The Balkans | Page 9

812 and Adrianople in 813, Krum appeared before the capital, where he
nearly lost his life in an ambush while negotiating for peace. During preparations for a
final assault on Constantinople he died suddenly in 815. Though Krum cannot be said to
have introduced civilisation into Bulgaria, he at any rate increased its power and gave it
some of the more essential organs of government. He framed a code of laws remarkable
for their rigour, which was undoubtedly necessary in such a community and beneficial in
its effect. He repressed civil strife, and by this means made possible the reawakening of
commerce and agriculture. His successor, of uncertain identity, founded in 822 the city of
Preslav (known to the Russians as Pereyaslav), situated in eastern Bulgaria, between
Varna and Silistria, which was the capital until 972.
The reign of Prince Boris (852-88) is remarkable because it witnessed the definitive
conversion to Christianity of Bulgaria and her ruler. It is within this period also that fell
the activities of the two great 'Slavonic' missionaries and apostles, the brothers Cyril and
Methodius, who are looked upon by all Slavs of the orthodox faith as the founders of
their civilisation. Christianity had of course penetrated into Bulgaria (or Moesia, as it was
then) long before the arrival of the Slavs and Bulgars, but the influx of one horde of
barbarians after another was naturally not propitious to its growth. The conversion of
Boris in 865, which was brought about largely by the influence of his sister, who had
spent many years in Constantinople as a captive, was a triumph for Greek influence and
for Byzantium. Though the Church was at this time still nominally one, yet the rivalry
between Rome and Constantinople had already become acute, and the struggle for
spheres of spiritual influence had begun. It was in the year 863 that the Prince of Moravia,
anxious to introduce Christianity into his country in a form intelligible to his subjects,
addressed himself to the Emperor Michael III for help. Rome could not provide any
suitable missionaries with knowledge of Slavonic languages, and the German, or more
exactly the Bavarian, hierarchy with which Rome entrusted the spiritual welfare of the
Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia used its greater local knowledge for political and not
religious ends. The Germans exploited their ecclesiastical influence in order completely
to dominate the Slavs politically, and as a result the latter were only allowed to see the
Church through Teutonic glasses.

In answer to this appeal the emperor sent the two brothers Cyril and Methodius, who
were Greeks of Salonika and had considerable knowledge of Slavonic languages. They
composed the Slavonic alphabet which is to-day used throughout Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia,
and Montenegro, and in many parts of Austria-Hungary and translated the gospels into
Slavonic; it is for this reason that they are regarded with such veneration by all members
of the Eastern Church. Their mission proved the greatest success (it must be remembered
that at this time the various Slavonic tongues were probably less dissimilar than they are
now), and the two brothers were warmly welcomed in Rome by Pope Adrian II, who
formally consented to the use, for the benefit of the Slavs, of the Slavonic liturgy (a
remarkable concession, confirmed by Pope John VIII). This triumph, however, was
short-lived; St. Cyril died in 869 and St. Methodius in 885; subsequent Popes, notably
Stephen V, were not so benevolent to the Slavonic cause; the machinations of the
German hierarchy (which included, even in those days, the falsification of documents)
were irresistible, and finally the invasion of the Magyars, in 893, destroyed what was left
of the Slavonic Church in Moravia. The missionary brothers had probably passed through
Bulgaria on their way north in 863, but without halting. Many of their disciples, driven
from the Moravian kingdom by the Germans, came south and took refuge in Bulgaria in
886, and there carried on in more favourable circumstances the teachings of their masters.
Prince Boris had found it easier to adopt Christianity himself than to induce all his
subjects to do the same. Even when he had enforced his will on them at the price of
numerous executions of recalcitrant nobles, he found himself only at the beginning of his
difficulties. The Greeks had been glad enough to welcome Bulgaria into the fold, but they
had no wish to set up an independent Church and hierarchy to rival their own. Boris, on
the other hand, though no doubt full of genuine spiritual ardour, was above all impressed
with the authority and prestige which the basileus derived from the Church of
Constantinople; he also admired the pomp of ecclesiastical ceremony, and wished to have
a patriarch of his own to crown him and a hierarchy of his own to serve him.