MORAVIA

MORAVIA. Today’s second province of the Czech Republic after Bohemia, in the 9th c. Moravia was one of the most powerful of the emerging Slavic states. Its ruler, Rastislav, petitioned the Byzantine Emperor, Michael III, in 863 for missionaries to preach and teach in the language of his people. While the prince’s primary motive might have been to escape the expanding cultural sphere of the Carolingian Church present and at work in his country, the results of his petition were the epochal contributions of Constantine-Cyril and Methodius (qq.v.). Although the German/Latin clergy eventually prevailed in Moravia itself, today an exclusively Roman Catholic region, the original request prompted efforts that provided the religious and cultural foundations of the Bulgars, Serbs, Russians, and Ukrainians.