Photius Week Continues

Unfortunately Photius Week turns out to be less than seven days of Photius, unlike Ioan Exarch Week.  But here is a quote from Bibliotheka, in which Photius recommends and summarizes various books for his "Brother Tarasios".

"Read the so-called Ecclesiastical History by Philostorgius the Arian, the spirit of which is different from that of nearly all other ecclesiastical historians. He extols all Arians, but abuses and insults all the orthodox, so that his work is not so much a history as a panegyric of the heretics, and nothing but a barefaced attack upon the orthodox. His style is elegant, his diction often poetical, though not to such an extent as to be tedious or disagreeable. His figurative use of words is very expressive and makes the work both pleasant and agreeable to read; "

Photius Week, Day 2

"He does not, however, assert that Apollonius worked any wonders such as legend ascribes to him; he merely extols him as leading a philosophic and temperate life, in which he exhibits the teaching of Pythagoras, both in manners and doctrine. Various accounts are given of his death, the circumstances of which are obscure, as he himself desired; for during his lifetime he was in the habit of saying that the wise man should keep his life a secret from others, or, if he could not, should at least keep his death a secret. The place of his burial is unknown."

-on Life of Apollonius of Tyre by Philostratus

Photius Week, Day 1

Hi again folks and happy Photius Week!  I'll start us off with a quote from Bibliotheka, concerning the lost 6th century History of Nonnosus.

"During his voyage from Pharsan, Nonnosus, on reaching the last of the islands, had a remarkable experience. He there saw certain creatures ¹¹ of human shape and form, very short, black-skinned, their bodies entirely covered with hair. The men were accompanied by women of the same appearance, and by boys still shorter. All were naked, women as well as men, except for a short apron of skin round their loins. There was nothing wild or savage about them. Their speech was human, but their language was unintelligible even to their neighbours, and still more so to Nonnosus and his companions. They live on shell-fish and fish cast up on the shore. According to Nonnosus, they were very timid, and when they saw him and his companions, they shrank from them as we do from monstrous wild beasts."

Ioan Exarch Week Day 7

I hope you've enjoyed Ioan Exarch Week as much as I have!  Here's the last one.  Tomorrow we start Photius week.

"The soul is immortal.  It is endowed with reason and understanding and has no form.  The flesh is the soul's organ and receives from her the ability to grow, feel, and reproduce.  The faculty of reason is not separate from her but constitutes the purest part of the soul.  As the eye is to the flesh, so reason is to the soul.  It is its own keeper possessing the ability to desire and to act.  The soul is changeable, that is to say, its will is subject to mutability.  It was created, and received all those gifts in accordance with her nature from her Creator, Who also made her the receptacle of His grace."

-On the Orthodox Faith

Ioan Exarch Week Day 6

"And so, it does not matter whether we accept that the earth rests upon itself, or upon the air, or upon the waters, or upon nothing at all, as long as we remain true to the dictates of pious reason and as long as we believe that all things are held together and supported by their Makers might."

-Hexameron

Ioan Exarch Week Day 5

"Why does God not create in the manner of the men who do mason work or make ships, or in the manner of the coppersmiths, or the goldsmiths, or any of the other craftsmen? The men collect matter first and then produce whatever ready images they need, and the instruments and tools for their work they get from one another.  But only a thought is sufficient for God to create things which have never existed before.  Nor does He stand in need of anything, whereas the arts of man need one another."

-Hexameron

Ioan Exarch Week Day 4

"The years and all seasons follow one another.  The days and nights keep this order in accordance with the same law; they are not filled with pride when they get longer, nor do they grow sad when they get shorter, but they take time one from the other and give it back again without any delay."

-Hexameron

Ioan Exarch Week Day 3

"For, as the scripture says, 'blood is the soul of every beast,' and blood, when it thickens, turns to flesh, flesh when it decays, becomes earth, so that the beast's soul is properly of the earth.  Hence, 'let the earth bring forth living creatures.' Consider the tie linking the beast's soul with blood, blood with flesh, and flesh with earth."

