The life of St Cyril, Teacher of the Slavs
Together the brothers devised the Glagolitic alphabet for that end, and when King Rostislav of Great Moravia invited them in 863 to establish a Slavic liturgy and clergy there, work meant partly to loosen the region's dependence on Frankish churchmen, they answered the call. The alphabet they created, ancestor of the Cyrillic script that still bears Cyril's name, opened a literary tradition to Slavic peoples who had not had one in their own language before.
Years earlier, in 861, a journey through Crimea had brought Cyril to what were believed to be the relics of Pope Clement of Rome, which he later carried to Rome itself after Pope Nicholas invited the brothers there in 867. Not long before his death he took monastic vows and the name Cyril, setting aside Constantine, the name he had carried through the rest of his life's work.
He died in Rome on February 14, 869, and was buried, at his brother's request, in the Basilica of San Clemente, where the only relics of his that survive still rest.
