civilization. This task began in the years of
Michael III,
Bardas and the Patriarch
Photios,
but continued into the following century. The first to be converted were the Moravian Slavs. In the middle of the 9th century their sovereign,
Ratislav,
had sent an embassy to Byzantium asking for a mission of Byzantine bishops and teachers to teach the Christian religion in the language of his people. Ratislav, however, turned to Byzantium for political reasons also. As pushed back German suzerainty, he came up against the Bulgars, who had been allies of the
Franks
since 863. This alliance constituted a threatening 'pincer' for the Moravians, who in a moment of distraction turned to Byzantium. The Emperor Michael III and the Patriarch Photios realized the benefits that Byzantium would gain from the expansion of its religious and political influence and assigned this important mission to two brothers from Thessalonike: Cyril and Methodios, who in the past had assumed similar activities. They departed in 864 for Moravia having with them slavonic translations of liturgical texts in a new alphabet, the so-called glagolitic. The first phase of their mission (864-867) was crowned with success.
The conversion of the Moravians was followed by that of the Bulgars, which was, however, a forced conversion. In 864, the sovereign of the Bulgars, Boris, was baptized: he took the name Michael. Seeing that this conversion to Christianity had taken place under military pressure, the sovereign of Bulgaria did not hesitate (in 866) to change his tactics and ask for a mission of clerics from Rome and the kingdom of the Franks. The pope, who was interested in developments in the Balkans, was on the lookout to restore Rome's recognition in the area, which had been reduced by the iconoclast emperors. So he hastened to send clerics, which infuriated the Patriarch Photios. Indeed his anger was so great that in the synod of 867 he condemned the irregular actions of the Latin clergy and primarily the creed of filioque.