-Hexameron

Ioan Exarch Week Day 2

"Some things were created to serve man, others to help him contemplate the wonders of the Creation, and still others to put fear into our hearts and to punish us for our weakness.  'And God created great whales.'" They are called 'great' not because they are bigger than the pike or the perch, but because in size they are like great mountains, and when they come out and swim on the surface of the sea, they are taken for islands.  As they are so big, the whales cannot be found near the coast, but they inhabit the expanse of the atlantic sea.  These creatures were made to fill us with fear and terror."

-Hexameron

For more on this subject...

Ioan Exarch Week Day 1

"The sun and moon eclipse each other, thus exposing the folly of those who worship the Creation and not the Creator, and also showing us that they are subject to change and mutability.  And what is mutable cannot be divine, for all changeable things are, by their very nature, destined for destruction."

-On Light, Fire, and (the Heavenly) Bodies

Back

Well I am very sorry for not posting in the last two months.  I have been getting my TESOL certification.  While I don't have any brilliant new observations about C&M right now, I feel like this is a good time to clarify what this blog is all about and what questions I am still trying to find answers to.

I created this blog to be a place where I could write down my notes, observations, and, for lack of a better word, "musings" about Cyril and Methodius.  Sometimes I have merely pointed out interesting things I noticed from primary sources concerning them, and at other times I have engaged in outright conjecture, doing my best not to get too far ahead of myself.  Always in my mind are the following questions.

1.  Where did the inspiration for the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets come from?  How did Cyril and Methodius' education, travels, personal beliefs and experiences inform the work of the mission they led?

2.  How can we improve our understanding of Cyril and Methodius' lives in the absence of more detailed primary sources?  How do their life stories as told by contemporary sources fit into the greater known history of the 9th century?

3.  How did the "cult" of Ss. Cyril and Methodius form?  How is it similar or dissimilar to other cults of Christian Saints, and how does it make the Slavic Christian tradition different?  How can we compare Cyril and Methodius to other religious or intellectual figures?

There are more questions that I would like to answer but these are the main ones.  Lately I have been looking at the third one a lot.  It certainly seems unique in the Slavic tradition for there to be such an important saint who brought not only the Christian faith, but also literacy to his followers.  Few others in Christian times did this, although there are examples.

Ulfilas, the creator of the Gothic alphabet and bible, is the historical figure whose life most resembles Cyril's.  He established a community of Gothic Christian converts on the Danube in what is now Bulgaria.  The Gothic Bible fell out of use as Trinitarian/Nicene Christianity replaced Arianism (Ulfilas' creed) in Germanic Europe from the 6th century to the 8th century.  Like Cyril's followers when they made the Cyrillic alphabet, Ulfilas adapted Greek letters to suit a "barbarian" tongue, borrowing a small number of features from the indigenous writing system (Runes).  Here is an example of text from a reconstructed Gothic Bible.

Mesrop Mashtots invented the Armenian alphabet in 406 AD.  As with the Slavonic, the Armenian alphabet helped preserve the independence of the Armenian Church, which was squeezed between the Eastern Roman Empire and Zoroastrian Persia.  However, Mesrop Mashtots was not personally responsible for the conversion of Armenia to Christianity, which happened many decades earlier.  His script, like Cyril's Glagolitsa, does not bear a close resemblance to other scripts used by Christians.  He is thought by some to have also invented the Georgian and Caucasian Albanian alphabets.  Below is an example of the Armenian script.

St. Stephen of Perm lived in the 14th century and carried out the same sort of activities among the Komi people as Cyril had among the Slavs.  Like cyril, he was known for inventing a new alphabet, spreading Christianity, and destroying "holy birches" (remember, Cyril was said to have chopped down a sacred tree during his visit to the Fules tribe).  The time in which Stephen lived was for Russia somewhat analogous to the 9th century for Byzantium - a period of growth and renewed contact with the rest of the world.  His epithets also mirror St. Cyril's - "Enlightener" or "Apostle" of the Permians.  Here is a computer font version of his Permic Alphabet.

