The Archbishopric of Moravia () was an ecclesiastical province, established by the Holy See to promote Christian missions among the Slavic peoples. Its first archbishop, the Byzantine Methodius, persuaded Pope John VIII to sanction the use of Old Church Slavonic in liturgy. Methodius had been consecrated archbishop of Pannonia by Pope Adrian II at the request of Koceľ, the Slavic ruler of Pannonia in East Francia in 870.
Methodius's appointment was sharply opposed by the Bavarian prelates, especially the Archbishop of Salzburg and the Bishop of Passau, because missionaries from their dioceses had already been active for decades in the territory designated to Methodius, including Pannonia and Moravia. Methodius was soon captured and imprisoned. He was only released in 873 on Pope John VIII's order. He settled in Moravia which emerged as a leading power in Central Europe during the next decade in the reign of Svatopluk. However, most clerics, who had come from East Francia, were hostile to the archbishop, who introduced Byzantine customs and promoted the use of vernacular in liturgy. They accused Methodius of heresy, but he convinced the pope of the orthodoxy of his views. The pope also strengthened Methodius' position, declaring that all clerics in Moravia, including the newly consecrated bishop of Nitra, were to be obedient to Methodius in 880.
Methodius died on 6 April 885. Wiching, Bishop of Nitra, who had always been hostile to the archbishop, expelled his disciples from Moravia. No new archbishop was appointed, and Wiching, who remained the only prelate with a see in Moravia, settled in East Francia in the early 890s. Church hierarchy was only restored in Moravia when the legates of Pope John IX consecrated an archbishop and three bishops around 899. However, the Magyars occupied Moravia in the first decade of the 10th century.
Origins
The Avar Khaganate, the dominant power of Central Europe in the early Middle Ages, had a decisive impact on the neighboring Slavic rulers' way of life. The Avars' power collapsed after the Franks launched military campaigns against the western territories of the Khaganate in the 790s. Charlemagne's son, Pepin held a synod (church council) on Avar territory in 796, to make decisions on several aspects of missionary work in the newly conquered Pannonia. The synod ruled that the local Christians who had been baptised in the name of the Trinity should not be rebaptised in contrast with those who had not received baptism properly.
Charlemagne divided the newly conquered territory along the river Drava between the Bishopric of Salzburg and the Patriarchate of Aquileia in 796 or 797, with Salzburg receiving the lands to the north of the river. The see of Salzburg became an archbishopric in 798, with five suffragan bishoprics, including the Diocese of Passau. Missionaries from Salzburg were especially active among the Slavs in Carantania; clerics dispatched by the bishops of Passau worked primarily in Moravia.
Adalram, who was archbishop of Salzburg between 821 and 836, consecrated a church for Pribina "on his estate at a place over the Danube called Nitrava", according to the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum (a report, written around 870, about the missionary activities of clerics from Salzburg). Historians date this event between 828 and 832, but Pribina was only baptised in the Carolingian Empire after Mojmir I of Moravia expelled him from his homeland around 833. Pribina settled in Pannonia where he received extensive domains in the late 830s. He cooperated closely with Liupramm, Archbishop of Salzburg, who consecrated churches for him in Mosaburg, Ptuj, Pécs and other settlements in Pannonia between 850 and 859.
The Notae de episcopis Pateviensibus records that Reginhar, Bishop of Passau, "baptised all Moravians" in 831. However, 21 years later, the prelates in East Francia still considered Moravian Christianity "coarse". The Life of Methodius mentions that "many Christian teachers", or missionaries, came to Moravia "from among the Italians, Greeks and Germans" who taught the local Christians "in various ways". The Life of Constantine the Philosopher emphasizes that the German missionaries "forbade neither the offering of sacrifices according to the ancient custom, nor shameful marriages".
Mojmir I's successor, Rastislav of Moravia, Rastislav's nephew, Svatopluk, and Pribina's son and successor, Koceľ, approached the Holy See to ask for "a teacher" in the early 860s, according to the letter Gloria in excelsis Deo, of dubious authenticity, which was recorded in the Life of Methodius and is attributed to Pope Adrian II. Even if the report of the Slavic princes' request is reliable, they did not receive an answer. Rastislav sent his envoys to the Byzantine Emperor, Michael III, asking him to send missionaries to educate the local priests in Moravia. Rastislav's actions show that he wanted to reduce the influence of the clergy from Salzburg and Passau in his realm.
Emperor Michael III dispatched two experienced diplomats and missionaries, Constantine and Methodius—the sons of a military officer from Thessaloniki—to Rastislav's court. The brothers and their retinue arrived in Moravia in 863 and 864. Constantine translated religious texts (first the Gospel of John) to Slavic, using an alphabet he had invented for this purpose. The use of the vernacular enabled the missionaries to accelerate the education of local priests. However, it contradicted trilingualism— the acceptance of Latin, Greek and Hebrew as sacred languages—which was the dominant view in Western Europe.
