Centuries

This issue is especially valuable for studies on the reception of the classical tradition in central-eastern Europe; the growth and decline from the ninth through the twelfth centuries can be interpreted in connection with the attempts to develop a Slavic paradigm for adapting ancient Christianity that would be independent of Byzantium and Rome, the universalizing cultures. The Thessaloniki Saints’ mission to the Khazars and Moravia, and their disciples’ activity in Bohemia and Slovakia, and especially in Croatia and Bulgaria (Clement of Ohrid’s school, ninth to tenth centuries), resulted in the Greek alphabet being adapted to the Slavic languages and in the development of a Slavic liturgy different from both Greek and Roman rites. Regardless of the Saints’ intentions and the political plans of Constantinople and Rome, this mission resulted in the emergence of a ‘‘third way’’ between the two universal empires.

On the territory of the former Great Moravian State, there remained a lasting tendency to seek a Slavic identity that was subsequently invoked for various political

Aims. Also worth a special mention is Kievan Rus, whose Christianity invoked its own ancient genealogy, separate from Byzantium, while also aspiring to represent all Slavs. Nestor’s Chronicle (twelfth century) says that Paul the apostle taught the Slavs directly and that St. Sophia’s Church in Kiev, not in Constantinople, is the equivalent of the Jerusalem Temple. Moreover, the Chronicle polemicized Byzantine historiography by telling the story of humankind in general and not of the empire (Avenarius 2000).

Thus in central-eastern Europe, interpreting the Cyrillic-Methodian mission as having served to build the autonomy of the region reveals a continuity whereby domestication and resistance contribute to the acculturation of the classical tradition in the region. The competition between the western and eastern churches, and Russia’s assumption of the role of Byzantium’s heir, influenced the anachronistic ideologization of Cyril and Methodius’ mission and its consequences. Scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries invoked it to justify both Russian expansion and Catholic proselytizing. Individual nations (particularly Romania) also used the mission to emphasize their own unique place between east and west, or to demonstrate hostility toward the ‘‘other side,’’ depending on the governing ideologies, be they nationalist, Nazi, or communist.