NEWS

President Rosen Plevneliev launches the international campaign for commemorating 1150 years since the Great Moravian enlightenment mission of Cyril and Methodius

The enlightenment mission of the Saints Cyril and Methodius has an everlasting significance for the Bulgarian people’s moral, social and civilization road and for the family of the civilized nations in Europe. This is what President Rosen Plevneliev said at the aula of Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski today during the ceremony commemorating the 1150 anniversary of the Great Moravian mission of the Saints Cyril and Methodius, which set the beginning of liturgies and the instruction in the Slavonic language in medieval Europe. The series of cultural events to take place in Bulgaria and abroad to commemorate 1150 years since Cyril and Methodius performed their mission in Great Moravia and created the first Slavonic alphabet - the Glagolitic alphabet, is held under the auspices of the Bulgarian head of state.

In his speech Rosen Plevneliev noted that over the past century and a half the Cyril and Methodius studies have become one of the most important sections of world medieval studies and have focused the attention and research efforts of the leading Bulgarian and foreign scholars. It is of high importance that the Old Bulgarian language and cultural tradition has enjoyed international recognition as having provided the basis of Slavonic studies. “For, as is well known and acknowledged in science, Cyril and Methodius created the alphabet on the basis of the Old Bulgarian language. It was in this language, which they are believed to have perfectly known and spoken, that they translated the major liturgical books and performed their mission in Moravia”, the president said.

The head of state pointed out that as active functionaries of an already established school, it was only a decade and a half later that Cyril and Methodius’ disciples, led by Kliment Ohridski, carried out their mission in Great Moravia and Bulgaria. They were offered protection and excellent working conditions namely in Bulgaria at the time of Tsar Boris and Tsar Simeon, when Bulgaria had the unique chance of civilization to be governed by highly educated rulers. “It is on the foundation laid by Cyril and Methodius’ life-work that the powerful literary schools in Preslav, Ochrid, and later on in Tarnovo (Evtimiy’s school) evolved,” the head of state recalled. He further stressed the role and decisive impact of the Bulgarian cultural and enlightenment tradition on the development of the Serbian and Russian medieval literature and culture.

Our country’s cultural relations with medieval Russia and the fact that the Russian church was headed by Evtimiy’s disciples Kipriyan and Tsamblak helped preserve the Bulgarian cultural achievements after the Balkans were conquered by the Ottomans. 
The glorification of the life-work of the apostles from Thessalonica did not end during the long years of the Ottoman rule, while during the Renaissance it was among the most powerful factors for the creation of an ethnicity, which set the beginning of the movement towards Bulgaria’s new enlightenment and the strife for religious and state independence. In his Slavonic-Bulgarian History Paisii clearly describes the work of Cyril and Methodius as one that laid the foundations of Bulgarian culture and in the middle of 19th century 11 May became the biggest nationwide holiday for Bulgarian schools, the president further stressed.

“This day gives us an occasion to draw lessons from the past and from the example set by the Bulgarian statesmen in the Middle Ages, who were well aware that state power does not rest in the spearhead but in the feather pen,” the president further stated.