Cyril and Methodius did not shape Slovak people – but their mission still matters

“Recognising and honouring the most important historical events in Slovakia’s past should be a matter of basic civic awareness for all Slovaks,” reads the government’s invitation to the Cyril and Methodius celebrations at Devín Castle from last week.

Yet the invitation promotes myths that are not supported by historical sources. Cyril and Methodius were not Christian missionaries in the traditional sense – their script did not take root in our territory, nor did the Eastern liturgy. A thousand years ago, our lands became part of the Latin cultural West.

Their mission was forgotten here for centuries – making it inaccurate to speak of a Cyril and Methodius tradition. Nonetheless, such a tradition is invoked – contrary to the facts – even in the preamble of Slovakia’s Constitution.

But what relevance might this pair of ninth-century scholars hold for people in Slovakia today?

“The aim of their mission was something we might call the cultural and political equalisation of the Moravians with the Latin West,” says Miroslav Lysý, a professor at Comenius University in Bratislava and a researcher at the Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, who specialises in Great Moravian history and legal history.

“We learned to integrate into the Western world by adopting its rules. These are the rules of a game that works to our advantage – we are small, yet successful nations. That is the message I believe we should cultivate in connection with Constantine and Methodius.” 

The government’s invitation to the Cyril and Methodius celebrations states that the event marks the arrival of the two saints. But do we actually know when they arrived?

Historical sources do not even explicitly state the year of their arrival. The year 863 is deduced from context – it is plausible, but cannot be confirmed with certainty.

The fact that the holiday is held on 5 July has no connection to their arrival on our territory. We have many feast days only loosely tied to a specific date without solid historical backing – a typical example is Christmas, whose December date does not stem from the Bible.

In the past, certain feast days were simply set for particular dates – there’s nothing unusual about that. It is merely helpful to understand that this specific link is historically problematic. 

So is there really no evidence linking their mission to Devín?

The connection between Constantine and Methodius and Devín is, from the perspective of written sources, non-existent. Devín is mentioned in Great Moravian records precisely once. It is probably a reference to the Devín near Bratislava – but even that cannot be stated with absolute certainty.

It is mentioned in connection with the siege of the castle in 864 – one year after the supposed arrival of Constantine and Methodius. At the time, the East Frankish king Louis the German besieged the fortress, which was being defended by Rastislav.