These three are the best historical analogues to Cyril.  They share the same two main accomplishments that Cyril is known for;

1.  Inventing an alphabet

2.  Spreading Christianity

Apart from them, no one I know of meets these two criteria, although there is little used Mormon phonetic alphabet called Deseret which at first glance looks more appropriate to the medieval Caucasus than the 19th century American West, although the modern type face gives it away.

There are some comparable mythical figures, like Cadmus (creator of the Greek alphabet from Phonecian), and Carmenta and Evander (who respectively adapted and brought the alphabet to Italy).  Actually, Wikipedia has a convenient list of such people, real and mythical.

Here is my short list of Christian alphabet makers from Eastern European history, in Chronological order.

St. Ulfilas, Gothic Alphabet, 4th century

St. Mesrop, Armenian Alphabet, 4th-5th century

St. Cyril, Glagolitic Alphabet, 9th century

St. Kliment, Cyrillic Alphabet, 9th-10th century

St. Stephen, Permian Alphabet, 14th century

This makes a nice span of the Middle Ages.

In Western Europe during the Rennaissance there were numerous people who invented alphabets for cryptographic or magical/occult purposes, but these are really a different phenomenon altogether - these alphabets were not intended to be taught or used by real populations.  In modern times, Christian missionaries once again invented new scripts for the purpose of proselytizing among the non-literate peoples they encountered through colonialism.  Later, native intellectuals in developing nations started to invent new alphabets for languages that had not previously had a written standard.  There were also new alphabets made for the purposes of language reform, often phonetic, and frequently derived from the Latin script (or, in the Soviet Union, Cyrillic).  There were numerous types of shorthand invented during the modern period, and systems like sign language and braille.

Cyril and Methodius Pictures

This isn't a real entry but I will do one soon.  For now here are a few representations of Cyril and Methodius.  The second is my favorite.

Patriarch John

Here is a short excerpt from an OCS life of Cyril, a very brief one compared to those in Duichev's collection.  The translation is my own and very rough.

"At that time Ioann was patriarch of Tsarograd (Constantinople).  He stirred up heresy and abused the holy icons.  And for this he was removed from his seat by the Holy Council.  And Constantine the Philosopher came to him and put him to shame, and corrected his wicked heresy."

I was pleased to find this, since it confirms something that is described in the longer account in Kliment Ohridski's Life.  As it goes, early in Constantine's professorship (probably the late 840s) he was called on to publicly debate a former patriarch called by the pseudonym "Anis[os]" (Grk. "the unequal").  This account shows that it was indeed John the Grammarian, the last Iconoclast Patriarch.

In Kliment's account, John boasts of his debating skills, saying that his enemies removed him "by force and not by arguments of reason; for there is none can stand up to my word."  He contemptuously declares that the philosopher and his colleagues are "unworthy to sit at my feet; how can I discourse with you?"  However, Constantine goes on to refute all of the iconoclast arguments and leaves John "shamed", "disgraced", and "silent".

In a future entry I hope to shed some light on the role of then-Patriarch Ignatios in this last iconoclast controversy.

Aristotle on Truth

"To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute."

-Aristotle, On the Heavens

Peoples of the Book Part II

To repeat the quote I focused on in my earlier post;

 "We on our part know of many peoples who have books and give praise to God each in its own tongue.  Such peoples, it is known, are the Armenians, the Persians, the Abzags, the Ivers, the Sugds, the Goths, the Tirsians, the Hazaras, the Arabs, the Egyptians, the Syrians, and many more."

-St. Cyril (Constantine the Philosopher), as recorded by Kliment Ohridski

 "Hazaras" (or Khazars) were mainly known for being Turkic and pagan converts to Judaism, so apparently this is a list of both Christian and Jewish groups - i.e. people who use either the New or Old Testament or both, which makes sense because the Trilingual doctrine applies to both.  Constantine had encountered Jews and Samaritans in or on his way to Khazaria from Cherson, and had supposedly learned the Samaritan alphabet and studied the Samaritan books in preparation for his debates with the Khazars.  I am not sure if this was the form in which the Khazars initially encountered the Hebrew Bible, but it would make sense if Samaritans as well as Hebrew speaking Jews had influenced their religious practices.  The Samaritans were brutally suppressed in Palestine during the reign of Justinian (6th century), and some of the survivors travelled as far as the Crimea.  The Khazars seem to have adopted Old Testament-style monotheism gradually, becoming a properly Jewish state only by the 9th century.

