Letters of Monk
Khrabr (crfpfzbt j gbcmvtztü+ xhmzjhbpmwf ühf,hf).16
Written
originally in Glagolitic as an apologia of Slavic writing, it analyzes
Cyril’s invention of the Slavonic alphabet vis-à-vis Greek grammatical
thought. The author refers to Cyril’s holiness and to divine
Providence to argue the sacred origin of the Slavonic letters:
But then the lover of man, God, [. . .] having pitied the Slavic race, sent
them Constantine the Philosopher, who was named Cyril, a man righteous
and sincere. [. . .] But the Slavic Scriptures, Constantine alone,
named Cyril,both made the letters and translated the Scriptures in a few
years [. . .] Therefore, the Slavic letters are holier and more venerable, for
a holy man has made them, while the Greek were made by the heathen
Hellenes.17
The author not only considers the new Slavic script holy because
it was created by a holy man and inspired by a divine spirit,
but also juxtaposes it to the Greek, which smacks of controversy.
While little is known about the ideological and historical context
of this treatise, it is usually viewed as an apologia of the Glagolitic
letters against those Bulgarian literati who favored using the
Greek (proto-Cyrillic) letters that they had been using“without
order” (bez ustroia, or bez ustroeniia) before Cyril’s invention:
“Having been baptised, however, with the letters of Romans
and Greeks they [i.e., the Slavs] struggled to write Slavic speech
without order.”18
On the Letters of Monk
Khrabr
Slavic alphabet is holy
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
16
The Alphabet
The graphic foundation of the Glagolitic alphabet, which is believed
to be Cyril’s invention, has not been definitively determined
and remains an object of heated debate. It has been proposed, for
example,that the captivating and mystic shapes of the Glagolitic ­letters
were inspired by the Christian symbolism of the cross (Christ),
circle (the infinity and supremacy of God), and triangle (the Holy
Trinity).19
The Glagolitic alphabet has also been linked to Greek
minuscule and cursive scripts; zodiacal, medical, chemical, and
shorthand signs; Merovingian Latin; Hebrew, Gothic, Armenian,
Georgian, and Coptic letters; and Germanic runes.20
Yet while at
times one can see a certain degree of resemblance between individual
Glagolitic letters and those of other alphabets,no single system
of writing can be genetically connected to Glagolitic. Drawing
numerous examples from the history of new alphabets, Dmitro
Čyževs’kyj has convincingly argued that new systems of writing
may display superficial similarity without any genetic relationship
to existing systems.21
Alternatively, several theories date Slavic writing to the period
before Cyril and Methodius. For example, Wilhelm Lettenbauer,
developing Michael Hocij’s thesis, has argued that the Glagolitic
alphabet developed in the eighth century from the Merovingian
Latin cursive used among the Slovenes in the territories of Istria
and Venice.22
The evidence of the Legend of Saloniki and the stylistic
similarity of the Glagolitic letters to other missionary alphabets
inspired the hypothesis that the Glagolitic alphabet was invented
or discovered by the seventh-century missionary-Monophysite
Cyril of Cappadocia.23
The Croatian scholar Marko Japundžić has
argued that the Slavic Glagolitic liturgy and writing originated in
Croatia at the time of its conversion at the end of the seventh and
early eighth centuries.24
However, none of the attempts to date the
Glagolitic alphabet before the Cyrillo-Methodian mission have
been widely accepted.25
The prevailing view on the emergence of the Cyrillic alphabet is
that it arose from the Byzantine Greek uncial alphabet in Bulgaria
in the late ninth to early tenth century, following the CyrilloMethodian
mission. Horace Lunt has offered another explanation,
suggesting that Cyril created both Cyrillic and Glagolitic.
Lunt has hypothesized that before Cyril arrived in Moravia, he
created a special writing system to note Slavic sounds based on
origin of Glagolitic
origin of Cyrillic
17
Origins
Greek letters—what is now known as Cyrillic or “Constantinic,”
as Lunt terms it. However, in Moravia, having met with great
resistance from the Frankish Latinate clergy on account of its
“Greekness,” he devised new—Glagolitic—letters for the already
established system, different from either Latin or Greek writing.26
Although merely a speculation, Lunt’s hypothesis addresses some
important questions that usually puzzle scholars of early Slavic
writing. It explains the existence of two competing systems of
Slavic writing at a time when the emergence of even one Slavic
alphabet would have been an extraordinary event. If the Cyrillic
letters were not devised by Cyril but developed from the Greek
in Bulgaria by Cyril’s and Methodius’s disciples (Clement?), why
was the invention of Cyrillic ascribed to Cyril? Lunt’s hypothesis
accounts for the belief in the Bulgarian religious historiography
that Cyril is the creator of Cyrillic.
Moreover, the fact that in the Slavic territories under Roman
and Frankish jurisdiction (i.e., Slovenia, Croatia, and Bohemia) we
find the use of Glagolitic and in the Slavic territories under Byzantine
jurisdiction we find Cyrillic, suggests that Lunt’s hypothesis is
consistent with historical circumstances. There were no Latinate
clergy in Bulgaria to find the use of Cyrillic in Slavic Scriptures
offensive. This also explains why Croatian monks used Glagolitic
and not Cyrillic, as did Bulgarians, Bosnians, and Serbs.
However, Lunt’s assumption does not take into consideration
particular semiotic sensibilities that existed in the classical and
medieval periods concerning the relationship between alphabets
and the languages they represent. According to the principles of
ninth-century graphic culture, the Greek alphabet was reserved
for Greek, just as the Roman alphabet was the property of Latin.27
As a Greek scholar, Cyril should have respected this tradition,
especially because all missionary alphabets were usually invented
from scratch.28
If a new Church Slavonic ecclesiastical tradition
was to compete with these languages, it had to acquire a distinct
alphabet, one that would exist in its own right. Indeed, none of
the sources describing the creation of the Slavic letters by Cyril
mentions his intention of using the Greek letters.Bulgarian literati,
on the other hand, had no scruples regarding the use of the Greek
letters, which they had been previously using“without order.”Lunt
is convinced that the treatise On the Letters was directed precisely
against such improper use of the Greek letters. Were Cyril also
the author of Cyrillic, his deed would not have been as sacred as
semiotics of medieval
writing
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
18
claimed. Like other hypotheses about the beginnings of the early
Slavic letters, this is an informed deduction. However, Lunt’s hypothesis
that Cyril most likely did not apply and disseminate Cyrillic
himself is consistent with Andrzej Poppe’s observation that
in pre-sixteenth-century documents and devotional texts Cyril
is more often referred to as Constantine than as Cyril and that
the Cyrillic alphabet is not known as “Cyrillic” (i.e., an alphabet
named in honor of Cyril) until several centuries after his death,
suggesting that the attribution of the Greek-based Slavic alphabet
to Cyril is of a later date.29
Regardless of whether Cyril is or is not a creator of the Cyrillic
alphabet, the association of Cyrillic letters with his name became
so entrenched that on the majority of icons depicting the Slavic
apostles the scroll in his hand shows Cyrillic characters.30
Conversely,
the link between Cyril’s philological pursuits in Moravia
and the emergence of Glagolitic had been obscured.
The Liturgy
There is an ongoing dispute in scholarship about the number and
identity of texts that Cyril and Methodius, and later Methodius
and his assistants and disciples, translated and used.31
By studying
the oldest preserved liturgical texts, scholars have tried to determine
which type of rite and liturgy, Eastern or Western, the missionaries
chose.32
For example, Josef Vašica pointed to the Liturgy
of St. Peter as the original model that Cyril and Methodius used
for the Slavonic liturgy.33
In this Greek version of the Roman Mass
that contained a number of Byzantine elements, he saw a compromise
between the Byzantine and Roman liturgies.Vašica’s assumptions
were favorably received by Dmitro Čyževs’kyj, cautiously approached
by Antonín Dostál and Vojtěch Tkadlčík, and challenged
by Josef Laurenčík, until František Mareš found another copy of
the Liturgy of St. Peter and convincingly contested its dating, placing
its origin in a Slavonic Athonite monastery at the end of the
fourteenth century.34
The subsequent discovery at the St. Catherine
Monastery on Mount Sinai of two eleventh-century Glagolitic
manuscripts that have parallels to other early Glagolitic texts (the
Kiev and Vienna Folia) allowed scholars to trace the original Slavonic
liturgy to the Byzantine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.35
Most likely, the brothers complemented this Byzantine formula by
Liturgy of St. Peter
Liturgy of St. John
Chrysostom
19
Origins
translating from Latin liturgical texts that were already known in
Moravia.Whether Cyril and Methodius used one or the other formula
as a base for their Slavonic liturgy, many scholars agree that
the resulting rite combined both Byzantine and Roman (Frankish)
elements.36
Although the question of which biblical texts were translated
into Old Church Slavonic during the Cyrillo-Methodian mission
remains open, it has been established that the original Slavonic
translations were most likely made from both Greek and Latin
versions of the Bible.37
The mention of the “Slavonic books” (knigy
slověn’skyę) and “Slavonic Gospel” (slověn’skoie evangeliie) in the
hagiographic accounts of Cyril and Methodius’s mission in Moravia,
and the reference to the “Holy Gospel and readings from the
New and Old Testaments” (sacrum evangelium vel lectiones divinas
novi et veteris testamenti) in the papal letter, suggest that at
least some necessary readings for the Slavonic liturgy had already
been translated by the end of the 870s.38
It is unknown how much of the original Slavonic translations
survived the devastation of the Slavonic rite in Great Moravia in
886, when Wiching, the Frankish bishop of Nitra, succeeded in
undermining the Slavonic clergy in the eyes of Pope Stephen V
(885–891). After Stephen officially prohibited the Slavonic rite in
Moravia and Wiching received full support of Prince Svatopluk
(871–894) to restore the Latin rite, the Slavonic clergy were expelled
from the country and found refuge in Bulgaria, Macedonia,
Bohemia, and Croatia.
The Controversy
The main consideration that made first Cyril and then Methodius
insist on the Slavonic liturgy was most likely practical and not
ideological. They believed that only by educating and ordaining
local clergy could they create a lasting Christian tradition in Moravia.
The linguistic aspect of the Byzantine mission, however, stood
in contrast with the established practice of the Frankish Church,
which then claimed jurisdiction over the Moravians, and created
uncertainty about the orthodoxy of the new Slavonic liturgy. The
Frankish clergy had been apprehensive of the vernacular liturgy
from its very beginning and continually challenged it. As early as
867, Cyril and Methodius traveled to Rome to obtain the Roman
biblical translations
Frankish Church vis-àvis
the Slavonic rite
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
20
curia’s approval of the Slavonic liturgy and ordination for their disciples.
At that time, Pope Hadrian II blessed the Slavonic books,
and the liturgy in Slavonic was celebrated at the Papal Basilica
of St. Peter and other churches.39
Subsequently, popes alternately
forbade and allowed the use of the Slavonic liturgy depending on
the state of affairs in their rivalries with Constantinople and the
Frankish Church for the Slavic flock in central and southern Eu-
rope.40
When Pope John VIII forbade the Slavonic liturgy in 879,
Methodius again traveled to Rome to validate the legitimacy of the
Slavonic liturgy, which the pope, having had a change of heart, reconfirmed
in his bulla of 880. Following the death of Methodius,
in 885, Pope Stephen V once again forbade the Slavonic liturgy,
allowing the vernacular only in sermons and clarifications of the
biblical texts.41
Methodius’s death became a turning point for the
Slavonic rite in Moravia. Unchecked by the authoritative personality
of Methodius, the Frankish clergy, supported by both secular
and ecclesiastical authorities, eradicated Slavonic from the communal
worship in Moravia and restored the exclusive use of the
Latin liturgy.