Three or four years after their arrival, Constantine and Methodius left Moravia to achieve the consecration of their pupils, because they did not know which bishop could ordain priests in Rastislav's realm. During the journey, they spent some time in Pannonia (within the jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Salzburg) and taught the "Slavic letters" to the local ruler, Koceľ, and fifty new students. From Pannonia, they went to Venice where "bishops, priests and monks gathered against [Constantine] like ravens against a falcon", condemning the use of Slavic liturgy, but Constantine defended his case, especially referring to Paul the Apostle's First Epistle to the Corinthians. He stated that the uneducated Slavs could not understand the basic concepts of Christianity if it were presented in a foreign language to them.
After learning of the brothers' activities, Pope Nicholas I summoned them to Rome. He either wanted to prevent them from returning to the Byzantine Empire because of his conflict with Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, or had decided to take advantage of the brothers' missionary activities to hinder the expansion of the Salzburg see. By the time Constantine and Methodius arrived in Rome in early 867, Pope Nicholas had died, but his successor, Pope Adrian II, sanctioned the use of the books that Constantine had translated to Slavic. Maddalena Betti proposes that the Pope regarded Slavic as a medium of instruction, limiting its use to missionary activities. On the Pope's orders, some pupils of Constantine and Methodius were ordained priests or lectors.
Constantine died in Rome on 14 February 869, urging his brother on his deathbed not to abandon the mission among the Slavs. Koceľ sent his envoys to Rome, asking Pope Adrian II to send Methodius to Pannonia. In the letter Gloria in excelsis Deo, addressed to Rastislav, Svatopluk and Koceľ, the pope informed the three Slavic rulers that he made Methodius papal legate to continue the mission in their realms. The pope also sanctioned the use of Slavic liturgy. Methodius arrived in Pannonia in the summer or autumn of 869.
History
Methodius, bishop of Saint Andronicus's see
In response to Koceľ's demand, Methodius returned to Rome where he was "consecrated to the bishopric of Pannonia, to the seat of Saint Andronicus, an Apostle of the seventy" in early 870. Most historians identify Saint Andronicus's seat with Sirmium (near modern Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia), but no primary sources associate Sirmium with the apostle. If Methodius's see was identical with Sirmium, his appointment shows that the pope wanted to strengthen his authority in the western regions of the Balkan Peninsula, because Sirmium had been the center of the church in the Diocese of Illyricum in the Roman Empire. In the early 870s, papal correspondence referred to Methodius as bishop or archbishop"a bishop dispatched by the Apostolic See" or "archbishop of Pannonia, apostolic legate", without specifying his see. Methodius was made archbishop but no suffragan bishops were consecrated to serve under him. This was not unprecedented: Saint Boniface had been made "archbishop of Germania province" in a similar way in 732.
Methodius's promotion to bishopric in Rome was recorded in Slavic sources (including his Life and the Encomium to Cyril and Methodius), but it was not mentioned in Pope Adrian's documents. Historian Maddalena Betti says that the absence of Roman sources implies that negotiations over Methodius's appointment between the Holy See and Koceľ were conducted confidentially, because the pope did not want to come into conflict with Louis the German, King of East Francia, who was making attempts to assert his authority over the neighboring Slavic rulers. Although the pope granted Kocel's request, no papal envoys accompanied Methodius back to Pannonia. Methodius's appointment jeopardized the interests of the Salzburg see, ignoring its jurisdiction in the domains of Koceľ. To defend Salzburg's position, clergymen from the archdiocese compiled the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum, which emphasized the role of missionaries from Salzburg in the conversion of Bavaria, Carantania and Pannonia around 870. The document refers to Methodius as "a certain Greek", without mentioning his appointment to bishopric.
Before 14 May 870, Svatopluk captured his uncle, Rastislav, and handed him over to the Franks. Rastislav was sentenced to prison in Regensburg and the Franks occupied his realm. The Life of Methodius describes a debate between Methodius with "all the bishops". The bishops accused him of working illicitly in their territory. Methodius refuted the allegation, stating that he had been authorized by the Pope to work in a territory that the bishops had illegally seized from the Holy See. The bishops "banished Methodius to Swabia" and imprisoned him.
Taking advantage of a rebellion, Svatopluk expelled the Frankish troops from Moravia in 871. Pope John VIII, who succeeded Adrian II on 14 December 872, soon started to search for Methodius. After learning of Methodius's trial, the Pope dispatched his legate, Paul, Bishop of Ancona, to East Francia, demanding Methodius's release in his letters addressed to Louis the German and three Bavarian prelates. The Pope condemned Adalwin, Archbishop of Salzburg for Methodius's expulsion, and Ermanrich, Bishop of Passau for his capture before the trial, suggesting that Methodius had been active in territories claimed by the two prelates. The Pope imposed an interdict on their dioceses, prohibiting the celebration of Mass as long as Method was held in captivity. Pope John also sent letters to Svatopluk, Kocel' and Mutimir of Serbia. In the letters, the pope mentions Methodius's bishopric as the "Diocese of Pannonia" and declared that the three Slavic rulers' realms were included in Method's diocese. According to Maddalena Betti, the designation "has little bearing on the actual geographical context of the Methodian diocese", the pope only wanted to emphasize the right of the Holy See against the Bavarian prelates in the territory.