Apparently knowledge of Samaritan was something Constantine considered useful for his mission there in 860-861.  It was important enough that he supposedly shut himself up for  days in Cherson (Crimea) to perfect his Samaritan before continuing east to Khazaria.  There is no mention of him learning the Turkic Khazar language.  There would be no reason to include the Khazars in his list of peoples of the book if they used only Hebrew, since Trilingualism recognizes Hebrew as the "official" language of the Old Testament, as Greek is for the New Testament.  The possibility that the scriptures were written in the Turkic Khazar language seems remote, since there is so little tradition of writing in that language.  Anyway, in short, Kliment's own account of Constantine's time in Khazaria gives no evidence of a local version of the New Testament, and if they had the Old Testament they must have used a language other than Hebrew to be worth including in Constantine's list of people who have books in languages other than the "official" three.  This would mean Constantine included the Khazars in the list in order to generalize his argument to all three aspects of trilingualism - showing that there are different versions of the old testament as well as new.

The mention of Arabic scriptures after the Khazars' is also important, because the Koran is certainly not what he is referring to - this would be pretty ridiculous in his situation of trying to justify to the Romans the orthodoxy of his translated Slavonic gospels.  He must be referring to Arabic versions of the Old and/or New Testament.  The Christians in Arabic-speaking lands, however, used their own languages and scripts, such as Coptic and Syriac (which he mentions specifically).  Its likely he is referring only to the Old Testament, as seems to be the case for the Khazars.  We know this was translated by Jewish scholars in the middle east.  The oldest existing version dates from decades after his death, but evidently Jewish scriptures in Arabic were not unknown to Constantine the Philosopher, who had traveled to Baghdad in the 850s.  Thus, he is giving two examples of Jews who write their holy books (which the Christians share) in languages other than Classical Hebrew.  The first, the "Khazars/Samaritans" (my own interpretation), had books in an ancient but controversial writing, while the Jews of the Middle East and Muslim Spain had adopted the new lingua franca, Arabic.  (Latin, remember, is dubiously included in the trinity of holy languages merely for having been the lingua franca for the Church's first half millennium, and as Constantine pointed out, appears in the New Testament only on the head board of the crucifix - hence referring to the Latinophiles as "Pilates".)

Taking a step back

I'm going to take a minute to talk about why I decided to make this blog.  Here are some of the questions I have been asking myself.

Why am I qualified to write about St. Cyril and Methodius? (I'm not, but we'll get to that later) 

Why should anybody care about them?

What, if anything, can their story tell us about history, religion, or science? 

Is it dangerous to speculate on their personalities, opinions, and beliefs on the basis of a few biographical sources?

Well, first of all, I am not qualified to write about this topic on the basis of my education.  I have a major in Russian and East European studies, and have studied and taught Russian, but never learned about Cyril and Methodius in class, except for as a small part of medieval Russian history.  I try to keep the content of this blog grounded in primary sources - the translated texts as published in Duichev's Kiril and Methodius, works of art such as the San Clemente painting, and the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts which are the work of Cyril and his disciples and colleagues.  As I've searched on the internet for sources relevant to my interests, I've noticed that ancient scripts like Proto-Bulgarian are often hotly debated by European nationalists on white supremacist forums like Stormfront.  My comparison of Glagolitic and Cyrillic with material from other European and Mediterranean contexts, such as older alphabets and alchemy and astronomy symbols, is strictly for the sake of juxtaposition, and I do not intend to promote any particularist theory regarding religious beliefs, prehistory, or questions of national and ethnic identities.  The goal of this blog is to focus attention on Constantine the Philosopher and his brother Methodius as they are described in sources written by those who knew them.  Too often their story is considered only in a sectarian context.

