Sunday, July 26, 2009

Back to San Clemente


So this picture was the first thing i posted about.  I want to compare it with another quote, this one from "Memory and Life of our Blessed Father and Teacher Methodius, Archbishop of Moravia", by Kliment Ohridski.  As always I am quoting from Duichev's Kiril and Methodius.

"There were many others, however, who abused the Slavonic books, saying that no other people may have alphabets but the Jews, the Greeks, and the Latins, according to the inscriptions placed by Pilat on the cross of the Lord.  But the Pope condemned them, calling them 'Pilats' and 'Trilingualists,' and ordered a bishop with a mind diseased by the trilingual contagion to ordain three priests and two readers from among the Slav-disciples." (Kliment recorded in "Life of Constantine" that the Bishops Gauderic and Formosus performed the ceremony. Formosus in particular was a rival for influence among the Slavs, and he may be the "bishop with a mind diseased".)

I don't know what the different staffs held up on the left all mean, but its clear that Methodius (the Bishop on the left) is under a big cross, while there are three smaller crosses (with hanging cloth), and two "shepherd's crooks" (crosiers).  I don't know exactly how these are used in church ceremony, but could they indicate the three priests and two readers/deacons ordained along with Constantine and Methodius?

The "Life and Toils of Kliment", written by Theophylakt Ohridski, states that "among [the disciples] the leaders chosen were Gorazd, Kliment, Naum, Anguellarii, and Sava." This gives us five names.  Gorazd was Methodius' preferred successor as Archbishop of Moravia, but the Frankish bishop Wiching usurped the seat.  Kliment was expelled from Bulgaria, "taking Naum and Anguellari with him", and went on to be Bishop of Bulgaria.  Naum became a leading religious scholar there.  Anguellarii made it to Bulgaria too but, "after living [there] for a short time, gladly gave up his soul into the hands of the holy angels." Gorazd did not join them, but his exact fate is uncertain.

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