VI. THE GOSPEL AND CULTURE

21. The Brothers from Salonika were not only heirs of the faith but also heirs of the culture of Ancient Greece, continued by Byzantium. Everyone knows how important this heritage is for the whole of European culture and, directly or indirectly, for the culture of the entire world. The work of evangelization which they carried out as pioneers in territory inhabited by Slav peoples-contains both a model of what today is called " inculturation the incarnation of the Gospel in native cultures and also the introduction of these cultures into the life of the Church.

By incarnating the Gospel in the native culture of the peoples which they were evangelizing, Saints Cyril and Methodius were especially meritorious for the formation and development of that same culture, or rather of many cultures. Indeed all the cultures of the Slav nations owe their "beginning" or development to the work of the Brothers from Salonika. For by their original and ingenious creation of an alphabet for the Slavonic language the Brothers made a fundamental contribution to the culture and literature of all the Slav nations.

Furthermore, the translation of the sacred books, carried out by Cyril and Methodius together with their pupils, conferred a capacity and cultural dignity upon the Old Slavonic liturgical language, which became for many hundreds of years not only the ecclesiastical but also the official and literary language, and even the common language of the more educated classes of the greater part of the Slav nations, and in particular of all the Slavs of the Eastern Rite. It was also used in the Church of the Holy Cross in Cracow, where the Slav Benedictines had established themselves. Here were published the first liturgical books printed in this language. Up to the present day this is the language used in the Byzantine liturgy of the Slavonic Eastern Churches of the Rite of Constantinople, both Catholic and Orthodox, in Eastern and South Eastern Europe, as well as in various countries of Western Europe. It is also used in the Roman liturgy of the Catholics of Croatia.

22. In the historical development of the Slavs of Eastern Rite, this language played a role equal to that of the Latin language in the West. It also lasted longer than Latin in part until the nineteenth century-and exercised a much more direct influence on the formation of the local literary languages, thanks to its close kinship with them. These merits vis-a-vis the culture of all the Slav peoples and nations make the work of evangelization carried out by Saints Cyril and Methodius in a certain sense constantly present in the history and in the life of these peoples and nations.

VII. THE SIGNIFICANCE AND INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN MILLENNIUM IN THE SLAV WORLD

23. The apostolic and missionary activity of Saints Cyril and Methodius, which belongs to the second half of the ninth century, can be considered the first effective evangelization of the Slavs.

This activity involved the individual territories in varying degrees, and was mainly concentrated in the territories of the then existing State of Greater Moravia. It principally included the regions belonging to the metropolis of which Methodius was pastor, namely Moravia, Slovakia and Pannonia, the last being a part of modern Hungary. Included in the sphere of the wider influence exercised by this apostolic activity, especially that of the missionaries trained by Methodius, were the other groups of Western Slavs, particularly those of Bohemia. The first historical Prince of Bohemia of the dynasty of the Premyslids, Bozyvoj (Borivoj), was probably baptized according to the Slavonic Rite. Later this influence reached the Sorbo-Lusatian tribes, and the territories of southern Poland. However, from the time of the fall of Greater Moravia in about 905- 906 the Latin Rite took the place of the Slav Rite and Bohemia was assigned ecclesiastically to the Bishop of Regensburg and the metropolis of Salzburg. However, it is worthy of note that about the middle of the tenth century, at the time of Saint Wenceslaus, there was still a strong intermingling of the elements of both rites, and an advanced coexistence of both languages in the liturgy: Slavonic and Latin. Moreover, the Christianization of the people was not possible without using the native language. And only upon such a foundation could the development of the Christian terminology in Bohemia take place, and from here, subsequently, the development and consolidation of ecclesiastical terminology in Poland. Information about the Prince of the Vislits in the Lite of Methodius is the most ancient historical reference to one of the Polish tribes.41 Insufficient data exist for it to be possible to link this item of information with the institution in the Polish territories of a Slav Rite ecclesiastical organization.

