The brothers Cyril and Methodius were born in Thessaloniki. They created the Slavic alphabet “Glagolitic.” They led Slavonic-language liturgy and alphabet as equivalent to Greek and Latin. Their students set the foundations of the Bulgarian Christian medieval culture.
During the Bulgarian Renaissance, Cyril and Methodius were perceived as Bulgarians, creators of a Greek-independent Bulgarian culture. They became a symbol of the struggle of the Bulgarian people for their own schools and churches. In the nineteenth century the celebration of the feast of the holy brothers on 24 May meant membership of the Bulgarian nation.