Next, I think that the lives of Cyril and Methodius provide a great window into an obscure period of history - the second half of the 9th century.  The accounts of their lives give us a view of Byzantium in the years after the Iconoclast controversy, a time of renewed learning and culture.  The works have a polemic tone - they condemn the views, practices, and character of the Western (Frankish) clergy, and defend Christian Orthodoxy against the Muslims, Jews, and recently defeated Iconoclasts.  They provide a first-hand account of how Orthodoxy and Heresy were seen in the late 9th century.  The narration and the quoted speech are full of both Old and New Testament verses, which gives us a picture of how the early Slavic Christians interpreted the scriptures in the context of their own situation (or, how the early Slavic literati used biblical references in their framing of recent history).  They are often noteworthy for what they leave out.  There is hardly any reference to the tension between Rome and Constantinople at this time (the Photian Schism), or of Prince Vladimir's four-year restoration of Paganism in Bulgaria.  The main enemy is not Rome, or even Paganism (which is more error than evil), but the German Clergy.  The writings of Kliment and Theophylakt, among others, provide an important early record of an East-West division in the interior of Europe - based on the competing national developments of Germans and Slavs, not the much older rivalry between their southern neighbors the Latins and Greeks.  

More specifically, however, I think Cyril and Methodius themselves are important simply because the script and language they used for the Holy Scriptures have diffused so far among the Eastern and Southern Slavs.  Basically the entire literate Slavic culture is indebted to the work done by Cyril and Methodius, along with their students.  Because of this, I think it's important to try to understand, as much as possible, where Cyril and Methodius were coming from.  That is why i try to focus attention of their education (particularly Cyril's), their early activities, and the religious and intellectual culture of their times.  Constantine the Philosopher is not a typical 9th century man, but he is very much of his time - a Philosopher and debater in the classical sense, as well as a Christian evangelizer in the Apostolic and Patristic tradition.  Theophylakt Ohridski calls Constantine "great in his knowledge of the heathen philosophy, and even greater in his knowledge of Christian lore".  His life's work - the writing and teaching of the Holy Scriptures in a "barbarian" language, demonstrates how these two qualities combined to change the course of history.  

Now, the biggest problem with relying on the works of Kliment and Theophylakt of Ohrid is that they are excessively laden with praise.  They contain numerous mentions of miracles, for which it is tempting but probably fruitless to seek mundane explanations.  They deliberately demonize the enemies of Cyril and Methodius and put words in their mouths.  As I said before, they sometimes leave out historical events which one would think were important to them.  There are anecdotes that seem constructed for didactic, rather than historical purposes.  Despite all of this, I still think that it's worth something that these texts were written by people who personally knew Cyril and Methodius.  I don't think it's expecting to much to assume the texts contain some real information along with the platitudes that are found in hagiographic literature.  The parts about the two brothers working miracles or interceding in heaven on behalf of their followers are also not to be completely disregarded - they represent the beginning of a proper saintly cult of Cyril and Methodius, which was initiated by their students and colleagues.  It is almost exclusively as saints that we are familiar with them today - "St. Cyril" is much more widely known than "Constantine the Philosopher".

Liberal Arts

The "Seven Liberal Arts" that make up a classical higher education are as follows.  The "Trivium" ("threefold path") consists of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric - the prerequisites needed to engage with the higher arts, the "Quadrivium" of Arithmetic, Astronomy, Geometry, and Music.  From Life of Constantine we learn, not surprisingly, that these were the subjects studied by Constantine.

Proclus Diadochus, a great (Pagan/Neo-Platonist) theorist of late antiquity, declared;

"Arithmetic is the Discrete At Rest, 

Astronomy is the Discrete In Motion 

Geometry is the Continuous At Rest

Music is the Continuous in Motion."

He also is reported to have said "wherever there is number, there is beauty."

This description of beauty resonates in the Memory and Life of Methodius by Kliment Ohridski, who states that "God, who has made out of non-being into being everything, both visible and invisible, has adorned his creation with every beauty which man, in contemplating it, and meditating upon it, may gradually and to an extent understand." 