Attested historical sources do not answer all the questions historians
might have about the Cyrillo-Methodian mission, but from
what is known about the turmoil around the Slavonic liturgy in
Moravia and Pannonia at the end of the ninth century it becomes
clear that the new liturgy in a local language was as much a political
tool as it was a religious ritual.Why did the Slavonic letters’ legitimacy
become such a point of contention at the end of the ninth
century? Did Christian doctrine view the establishment of a new
liturgical language as heresy? Or was its legitimacy a question of
politics rather than dogma?
The Life of Constantine, a devotional account of St. Constantine-­
Cyril’s life that relates the details about the Cyrillo-Methodian
mission, records objections made by the Frankish and Latin clergy
against the Slavonic liturgy first in Moravia and later in Venice.As
befits the genre of the vita, the opposition to the Slavonic liturgy is
ascribed to the devil’s instigation:
The Devil, not bearing this good, entered into his devices and began to
arouse many, saying to them: God is not worshiped by this. For if this
pleased Him would He not have established it so that from the very beginning
[the Slavs] would worship God by writing their own language
with letters?42
But he chose only three languages: Hebrew, Greek, and
Hadrian II approves
liturgy in Slavonic
John III forbids, then
approves, liturgy in
Slavonic
Stephen V forbids
liturgy in Slavonic
Life of Constantine &
“the trilingual heresy”
21
Origins
Latin, which are appropriate for giving glory to God. And so spoke the
Latin and Frankish archpriests, priests, and their disciples.43
In 867 in Venice, where, according to a hypothesis advanced by a
number of scholars,Cyril and Methodius arrived to seek the Grado
Patriarch’s official approval of their mission,44
Cyril is reproached
for the lack of authority of his new writings:
When he [i.e., Constantine] was in Venice, the Latin bishops, priests,
and monks gathered against him like ravens against a falcon. And they
advanced the trilingual heresy, saying: “Tell us, O man, how is it that
you now teach books [letters] that you yourself created for the Slavs,
which none else have invented before, neither the Apostle, nor the pope
of Rome, nor Gregory the Theologian, nor Jerome, nor Augustine? We
know of only three languages worthy of praising God in books, Hebrew,
Greek, and Latin.”45
The Church Slavonic word that indicates Cyril’s creation is
kъnigy, “the books, writings, Holy Scripture, letters.” Traditionally,
translators of the Life of Constantine use the meaning“the letters”to
match it with the translation of the Church Slavonic pismeny,“the
letters,” in the passage describing the Frankish clergy’s allegations
quoted above.46
However, there is a reason why the Latin clergy in
Venice should also have been concerned with Cyril’s invention of
the kъnigy in its primary meaning—“the books, the Scriptures.”
Indeed, the controversy was not so much over the Slavonic letters
per se, but rather over their application, that is, that they were
used not simply for catechization and preaching but that the new
letters were used to translate holy canonical books into a language
in which no previous authoritative Christian Father had written.
The Latin clergy themselves recorded texts in Slavic using the Latin
letters. But these were sermons, prayers, and confessional formulae
utilized for catechetical purposes, not for canonical books.47
Therefore, the concern about the “Slavic letters” addresses the issue
of using a language different from Latin, whereas the concern
about the “Slavic books” addresses the use of theologically problematic
liturgical books that contain texts from the Scriptures. In
this way, one can see different aspects of anxiety that the Slavonic
letters aroused among the Frankish and Latin clergy: the Frankish
clergy were disturbed by the competition created by the Slavic
clergy and their new letters, whereas the Venice Synodal clergy
books & letters
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
22
could have been seriously alarmed by the potential doctrinal unorthodoxy
and inaccuracy of the newly translated liturgical and
biblical books.
Cyril’s dispute inVenice with the Frankish and Latin clergy is described
in the sources as a controversy with “heretical trilinguists,”
in which Cyril refutes the idea that only three languages may be
used in worship. The idea of the three sacred languages is a welldocumented
concept. It appears in the Gospel of John (19:20),
which says that Pilate placed a sign saying“Jesus of Nazareth, King
of the Jews” in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek over the crucified Christ.
It is not clear, however, whether this idea evolved into a doctrine.
To oppose a popular view that takes the vita’s account at face
value, Francis Thomson has argued that there was no doctrine of
“three liturgical languages” either in the Western or in the Eastern
churches.48
He proposes a distinction between the idea of Hebrew,
Greek, and Latin as the three sacred languages (as a symbolic trinitas
linguarum) and the doctrine prescribing the use of only Hebrew,
Greek, and Latin in the liturgy. Thomson’s arguments are as follows.
Only Slavic sources refer to the controversy over the Slavonic
rite as a dispute of St. Cyril with trilinguists-Pilatists. Moreover, in
the sources, this is not a self-identifying term, as it is Constantine
who calls them “trilinguists.”While all Latin sources acknowledge
the opposition to liturgical innovation by the papacy, nowhere in
the Latin sources is a mention of trilinguism in liturgy recorded.
With no reference to the Cyrillo-Methodian mission, “trilinguism”
seems to be a Byzantine definition of one of the errors of the
Western Church found in especially compiled catalogues of Latin
errors. However, this “error” did not seem to concern the language
of liturgy.
Furthermore, Thomson argues that there never existed a doctrine
of“three liturgical languages,”but that the idea of three sacred
languages was inspired by the presence of the Greek and Hebrew
words in the Latin Mass, constituting a symbol of trinitas linguarum.This
symbolic unity of three sacred languages in one Mass
is not tantamount to a doctrine of liturgical trilinguism, given that
nobody celebrated the Divine Office in Hebrew or Greek in the
Western Roman and Frankish Empires. Thomson also maintains
that Isidore of Seville and others before and after him, who called
these languages sacred, only referred to Hebrew, Greek, and Latin
as languages of the Bible and advocated the knowledge of these
languages for accurate interpretation. Importantly, during the first
Was“trilinguism” a
doctrine?
John 19:20
language of liturgy vs.
language of the Bible
23
Origins
centuries of Christianity, the Roman Church was eager to elevate
Latin, which was not a language of the original Holy Scriptures,
to the same status as Greek and Hebrew. Finally, Thomson points
out, both Roman and Byzantine ecclesiastical authorities insisted
that their subjects use Latin and Greek languages respectively in
the services. However, this was primarily due to considerations of
religious unity and cultural homogeneity in imperial provinces.
It should be noted that the argument that the Slavic language
does not belong among the three sacred languages is made only
by the Frankish and Latin clergy in Moravia and Venice and is not
supported by the Byzantine patriarch and the Apostolic Pontiff
in Rome. From the Byzantine perspective, there seemed to be no
doctrinal concern about creating a new alphabet for the Slavs.According
to the Life of Constantine, when Emperor Michael charged
Constantine with a mission to the Slavs, the latter responded that
he would accept the commission if the Slavs had their own letters.
The lack of literacy among the Slavs (whether in Greek or in Slavic)
seemed to trouble Byzantine emperors for generations: Michael replied
that his father and grandfather had been looking in vain for
the Slavic letters and now he thought that the time had come to
create them.49
Roman popes, too, sanctioned the Slavonic liturgy several times.
When Cyril and Methodius arrived in Rome in the winter of 868,
Pope Hadrian II blessed the Slavonic books, ordered the Slavonic
liturgy to be celebrated in principal Roman churches,and ordained
Cyril and Methodius’s disciples, as well as Methodius himself, as
priests.50
Again, in 880, Pope John VIII, after having questioned
Methodius on the tenets of his faith, bestowed on him all duties
and privileges of the archbishop of Moravia. John’s letter to Prince
Svatopluk of Moravia demonstrates that considerations of Methodius’s
adherence to the teachings of the Roman Church were his
primary concern:
Accordingly, we questioned this Methodius, your venerable archbishop,
in the presence of our brother bishops, whether he adheres to the creed
of faith [fidei symbolum] in the orthodox way and during the sacred liturgical
rites sings as is held by the Holy Roman Church and as was
announced and established by holy six universal councils of holy fathers
according to the evangelical authority of our Lord Christ. He thus declared
that he believes and sings [the Psalms] according to the evangelical
and apostolic teaching, as the Holy Roman Church teaches and as
Byzantine perspective
perspective of Rome
John VIII commends
Methodius to Svatopluk
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
24
was established by the fathers. Moreover, we, having learned that he is
orthodox and useful in all ecclesiastical teachings and matters send him
back to you again to govern God’s church.51
Noteworthy in this passage is the mention of the fidei symbolum,
which refers to a later doctrinal dispute between the Western and
Eastern Churches over the addition of the word filioque to the
Nicene Creed.52
Apparently, Methodius’s loyalty to the Apostolic See so much
pleased the pope that in his letter he expressed his warmest approval
of Methodius, referring to him as confrater noster (our
brother) and reverentissimus (most venerable) and lavishing on
him the highest praise. The letter clearly shows that the pope did
not consider the use of Slavonic in the liturgy to be a breach of
doctrine; on the contrary, he thought that a Slavic translation following
the Latin liturgy (Latin being necessary“for the greater glorification”)
was desirable and faithful to the teachings of the Bible:
Finally, we rightly commend the Slavonic writing, invented by a certain
Constantine the Philosopher so that God’s praise may duly sound in it,
and we decree that in this language the glory and acts of our Lord Christ
be interpreted. Indeed, by sacred authority we exhort to praise God not
only in three but in all languages, as is taught saying: Praise the Lord, all
you Gentiles! Laud Him, all you peoples!53
[. . .] And nothing in the faith
or doctrine inhibits either to sing masses or to read the Holy Gospel
or divine lectures from New and Old Testaments in this Slavonic language,
[if they are] well translated and interpreted, or to sing all other
offices of the hour: for He who made the three principal languages, that
is, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, also created all others for His praise and
glory. Still we decree that in all churches of your land the Gospel be read
in Latin for the greater glorification and afterward preached in Slavic
translation for the ears of those who do not understand Latin words, as
it seems to be done in some churches.54
Indeed, the use of the Slavic language per se was not the central
issue. Teaching in the vernacular, in the form of preaching,
was a long-established practice of Roman and Frankish missionaries.
However, the theological differences between the Eastern
and Western Churches, such as the dispute on the Procession of
the Holy Spirit, had already become a matter of serious disagreement.
These were expressed in the liturgical and biblical texts that
Psalm 116:1
question of orthodoxy
25
Origins
Metho­dius and his followers disseminated in Slavonic.The linguistic
barrier, which did not allow for easy investigation of the translated
texts used by the Slavs in religious rites, caused understandable
uneasiness in Rome and among the Frankish clergy. This is
why, from the very beginning of the Moravian mission, the leaders
of the Slavonic rite were repeatedly summoned to Rome to testify
personally (and, most likely, in Latin) to their doctrinal orthodoxy
and allegiance to the Roman curia. Even Pope Stephen V, who appeared
to be a severe critic of Methodius’s leadership of the Moravian
Church, was apparently ready to negotiate with Methodius’s
successor. In the letter of instruction that Stephen V addressed to
his legates to Moravia, Bishop Dominic and Presbyters John and
Stephen, in which he accuses Methodius of self-government and
charges his messengers to eradicate the Slavonic rite in Moravia,
he indicates that he could prove more lenient, were Methodius’s
successor to come directly to Rome and profess his creed:“By our
apostolic authority forbid the successor, whom Methodius against
the decisions of all Holy Fathers himself dared to ordain, to perform
his service until he comes to us and explains his position personally
[literally, ‘in live voice’].”55
However, Methodius’s successor,
Gorazd, never went to Rome to defend his faith. Instead, the
proponents of the Slavonic rite were forced to leave Moravia, and
some of them were even imprisoned and sold at the slave market
in Venice. Despite this crisis, the Slavonic rite did not die but soon
flourished again in Bulgaria,where Cyril and Methodius’s disciples
received cordial welcome.
