Saint Methodius
Bishop
- Feast Day
- February 14
- Life
- 815–885
- Order
- Eastern monasticism
- Born
- Thessalonica, Byzantine Empire
Methodius, elder brother of Cyril, was born Michael in Thessalonica about 815. After serving for a time as a Byzantine provincial governor (archon of a Slavic-speaking region of the empire), he withdrew to a monastery on Mount Olympus in Bithynia and was joined there by his brother Cyril. He accompanied Cyril on the embassies to the Khazars and to Greater Moravia.
After Cyril's death in Rome in 869, Methodius was consecrated archbishop of Sirmium for the Slavic peoples by Pope Adrian II, with jurisdiction over Pannonia and Moravia, and returned to continue the mission. He was repeatedly opposed by Frankish bishops, especially of Salzburg and Passau, who claimed jurisdiction over the territory. About 870 he was deposed by a Bavarian synod and imprisoned for three years in Swabia, until intervention by Pope John VIII secured his release.
Restored to his see, he completed the translation of the bulk of the Old Testament, the patristic homiletic corpus, and the Byzantine canon law (Nomokanon) into Old Slavonic. Pope John VIII in 880, in the bull Industriae tuae, definitively confirmed the use of the Slavonic liturgy under Methodius and reaffirmed his metropolitan dignity.
Methodius died at Velehrad in Greater Moravia on April 6, 885. After his death, his disciples, expelled from Moravia, carried the Slavonic liturgy to Bulgaria, where it became the foundation of the Christian culture of the South Slavs and, through them, of Kievan Rus'. The General Roman Calendar joins his memorial with that of Cyril on February 14.
Methodius outlived his brother by sixteen years and consolidated their work despite political opposition that very nearly extinguished it. The papal confirmation of the Slavonic liturgy under his metropolitan oversight is a landmark for the legitimacy of vernacular worship in the patristic and medieval Church. The diaspora of his disciples to Bulgaria and the preservation of the Cyrillic-derived script gave Eastern Christianity its principal liturgical language for over a millennium.
Patronages
Europe (Co-Patron) · the Slavic peoples · ecumenism
Catholic Churches Named After Saint Methodius
20 parishes on Catholic Church Times share Saint Methodius's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:
- Saints Cyril and Methodius — Wayland, MI
- Sts. Cyril and Methodius [Ruthenian] — Spokane Valley, WA
- Sts. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church — Shiner, TX
- Saints Cyril and Methodius — Minneapolis, MN
- S.S. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church — Coaldale, PA
- SS Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church — Granger, TX
- Sts. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church — Dubina, TX
- Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church
- Saints Cyril and Methodius (St. Peter the Apostle Parish) — Reading, PA
- Saint Cyril and Methodius Roman Catholic Church — City of Binghamton, NY
- Saints Cyril & Methodius Parish — Corpus Christi, TX
- Saints Cyril and Methodius — Cary, NC
- SS. Cyril & Methodius — East Helena, MT
- Sts. Cyril and Methodius Mission - Marak — Buckholts, TX
- Saints Cyril and Methodius Church — Fairchance, PA
- Saints Cyril & Methodius Slovak Catholic Church — Sterling Heights, MI
- Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church — Slovak, AR
- SS Cyril and Methodius — Hartford, CT
- Saints Cyril and Methodius Roman Catholic Church — Warren, OH
- Ss. Cyril and Methodius — North Judson, IN
Sources