24. The Baptism of Poland in 966, in the person of the first historical sovereign, Mieszko, who married the Bohemian princess Dubravka, took place principally through the Bohemian Church, and by this route Christianity reached Poland from Rome in the Latin form. But the fact remains that the beginnings of Christianity in Poland are in a way linked with the work of the Brothers who set out from distant Salonika.

Among the Slavs of the Balkan peninsula the efforts of the holy Brothers bore fruit in an even more visible way. Thanks to their apostolate the Christianity which had already for some time been established in Croatia was consolidated.

Principally through their disciples who had been expelled from the area where they had originally worked the mission of Cyril and Methodius was confirmed and developed wonderfully in Bulgaria. Here, thanks to Saint Clement of Okhrid, dynamic centers of monastic life arose, and here particularly the Cyrillic alphabet developed. From here too Christianity moved to other territories, until it passed through neighboring Romania and reached the ancient Rus' of Kiev, and then spread from Moscow eastwards. In a few years, in 1988 to be exact, the millennium of the baptism of Saint Vladimir, Grand Duke of Kiev, will be celebrated.

25. Rightly therefore Saints Cyril and Methodius were at an early date recognized by the family of Slav peoples as the fathers of both their Christianity and their culture. In many of the territories mentioned above, although there had been various missionaries, the majority of the Slav population in the ninth century still retained pagan customs and beliefs. Only in the land cultivated by our Saints, or at least prepared by them for cultivation, did Christianity definitively enter the history of the Slavs during the following century.

Their work is an outstanding contribution to the formation of the common Christian roots of Europe, roots which by their strength and vitality are one of the most solid points of reference, which no serious attempt to reconstruct in a new and relevant way the unity of the Continent can ignore.

After eleven centuries of Christianity among the Slavs, we clearly see that the heritage of the Brothers from Salonika is and remains for the Slavs deeper and stronger than any division. Both Christian traditions-the Eastern deriving from Constantinople and the Western deriving from Rome arose in the bosom of the one Church, even though against the background of different cultures and of a different approach to the same problems. This diversity, when its origin is properly understood and when its value and meaning are properly considered, can only enrich the culture of Europe and its religious tradition, and likewise become an adequate foundation for its hoped- for spiritual renewal.

26. Ever since the ninth century, when in Christian Europe a new organization was emerging, Saints Cyril and Methodius have held out to us a message clearly of great relevance for our own age, which precisely by reason of the many complex problems of a religious, cultural, civil and international nature, is seeking a vital unity in the real communion of its various elements. It can be said of the two evangelizers that characteristic of them was their love for the communion of the universal Church both in the East and in the West, and, within the universal Church, love for the particular Church that was coming into being in the Slav nations. From them also comes for the Christians and-people of our time the invitation to build communion together.

But it is in the specific area of missionary activity that the example of Cyril and Methodius is of even greater value. For this activity is an essential task of the Church, and is urgent today in the already mentioned form of "inculturation". The two Brothers not only carried out their mission with full respect for the culture already existing among the Slav peoples, but together with religion they eminently and unceasingly promoted and extended that culture. By analogy, today the Churches of ancient origin can and must help the young Churches and peoples to mature in their own identity and progress in it.42

27. Cyril and Methodius are as it were the connecting links or spiritual bridge between the Eastern and Western traditions, which both come together in the one great Tradition of the universal Church. For us they are the champions and also the patrons of the ecumenical endeavor of the sister Churches of East and West, for the rediscovery through prayer and dialogue of visible Unity in perfect and total communion, "the unity which", as I said on the occasion of my visit to Bari, "is neither absorption nor fusion".43 Unity is a meeting in truth and love, granted to us by the Spirit. Cyril and Methodius, in their personality and their work, are figures that awaken in all Christians a great "longing for union" and for unity between the two sister Churches of East and West.44 For full catholicity, every nation, every culture has its own part to play in the universal plan of salvation. Every particular tradition, every local Church must remain open and alert to the other Churches and traditions and, at the same time, to universal and catholic communion; were it to remain closed in on itself, it too would run the risk of becoming impoverished.

