Old Church Slavonic and Related Topics

First Bulgarian Empire

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Medieval Bulgar-Slavic and later Bulgarian state that existed in Southeastern Europe between the 7th and 11th centuries AD. It was founded in 680–681 after part of the Bulgars, led by Asparuh, moved south to the northeastern Balkans.

Slavic tribes and states in Early Middle Ages

The Bulgar colonies after the fall of Old Great Bulgaria in the 7th century.

Zones of control by Slavic tribes and Bulgars in the late 7th century

Territorial expansion during the reign of Krum

Bulgarian Empire during the reign of Simeon I

Emperor Simeon I: The Morning Star of Slavonic Literature, painting by Alfons Mucha

Bulgaria under the rule of Emperor Samuel

Above: The Byzantines defeat Samuel at Kleidion; below: the death of Samuel, Manasses Chronicle

Khan Omurtag was the first Bulgarian ruler known to have claimed divine origin, Madrid Skylitzes

The symbol ıYı is associated with the Dulo clan and the First Empire

A replica of a Bulgarian sabre found near the town of Varbitsa

A battle scene of the Byzantine–Bulgarian war of 894–896, Madrid Skylitzes

Slavic mythology: Sadko (1876) by Ilya Repin

The Pliska rosette dated from the pagan period has seven fingers representing the Classical planets

Bulgarian soldiers kill Christians during the persecutions, Menologion of Basil II

Baptism of Boris I and his court, painting by Nikolai Pavlovich

A medieval icon of Saint Clement of Ohrid, a high-ranking official of the Bulgarian Church, scholar, writer and enlightener of the Bulgarians and the Slavs

Expansion of Bogomilism in medieval Europe

The ruins of Pliska, the first capital of Bulgaria

Ceramic icon of Saint Theodore, Preslav ceramics, c. 900.

A page with the Alphabet Prayer by Constantine of Preslav

The ruling Bulgars and other non-Slavic tribes in the empire gradually mixed and adopted the prevailing Slavic language, thus gradually forming the Bulgarian nation from the 7th to the 10th century.

A page from the Zograf Codex with text of the Gospel of Luke

Glagolitic script

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Oldest known Slavic alphabet.

The Baška tablet, found in the 19th century on Krk, conventionally dated to about 1100.

The first page of the Gospel of Mark from the 10th–11th century Codex Zographensis, found in the Zograf Monastery in 1843.

The first page of the Gospel of John from the Codex Zographensis.

In a book printed in 1591, Angelo Rocca attributed the Glagolitic script to Saint Jerome.

Glagolitic script in the Zagreb Cathedral

The last Glagolitic entry in the baptismal register of the Omišalj parish on the island of Krk by the parishioner Nicholas in 1817.

The Lord's Prayer shown in (from left) round, angular, and cursive versions of Glagolitic script.

The brothers decided to translate liturgical books into the contemporary Slavic language understandable to the general population (now known as Old Church Slavonic).

Cyril and Methodius

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Cyril (born Constantine, 826–869) and Methodius (815–885) were two brothers and Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries.

Cyril and Methodius, painting by Jan Matejko, 1885

Saints Cyril and Methodius in Rome. Fresco in San Clemente

Saint Cyril and Methodius by Stanislav Dospevski, Bulgarian painter

The Baška tablet is an early example of the Glagolitic from Croatia

A cartoon about Saints Cyril and Methodius from Bulgaria in 1938. The caption reads : Brother Cyril, go tell those who are inside to learn the alphabet so they know freedom (свобода) and anarchy (слободия) are not the same.

Basilica of St.Cyril and Methodius in Moravian Velehrad, Czech Republic

Cross Procession in Khanty-Mansiysk on Saints Cyril and Methodius Day in May 2006

Inauguration of the monument to Saints Cyril and Methodius in Saratov on Slavonic Literature and Culture Day

Thessaloniki - monument of the two Saints gift from the Bulgarian Orthodox Church

Bulgaria - Statue of the two Saints in front of the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia

Bulgaria - Statue of the two Saints in front of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia

North Macedonia - Statue of Cyril and Methodius near the Stone Bridge in Skopje

Czech Republic - Statue of Saints Cyril and Methodius at the Charles Bridge in Prague

Czech Republic - Saints Cyril and Methodius monument in Mikulčice

Czech Republic - Statue of Saint Methodius at the Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc in Moravia

Russia - the monument in Khanty-Mansiysk

Serbia - the monument to Saints Cyril and Methodius in Belgrade

Opening of Cyril and Methodius monument in Donetsk

Statue, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Třebíč, Czech Republic

They are credited with devising the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet used to transcribe Old Church Slavonic.

