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Bulgarian people also honor the creators of the Cyrillic alphabet – the brothers St. Cyril and St. Methodius and their students. Flag of Bulgaria entry into Flag of European Union made Cyrillic the third official alphabet in the EU.

The Cyrillic alphabet has been the third official alphabet in the European Union along with the Latin and the Greek alphabets since Bulgaria s accession in 2007. It is not by chance that Cyrillic letters are depicted on the logo of the first Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU: the alphabet is one of the symbols which best represents Bulgarian identity and culture.

On 24 May Bulgaria celebrates the Day of Bulgarian Education and Culture and the Slavonic Alphabet. The Language Library of the Council of the EU hosted an event organised by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science to mark the day. In a round-table discussion titled Multilingualism - United in Diversity the participants discussed how languages can serve as a bridge between people and can open access to other countries and cultures, promoting mutual understanding.

The Cyrillic alphabet has also been a bridge between people, cultures and nations for over eleven centuries.  Did you know that its story is truly European?

In 863, two Byzantine scholars and diplomats, the brothers Cyril and Methodius, were sent by Emperor Michael III to Great Moravia  (roughly corresponding to the area known as Central Europe today) to spread Orthodox Christianity among the West Slavs. The brothers decided to translate the holy books to make them understandable to the ordinary people. Since the Slavic language could not be easily written using either the Greek or Latin alphabets, Cyril created a new script, the Glagolitic alphabet. Its name comes from the Slavonic verb glagolati - "to speak". In those times, religious dogma stipulated that the holy texts can only exist in Greek, Latin and Hebrew, because their alphabets were created by God. To make the first Slavonic alphabet just as divine, Cyril created the new letters using the three elements that were holy for Christianity - the cross, the triangle, and the circle.

After the death of Cyril (869) and Methodius (885), the Glagolitic alphabet ceased to be used in Moravia, and their students were banished from the country. Nevertheless, Cyril and Methodius made a much more important contribution to Europe s history: they defended the right of the Slavs to have their own alphabet and to make Slavonic equal to Latin and Greek in the use of church affairs. As a result, the brothers were venerated in the Orthodox Church as saints in 1880 and Pope John Paul II proclaimed them co-patrons of Europe in 1980.

The main reason Cyril and Methodius s contribution to history was not obscured over time was that their students spread their legacy. It is at this point that Bulgaria enters the story. Boris I, the Bulgarian monarch who adopted Christianity in 864, sheltered the students of Cyril and Methodius in 886 and gave them the required support to continue the mission of spreading both the alphabet and the Christian canon.

 There are various hypotheses about the creation of the Cyrillic alphabet. Some researchers believe that the Glagolitic alphabet was modified by their Bulgarian students, St Kliment of Ohrid and St Naum of Preslav, after their arrival in Bulgaria in 886. It is thought that St Kliment named the new alphabet Cyrillic after his teacher St Cyril. What really matters is that the 900s saw a linguistic and cultural revolution that made Bulgaria a major cultural centre, spreading the Cyrillic script and religious literature translated into Slavonic throughout greater eastern Europe. Today the Cyrillic alphabet is used by some 300 million people in countries in Eastern Europe and Northern and Central Asia.

/2020-05-24/