As it turned out, Byzantium had little reason to rejoice. In the next few decades the Bulgarians conquered a large part of the empire’s Balkan territories step by step and by engaging in open warfare. By the middle of the 9th century Bulgaria already included all of Macedonia, most of the territories of present-day Albania, and had gained a firm foothold on the Adriatic coast. Slavs of the Bulgarian language group inhabited most of these territories. The state had become one of the largest in Europe. Bulgaria’s sovereign Tsar Boris I (852 – 889) was full of self-esteem but suffered from the fact that Byzantium did not regard him as an equal. The empire saw his state as an unstable barbarian alliance. At that, being heathen, it did not meet one of the fundamental requirements to be accepted in the family of peoples headed by the basileus.

The fact that there were two basic religions in the country was also an obstacle in the way of Bulgarians and Slavs blending into one.Christianity gradually made headway. The lands they inhabited had been Christianized back in the 2nd-3rd century, and the religion had not disappeared in spite of all the invasions. There were Christians among both Bulgarians and Slavs, even amidst the cream of society. Because of his love for the new faith, one of the sons of a previous ruler had first lost his right to inherit the throne and then his life.

It is difficult to say to what extent Boris himself was attracted by the moral aspect of the Christian faith, although this probably also had its role to play. As any other ruler, however, he was first of all a statesman. His personal preferences were put behind, for he regarded Christianity as a means to achieve equality and a place in the club of the great and important states. Consequently, he tried to extract the maximum benefit from his plans.

By the middle of the 9th century, the Ecumenical Patriarch and Rome had already registered contradictions, be they on canonical grounds or in how each regarded the distribution of the respective spheres of influence. Boris tried to maneuver but acknowledged the neighboring Byzantine Empire as the greater threat that had to be neutralized. That was why it w,-s Byzantines who baptized him in 864.

There was resistance against his decision. Adherents to tradition, heads of Bulgarian clans who feared that the equalization of the two ethnicities would deny them their governing privileges declared themselves against this step. Things escalated into an open revolt, which was mercilessly crushed in a most un-Christian like manner by Boris, who had already adopted the Christian name of Michael (the name of his godfather, the Byzantine Emperor Michael Rangabe). After several years of diplomatic negotiations he also managed to achieve relative independence of the Bulgarian Church, albeit under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople. Bulgaria had made serious headway towards its recognition by Europe: its ruler was to take his legitimate place in the family of Christian sovereigns, a place conditioned by both tradition and medieval political theory. Boris I soon took the second step.

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Bulgaria was not the only state seeking recognition at that time. In the lands of Central Europe where now the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary are located, the 9th century witnessed a powerful but short-lived Slav state called Great Moravia. Moravia was also a subject of controversy between the papacy and the Patriarch, the representatives of the former having more influential positions. To counter that, Byzantium used one of the traditional implements of diplomacy: it tried to offer Moravia something, which the Vatican did not want to give.

A Byzantine mission headed by two clerics, the brothers Constantine (better known as Cyril) and Methodius, arrived in the Moravian capital. Experienced officials, Cyril and Methodius were probably of partial Slav origin. In any case, they were familiar with the language of the Slavs of the Bulgarian group as if it were their mother’s tongue. The experience with the Hazars taught the Byzantines that they had to offer the peoples they wanted to attract something else beside religion. In the course of several years at the monastery, Constantine called the Philosopher and his brother had developed a new alphabet called the Glagolitic. Peculiar to the eye, this alphabet was far from the Greek and took into account the phonetic characteristics of the Slavonic languages. The two brothers translated some of the holy books using the new alphabet, probably with the aid of some disciples.

The new product was first offered to Moravia. Constantine and Methodius were successful at first and introduced disciples to the new wisdom. The missionaries of the Vatican, however, regarded their arrival as an encroachment upon their rights and a struggle for influence. And quite right they were. Consequently, they exerted considerable pressure on the prince of Moravia and the brothers were sent to Italy to explain their position before the local clergy. In a dispute in Venice, Constantine convincingly defended the right of preaching God’s word in languages other than Greek or Latin. His arguments were poetic, albeit in the spirit of those times.

“Do then the birds, God’s creatures as they are, warble in the same tongue,” he asked. Naturally, there were no translators from the avian but the presumption was clear.

In Rome, Pope Hadrian II was deeply impressed by the erudition of Constantine and blessed the books he had translated. It is not quite clear what the pontiff had in mind but Constantine quite unexpectedly received the highest recognition. For only a short while, alas. Although quite young, he found his death in the Holy City, receiving the name of Cyril, by which he is better known today, a few weeks before his demise. He was buried at the basilica of San Clemente in Rome.

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