If the creation of the new alphabet and the establishment of the
liturgy in a new tongue was not a doctrinal issue (or at least one not
clearly defined),then the case of the Slavonic liturgy depended largely
on politics.56
Cyril, and after Cyril’s death, Methodius, skillfully
negotiated with the authorities and traveled to Rome and Constantinople
when it was necessary, expanding the corpus of Slavonic
translations and training clergy. The role of Methodius was especially
decisive in the expansion and preservation of the Slavonic
liturgy. His contribution to the cause of disseminating the Slavonic
liturgy was invaluable during the years subsequent to Cyril’s death,
and his remarkable diplomatic skills allowed the Slavonic liturgy
to take deep root and persevere through the years to come despite
numerous obstacles.57
One of the paradoxes of the Cyrillo-Methodian mission is that,
although the mission itself failed, its impact on Slavic civilization
Stephen V summons the
successor to Methodius
Methodius’s role in
the expansion of the
Slavonic liturgy
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
26
was immense.58
The Slavonic rite first introduced by the holy
brothers in Moravia came to be a powerful tool in the cause of
Christian conversions and led to the creation of the Slavic national
churches. Driven by the practical purpose of expanding Christianity
by all possible means, Cyril and Methodius created an idiosyncratic
ecclesiastic culture that formed a link between the Eastern
and Western Christian traditions.
The Slavonic Rite in Bohemia
The Slavonic rite disappeared from Great Moravia in 885, when
Gorazd failed to take Methodius’s place and was overthrown by his
rival Wiching. The Slavic clergy were chased away and sold into
slavery. Many of them managed to escape to Bulgaria, where they
developed new centers of Slavonic literary and religious culture. It
is also believed that some of them found refuge in Bohemia under
the protection of the Přemyslid rulers who, according to legend,
were baptized in 884 in Great Moravia by St. Methodius. The introduction
of Christianity in Bohemia is documented in a number
of sources, most of them belonging to hagiographical literature.59
The earliest attested local source that talks about the Slavonic liturgy,
the Moravian mission, and its impact on Bohemia is the late
tenth-century composition, Legenda Christiani, named for its author
Brother Christianus, a monk who is believed to be a member
of the Přemyslid family.60
This text, fully titled the Vita et passio
sancti Wenceslai et sancte Ludmile ave eius (The Life and Passion
of St. Wenceslas and His Grandmother St. Ludmila), attributes the
conversion of the Přemyslid Prince Bořivoj (872–889) and his wife
Ludmila (874–921) to the bishop of Moravia, St. Methodius. According
to the legend, when Bořivoj attended a feast of the Moravian
ruler Rostislav, he was not allowed to sit together with the
Christian princes at the table but instead made to join Rostislav’s
heathen subjects on the floor. Feeling compassion for Bořivoj,
Bishop Methodius convinced him to accept baptism. Following
Bořivoj’s example, his wife Ludmila also became Christian.61
The
legend thus traces the origin of Bohemian Christianity and polity
to Great Moravia and gives full credit to the Slavic apostles, and
not to the Bavarian Church.
The rooting of Christianity in Bohemia is connected to the rule
of Bořivoj and Ludmila’s grandson, Wenceslas (Czech Václav, 923
end of the Slavonic rite
in Moravia
Legenda Christiani
Bořivoj & Ludmila are
baptized by Methodius
Wenceslas I
27
Origins
or 924–929 or 935), whose tragic death at the hands of his brother
Boleslav later elevated him to the status of patron saint of Bohemia
and the Přemyslid dynasty.62
Despite his fratricide, Boleslav
I (935–972) greatly contributed to the strengthening of Bohemia
as a Christian state. Moreover, he negotiated the baptism of the
Polish prince Mieszko, to whom he gave his daughter Dubravka in
marriage in 966. Above all, Boleslav strove for the establishment
of Bohemia’s own bishopric, which was not established until after
his death, in 973, under the authority of the archbishop of Mainz.63
With church organization overseen by the Frankish clergy and
Rome, evidence of the Slavonic rite’s survival in Bohemia during
the two centuries following the Cyrillo-Methodian mission is not
abundant, but it is, nevertheless, definite. Unfortunately, disciplinary
boundaries dividing historians and philologists have once more
led to debates between the two scholarly factions regarding this
question. The cause of this disagreement is a lack of direct information
about the Slavonic rite in historical sources; most evidence
comes from the analysis of literary sources and linguistic data.As a
result, historians look cautiously upon the question of the Slavonic
rite in Přemyslid Bohemia, while philologists speak confidently
about its survival until the end of the eleventh century. There is no
doubt that the Slavonic tradition existed in Přemyslid Bohemia,
but whether its coexistence with the Latin rite was peaceful, and
whether or not it was continuous and widespread, is a subject of
dispute among scholars.64
The Slavic names of priests who found refuge in Bohemia after
the collapse of Great Moravia in 906 suggest that they may have
observed the Slavonic rite and some of the customs of the Moravian
Church.65
While little is known about specific locations and
communities where the Slavonic rite might have been observed
in Bohemia, a number of sources identify the Sázava Benedictine
Monastery as a hub for the liturgy in Slavic. It was founded in 1032
by its distinguished abbot St. Procopius (ca. 970/980–1053, canonized
in 1204),who is also believed to have instituted there the Benedictine
rule.66
The tenure of the Slavonic rite at the Sázava Monastery,
however, was short. Initially under the generous patronage
of Prince Oldřich (1012–1034) and Břetislav I (1035–1055), the
Slavonic monks were expelled from the monastery by Spytihněv
II (1055–1061), but then were brought back by Vratislav II (1061–
1092). However, after the Schism of 1054 and the reforms of Pope
Gregory the Great (1073–1085), the position of the Slavonic rite,
Boleslav I
historians & philologists
disagree about
the Slavonic rite in
Bohemia
Sázava Monastery
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
28
which represented a link with the Eastern Church, was vulnerable
in Bohemia. In 1079, Pope Gregory denied Vratislav’s request to
authorize the liturgy in Slavonic. In 1096, Vratislav’s successor,
Břetislav II (1092–1100), forced the monks observing the Slavonic
rite out of the Sázava Monastery and handed it over to the Latinate
Benedictines of Břevnov.
Linguists and philologists have done substantial work to identify
those literary texts from the Moravian and Přemyslid periods
that were written in the Czech variety of Church Slavonic.67
These
scholars dispute the opinion of historians that the Slavonic rite was
imported to the Sázava Monastery from abroad, arguing that the
linguistic analysis of these Slavonic texts reveals no linguistic mediation,
such as that found, for example, in the Rus’ manuscripts
that were imported to Rus’ from Bulgaria and which therefore
retain visible South Slavic linguistic traits. On the contrary, these
texts show consistent West Slavic (Czech) linguistic features characteristic
of Moravia and Bohemia,and their content embodies the
syncretism of Eastern and Western ecclesiastical elements.68
The Slavonic Rite in Poland?
The question of the Cyrillo-Methodian mission in the territories
of Poland draws from the same legendary well of information
as that of the Slavonic rite in Bohemia and Great Moravia. There
are two main interrelated questions: one concerns the spread and
influence of the Slavonic liturgy in Poland, and the other concerns
the existence of an institutionalized church organization with a
Slavic or Latin hierarchy. A spirited and voluminous scholarly debate
has developed into two diametrically opposite trends in Polish
historiography, which is even more polarized than that in Czech
historiography, albeit not by discipline. Scholars advocating for
the early existence of the Slavonic liturgy in Poland generally offer
three hypotheses: (1) it arrived as part of the Cyrillo-Methodian
mission in southern Poland (Poland Minor) at the end of the ninth
century, (2) it was brought to southern Poland and Silesia from
Bohemia during the tenth century,and (3) it was received after 966
from Bohemia, along with the official Christianization. They refer
to a number of historical sources and archeological finds with a
generous dose of free interpretation, blaming later Latinization for
intentionally obscuring the beginnings of the Slavonic rite or bishlinguistic
data
debate over the Slavonic
rite in Poland
29
Origins
opric in Poland. Still, there are many scholars who remain unconvinced
and dismiss all hypotheses that the arrival of the Slavonic
rite in Poland was a consequence of the Cyrillo-Methodian mission.
The scale of the debate is colossal and a detailed analysis of
the evidence brought up by both sides is beyond the scope of this
study.69
For the sake of our inquiry we note here only the central
issues in this debate.
In the absence of explicit records, the advocates of the Slavonic
rite refer to a number of indirect facts and sources that may be interpreted
as indications of the Slavonic rite’s existence in Poland.70
The primary piece of evidence, which encourages scholars to hypothesize
about the baptism of Poland Minor during the Moravian
mission, comes from chapter 11 of the Life of Methodius (the
Pannonian Legend), in which Methodius, demonstrating his gift of
prophesy, predicts that an evil pagan prince from the Vistula River
will soon be baptized:
A very powerful pagan prince, settled on the Vistula, mocked the Christians
and did nasty things to them. Having sent word to him, Methodius
said,“My son, it would be better for you to be baptized of your own will
in your own land, so that you will not have to be baptized against your
will as a prisoner in a foreign land; and then you’ll remember my words.”
And so it came to pass.71
The prince, who is sometimes said to have been from the area that
would later become Cracow, was allegedly captured and baptized
by force by Prince Svatopluk. Despite the obvious hagiographic
character of the work and apparent ambiguity, it is often used as a
proof that Methodius or his disciples proselytized to the Poles living
in the Vistula region, and that there were already some Christians
among them.
The arguments in favor of the Slavonic rite in Poland are largely
grounded in a conceptual understanding of the political rivalry
for jurisdiction over the Slavic lands between the three Christian
powers—Rome, Byzantium, and the Frankish Empire—as well
as Moravia’s missionary expansion politics. With some degree of
variation, the central historical premise is that from the time of the
Cyrillo-Methodian mission, the metropolitan see of Cracow was
the center of the Slavonic rite in Poland with suffragan bishoprics
that were faithful to Rome in Wiślica and Sandomierz. According
to Karolina Lanckorońska, for example, the first metropolitan
Methodius prophesizes
the baptism of a prince
of the Vistulans
Gorazd as metropolitan
of Cracow
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
30
appointed to Cracow at the end of the ninth century was none
other than Gorazd himself, Methodius’s favorite disciple and illfated
successor as archbishop of Moravia. One of Lanckorońska’s
strongest arguments is the presence of St. Gorazd’s name in the
early fifteenth-century Polish Wiślica Calendar.72
The proposed periods
of the Slavonic rite’s survival vary. The most common hypothesis
is that the Latin and Slavonic rites existed side by side until the
eleventh century “free from mutual antagonism,” and that the Slavonic
rite enjoyed the protection of Bolesław the Brave (992–1025).
The conjectures about, and even the plausibility of, the CyrilloMethodian
Slavonic rite in Poland have been again and again criticized,
mainly due to lack of direct or reliable contemporaneous
historical evidence.73
Critics point out that the Life of Methodius,
even if taken at face value, says nothing about any mission conducted
by Methodius or any of his followers in Poland. Nor does
Methodius’s prediction of baptism indicate that it was afterward
received in the Slavonic rite. Even if the baptism was later carried
out after Methodius’s death by the efforts of his Frankish successor,
Archbishop Wiching, the language of the rite would surely have
been Latin.
The hypothesis of the early existence in Poland of the cult of St.
