Christianization of Moravia

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Remnants of a church from the period of Great Moravia at the Mikulčice-Valy heritage site.

The Christianization of Moravia refers to the spread of the Christian religion in the lands of medieval Moravia (Great Moravia).

Constantine and Methodius
in Rome

What modern historians designate as

diocese of Passau was charged with establishing a church structure in Moravia.[3] The first Christian church of the Western and Eastern Slavs known to the written sources was built in 828 by Pribina, the ruler and Prince of the Principality of Nitra, although probably still a pagan himself, in his possession called Nitrava (today Nitra, Slovakia).[4][5] The first Moravian ruler known by name, Mojmír I, was baptized in 831 by Reginhar, Bishop of Passau.[6] Due to internal struggles between Moravian rulers, Mojmir was deposed by Rastislav in 846; as Mojmir was aligned with Frankish Catholicism, Rastislav asked for support from the Byzantine Empire and aligned himself with Eastern Orthodoxy.[3]

Despite the formal endorsement by the elites, the Great Moravian Christianity was described as containing many pagan elements as late as in 852.

was Christianized a century later, and where Moravian missionaries were among the early evangelizers).[9] Soon Rastislav succeeded in created a church independent of both the Germans and Constantinople, subordinated directly to the See of Rome.[3] New diocese of Pannonia was inaugurated, with Methodius as its first archbishop.[3]

After the death of Rastislav successor, Svatopluk I (who expelled the disciples of Methodius from Moravia in 886 thus effectively ending the existence of Slavonic liturgy in his realm) Moravia was partitioned between its neighbours (Bohemia and Hungary) and the Slavic church went into decline, replaced by the churches better established in those other territories.[10] Nevertheless, a number of expelled Slavic church clerics and scholars found refuge in Bulgaria, where their teachings, liturgical and literacy traditions were successfully incorporated into the early Bulgarian Orthodox Church and formed in great extent the medieval Bulgarian culture.[10]

See also

References

  1. .
  2. ^ Stanislav, Ján (1934). Životy slovanských apoštolov Cyrila a Metoda. Panonsko-moravské legendy. Bratislava, Praha: Vydané spoločne nakladateľstvom Slovenskej ligy a L. Mazáča. Archived from the original on 2008-03-25. Retrieved 2009-10-09.
  3. ^ . Retrieved 15 June 2013.
  4. ^ Bartoňková Dagmar; et al., eds. (1969). "Libellus de conversione Bagoariorum et Carantanorum (i.e. Conversio)". Magnae Moraviae fontes historici III. Praha: Statni pedagogicke nakl.
  5. ^ Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum: "Adalramus archepiscopus ultra Danubium in sua proprietate loco vocato Nitrava consecravit ecclesiam." ("Archbishop Adalram consecrated a church for him over the Danube on his possession called Nitra.")
  6. ^ Sommer, Petr; Trestik, Dusan; Zemlicka, Josef (2007), "Bohemia and Moravia", in Berend, Nora (ed.), Christianization and the rise of Christian monarchy : Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus' c. 900-1200, Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 214–262
  7. ^ Barford, P. M. (2001). The early Slavs : culture and society in early medieval Eastern Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
  8. ^ . Retrieved 14 June 2013.
  9. . Retrieved 15 June 2013.
  10. ^ . Retrieved 15 June 2013.

External links