17 May 2025

I have been looking at the saints celebrated in the Orthodox Church. Some of them are completely unknown to me not least because they belong to the Eastern Church of which I am ignorant. Some of them are known  but not celebrated in the calendar of the Western Church.

There are two delightful features in the Orthodox Calendar. Firstly, as well as recognisable saints, they also celebrate characters from the Old Testament like the prophets Elisha, Isaiah and Jeremiah and mythical characters like Job and Jonah.

Secondly, some specific events in the history of the Church are celebrated too like the ‘Discovery of the Head of St. John the Baptiser’ which eventually ended up in Constantinople,  the ‘Appearance of the Sign of the Cross over Jerusalem’ and the ‘Deposition of the Robe of the Theotokos’, one of Mary’s robes.

Last Sunday, they celebrated two saints, Cyril and Methodius, who are described as ‘Equals-to-the-Apostles’. They were brothers. The one held a position in the Imperial Court, the other was in the army. Despite their wealth, they forsook it and became monks in 850.

In 862, they were sent by the Emperor to work among the Slavs in Moravia at their request. They had already been sent Western missionaries who insisted on worshipping in Latin. The Moravians wanted to worship in their own tongue.

Cyril and Methodius  translated the Scriptures and the Liturgy into the language of the Moravians inventing an alphabet in the process. We attach great significance to our Reformation and the freedom to worship in the vernacular. That was in 1560. The work of these saints was almost seven centuries earlier!