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CV NEWS FEED // Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Greek saints who brought the Gospel to modern-day Russia, provide an example for how Catholics should engage with technology, Bible scholar Scott Hahn wrote this week.
Hahn wrote that the saints share a Feb. 14 feast day with the better-known St. Valentine. The brothers were born in the ninth century into a wealthy family in Thessalonica, Greece. Cyril was a professor, and Methodius was a governor.
Both discerned a call to monastic life and later became missionaries. Byzantine Emperor Michael III sent them to evangelize the Khazars in what is now Russia.
The Russian people were very receptive to the message of the Gospel, Hahn wrote, and asked to have the Scriptures and liturgy translated into their own language so that native priests could learn them.
“Cyril recognized that the local languages could not accommodate such a project. So he did something outlandish,” Hahn stated. “He invented a new alphabet, and with his brother he translated the Gospels and the sacramental liturgies into Slavonic.”
“Why am I so fascinated by two men who died so long ago in such a faraway place? Because they’re models for us in the work we must do today,” Hahn continued. “Cyril and Methodius wanted the world to know God’s saving Word and receive it from the heart of the Church, which is the liturgy. In their zeal they were willing to advance the state of technology for the sake of the Gospel.”
Hahn noted that since contemporary Christians also live in a time of great change, Sts. Cyril and Methodius serve as a model for properly engaging with technology.
“We can worry over how these changes will affect us — or we can find ways to make them occasions for the advancement of the Gospel,” Hahn stated. “We can dare to use new media and new circumstances in new ways, so that ever more people will come to know Jesus ‘in the breaking of the bread.’”
