Dr Augustin Sokolovski
On May 24, the Church commemorates Saints Cyril and Methodius, Apostles of the Slavs. In the biographies and lives of the holy brothers, there is no specific date known to us that would allow for such a joint celebration. For a time, they began their monastic life together on the monastic Holy Mountain of Olympus in Bithynia, in the same region where Nicaea is located, in Asia Minor.
But the fact is that May 24 is also a church holiday commemorating the founding of Constantinople in 330 AD by Emperor Constantine the Great. Historically, it was this city that was destined to become the capital of Universal Orthodoxy from the moment of its founding until, perhaps, the upheavals of modern times: the Russian Revolution of 1917, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following its defeat in World War I, and the expulsion of the Orthodox population from Asia Minor and Turkey in 1922, known in history as the Asia Minor Catastrophe.
The Feast of the Foundation of Constantinople is marked in the church calendar and has its own troparion, which is sung in the fourth tone: “The City of the Mother of God dedicates its foundation as a gift to the Theotokos. For it was created to dwell in Her. Through Her it lives and is strengthened, crying out to Her: ‘Rejoice, hope of all the ends of the earth!’ It follows from this hymn that ancient Orthodox hymnographers regarded Constantinople as the “City of the Mother of God.”
The coincidence of the founding of Constantinople with the feast of Cyril and Methodius is no accident. The feast was introduced by the Bulgarian Orthodox community in Constantinople in the nineteenth century on this very day with the aim of “replacing” the “Greek celebration,” thereby emphasizing the distinctiveness and self-sufficiency of Slavic Orthodoxy in response to what was then perceived as the dominance of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. As is often the case in history, the original reason for the establishment of a particular tradition has been forgotten, while the Church has gained a wonderful celebration. As “Day of Slavic Literature and Culture,” Cyril and Methodius were celebrated in the last century even in officially atheist Slavic states. Like the flower from Andrei Platonov’s children’s fairy tale, theological truths literally sprout through the concrete and asphalt of impenetrable secularism.