Slavic languages

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The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants.

Ethnographic Map of Slavic and Baltic Languages

Baška tablet, 11th century, Krk, Croatia.

14th-century Novgorodian children were literate enough to send each other letters written on birch bark.

10th–11th century Codex Zographensis, canonical monument of Old Church Slavonic

Map and tree of Slavic languages, according to Kassian and A. Dybo

Map of all areas where the Russian language is the language spoken by the majority of the population.

Old Church Slavonic

Cyrillic script

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Writing system used for various languages across Eurasia and is used as the national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia, and East Asia.

View of the cave monastery near the village of Krepcha, Opaka Municipality in Bulgaria. Here is found the oldest Cyrillic inscription, dated 921.

A page from Азбука (Букварь) (ABC (Reader)), the first Russian language textbook, printed by Ivan Fyodorov in 1574. This page features the Cyrillic alphabet.

A page from the Church Slavonic Grammar of Meletius Smotrytsky (1619)

Letters Ge, De, I, I kratkoye, Me, Te, Tse, Be and Ve in upright (printed) and cursive (handwritten) variants. (Top is set in Georgia font, bottom in Odessa Script.)

Alternate variants of lowercase (cursive) Cyrillic letters: Б/б, Д/д, Г/г, И/и, П/п, Т/т, Ш/ш.
Default Russian (Eastern) forms on the left.
Alternate Bulgarian (Western) upright forms in the middle.
Alternate Serbian/Macedonian (Southern) italic forms on the right.
See also:
Cyrillic cursive.svg Special Cyrillics BGDPT.svg

These additional letters were used for Old Church Slavonic sounds not found in Greek.

Great Moravia

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The first major state that was predominantly West Slavic to emerge in the area of Central Europe, possibly including territories which are today part of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine.

Great Moravian sword from Blatnica, unearthed in the 19th century, originally interpreted as a burial equipment from a "ducal" mound

Principalities and lands within Great Moravia

Jewelry from a princely burial site at Kolín, 850–900 AD

Spherical gombiki from the Mikulčice Archaeological Park

Map of Moravia within East Francia in 814

A map presenting the theory of the co-existence of two principalities (Moravia and Nitra) before the 830s

Modern depiction of Rastislav as an Orthodox saint

Statue of Svatopluk I on Bratislava Castle, Slovakia

The papal bull Scire vos volumus of 879 addressed to Svatopluk

Icon of St Gorazd, a disciple of St Cyril and Method of Moravian origin, who was the designated successor of archbishop Method

Svatopluk I with three twigs and his three sons—Mojmír II, Svatopluk II and Predslav

Reconstruction of a Great Moravian gatehouse and ramparts in Thunau am Kamp, Austria

Foundations of a pre-Romanesque rotunda at the Great Moravian court in Ducové

Svatopluk I disguised as a monk in the court of Arnulf, King of East Francia (from the 14th-century Chronicle of Dalimil)

Church of St. Margaret of Antioch in Kopčany, Slovakia, one of remaining buildings for which the Great Moravian origin is considered

Stone foundations of a church in Valy u Mikulčic, Czech Republic

Exhibition Among the tribes and the state. Room with the Early medieval princely burial from Kolín (Starý Kolín), 850–900 AD

An example of the Glagolitic script created by Saint Cyril for the mission in Great Moravia (Baščanska ploča from Croatia). The inscribed stone slab records Croatian king Zvonimir's donation of a piece of land to a Benedictine abbey in the time of abbot Drzhiha.

The kingdom saw the rise of the first ever Slavic literary culture in the Old Church Slavonic language as well as the expansion of Christianity, first via missionaries from East Francia, and later after the arrival of Saints Cyril and Methodius in 863 and the creation of the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet dedicated to a Slavic language.