Gorazd (Methodius’s disciple), which would indicate the existence
of the Slavonic rite, has also been dismissed. It has been proven
that the cult of St.Gorazd migrated into theWiślica Calendar from
Czech breviaries, as did the prayers for Cyril and Methodius, at the
end of the fourteenth century.74
Linguists and philologists have also applied their skills to verify
the hypothesis that there was direct contact between Poland and
the Cyrillo-Methodian mission. Their inquiry focused on uncovering
a Church Slavonic lexical layer in Polish language and literary
sources.75
Although their examination has produced a list
of lexemes that may be associated with Church Slavonic, from a
methodological point of view these data cannot be used as definite
proof of the Slavonic rite’s direct influence on Polish because
they are also found in Old Czech and can be explained by Czech
mediation from the time when Poland received Christianity from
Bohemia.76
The Polish song “Bogurodzica” (“Theotokos”), recorded in the
fifteenth century but believed to be an autograph of St. Adalbert
(St. Wojciech), has become an important document of the early
poetic vernacular tradition among the Poles.77
Its real author is
Latin & Slavonic rites
coexist in Poland
lack of direct evidence
Church Slavonic lexical
layer in Polish
“Bogurodzica”
31
Origins
unknown and the song itself is variously dated from the eleventh
(Lehr-Spławiński, Ostrowska) to the thirteenth (Woronczak) to
the turn of the fourteenth (Urbańczyk) centuries.78
Scholars hypothesize
that several expressions in this old song (such as Bogurodzica
and bożycze) are the result of the original Church Slavonic
language’s direct influence on Polish.79
Yet the poetic structure and
terminology in “Bogurodzica” show dependence on thirteenthcentury
Czech and Latin poetry,while its melody excludes the possibility
of its emergence before the twelfth century.80
Archeologists joined historians and philologists in their efforts
to discover material evidence of the spread of Christianity in Poland
at the time of the Moravian mission. However, one by one, all
archeological data have been discarded on the basis of recent excavations
that show consistent signs of pagan cults until the end of
the tenth century and date the first signs of Christianity in Poland
to after the mission from Bohemia in 965–966, which the written
sources firmly attest.81
Scholars who share a skeptical view regarding the existence of
the Slavonic rite in Poland during or immediately following the
Cyrillo-Methodian mission point to the fact that all historical, linguistic,
and archeological sources are too ambiguous and subject
to interpretation. The only methodologically sound conclusion,
therefore, is that, despite some vague and indirect references that
the southern Polish lands could have been touched by the CyrilloMethodian
mission, there is no proof of any church organization
or even of any reliable missionary activity in Polish lands before
Mieszko decided to marry Boleslav’s daughter Dubravka and be
baptized in 966.
Everywhere in the Slavic lands under Roman or Frankish jurisdiction
that the Slavonic rite spread, we find evidence of tension
between the Latinate and Slavonic clergy. In Pannonia, where
Prince Kocel had showed great appreciation for the Slavonic rite,
the claims of the Salzburg clergy had already put an end to the Slavonic
rite by the 870s. In Moravia, this conflict resulted in the expulsion
of Cyril and Methodius’s followers in 885, some of whom
escaped to Bulgaria and to Bohemia. In Bohemia, the Slavonic rite
met with resistance, and eventually the Latinate German clergy
managed to convince Prince Břetislav II in 1096 to evict the Slavonic
monks from their last stronghold—the Sázava Monastery. In
Croatia, this opposition led to a significant restriction of the Slavonic
clergy by the decisions of the Councils of 925 and 1060. The
archeological data
no documented conflicts
between the Latinate
& Slavonic clergy
The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome
32
fact that we find no evidence of such conflict in Poland is an additional
argument against the existence of the Cyrillo-Methodian
Slavonic rite and church in pre-Piast Poland.
The Bifurcation of Slavic Writing: Glagolitic and Cyrillic
The dissemination of Slavic writing is directly related to the fate
of the Slavonic liturgy. In the territories with Slavic-speaking populations
that found themselves in the orbit of Byzantine jurisdiction,
the Slavonic rite took root and flourished, as did literature in
Church Slavonic. Above all, the Slavonic rite and writing found a
second life in Bulgaria, where the disciples of Cyril and Methodius
were warmly received.82
Their arrival was particularly timely
as the Bulgarian ruler Boris and, later, his son Symeon sought to
replace the Greek liturgy of Byzantium-dominated Bulgaria with
the native and, importantly, independent Slavonic rite. Two major
educational centers of Slavonic literacy were established by Methodius’s
disciples, Clement, Nahum, Angelarius, and Constantine at
Ohrid and Preslav, where clergy were trained and numerous biblical
and patristic writings were translated into Church Slavonic.
Gradually, the Greek-based and therefore more familiar Cyrillic
letters rivaled and came to obscure the esoteric Glagolitic alphabet,
first in the secular and then in the ecclesiastical sphere.83
Under the
leadership of Clement,who headed this ambitious Slavonic literary
project, the Bulgarian literati expanded the initial Cyrillo-Methodian
textual corpus to such an extent that they were able to oversee
the Christianization and re-Christianization of the Serbs, Romanians,
and Rus’ over the course of the late tenth and early eleventh
centuries.As Ihor Ševčenko has aptly remarked,“What Methodius
had been to Moravia and Pannonia, his follower St. Clement was
to Bulgaria, only with more enduring effects.”84
By then Cyrillic
had become the “mainstream” of the Slavonic writing in Bulgaria,
although Glagolitic was used in Macedonian Ohrid until as late
as the thirteenth century. It is even attested in Rus’, where, at the
dawn of its Christianity, Glagolitic writing, along with Cyrillic, was
imported from Bulgaria. William Veder has recently shown that,
rather than copying Bulgarian Cyrillic exemplars, the Rus’ bookmen
preferred to transcribe from the original Glagolitic and, in
fact, produced multiple Cyrillic copies from a single Glagolitic
source.85
Thus Cyrillic became the script of the Orthodox churches
Slavonic rite finds
refuge in Bulgaria
Ohrid & Preslav
St. Clement of Ohrid
Cyrillic challenges
Glagolitic in Bulgaria
Glagolitic in Rus’
33
Origins
of Bulgaria, Serbia, and Rus’, while the Western Slavs observed the
Roman Catholic rite and adopted the Latin language and script.
However, as will be shown in the next chapter, in Dalmatia and
the Adriatic islands the Slavonic rite continued to be recorded in
the Glagolitic alphabet, which remained in use until as late as the
eighteenth century.
Glagolitic in Dalmatia
Notes
Abbreviations
Bible—The Interpretation of the Bible. Ed. Jože Krašovec.
BN—Biblioteka Narodowa w Warszawie (National Library of Poland)
CD 1—Codex Diplomaticus Regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, vol. 1. Ed. Marko Kostrenčić.
CD 4—Codex Diplomaticus Regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, vol. 4. Ed. Tadija Smičkiklas.
CDEM—Codex Diplomaticus et Epistolaris Moraviae
Croatia 1—Croatia and Europe, vol. 1, Croatia in the Early Middle Ages: A Cultural Survey. Ed. Ivan Supičić.
Croatia 2—Croatia and Europe, vol. 2, Croatia in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaisssance: A Cultural
Survey. Ed. Ivan Supičić.
Emauzy—Emauzy: Benedictinský klášter Na Slovanech v srdci Prahy. Ed. Klára Benešovská and Kateřina
Kubínová.
Fontes—Fontes Historici Liturgiae Glagolito-Romanae a XIII ad XIX saeculum. Ed. Lucas Jelić.
FRB—Fontes Rerum Bohemicarum. Ed. Josef Emler.
FRB s.n.—Jana Zachová, Fontes Rerum Bohemicarum, Series nova 1. Ed. Jana Zachová.
Glagolitica—Glagolitica: Zum Ursprung der slavischen Schriftkultur. Ed. Heinz Miklas, Sylvia Richter, and
Velizar Sadovski.
HRR—Husitství, Reformace, Renesance: Sborník k 60. narozeninám Františka Šmahela. Ed. Jaroslav Pánek,
Miloslav Polívka, and Noemi Rejchrtová.
KMK—Knihovna Metropolitní kapituly pražské (Library of the Metropolitan Chapter in Prague)
KNM—Knihovna Národního muzea v Praze (National Museum Library in Prague)
MMFH—Magnae Moraviae Fontes Historici. Ed. Dagmar Bartoňková, Lubomír Havlík, Jaroslav Ludvíkovský,
Zdeněk Masařík, and Radoslav Večerka.
MVB—Monumenta Vaticana Res Gestas Bohemicas Illustrantia. Ed. Ladislav Klicman.
NKČR—Národní knihovna České republiky (National Library of the Czech Republic)
NSK—Nacionalna i sveučilišna knjižnica u Zagrebu (National and University Library in Zagreb)
PL—Patrologia Latina: Cursus Completus. Ed. Jacques-Paul Migne.
RS—Die Urkunden des königlichen Stiftes Emaus in Prag, vol. 1, Das vollständige Registrum Slavorum. Ed.
Leandr Helmling and Adalbert Horcicka.
SW—Roman Jakobson, Selected Writings.
Thessaloniki—Hellenic Association for Slavic Studies. Thessaloniki Magna Moravia: Proceedings of the
International Conference, Thessaloniki 16–19 October 1997.
TODRL	 Trudy otdela drevnerusskoi literatury
Z tradic—Z tradic slovanské kultury v Čechách: Sázava a Emauzy v dějinách české kultury. Ed. Jan Petr
and Sáva Šabouk.
Zeszyty—Zeszyty Naukowe Wydziału Humanistycznego Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, Slawistyka 3 (1982).
Prologue
1. On the life and works of Jerome Eusebius Hieronymus (331 or 345 or 347–420), see J. N. D. Kelly,
Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (London, 1975); Stefan Rebenich, Jerome (London, 2002);
Alfons Fürst, Hieronymus: Askese und Wissenschaft in der Spätantike (Freiburg, 2003); Andrew Cain and
Josef Lössl, eds., Jerome of Stridon: His Life, Writings and Legacy (Farnham, UK, 2009).
2. Eugene F. Rice, Saint Jerome in the Renaissance (Baltimore, 1985), 33.
3. Bollandists, Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina Antiquae et Mediae Aetatis (Brussels, 1898–1899),
1:579.
176
Notes to Pages 4–12
4. Rice, Saint Jerome, 55–63.
5. Bollandists, Bibliotheca, 1:577.
6. Rice, Saint Jerome, 64–68.
7. Ibid., 48.
8.“I, Jerome, son of Eusebius, of the city of Strido, which is on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia
and was overthrown by the Goths”(Hieronymus patre Eusebio natus,oppido Stridonis,quod a Gothis
eversum, Dalmatiae quondam Pannoniaeque confinium fuit). Jerome, De viris illustribus, 135.953, in PL,
23:755B.“...there is a sort of drink made of grain and water,and in the provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia
it is called in the local barbarian idiom sabaia” (. . . genus est potionis ex frugibus aquaque confectum,
et vulgo in Dalmatiae Pannoniaeque provinciis gentili barbaroque sermone appellatur sabaium). Jerome,
Commentariorum In Isaiam Prophetam 7.19, in PL, 24:253A. See the examination of Jerome’s regional
identity in Danijel Dzino, Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat: Identity Transformations in Post-Roman and
Early Medieval Dalmatia (Leiden, 2010), 71–73.
9. For example, there is no mention of this in Rice, Saint Jerome.
10. Today, both Orthodox and Catholic churches venerate Sts. Cyril and Methodius as the creators
of the Slavonic letters and as the apostles to the Slavs. In an Apostolic letter,“Egregiae virtutis,” dated 31
December 1980, Pope John Paul II announced Sts. Cyril and Methodius co-patrons of Europe (compatroni
Europae), who since then have shared this honor with St. Benedict.
11. The legend of Jerome’s Slavic alphabet is especially popular in “cyber historiography”—online
history-themed discussion forums. For academic publications that consider Jerome to be the inventor of
a Slavic alphabet, see, for example, E. V. Afanas’eva,“The Ancient Slavonic Translation of the Book of Job
and Its Greek Original,”in Rezume soobshchenii = Summaries of Communications: XVIII Mezhdunarodnyi
Kongress Vizantinistov = International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Moskovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet
im. M. V. Lomonosova, 8–15 avgusta 1991 (Moscow, 1991). The Croatian scholar Marko Japundžić,
who has claimed that the Slavic Glagolitic liturgy and writing originated in Croatia at the time of its baptism
at the turn of the seventh and eighth centuries, also comes very close to accepting the possibility of
Jerome’s authorship of the Glagolitic alphabet. See Marko Japundžić, Hrvatska glagoljica (Zagreb, 1998),
9–34.
