Greater Moravia

When I was attending school, I was very surprised, that our teachers were taught us almost nothing about Greater Moravia. Only after escaping from Czechoslovakia in 1953, did I find historical sources describing the short but important history of Greater Moravia. A mere twenty years after the use of Cyril-Methodius? liturgy was forbidden by pope Stephen (V.) VI. ???, no trace of the work of the brothers Cyril and Methodius was to be found. During the intervening centuries the ashes of their work were scattered throughout Europe. To understand the importance of the history of Greater Moravia, we must gather those ashes carefully and learn how to read them and discover their secrets.

Moravia - my native land

The European civilization is based on Christianity and was spread by Christianity. The most important apostles were St. Peter and St. Paul. St. Peter went to Rome to preach Christianity and St. Paul went through Syria to Greece, and St. Cyril and St. Methodius continued his work. It was the Moravian prince Rostislav who petitioned the Pope to send missionaries to Moravia, who were versed in a Slavonic language. When the Pope was not responding, prince Rostislav turned to the Byzantine emperor Michael III. to send Slavonic speaking missionaries to Moravia. The Emperor dispatched the brothers. Cyril and Methodius who arrived to Moravia in 863. Cyril was a bishop. He created Slavonic alphabet called Glagolic, and started translating the Holy Bible and liturgical books from Greek to Slavonic. On their journey to Rome in 863, Cyril became ill, stayed in Rome and entered a monastery, where he died in 14, 869. In 863, Pope Hadrian II gave permission to use Slavonic as a litu gical language. St. Methodius returned to Moravia alone. Christian Moravia was in the way of Frankish military expansion. East Frankish monks and priests were constantly complaining to the Pope and were criticizing Methodius. Nevertheless, Pope Michael I. again approved the Slavonic liturgy in 868. After prince Rostislav was imprisoned and Miller by Bavarian soldiers, Svatopluk of Nitra. Became his successor.Again in 880 Pope John VII approved the Slavonic liturgy and crowned Svatopluk King of Moravia and consecrated him. At the same time the pope consecrated Methodius as archbishop of Greater Moravia and Pannonia, with his main seat in Sirmium on the Sava river (Sremska Mitrovica) in Slavonia. Methodeus and his disciples finished the translation of the Holy Bible and liturgical books in 884. Not quite six months later, on April 6. 885, St. Methodius died and was burried in the Moravian Velehrad. Several months later, Pope Stephan (V.) VI. prohibited the use of the Slavonic liturgy. The disciples of Methodius were exiled from Moravia and many of them were imprisoned, tortured and sold into slavery in Venice in 886. Pope Stephan (V.) VI. was facing famine in his caused by drought and locusts; as his treasury was empty, he had to rely on the riches of his family. He also was eyeing rich and prosperous Moravia to the East. In 885 he forbade the usage of the liturgy of Cyril and Methodius, and declared those disciples of St. Paul to be heretics. He also allowed Latin (East-Frankish) priests to murder Moravian priests. Many priests and educated Moravians were sold into slavery in Venice. These profits from these sales flowed into the pope?s treasury. In Clermont in the year 1095, pope Urban II. declared a "Holy War - God Demands it (Deus lo volt)". Christendom was waging a "Holy War" against in fidels. German tribes asked the Church for blessings for their arch toward the East. In 1147 the Church gave its blessings and promised equal rewards for warring against the Slavs as for waging wars against Muslim "Infidels". Cyril and . Methodius brought with them scientists and educated men to Moravia; and these founded an Academy (university) in Moravia, fashioned after the Byzantine Academy in 863. In 886 these university professors had to leave because they were persecuted by East Franks, and upon invitation of Bulgarian Czar Boris I. they later settled in Ohrid. in Macedonia which was under the control of Bulgaria at that time. Among the exiles was a disciple of Cyril and Methodius by the name of St. Kliment, who after sixteen years, was joined by another disciple of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, St. Naum. These founded an Academy in Ohrid and a second Academy in Preslav. St. Kliment together with St. Naum developed a simplified alphabet which they called Cyrilica on honor of St. Cyril. In the time of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, all Slavs spoke old-Slavonic with minor differences. The disciples of St. Peter declared the disciples of St. Paul heretics, persecuted them, tortured and brutally killed them.

The founding of universities in overview:

425 Constantinopole - emperor

Theodosius II. founded the first university of Western civilization.

863 The first university in Moravia

886 Ohrid - at the invitation of Bulgarian Czar Boris I, expelled academicians from Moravia, founded an Academy

988 al-Azhar university in Cairo

1088 Bologna

1150 Paris

1167 Oxford

1348 Prague, flunder by Bohemian

king Charles IV

1365 Vienna

1465 Bratislava (Istropolitana)