Missionary work Christianization of the Slavs

After staying for approximately three years in Great Morabia, the two brothers selected a number of students to be ordained and begun constructing some sort of church center for the ordination. Due to the invention of the Slavic alphabet and the translation of the church’s writings they came across the bitter hostility of the local clergy in Venice and were summoned to Rome by the Pope Nicholas I, by whom their work was acknowledged and legitimized. But Cyril fell seriously ill and died in 869, at the age of 42. Methodius went on with the missionary work and during his next journey to Rome he was ordained as a bishop based in Sirmio (Sremska Mitrovica). His problems with the Latins went on; Methodius was led to exile, where he decided to travel to Constantinople instead of Rome and subsequently to Morabia, where he focused on his writing and preaching work. With the assistance of his associates, he translated the whole of the Holy Bible (apart from the Makkabian Books) and other church writings. He also translated law, thus establishing the foundations of medieval Slavic literature. By the completion of his writing and translating work, he introduced a Service, honoring St Demetrius, protector of his birthplace, Thessaloniki. In 885, few days after Palm Sunday, after he designated his successor, he departed for the trip to eternal peace.