The year 864
Prince Boris I understood that a state sitting between Constantinople and Rome needed a faith its neighbours respected. He was baptised in 864 and took the name Michael. Not all the boyars (the nobles) were pleased – some rebelled, and Boris put them down firmly. The conversation about freedom of religion would have to wait another thousand years.
Cyril and Methodius
The brothers from Thessalonica created the Glagolitic alphabet around 863 for their mission to Great Moravia. After Methodius died in 885, their pupils were driven out and found refuge in Bulgaria in 886. Boris welcomed them as honoured guests.
The two schools
- The Ohrid Literary School – Clement of Ohrid taught thousands of pupils Slavic writing.
- The Preslav Literary School – this is where the Cyrillic alphabet was created. Texts were translated, written and beautifully decorated.
Why it matters
Thanks to Bulgarian scholars, Slavic writing and liturgy spread to Serbia, Kievan Rus and later across all of Eastern Europe. When Russians write in Cyrillic, they write in an alphabet created in Bulgaria. We say this without any bias whatsoever. But we do say it.
In 893 a council in Preslav declared Old Bulgarian the official language of the state and the church. It was one of the first cases in Europe of a vernacular language replacing Greek or Latin in worship. Brussels would invent multilingualism only a thousand years later.