Chapter 1
1.Shortly before his death in 869,Constantine took the name of Cyril at his tonsure.He is therefore
usually referred to as St. Cyril.
2. This point of view is shared by most scholars of early Slavic history, although they may not agree
on all the details. The literature on this topic is voluminous and in many languages. In English, some of
the classic and fundamental studies include books by Francis Dvornik, Byzantine Missions among the
Slavs: SS. Constantine-Cyril and Methodius (New Brunswick, NJ, 1970); Alexis P. Vlasto, The Entry of the
Slavs into Christendom: An Introduction to the Medieval History of the Slavs (Cambridge, 1970); Dimitri
Obolensky, Byzantium and the Slavs (Crestwood, NY, 1994); Ihor Ševčenko, Byzantium and the Slavs
in Letters and Culture (Cambridge, MA, 1991); Henry R. Cooper, Jr., Slavic Scriptures: The Formation
of the Church Slavonic Version of the Holy Bible (Madison, WI, 2003); as well as the English translation
from the Greek of Anthony-Emil N. Tachiaos, Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica: The Acculturation of
the Slavs (Crestwood, NY, 2001). Shorter studies may be found in the collection of papers assembled by
the Hellenic Association for Slavic Studies, Thessaloniki Magna Moravia: Proceedings of the International
Conference, Thessaloniki 16–19 October 1997 (Thessaloniki, 1999); and in Slavic Review 23, to name only
a few. Documents related to the mission in Moravia are published in several collections. The most recent
and comprehensive is Dagmar Bartoňková, Lubomír Havlík, Jaroslav Ludvíkovský, Zdeněk Masařík, and
Radoslav Večerka, eds., Magnae Moraviae Fontes Historici, 5 vols. (Prague, 1966–1977). The main sources
of information about the holy brothers are their vitae.The Church Slavonic Life of Constantine was written
in Moravia before 885 (earliest copies are from the fifteenth century). The Church Slavonic Life of Methodius
dates from the late ninth or early tenth century (the earliest copy is from the twelfth century).Francis
Dvornik’s classic study of the legends as historical sources, which analyzes them in the context of ninth-
177
Notes to Pages 12–15
century Byzantium, is still one of the best resources. See Francis Dvornik, Les légendes de Constantin et de
Méthode vues de Byzance, Byzantinoslavica Supplementa l (Prague, 1933). For a more recent discussion,
see Harvey Goldblatt, “History and Hagiography: Recent Studies on the Text and Textual Traditions of
the Life of Constantine,”Harvard Ukrainian Studies 19 (1995–1997): 158–79.An English translation,along
with the Church Slavonic texts and commentaries, is in Marvin Kantor, ed., Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints
and Princes (Ann Arbor, MI, 1983). A Russian translation with an extensive and updated critical commentary
is in B. N. Floria, Skazaniia o nachale slavianskoi pis’mennosti (St. Petersburg, 2004). In addition
to Church Slavonic vitae, the Latin Vita Constantini-Cyrilli cum Translatione S. Clementis, also known as
the Italian Legend, provides additional evidence of Cyril’s life. MMFH, 2:120–33.
3. Although the Franks claimed jurisdiction over Moravia, missionaries from Aquileia, Northern
Italy, and possibly even Ireland also preached in these territories. On the history of conversions in this
region, see Petr Sommer, Dušan Třeštík, and Josef Žemlička (with Zoё Opačić),“Bohemia and Moravia,”
in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’ c. 900–1200,
ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge, 2007), 214–62; Ian Wood, The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation
of Europe, 400–1050 (Harlow, UK, 2001), 145–206, esp. 173–74.
4. MMFH, 3:143–44.
5. Sommer, Třeštík, and Žemlička,“Bohemia and Moravia,” 221–23.
6. Kantor, Lives, 111; MMFH, 2:144.
7. Chapter 3 of the Life of Methodius informs us that Methodius, wearing a black robe, lived as a
monk on Olympus. Discrepancies in sources have caused some confusion in scholarship regarding the
geographical names and locations of the monasteries at which Methodius is thought to have been monk
and abbot. For a recent critique of this issue, see Francis J. Thomson, “Saint Methodius, Apostle to the
Slavs, as Abbot of the Greek Monastery of Polikhron,” in Iter philologicum: Festschrift für Helmut Keipert
zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Daniel Bunčić and Nikolaos Trunte (Munich, 2006), 223–42.
8. On the corpus and description of the Old Church Slavonic manuscripts, see Alexander M.
Schenker, The Dawn of Slavic: An Introduction to Slavic Philology (New Haven, CT, 1995), 185–92; Miloš
Weingart and Josef Kurz, Texty ke studiu jazyka a písmenictví staroslověnského (Prague, 1949). On the
structure and grammar of Old Church Slavonic in English, see, for example, William R. Schmalstieg, An
Introduction to Old Church Slavic (Columbus, OH, 1983); Boris Gasparov, Old Church Slavonic (Munich,
2001); Horace G. Lunt, Old Church Slavonic Grammar (Berlin, 2001).
9. On Church Slavonic variation, see Robert Mathiesen,“The Church Slavonic Language Question:
An Overview (IX–XX Centuries),” in Aspects of the Slavic Language Question, ed. Ricardo Picchio and
Harvey Goldblatt (New Haven, CT, 1984), 1:45–65.
10. Romans 14:11.
11. On the Pentecostal justification of the Slavonic liturgy, the Cyrillo-Methodian mission, and
the beginning of national self-determination among the Slavs, see Roman Jakobson, “The Beginning of
National Self-Determination in Europe,” in SW, 115–28; Ševčenko, Byzantium and the Slavs, 3–15.
12.Acts 2:1–4.
13. Francis Thomson gives examples of the early church fathers who advocated comprehensibility
of the language of worship and the equality of languages in the face of God. Thomson,“SS. Cyril and
Methodius and a Mythical Western Heresy: Trilinguism; A Contribution to the Study of Patristic and
Mediaeval Theories of Sacred Languages,” Analecta Bollandiana 110 (1992): 79.
14. Kiril Petkov, The Voices of Medieval Bulgaria, Seventh–Fifteenth Century: The Records of a Bygone
Culture (Leiden, 2008), 61–64. For the Church Slavonic edition, see Jordan Ivanov, Balgarski starini
iz Makedonija, 2nd ed. (Sofia, 1970), 338–44. Some scholars ascribe this composition to St. Cyril himself.
See Roman Jakobson,“St. Constantine’s Prologue to the Gospels,” in SW, 196–99.
15. On the differences between methods of Western and Eastern missionaries, see Richard Eugene
Sullivan, “Early Medieval Missionary Activity: A Comparative Study of Eastern and Western Methods,”
Church History 23 (1954): 17–35.
16. Opinions on how to interpret the title of this treatise and, therefore define its authorship vary.
Some read the word ühf,h+ (brave) as the personal name of the author. Others view it as an epithet of the
word xhmzjhbpmwm (monk) that was given to the author by a later scribe to characterize his sharp polemical
178
Notes to Pages 15–18
style and argumentativeness as “courage.” It has also been viewed as a pseudonym, and the text has been
ascribed to Constantine-Cyril himself or to Tsar Simeon of Bulgaria, among others. The original composition
is not preserved. William Veder provides a reconstruction of the treatise based on textological
analysis of attested manuscript copies.He argues that the text that is presently known as the Treatise on the
Letters of Monk Khrabr shows traces of two independent compositions: the treatise On the Script and the
treatise On the Letters.Veder dates the original composition to before ca. 919 and believes it to be a work
of anonymous writers. See William R.Veder, Utrum in Alterum Abiturum Erat? A Study of the Beginnings
of Text Transmission in Church Slavic (Bloomington, IN, 1999). For an edition of the Church Slavonic On
the Letters, see Kuio Markov Kuev, Chernorizets Khrabŭr (Sofia, 1967). For the Russian translation of the
treatise with extensive commentary and bibliography, see Floria, Skazaniia, 196–201 and 339–69.
17.Veder, Utrum, 160 and 165.
18. Ibid., 159.
19. This theory has been proposed by Georg Tschernokhvostoff and endorsed by his mentor Valentin
Kiparsky. See Georg Tschernochvostoff,“Zum Ursprung der Glagolica,” Studia Slavica Finlandensia
12 (1995): 141–50; Valentin Kiparsky,“Tschernochvostoffs Theorie über den Ursprung des glagolitischen
Alfabets,” in Cyrillo-Methodiana: Zur Frühgeschichte des Christentums bei den Slaven, 863–1963, ed. Manfred
Hellmann (Cologne, 1964), 393–400. It has recently been elaborated by Boris Uspenskii. See “O
proiskhozhdenii glagolitsy,” Voprosy iazykoznaniia 1 (2005): 63–77.
20. For some recent studies that summarize previous scholarship on this matter and offer new
ideas, see Olga B. Strakhov,“The Adventure of the Dancing Men: Professor Ševčenko’s Theory on the Origin
of Glagolitic,” Palaeoslavica 19 (2011): 1–45; T. A. Ivanova, “Glagolitsa: Novye gipotezy,” TODRL 56
(2004): 78–93; Olivier Azam,“L’histoire controversée de la naissance du premier alphabet slave,” Slavica
Occitania 12 (2001): 49–91; Vojtěch Tkadlčík, “Über den Ursprung der Glagolica,” in Glagolitica, 9–32;
Horace Lunt, “Thoughts, Suggestions, and Questions about the Earliest Slavic Writing Systems,” Wiener
Slavistisches Jahrbuch 46 (2000): 271–86.
21. Dmitro Čyževs’kyj, “K otázce v původu slovanského písma,” in Slovanské studie: Sbírka statí,
věnovaných J. Vajsovi, ed. Josef Kurz (Prague, 1948), 52–57.
22.Wilhelm Lettenbauer,“Zur Entstehung des glagolitischen Alphabets,” Slovo 3 (1953): 35–50.
23. G. M. Prokhorov, “Glagolitsa sredi missionerskikh azbuk,” TODRL 45 (1991): 178–99; V. M.
Lur’e,“Okolo Solunskoi legendy: Iz istorii missionerstva v period monofelitskoi unii.” Slaviane i ikh sosedi
6 (1996): 23–52.
24. Japundžić, Hrvatska glagoljica, 9–34.
25. For a critical analysis of these theories see Radoslav Katičić, “Uz pitanje o postanku i starosti
glagoljice,” Croatica 42–44 (1995–1996): 185–98.
26. Lunt,“Thoughts, Suggestions,” esp. 275 and 284.
27. Ivan Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary to Hugh’s ‘Didascalicon’ (Chicago, 1993),
70–71.
28. Prokhorov,“Glagolitsa sredi missionerskikh azbuk.”
29.Andrzej Poppe,“Is kurilotsь i is kurilovitsь,” International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics
31–32 (1986): 324–25.
30. Apart from numerous medieval icons, the scrolls with Cyrillic letters may also be seen in contemporary
sculpture monuments to Cyril and Methodius,such as a monument in front of the Saints Cyril
and Methodius National Library in Sofia and a monument in Pazardjik (Bulgaria),a monument in Odessa
(Ukraine), in the Kolomna Kremlin (Russia), and in Radhošt (Czech Republic), to name only a few.
