METHODIUS

METHODIUS, apostle to the Slavs, bishop, linguist, St. (ca. 815–885). Brother and co-worker of Constantine-Cyril (q.v.) from a Thessalonian aristocratic family, Methodius left his work in the imperial government for the monastic life on Mt. Olympus in Bithynia around 850. Chosen from the monastery by Emperor Michael III, he was sent together with his brother to the mission in Moravia (q.v.). After Constantine-Cyril’s death in Rome in 867 and Methodius’s consecration as bishop by Pope Hadrian II in 869, he carried on the project of translation and building up of a native clergy. The death of his royal patron, Prince Rostislav, and the resentment of the German clergy already in the region forced his withdrawal into the territories of modern Croatia (q.v.) by the end of his life. Methodius’s death thus saw the apparent overthrow of his life’s work. His disciples Naum and Clement of Ochrid (qq.v.) brought the fruits of the missionary brothers’ linguistic labors to the southern Slav kingdoms of Bulgaria and Serbia and thence, a century later, to Kievan Rus’ (q.v.). Much of the early translation work of Scripture and Byzantine liturgical books (qq.v.) might have been completed by Methodius himself or under his direct supervision. He seems to have also been the author of his brother’s Life.