South Slavic languages

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The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages.

Areas where Eastern South Slavic dialects are spoken:

The first South Slavic language to be written (also the first attested Slavic language) was the variety of the Eastern South Slavic spoken in Thessaloniki, now called Old Church Slavonic, in the ninth century.

Saint George's Cathedral, Istanbul, Turkey

Eastern Orthodox Church

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Second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members.

Christ Pantocrator, sixth century, Saint Catherine's Monastery, Sinai; the oldest known icon of Christ, in one of the oldest monasteries in the world

Emperor Constantine presents a representation of the city of Constantinople as tribute to an enthroned Mary and baby Jesus in this church mosaic (Hagia Sophia, c. 1000)

An icon of Saint John the Baptist, 14th century, North Macedonia

Icon depicting the Emperor Constantine and the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325) holding the Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381.

Hagia Sophia, the largest church in the world and patriarchal basilica of Constantinople for nearly a thousand years, later converted into a mosque, then a museum, then back to a mosque.

The baptism of Princess Olga in Constantinople, a miniature from the Radzivill Chronicle

Latin Crusaders sacking the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Orthodox controlled Byzantine Empire, in 1204.

Timeline showing the main autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Churches, from an Eastern Orthodox point of view, up to 2021

Canonical territories of the main autocephalous and autonomous Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions as of 2020

Percentage distribution of Eastern Orthodox Christians by country

Our Lady of Tinos is the major Marian shrine in Greece.

The Theotokos of Vladimir, one of the most venerated of Orthodox Christian icons of the Virgin Mary

Last Judgment: 12th-century Byzantine mosaic from Torcello Cathedral

David glorified by the women of Israel from the Paris Psalter, example of the Macedonian art (Byzantine) (sometimes called the Macedonian Renaissance)

Chanters singing on the kliros at the Church of St. George, Patriarchate of Constantinople

An illustration of the traditional interior of an Orthodox church.

Shards of pottery vases on the street, after being thrown from the windows of nearby houses. A Holy Saturday tradition in Corfu.

Eucharistic elements prepared for the Divine Liturgy

The wedding of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

Eastern Orthodox subdeacon being ordained to the diaconate. The bishop has placed his omophorion and right hand on the head of the candidate and is reading the Prayer of Cheirotonia.

The consecration of the Rt Rev. Reginald Heber Weller as an Anglican bishop at the Cathedral of St. Paul the Apostle in the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac, with the Rt. Rev. Anthony Kozlowski of the Polish National Catholic Church and Saint Tikhon, then Bishop of the Aleutians and Alaska (along with his chaplains Fr. John Kochurov and Fr. Sebastian Dabovich) of the Russian Orthodox Church present

Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew I in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, 2014

The Constantinople Massacre of April 1821: a religious persecution of the Greek population of Constantinople under the Ottomans. Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople was executed.

The Pan-Orthodox Council, Kolymvari, Crete, Greece, June 2016

Patriarchate of Peć in Kosovo, the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church from the 14th century when its status was upgraded into a patriarchate

Traditional Paschal procession by Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church

Greek Orthodox massacred during the Greek Genocide in Smyrna in 1922.

A major event in this effort was the development of the Cyrillic script in Bulgaria, at the Preslav Literary School in the ninth century; this script, along with the liturgical Old Church Slavonic, also called Old Bulgarian, were declared official in Bulgaria in 893.

Bulgarian language

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South Slavic language spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily in Bulgaria.

Map of the Bulgarian dialects within Bulgaria

Extent of Bulgarian dialects according to the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences shown encompassing the Eastern South Slavic dialects. Subregions are differentiated by pronunciation of man and tooth.

Areas of Eastern South Slavic languages.

Old Bulgarian (9th to 11th centuries, also referred to as "Old Church Slavonic") – a literary norm of the early southern dialect of the Proto-Slavic language from which Bulgarian evolved. Saints Cyril and Methodius and their disciples used this norm when translating the Bible and other liturgical literature from Greek into Slavic.

Saint Naum