31. See, for example, A. V. Mikhailov, K voprosu o literaturnom nasledii Sv. Kirilla i Mefodiia v
glagolicheskikh khorvatskikh missalakh i breviariiakh: Iz istorii izucheniia drevneslavianskogo perevoda
Knigi Bytiia proroka Moiseia (Warsaw, 1904); Anatolii A. Alekseev,“K opredeleniiu ob”ema literaturnogo
naslediia Mefodiia (Chetii perevod Pesni pesnei),” TODRL 37 (1983): 229–55; Alekseev,“Filologicheskie
kriterii vyiavleniia bibleiskikh perevodov sv. Mefodiia,” Polata knigopisnaja 14–15 (1985): 8–14; Francis
J. Thomson, “The Slavonic Translation of the Old Testament,” in Bible, 605–920, esp. 638–46; Thomson,
“Has the Cyrillomethodian Translation of the Bible Survived?,” in Thessaloniki, 149–64; Biserka Grabar,
“Ćirilometodski i staroslavenski prijevodi u hrvatskoglagoljskim prijepisima,” Slovo 36 (1986): 87–94;
179
Notes to Pages 18–21
Henry R. Cooper, “The Origins of the Church Slavonic Version of the Bible,” in Bible, 959–72; Cooper,
Slavic Scriptures, 24–79; Marcello Garzaniti, Die altslavische Version der Evangelien: Forschungsgeschichte
und zeitgenössische Forschung (Cologne, 2001).
32. For an overview of the preserved liturgical texts and a discussion of key questions and challenges
that scholars face, see Antonín Dostál,“Origins of the Slavonic Liturgy,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers
19 (1965): 67–87.
33. Josef Vašica, “Slovanská liturgie sv. Petra,” Byzantinoslavica 8 (1939–1940): 1–54; Vašica,
“Slovanská liturgie nově osvětlená Kijevskými listy,” Slovo a slovesnost 6 (1940): 65–77.
34. Dmitro Čyževs’kyj, “K voprosu o liturgii sv. Petra,” Slovo (1953): 37–41; Dostál, “Origins,” 77;
Vojtěch Tkadlčík,“Byzantinischer und römischer Ritus in der slavischen Liturgie,”in Wegzeichen: Festgabe
zum 60. Geburtstag von Prof. Dr. Hermenegild M. Biedermann, OSA,ed.Coelestin Patock and Ernst Christoph
Suttner (Würzburg, 1971), 313–32. Josef Laurenčík, “K otázce slovanské liturgie sv. Petra,” in Studia
palaeoslovenica, ed. Bohuslav Havránek (Prague, 1971), 201–14; František Václav Mareš,“Slovanská liturgie
sv. Petra,” in Cyrilometodějská tradice a slavistika (Prague, 2000), 166–87.
35. František Václav Mareš, “Význam staroslověnských rukopisů nově objevených na hoře Sinaj,”
in Cyrilometodějská tradice a slavistika (Prague, 2000), 207–8. Dostál (“Origins,” 80–84) has also hypothesized
that the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom was the first Slavonic liturgy introduced by Cyril and Methodius
in Moravia.
36. See, for example, Henrik Birnbaum, “Eastern and Western Components in the Earliest Slavic
Liturgy,” in Essays in Early Slavic Civilization (Munich, 1981), 36–51; Tkadlčík, “Byzantinischer und römischer
Ritus,” 313–32 (Tkadlčík argues that the Slavic apostles brought the Byzantine rite to Moravia,
and only there allowed Roman and Frankish elements to be incorporated gradually into their texts and
rituals, especially after a visit to Rome in 869); Marija Pantelić,“O Kijevskim i Sinajskim listićima,” Slovo
35 (1985): 5–56. Pantelić argues that the Kiev Folia represent the oldest Slavonic liturgical text, which
records a part of the Gregorian Sacramentary and reveals terminology of the Eastern Church, while the
Sinai Folia document the Eastern liturgy with interpolated Western prayers.
37. Thomson, “The Slavonic Translation”; Cooper, “The Origins,” and Slavic Scriptures, 24–79;
Grabar,“Ćirilometodski i staroslavenski prijevodi.”
38. The Life of Constantine, chapter 17 (MMFH, 2:110); the Life of Methodius, chapter 6 (MMFH,
2:146); the letter “Industriae tuae” or “Dilecto filio Sfentopulcho glorioso comiti” (To beloved Svatopluk,
glorious ruler), June 880 (MMFH, 3:207–8). Henry Cooper, however, has suggested that the references
to the Slavonic biblical translations in the saints’ vitae are literary topoi used to enhance the holiness of
biblical translations that were completed later in Bulgaria. Cooper,“The Origins,” 965–71.
39. The Life of Constantine, chapter 17, MMFH, 2:110–11.
40.On the politics of the papacy concerning Slavic dioceses,see a new analysis by Maddalena Betti,
The Making of Christian Moravia (858–882): Papal Power and Political Reality (Leiden, 2014).
41. The letter “Commonitorium Dominico episcopo Iohanni et Stefano presbyteris euntibus ad
Sclavos” (The reminder to Bishop Dominic and presbyters John and Stephen on their journey to the
Slavs), MMFH, 3:226–29.
42. In about half of the attested copies of the Life of Constantine, a variant is pisanię,“writings.” The
Life of Constantine, chapter 15, MMFH, 2:102.
43.“lmædjk+6 zt nthgå ctuj lj,hf6 z+ ditl+ d+ cdjæ c+cel¥6 zfxån+ vzju¥ d+pldbpfnb6
ukfujkå­bv+Ω zt ckfdbncå ,ju+ j ctv+7 fot ,j ,¥ tve cbwt eujlzj ,¥kj6 zt ,¥ kb vjuk+ cndjhbnb6lf
,¥if bcgthdf gbcvtz¥ gbi.ot ,tcäl¥ cdjå6 ckfdbkb ,juf? zj nhb æp¥r¥ e,j tcnm njrvj
(bp,hfk+) tdhäbcr+6 uhtxtcr+ b kfnbzmcr¥b6 bvböt ljcnjbnm ckfde ,jue d+plfænb7 ,äif öt ct
ukfujk.ot kfnbzmcn⁄b b ahåötcnbb fhübthäb c+ bthäb b extzbwb.” The Life of Constantine, chapter
15, MMFH, 2:102–3.
44. Analyzing the text of the Life of Constantine, Floria substantiates the assumption made by E.
Golubinskii and I. Malyshevskii that the initial object of Cyril and Methodius’s expedition was the consecration
of their disciples by the patriarch of Grado, and that a special Synod met in Venice to decide
this case. See Floria, Skazaniia, 256–58, 260–61. Other proposed destinations for Cyril and Methodius’s
expedition include Rome, Constantinople, and Aquilea. See MMFH, 2:104.
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Notes to Pages 21–24
45.“D+ zånwäü+ öt ,¥dmie tve6 cj,hfifcå zf zm kfnbzmcn⁄b tgbcrjgb b gjgjdä b xthzjhbcwb
ærj dhfzb zf cjrjk+6 b d+pldbujif nhbåp¥xze. thtcm6 ukfujk.otΩ (xkjdäxt)6 crföb zfv+6 rfrj n¥ tcb
z¥zä cndjhbk+ ckjdäzjv+ rzbu¥6 b exbi⁄ f6 büöt zäcnm zbrnjöt bz+ gthdät j,häk+6 zb fgjcnjk+6 zb
hbvmcr¥b gfgtöm6 zb atjkju+ uhbujh⁄b6 zb bthjzbv+6 zb fduecnbz+? v¥ öt nhb æp¥r¥ njrvj däv+6
bvböt ljcnjbnm d+ rzbufü+ ckfdbnb ,juf6 tdhäbcr¥6 tkkbzmcr¥6 kfnbzmcr¥.” The Life of Constantine,
chapter 16, MMFH, 2:105–6.
46. The Life of Constantine, chapter 16, cf. MMFH, 2:105 (písmena), Kantor, Lives, 71 (letters), and
Floria, Skazaniia, 170 (pis’mena).
47. The most famous example is the Freising Fragments, recently published again in France Bernik
et al., eds., Brižinski spomeniki: Monumenta Frisingensia; Znanstvenokritična izdaja (Ljubljana, 2004).
48. Thomson,“SS. Cyril and Methodius,” 67–121.
49. The Life of Constantine, chapter 14, MMFH, 2:99–100.
50.The sources show some variation in the description of these events.The Life of Constantine relates
that the pope put the Slavonic books in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore and sanctified them. Then he
ordered bishops Formosus and Gauderic to ordain Cyril and Methodius’s disciples. The ordination was accompanied
by a service in Slavonic at St.Peter’s.For several days afterward,the liturgy was celebrated in Slavonic
in various churches of Rome. The Life of Constantine, chapter 17, MMFH, 2:110–11. One of the copies
of the Italian Legend relates that Hadrian II consecrated Methodius as bishop, while others mention only a
priestly office: Vita Constantini-Cyrilli cum translatione S. Clementis,MMFH,2:130.In the Life of Methodius,
the pope called Cyril’s opponents“gbkfn+zs b nhm•psxmzbrs” (Pilatists and trilinguists) and condemned
them. He also put the Slavonic Gospel on the altar at St. Peter’s and consecrated Methodius. Later, at the
requests of Prince Kocel of Pannonia and Rostislav of Moravia, the pope consecrated Methodius as archbishop
of Sirmium and Moravia. Zhitie Mefodiia, MMFH, 2:146–54. There is a dispute among scholars
regarding the nature and geography of Methodius’s office as archbishop. See Imre Boba,“The Episcopacy of
St. Methodius,” Slavic Review 26 (1967): 85–93; Henrik Birnbaum,“Where was the Missionary Field of SS.
Cyril and Methodius?,” in Thessaloniki, 47–52; Birnbaum,“Some Remaining Puzzles in Cyrillo-Methodian
Studies,” Slovo 47–49 (1997–1999): 15–23; Martin Eggers,“The Historical-Geographical Implications of the
Cyrillo-Methodian Mission among the Slavs,” in Thessaloniki, 65–86; Eggers, Das Erzbistum des Method:
Lage, Wirkung und Nachleben der kyrillo-methodianischen Mission (Munich, 1996); Horace G. Lunt,“Cyril
and Methodius with Rastislav Prince of Moravia: Where Were They?,” in Thessaloniki, 87–112.
51. “Igitur hunc Methodium venerabilem archiepiscopum vestrum interrogavimus corampositis
fratribus nostris episcopis, si orthodoxę fidei symbolum ita crederet et inter sacra missarum sollempnia
caneret, sicuti sanctam Romanam ecclesiam tenere et in sanctis sex universalibus synodis a sanctis patribus
secundum evangelicam Christi Dei nostri auctoritatem promulgatum atque traditum constat. Ille
autem professus est se iuxta evangelicam et apostolicam doctrinam, sicuti sancta Romana ecclesia docet
et a patribus traditum est, tenere et psallere. Nos autem illum in omnibus ecclesiasticis doctrinis et utilitatibus
orthodoxum et proficuum esse repperientes vobis iterum ad regendam commissam sibi ecclesiam
Dei remisimus.” The letter“Industriae tuae,” MMFH, 3:203–4.
52. The dispute concerned a disagreement regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit. The Eastern
Church refused to recognize the dogma of the double Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the
Son, believing that it proceeds only from the Father. This important theological difference was expressed in
the Nicene Creed by adding filioque,“and from the Son,” to the original phrase “et in Spiritum Sanctum . . .
qui ex Patre procedit” (and in the Holy Spirit . . . , which proceeds from the Father). During the apostolate of
John VIII, in the Roman practice, the Symbolum fidei did not yet contain the addition filioque. Methodius
followed the same practice of not including the addition filioque, whereas the Frankish Church included it.
See the letter of John VIII,“Industriae tuae,” MMFH, 3:203. The theological dispute about the nature of the
Holy Spirit is also apparent in Pope Stephen V’s letters. See the letter“Stephanus episcopus servus servorum
Dei Zventopolco regi Sclavorum” (Bishop Stephen, the Servant of God’s Servants to Svatopluk, the King of
the Slavs), MMFH, 3:220–21, and the letter“Commonitorium Dominico episcopo,” 228.
