Cyril and Methodius Day

Saints Cyril and Methodius were Byzantine brothers sent to Great Moravia after Prince Rastislav requested teachers able to communicate Christianity in a Slavic language. They arrived in 863. Cyril, then known as Constantine, devised the Glagolitic script, and the mission translated liturgical and biblical texts into Old Church Slavonic. Methodius continued the work as an archbishop after Cyril’s death in Rome, defending Slavonic worship amid political and ecclesiastical rivalry.

Their mission belongs to the history of a realm that covered parts of today’s Czechia, Slovakia and neighbouring countries; it should not be reduced to a modern national project. Czech remembrance nevertheless gives the brothers a central role in Moravian Christianity, education and written culture. July 5 was established as their Catholic feast in the nineteenth century, while Orthodox communities commemorate them on a different liturgical date. The Czech state holiday follows the July date.

The national pilgrimage at Velehrad in south-eastern Moravia is the holiday’s principal gathering, bringing worship, concerts, lectures and charitable programmes together. Offices and schools close nationwide. The retail-opening restriction does not include July 5, so even large stores may legally open. When the fixed date falls on a weekend, it is not transferred to another weekday.