By exercising their own charism, Cyril and Methodius made a decisive contribution to the building of Europe not only in Christian religious communion but also to its civil and cultural union. Not even today does there exist any other way of overcoming tensions and repairing the divisions and antagonisms both in Europe: and in the world which threaten to cause a frightful destruction of lives and values. Being Christians in our day means being builders of communion in the Church and in society. This calls for openness to others, mutual understanding, and readiness to cooperate through the generous exchange of cultural and spiritual resources.

One of the fundamental aspirations of humanity today is to rediscover unity and communion for a life truly worthy of man on the worldwide level. The Church, conscious of being the universal sign and sacrament of salvation and of the unity of the human race, declares her readiness to accomplish this duty of hers, to which "the conditions of this age lend special urgency so that all people joined more closely today by various social, technical, and cultural bonds can achieve as well full unity in Christ".45

VIII. CONCLUSION

28. It is fitting, then, that the Church should celebrate with solemnity and joy the eleven centuries that have elapsed since the close of the apostolic work of the first Archbishop, ordained in Rome for the Slav peoples, Methodius, and of his brother Cyril, and that she should thus commemorate the entry of these peoples on to the scene of the history of salvation and into the of European nations which during the preceding centuries had already accepted the Gospel message. Everyone will understand with what profound happiness I will share in this celebration as the first son of the Slav race to be called, after nearly two millennia, to occupy the episcopal see that once belonged to Peter in this city of Rome.

29. "Into thy hands I commend my spirit": we salute the eleventh centenary of Saint Methodius' death with the very words which as his Life in Old Slavonic 46 recounts he uttered before he died, when he was about to join his fathers in faith, hope and charity: the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Doctors and Martyrs. By the testimony of his words and life, sustained by the charism of the Spirit, he gave an example of a vocation fruitful not only for the century in which he lived but also for the centuries which followed, and in a special way for our own times. His blessed "passing" in the spring of the year 885 after the Incarnation of Christ (and according to the Byzantine calculation of time, in the year 6393 since the creation of the world took place at a time when disquieting clouds were gathering above Constantinople and hostile tensions were increasingly threatening the peace and life of the nations, and even threatening the sacred bonds of Christian brotherhood and communion linking the Churches of the East and West.

In his Cathedral, filled with the faithful of different races, the disciples of Saint Methodius paid solemn homage to their dead pastor for the message of salvation, peace and reconciliation which he had brought and to which he had devoted his life: "They celebrated a sacred office in Latin, Greek and Slavonic",47 adoring God and venerating the first Archbishop of the Church which he established among the Slavs, to whom he and his brother had proclaimed the Gospel in their own language. This Church grew even stronger when through the explicit consent of the Pope it received a native hierarchy, rooted in the apostolic succession and remaining in unity of faith and love both with the Church of Rome and with that of Constantinople, from which the Slav mission had begun.

Now that eleven centuries have passed since his death, I desire to be present at least spiritually in Velehrad, where-it seems-Providence enabled Methodius to end his apostolic life:

-I desire also to pause in the Basilica of Saint Clement in Rome, in the place where Saint Cyril was buried;

-and at the Tombs of both these Brothers, the Apostles of the Slavs, I desire to recommend to the Most Blessed Trinity their spiritual heritage with a special prayer.

30. "Into your hands I commend...".

O great God, One in Trinity, I entrust to you the heritage of faith of the Slav nations; preserve and bless this work of yours!

Remember, O Almighty Father, the moment when, in accordance with your will, the "fullness of time" arrived for these peoples and nations, and the holy Missionaries from Salonika faithfully fulfilled the command that your Son Jesus Christ had entrusted to his Apostles; following in their footsteps and in those of their successors, they brought into the lands inhabited by the Slavs the light of the Gospel, the Good News of salvation and, in their presence, bore testimony

-that you are the Creator of man, that you are our Father and that in you we are all brethren;

-that through the Son, your eternal Word, you have given existence to all things, and have called human beings to share in your life without end;

-that you have so loved the world as to grant it the gift of your only begotten Son, who for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven and by the power of the Holy Spirit became incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary and was made man;

-and that finally you have sent the Spirit of power and consolation so that every human being, redeemed by Christ, may in him receive the dignity of a child and become a co-heir of the unfailing promises which you have made to humanity!

