Monument of Cyril and Methodius to Be Erected in Mongolia

Bulgarian Culture Minister, Vezhdi Rashidov met Tuesday with the Ambassador of Mongolia in Bulgaria, H.E. Mr. Zerendorsh Ganhuyag. Photo by Culture Ministry

A monument of brothers St St Cyril and Methodius will be erected in Mongolia since the Cyrillic alphabet they created is used in the Asian country.

The news emerged Tuesday after a meeting between Bulgarian Culture Minister, Vezhdi Rashidov and the Ambassador of Mongolia in Bulgaria, H.E. Mr. Zerendorsh Ganhuyag.

The two signed a program for cooperation between Bulgaria and Mongolia in the culture sector for the 2012 – 2016 period.

Rashidov informed that a week of Mongolian culture in Bulgaria and a week of Bulgarian culture in Mongolia at the end of this year and the beginning of next year will be the first step in implementing the program, which further includes organizing art exhibits, musical festivals, concerts, theater plays, translation and publishing of literary works, among others.

The program also provides for exchange of lecturers and researchers, direct contacts between educational institutions, teaching and promoting the language and literature of the two countries.

Each year, Bulgaria and Mongolia will provide respectively stipends for one college student and one PhD, along with a joint 12-month specialization quota.

Brothers Cyril and Methodius were born in Thessaloniki, in 827 and 826 respectively. Both were outstanding scholars, theologians, and linguists.

In the 9th century the Holy Brothers Sts. Cyril and Methodius created the Slavic alphabet and made the first translations in it. Their disciples introduced the alphabet in Bulgaria, putting the beginning of its journey to the world.

St. Cyril and St. Methodius invented the so called Glagolithic alphabet, the first Slavic alphabet, whose letters were based on the three holy elements for Christianity - cross, triangle, and cirle. Subsequently, it was modified by their Bulgarian disciples - St. Kliment of Ohrid and St. Naum of Preslav, with St. Kliment calling the new alphabet Cyrillic in favor of his teacher.

Several centuries later, Patriarch Evtimii launched a literary reform and updated the alphabet, assuming that words are expression of the divine essence of things.

Pope John Paul II proclaimed the two Sts Cyril and Methodius Co-patrons of Europe together with St Benedict of Norcia in 1980.

The Cyrillic alphabet has been in existence for more than eleven centuries, but it was introduced for the first time in the European Union after Bulgaria obtained full membership in 2007. The Bulgarian language brought the total number of "linguae europeae" to 23. With its adoption the alphabets in use across the Union got enlarged by one more - the Cyrillic.

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