53. New King James Bible, Ps 117:1; Vulgate Bible, Ps 116:1. This English translation keeps the distinction
between the populi = Jews and the gentes = all other peoples,made by Jerome in his Latin translation
from the Hebrew:“Alleluia laudate Dominum omnes gentes laudate eum omnes populi.”
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Notes to Pages 24–27
54.“Litteras denique Sclaviniscas a Costantino quondam philosopho reppertas, quibus Deo laudes
debite resonent, iure laudamus et in eadem lingua Christi domini nostri preconia et opera enarrentur,
iubemus. Neque enim tribus tantum, sed omnibus linguis Dominum laudare auctoritate sacra monemur,
quę pręcipit dicens: ‘Laudate Dominum omnes gentes et collaudate eum omnes populi.’ [. . .] Nec sane
fidei vel doctrinę aliquid obstat sive missas in eadem Sclavinica lingua canere sive sacrum evangelium vel
lectiones divinas novi et veteris testamenti bene translatas et interpretatas legere aut alia horarum officia
omnia psallere, quoniam, qui fecit tres linguas principales, Hebream scilicet, Grecam et Latinam, ipse
creavit et alias omnes ad laudem et gloriam suam. Iubemus tamen, ut in omnibus ecclesiis terrę vestrę
propter maiorem honorificentiam evangelium Latine legatur et postmodum Sclavinica lingua translatum
in auribus populi Latina verba non intellegentis adnuntietur, sicut in quibusdam ecclesiis fieri videtur.”
The letter“Dilecto filio Sfentopulcho glorioso comiti,” MMFH, 3:207–8.
55.“Successorem, quem Methodius sibimet contra omnium sanctorum patrum statuta constituere
praesumpsit, ne ministret, nostra apostolica auctoritate interdicite, donec suam nobis praesentiam exhibeat
et causam suam viva voce exponat.”The letter“Commonitorium Dominico episcopo,” MMFH,3:229.
56. Paul J. Alexander,“The Papacy, the Bavarian Clergy, and the Slavonic Apostles,” Slavonic YearBook,
American Series 1 (1941): 266–93; Josip Bratulić,“Rimska Kurija i misija Konstantina-Ćirila i Methodija,”
Slovo 36 (1986): 45–50.
57. Dmitro Čyževs’kyj,“Der hl. Method—Organisator, Missionar, Politiker und Dichter,” in Methodiana:
Beiträge zur Zeit und Persönlichkeit sowie zum Schicksal und Werk des hl. Method, ed. Franz Zagiba,
Annales Instituti Slavici Salisburgo-Ratisbonensis 9 (Vienna, 1976), 7–21.
58. Ihor Ševčenko,“Three Paradoxes of the Cyrillo-Methodian Mission,” Slavic Review 23 (1964):
220–36.
59. For an English translation of major sources, supplemented with commentary, see Marvin Kantor,
ed., The Origins of Christianity in Bohemia: Sources and Commentary (Evanston, IL, 1990).
60. MMFH, 2:186–99. For a revised Latin edition, see Jaroslav Ludvíkovský, Kristiánova legenda:
Život a umučení svatého Václava a jeho báby svaté Ludmily (Prague, 1978). Christian’s composition is
dated to 992–994 but its authenticity is still debated in Czech scholarship. Its dedicatory note is addressed
to the second bishop of Prague St. Adalbert, hence the date. However, its peculiar chronicle-like narrative,
which stands out among other documents from that period, as well as its idiosyncratic ideological
agenda, make some scholars doubt the text’s authenticity and suggest a later date. Some of the key works
from an extensive list of publications on this issue are Josef Pekař, Nejstarší kronika česká ku kritice legend
o sv. Ludmile, sv. Václavu a sv. Prokopu (Prague, 1903); Pekař, Die Wenzels- und Ludmila-legenden
und die Echtheit Christians (Prague, 1906); Václav Chaloupecký, ed., Svatováclavský sborník, vol. 2, part
2, Prameny 10. století: Legendy kristiánovy o Svatém Václavu a Svaté Ludmile (Prague, 1939); Záviš Kalandra,
České pohanství (Prague, 1947); Rudolf Urbánek, Legenda t. zv. Kristiána ve vývoji předhusitských
legend ludmilských i václavských a její autor (Prague, 1947–1948); Zdeněk Fiala, Hlavní pramen legendy
Kristiánovy (Prague, 1974); Dušan Třeštík,“Deset tezí o Kristiánově legendě,” Folia Historica Bohemica 2
(1980): 7–38; Herman Kølln, Die Wenzelslegende des Mönchs Christian, Historisk-filosofiske Meddelelser
73 (Copenhagen, 1996). Recent publications pro and contra the early dating provide a review of existing
literature on the subject. Pro: David Kalhous, Anatomy of a Duchy: The Political and Ecclesiastical Structures
of Early Přemyslid Bohemia (Leiden, 2012); Kalhous,“Christian und Grossmähren,” in Die frühmittelalterliche
Elite bei den Völkern des östlichen Mitteleuropas, ed. Pavel Kouřil (Brno, 2005), 25–33; Josef
Šrámek, “Osobnost procházející dějinami, stále záhadný Kristián,” Studia Theologica 1 (2008): 32–40.
Contra: Petr Kubín,“Znovu o Kristiána,”in Od knížat ke králům: Sborník u příležitosti 60. narozenin Josefa
Žemličky, ed. Eva Doležalová and Robert Šimůnek (Prague, 2007), 63–72.
61. Ludvíkovský, Kristiánova legenda, 16–24. On the cult of St. Ludmila, see Petr Kubín, Sedm
přemyslovských kultů (Prague,2011),81–123.For more information on the early period of Bohemian Christianity
and its connection to Great Moravia, see Sommer, Třeštík, and Žemlička,“Bohemia and Moravia.”
62. According to legend, St. Wenceslas—a devoted Christian—was murdered by his brother
Boleslav on his way to church. The popularity of St. Wenceslas’s cult in Bohemia is documented by a
remarkable number of hagiographic works. Secondary literature is voluminous; see, for example, Pekař,
Die Wenzels- und Ludmila-legenden; František Graus, “St. Adalbert und St. Wenzel: Zur Funktion der
182
Notes to Pages 27–29
mittelalterlichen Heiligenverehrung in Böhmen,” in Europa Slavica, Europa Orientalis: Festschrift für
Herbert Ludat zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Klaus-Detlev Grothusen and Klaus Zernack (Berlin, 1980), 205–
31; Rudolf Turek,“Svatý Václav,” in Bohemia Sancta, ed. Jaroslav Kadlec (Prague, 1989), 53–71; Kantor,
The Origins, 1–47; Dušan Třeštík, “Translace a kanonizace svatého Václava Boleslavem I.,” in Světci a
jejich kult ve středověku, ed. Petr Kubín, Hana Pátková, and Tomáš Petráček (České Budějovice, 2006),
325–44; Marie Bláhová,“The Function of the Saints in Early Bohemian Historical Writing,”in The Making
of Christian Myths in the Periphery of Latin Christendom (c. 1000–1300), ed. Lars Boje Mortensen
(Copenhagen, 2006), 83–119; Kubín, Sedm přemyslovských kultů, 125–50; Kalhous, Anatomy, 237–62.
63. Sommer, Třeštík, and Žemlička,“Bohemia and Moravia,” 229–31.
64. František Graus, “Slovanská liturgie a písemnictví v přemyslovských Čechách 10. století,”
Československý časopis historický 14 (1966): 473–95; Radoslav Večerka, “Velkomoravská literatura v
přemyslovských Čechách,” Slavia 32 (1963): 398–416; Večerka, “Jazykovědný příspěvek k problematice
staroslověnského písemnictví v Čechách X. a XI. století,” Slavia 36 (1967): 421–28; Václav Konzal,“Církevněslovanská
literatura—slepá ulička na prahu české kultury,” in Speculum medii aevi: Zrcadlo
středověku, ed. Lenka Jiroušková (Prague, 1998), 150–62; Dušan Třeštík,“Slovanská liturgie a písemnictví
v Čechách 10. století: Představy a skutečnost,” in Svatý Prokop, Čechy a Střední Evropa, ed. Petr Sommer
(Prague, 2006), 189–218; Sommer, Třeštík, and Žemlička, “Bohemia and Moravia,” 233–34; David Kalhous,“Slovanské
písemnictví a liturgie 10. a 11. věku,” Český časopis historický 108 (2010): 1–33; Kalhous,
Anatomy, 208–37.
65. Sommer, Třeštík, and Žemlička,“Bohemia and Moravia,” 229.
66. On St. Procopius and the sources on the Sázava Monastery, see Kubín, Sedm přemyslovských
kultů, 219–55; Petr Sommer,“Svatý Prokop a jeho kult ve středověku,” in Světci a jejich kult ve středověku,
ed. Petr Kubín, Hana Pátková, and Tomáš Petráček (České Budějovice, 2006), 261–81; Vladimír Ondáš,
“Byl svatý Prokop basilián nebo benediktin?,”in Kubín et al.,Světci a jejich kult ve středověku,211–19; Petr
Sommer, Svatý Prokop: Z počátků českého státu a církve (Prague, 2007); Petr Sommer, ed., Svatý Prokop,
Čechy a Střední Evropa (Prague, 2006); Jaroslav Kadlec and Horní Cerekev, “Das Kloster des hl. Prokop
an der Sasau,” and “Der heilige Prokop,” in Tausend Jahre Benediktiner in den Klöstern Břevnov, Braunau
und Rohr, ed. Johannes Hofmann (St. Ottilien, 1993), 297–307 and 309–24.
67. Miloš Weingart, Československý typ cirkevnej slovančiny (Bratislava, 1949); Josip Vrana,“Praški
glagoljski odlomci kao svjedok neprekidne ćirilometodske tradicije u Češkoj do kraja XI stoljeća,” Slavia
39 (1970): 238–49; Emilie Bláhová, Václav Konzal, and A. I. Rogov, Staroslověnské legendy českého
původu (Prague, 1976); František Václav Mareš, An Anthology of Church Slavonic Texts of Western (Czech)
Origin: With an Outline of Czech-Church Slavonic Language and Literature and with a Selected Bibliography
(Munich, 1979); Mareš, “Místo českocírkevněslovanského písemnictví v dějinách literatur,” in
Cyrilometodějská tradice a slavistika (Prague, 2000), 268–327; Francis J. Thomson, “A Survey of the Vitae
Allegedly Translated from Latin in Slavonic in Bohemia in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” in
Atti del VIII Congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto Medioevo (Spoleto, 1983), 331–48; Zoë Hauptová,
“Církevněslovanské písemnictví v přemyslovských Čechách,” in Jazyk a literatura v historické perspektivě
(Ustí nad Labem, 1998), 5–42; Emilie Bláhová,“Literární vztahy Sázavy a Kyjevské Rusi,” in Svatý Prokop,
Čechy a Střední Evropa, ed. Petr Sommer (Prague, 2006), 219–34; Miroslav Vepřek, Česká redakce církevní
slovanštiny z hlediska lexikílní analýzy (Olomouc, 2006); František Čajka, Církevněslovanská legenda o
svaté Anastázii (Prague, 2011).
68. Konzal,“Církevněslovanská literatura,” 153–54.
69. For more or less recent synthetic analyses of this problem and reference to literature, see
Przemysław Urbańczyk and Stanisław Rosik,“The Kingdom of Poland,” in Christianization and the Rise of
Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus’c. 900–1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge, 2007),
263–300; Andrzej Gil, Prawosławna eparchia chełmska do 1596 roku (Lublin, 1999), 47–48; Hanna Toby,“O
źródłach tradycji cerkiewnosłowiańskiej w Polsce,” in Dutch Contributions to the Twelfth International
Congress of Slavists, Cracow, August 26–September 3, 1988; Linguistics, ed.A.A. Barentsen, Studies in Slavic
and General Linguistics 24 (Amsterdam, 1998), 391–428; Stanisław Szczur,“Misja cyrylo-metodiańska
w świetle najnowszych badań,” in Chrystianizacja Polski południowej: Materiały sesji naukowej odbytej 29
czerwca 1993 roku (Cracow, 1994), 7–23; Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs, 113–42.