Your plan of creation, O Father, culminating in the Redemption, touches the living man and embraces his entire life and the history of all peoples.

Grant, O Father, what the whole Church today implores from you and grant also that the people and the nations which, thanks to the apostolic mission of the holy Brothers from Salonika, have known and accepted you, the true God, and through Baptism have entered into the holy community of your children, may still continue, without hindrance, to accept with enthusiasm and trust this evangelical programme and continue to realize all their human possibilities on the foundation of their teachings!

-May they follow, in conformity with their own conscience, the voice of your call along the paths shown to them for the first time eleven centuries ago!

-May their membership of the Kingdom of your Son never be considered by anyone to be contrary to the good of their earthly homeland!

-May they render to you due praise in private and in public life!

-May they live in truth, charity, justice and in the enjoyment of the messianic peace which enfolds human hearts, communities, the earth and the entire universe!

-Aware of their dignity as human beings and children of God, may they have the strength to overcome all hatred and to conquer evil with good!

But also grant to the whole of Europe, O Most Holy Trinity, that through the intercession of the two holy Brothers it may feel ever more strongly the need for religious and Christian unity and for a brotherly communion of all its peoples, so that when incomprehension and mutual distrust have been overcome and when ideological conflicts have been conquered in the common awareness of the truth, it may be for the whole world an example of just and peaceful coexistence in mutual respect and inviolate liberty.

31. To you, therefore, God the Father Almighty, God the Son who have redeemed the world, God the Spirit who are the sustainer and teacher of all holiness, I desire to entrust the whole Church of yesterday, today and tomorrow, the Church both in Europe and throughout the earth. Into your hands I commit this singular wealth, made up of so many different gifts, ancient and new, placed in the common treasury by so many different sons and daughters.

The whole Church thanks you, who called the Slav nations into the communion of the faith, for this heritage and for the contribution made by them to the universal patrimony. The Pope of Slav origin in a special way thanks you for this. May this contribution never cease to enrich the Church, the Continent of Europe and the whole world! May it never fail in Europe and in the world of today! May it never fade from the memories of our contemporaries! We desire to accept in its entirety everything original and valid which the Slav nations have brought and continue to bring to the spiritual patrimony of the Church and of humanity. The whole Church, aware of this common treasure, professes her spiritual solidarity with them and reaffirms her own responsibility towards the Gospel, for the work of salvation which she is called upon to accomplish also today in the whole world, unto the ends of the earth. It is essential to go back to the past in order to understand, in the light of the past, the present reality and in order to discern tomorrow. For the mission of the Church is always oriented and directed with unfailing hope towards the future.

32. The future! However much it may humanly speaking seem filled with threats and uncertainties, we trustfully place it in your hands, Heavenly Father, invoking upon it the intercession of the Mother of your Son and Mother of the Church, the intercession of your Apostles Peter and Paul, and of Saints Benedict, Cyril and Methodius, of Augustine and Boniface and all the other evangelizers of Europe who, strong in faith, hope and charity, proclaimed to our fathers your salvation and your peace, and amid the toils of the spiritual sowing began to build the civilization of love and the new order based on your holy law and the help of your grace, which at the end of the age will give life to all things and all people in the heavenly Jerusalem. Amen!

To you, dear brothers and sisters, my Apostolic Blessing.

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 2 June, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, in the year 1985, the seventh of my Pontificate.

JOHN PAUL II


1. JOHN PAUL II, Apostolic Letter Egregiae Virtutis (31 December 1980): AAS 73 (1981), pp. 258-262.

2. LEO XIII, Encyclical Epistle Grande Munus (30 September 1880), in Leonis XIII Pont. Max. Acta, II, PP. 125 137; cf. also PIUS XI, Letter Quod S. Cyrillum (13 February 1927) to the Archbishops and Bishops of the Kingdom of the Serbs- Croats-Slovenes and of the Czechoslovakian Republic: AAS 19 (1927), pp. 93-96; JOHN XXIII, Apostolic Letter Magnifici Eventus (11 May 1963) to the Prelates of the Slav Nations: AAS 55 (1963), pp. 434-439. PAUL VI, Apostolic Epistle Antiquae Nobilitatis (2 February 1969) for the eleventh centenary of the death of Saint Cyril: AAS 61 (1969), pp. 137-149).