183
Notes to Pages 29–30
70. For studies in English, see Karolina Lanckorońska, Studies on the Roman-Slavonic Rite in Poland
(Rome, 1961) and Henryk Paszkiewicz, “A Polish Metropolitan See of the Slavonic Rite,” in The
Origin of Russia (London, 1954), 381–404. Studies in Polish include Józef Umański, Obrządek słowiański
w Polsce IX–XI wieku i zagadnienie drugiej metropolii polskiej w czasach Bolesława Chrobrego, Roczniki
Humanistyczne Towarzystwa Naukowego Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego 4 (Lublin, 1957), 1–44;
Henryk Łowmiański, Początki Polski, 6 vols. (Warsaw, 1963–1985), 4:299–532. The most recent attempt to
prove the continuation of the Slavonic rite in Poland is a three-volume publication in Polish by Zbigniew
Dobrzyński, Obrządek słowiański w dawnej Polsce (Warsaw, 1989). Among determined advocates of the
Slavonic rite in Poland is A. V. Lipatov, whose views have been put forward in at least three publications
that, in the most uncompromising fashion, claim the operation of the Cyrillo-Methodian mission and the
Slavonic rite in Poland. See A.V. Lipatov,“Kirillo-mefodievskaia traditsiia, istoki pol’skoi literatury i problemy
slavianskoi vzaimnosti (o vzaimodeistvii latinskogo Zapada i vizantiiskogo Vostoka,” Seriia literatury
i iazyka 45–46 (1995): 34–46; Lipatov,“Vzaimodeistvie latinskogo Zapada i vizantiiskogo Vostoka: Kirillomefodievskaia
traditsiia, istoki pol’skoi literatury i problemy slavianskoi vzaimnosti,” Palaeobulgarica 17
(1993): 67–80; Lipatov, “Kirillo-mefodievskaia traditsiia i istoki pol’skoi literatury. (Vzaimodeistvie
latinskogo Zapada i vizantiiskogo Vostoka),” in Bolgarskaia kul’tura v vekakh: Tezisy dokladov nauchnoi
konferentsii, Moskva 26–27 maia 1992 g., ed. Evgeniia I. Demina (Moscow, 1992), 14–15.
71. “Gjufzmcr+ rzåpm6 cbkmz+ dêkmvb6 cälå d+ dbckä6 heufiêcå rhmc(nb)æzjv+ b gfrfcnb
läæiê7 gjc+kfd+ öê r+ zêve hêxêΩ lj,hj nb cå rh(m)cnb(nb)6 c(¥)ze6 djkê. cdjê. zf cdj«b pêvkb6 lf
zê gkäzêz+ zelmvb rhmoêz+ ,elêib zf x.öêb pêvkb6 b gjvåzêib vå6 «öê b ,¥cn(m).” MMFH, 2:156.
72. Lanckorońska, Studies, 18–20. Lanckorońska credits Fr. Stjepan Sakač for this idea.
73.Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński repeatedly dismissed all attempts to situate the Cyrillo-Methodian mission
in the Polish lands in a number of publications, collected in his Od piętnastu wieków (966–1966):
Szkice z pradziejów i dziejów kultury polskiej (Warsaw,1961):“Przyczynki krytyczne do dziejów dawnych
Wiślan,” 35–41; “Czy są ślady istnienia liturgii cyrylo-metodejskiej w dawnej Polsce?,” 42–50 (originally
published in Slavia 25 [1956]: 290–99); “Nowa faza diskusji o zagadnieniu liturgii słowiańskiej
w dawnej Polsce,” 51–67 (originally published in 1958); “Pierwszy chrzest Polski,” 68–75 (originally
published in 1960); “Dookoła obrządku słowiańskiego w dawnej Polsce,” 76–81 (originally published
in 1961). See also Józef Szymański,“Czy w Polsce istniał obrządek rzymsko-słowiański,” Zeszyty Naukowe
KUL 6 (1963): 41–56; Andrzej Vincenz,“Krytyczna analiza dokumentów dotyczących kontaktów
Polski z misją cyrylometodiańską,” in Zeszyty, 69–78, and the English version,Vincenz,“The Moravian
Mission in Poland Revisited,” in Okeanos: Essays Presented to Ihor Ševčenko on His Sixtieth Birthday by
His Colleagues and Students, ed. Cyril A. Mango, Omeljian Pritsak, and Uliana M. Pasicznyk, Harvard
Ukrainian Studies 7 (Cambridge, MA, 1983), 639–54. One of the most comprehensive critical analyses
has been offered by Gerard Labuda, “O obrządku słowiańskim w Polsce południowej, czyli Kraków
biskupi przed rokiem 1000,” in Studia nad początkami państwa polskiego, 2 vols. (Poznań, 1988), 2:83–
166. Most recently, the theories about the Cyrillo-Methodian Slavonic rite in Poland were again critically
examined by Toby,“O źródłach.”
74. See Lehr-Spławiński, “Czy są ślady istnienia,” 294; Toby, “O źródłach,” 403. The Polish Wiślica
Calendar of saints dates from before 1430, likely from the end of the fourteenth century. See Jerzy Zathey,
“O kilku przepadłych zabytkach rękopiśmiennych Biblioteki Narodowej w Warszawie,” in Studia z
dziejów kultury polskiej, ed. Henryk Barycz and Jan Hulewicz (Warsaw, 1949), 73–86.
75.See,for example,the works of Maria Karpluk,“Traces of the Slavonic Rite in Poland,”in Proceedings
of the Thirteenth International Congress of Onomastic Sciences, Cracow, August 21–25, 1978, ed. Kazimierz
Rymut (Wrocław, 1981), 1:593–98; Karpluk,“Imiona apostołów i ewangelistów jako świadectwo
oddziaływania liturgii słowiańskiej w Polsce,” in Zeszyty, 63–68; Karpluk, “Słownictwo cerkiewne w
polszczyźnie XVI wieku: Wybór przykładów,” in Chrześcijański Wschód a kultura polska, ed. Ryszard
Łużny (Lublin, 1989), 127–47; Janusz Siatkowski, “O cerkiewizmach w naistarszej polskiej terminologii
chrześcijańskiej,” in Zeszyty, 97–105.
76. Lehr-Spławiński,“Dookoła obrządku słowiańskiego,” 81; Stanisław Urbańczyk,“Rola Wielkich
Moraw i Czech w kulturze Polski średniowiecznej,” in Prace z dziejów języka polskiego (Wrocław, 1979),
63–74; Toby,“O źródłach,” 417–18.
184
Notes to Pages 30–37
77. For a general survey of and literature about this song, see Teresa Michałowska, Średniowiecze
(Warsaw, 2002), 278–93, 805–6.
78. Stanisław Urbańczyk, “Bogurodzica: Problemy czasu powstania i tła kulturalnego,” in Prace
z dziejów języka polskiego (Wrocław, 1979), 113–48; Jerzy Woronczak, ed., Bogurodzica, introd. by
Ewa Ostrowska, music commentary by Hieronim Feicht, Biblioteka pisarzów polskich, Seria A. Liryka
Średniowieczna 1 (Wrocław, 1962), 7–25; Tadeusz Lehr-Spławiński,“Uwagi o języku Bogurodzicy,” in Od
piętnastu wieków, 129–44.
79. Bohuslav Havránek,“Otázka existence církevní slovanštiny v Polsku,” Slavia 25 (1956): 300–
305.
80. Urbańczyk,“Bogurodzica,” 127–48; Michałowska, Średniowiecze, 287–93.
81. Helena Zoll-Adamik, “Formy konwersji Słowiańszczyzny wczesnośredniowiecznej a problem
przedpiastowskiej chrystianizacji Małopolski,” Sprawozdania z Posiedzeń Komisji Naukowych PAN,
Oddział w Krakowie 37, no. 2 (1993): 1–3; and in Chrystianizacja Polski południowej: Materiały z sesji
naukowej odbytej 29 czerwca 1993 roku (Cracow, 1994), 31–40; Toby,“O źródłach,” 404–5.
82. The principal source of the events following the death of Methodius is the Life of St. Clement,
which is usually ascribed to Archbishop Theophylactus of Ohrid (1050–1126) and which was likely based
on an earlier version. See Aleksandŭr Milev, ed., Teofilakt Ohridski: Zhitie na Kliment Ohridski; Tekst,
prevod, uvod, i obiasneniia (Sofia, 1955).
83. On different theories of the spread of Cyrillic and its initial coexistence with Glagolitic, see S.
Iu. Temchin,“O razvitii pis’mennoi kul’tury Vostochnoi Bolgarii do 971 goda,” in Issledovaniia po kirillomefodievistike
i paleoslavistike, Krakowsko-Wileńskie Studia Slawistyczne 5 (Cracow, 2010): 53–70; Tatjana
Slavova,“Glagolicheskata traditsiia i preslavskata knizhnina,”Palaeobulgarica 23 (1999): 35–46; Peter
Schreiner, “Grecheskii iazyk i kirillitsa na territorii Bolgarii,” Kirilo-Metodievski studii 4 (1987): 274–82;
George C. Soulis, “The Legacy of Cyril and Methodius to the Southern Slavs,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers
19 (1965): 19–43; G. A. Il’inskii,“Gde, kogda, kem i s kakoiu tsel’iu glagolitsa byla zamenena ‘kirillitsei’?”
Byzantinoslavica 3 (1931): 79–88.
84. Ševčenko,“Three Paradoxes,” 224.
85. See William R.Veder,“Glagolitic Books in Rus’,” in Dubitando: Studies in History and Culture in
Honor of Donald Ostrowski, ed. Brian J. Boeck et al. (Bloomington, IN, 2012), 315–34.
Chapter 2
1. Petrisov zbornik (1468), NSK, R 4001, fol. 210v.
2. Ivan Ostojić, Benediktinci u Hrvatskoj i ostalim našim krajevima, vol. 1, Opći povijesno-kulturni
osvrt (Split, 1963), 82; John V. A. Fine, The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the
Late Twelfth Century (Ann Arbor, MI, 1983), 33–41; Florin Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages,
500–1250 (Cambridge, 2006), 70–110.
3.Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs, 187–207; Franjo Šanjek, Crkva i kršćanstvo u Hrvata: Srednji vijek,
2nd ed. (Zagreb, 1993), 46–53.
4. Dvornik, Byzantine Missions, 116–46.
5. Šanjek, Crkva i kršćanstvo, 50–52; Šanjek,“Church and Christianity,” in Croatia, 2:219.
6.Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs, 190.
7. Ivanka Petrović, “Prvi susreti Hrvata s ćirilometodskim izvorištem svoje srednjovjekovne kulture,”
Slovo 38 (1988): 5–54.
8. For a detailed discussion of the probable routes of Glagolitic to Croatia and a summary of literature
on this subject, see Henrik Birnbaum,“How Did Glagolitic Writing Reach the Coastal Regions of
Northwestern Croatia?” Hercigonjin zbornik, Croatica 42–44 (1996): 67–79.
9. Eduard Hercigonja,“Glagolists and Glagolism,” in Croatia, 1:369–98, esp. 379–80.
10. Šanjek,“Church and Christianity,” 221.
11.Vjekoslav Štefanić,“Nazivi glagoljskog pisma,” Slovo 25–26 (1976): 17–76.
12. These and other sources on the Church Councils of 925, 928, and 1060 are preserved in the
long version of Thomas of Split’s History of the Bishops of Salona and Split (Historia Salonitanorum atque