3. PAUL VI, Apostolic Letter Pacis Nuntius (24 October 1964): AAS 56 (1964), pp. 965-967.

4. Cf. Magnae Moraviae Fontes Historici, t. III, Brno 1969, pp. 197- 208.

5. Only in a few Slav nations is the feast still celebrated on 7 July.

6. Cf. Vita Constantini VIII, 16-18: Constantinus et Methodius Thessalonicenses, Fontes, recensuerunt et illustraverunt Fr. Grivec et Fr. Tomsic (Radovi Staroslavenskog Instituta, Knjiga 4, Zagreb 1960), p. 184.

7. Cf. Vita Constantini XIV, 2-4; ed. cit., pp. l99f.

8. Vita Methodii VI, 2-3; ed. cit., p. 225.

9. Cf. Magnae Moraviae Fontes Historici, t. III, Brno 1969, pp. 197- 208.

10. Cf. Vita Methodii VIII, 1-2: ed. ctt., p. 225.

11. Cf. Vita Methodii XVII, 13: ed. cit., p. 237.

12. Cf. ibid.; cf. also 1 Cor 9:22.

13. Gen 12:1-2.

14. Acts 16:9.

15. Vita Methodii V, 2: ed. cit., p. 223.

16. Vita Constantini XIV, 9: ed. cit., p. 200.

17. Vita Constantini VI, 7: ed. cit., p. 179.
18. Mk 16:15.

19. Mt 28:19.

20. Gal 3:26-28

21. The successors of Pope Nicholas 1, even though they were concerned at conflicting reports regarding the teaching and activity of Cyril and Methodius, expressed their full agreement when they had a direct meeting with the Brothers. Prohibitions or limitations in the use of the new liturgy are to be attributed more than anything else to the pressures of the moment, to changing political alliances, and to the need to maintain harmony.

22. Jn 17:21 f.

23. Ps 117[116]:1.

24. Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, 4.

25. Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, 1.

26. Vita Methodii IX, 3: VIII, 16: ed. cit., pp. 229; 228.

27. Cf. Vita Methodii IX, 2: ed. cit., p. 229.

28. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 13.

29. Vita Constantini XVI, 8: ed. cit., p. 205.

30. Cf. Mt 5:45.

31. Vita Constantini XVI, 4-6: ed. cit., p. 205.

32. Vita Constantini XVI, 58: ed. cit., p. 208; Phil 2:11.

33. Vita Constantini XVI, 12: ed. cit., p. 206; Ps 66 [65]:4.

34. Vita Constantini XVI, 13: ed. cit., p. 206; Ps 117 [116]:1.

35. Cf. Ps 112 [113]:4; Jl 2-13.

36. Cf. 1 Tim 2:4.

37. Vita Constantini I, 1: ed. cit., p. 169.

38. Cf. Mt 13:52.

39. Cf. Gen 15:1-21.

40. Vita Methodii II, 1: ed. cit., pp. 220f.

41. Cf. Vita Methodii XI, 2-3: ed. cit., p. 231.

42. Cf. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 38.

43. JOHN PAUL II, Speech at the ecumenical meeting in the Basilica of Saint Nicholas at Bari (26 February 1984), No. 2: Insegnamenti VII, 1 (1984), p. 532.

44. Ibid., No. 1: loc. cit., p. 531.

45. SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 1.

46. Cf. Vita Methodii XVII, 9-10: ed. cit., p. 237; Lk 23:46; Ps 31 [30]: 6.

47. Vita Methodii XVII, 11: ed. cit., p. 237.

Back to the Encyclicals of Blessed John Paul II...

Back to In the Heart of Blessed John Paul II...