Beauty, in this passage, is seen as that which draws the human mind to contemplation of the divine.  Let us contrast this with the definition of Philosophy, attributed to Constantine himself in Kliment's Life and Acts of Constantine the Philosopher as;

"The knowledge of the divine and human things which says in how far man can get nearer to God and how through deeds he can become the image and likeness of Him who is his Creator."

In these last two statements, the idea of directing the mind towards God is intertwined with higher and more abstract thinking.  This is what is meant by the two earlier quotes from Proclus Diadochus, with his heirarchy of the sciences from "discrete" to "continuous".  Proclus and Kliment seem to share the idea that beauty reveals an underlying (or, thanks to the ambiguities of language, "higher") order.  Order as it is found in nature is seen by both Pagan and Christian thinkers as manifestation of the divine will.  Therefore, observing and understanding nature's creations directs the mind to the higher source from which the creations originate - whether this be the Platonic ideal forms, or the divine Logos of Christianity.  The Platonic contrast between mundane manifestations and ideal forms is paralleled by the Christian duality of the "visible and invisible".

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.

The Movie?

I should have guessed this would exist.

Which reminds me, that this is another great movie about Slavic Christianity and paganism.

Its kind of a dark comedy.  Note - the Old Bulgarian style letters!  See if you can find them on this chart.

Peoples of the Book

When Constantine the Philosopher is forced to defend his new Slavonic translation of the scriptures, he draws on his extensive historical knowledge to point out than in centuries past, the bible was written in many languages other than Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.  "We on our part know of many peoples who have books and give praise to God each in its own tongue." he says in Kliment's Life and Acts of Constantine, "Such peoples, it is known, are the Armenians, the Persians, the Abzags, the Ivers, the Sugds, the Goths, the Tirsians, the Hazaras, the Arabs, the Egyptians, the Syrians, and many more."

Its quite interesting that many of these groups whom he mentions were considered heretical.  The Goths had their own translation of the bible, by St. Ulfilas, an Arian Christian who conceived of a script for the Gothic language which mixed Greek letters with runes (looking a little like cyrillic).  These books were mostly destroyed by the Trinitarian Christians throughout the dark ages (although Gothic continued to be spoken in parts of the Crimea).  The Persian and Syrian Christians had broken from the Orthodox church in the Nestorian and Chalcedonian schisms.  Armenia and Egypt, nations which played an important role in the early spread of Christianity, also had separate church structures.

By the Ivers, I assume he means the Georgians, and the Sugds would be the Sogdians of Central Asia, who practiced a Manichean-influenced Christianity.  Its interesting that he names all these nations as people who "have books" (i.e. one or more of the Gospels) regardless of their perceived orthodoxy or lack thereof.  He seems to be holding up the heterogeneity of pre-Nicene or "pre-Ecumenical" Christianity as a strength.  This fits with the view expressed by Theophylact Ochridski, which holds the age of the apostles and church fathers to be superior to recent centuries.  The first through fourth centuries saw Christianity spread across all three continents of the Old World, influencing all literate cultures and even going hang in hand with the creation of new writing systems (largely the ones Constantine lists - Georgian, Armenian, Gothic, and Coptic were all created by Christian scholars).  In the 6th-9th centuries, Christianity had largely not spread further, but had divided against itself and lost ground to Islam (in Asia, Africa and Spain) and Paganism (in Northern and Eastern Europe).  

In this sense, Constantine could be called an Evangelical Christian.  Not that he performed charismatic rituals or encouraged speaking in tongues, but he believed in spreading the teachings of the Gospels, which he considered to contain true wisdom.  This is of course the definition of evangelizing.  He believed that the Church should not stand aloof from those who do not accept (that is, fail to understand) Christianity, but should go to them, engage them in terms they can understand, convince them, and make committed, intellectually adroit christians out of them.  This is what the early church did as it spread outward through the pagan mediterranean world of late antiquity.  By endorsing those Christians of past centuries who spread the faith in new languages and letters, he implicitly condemns those who, by insisting on dogma (an idea of truth which is shaped by a particular language,) drove many Christian nations away from the Orthodox-Catholic Church.

Now, I have been wondering about two of the names here:  the Abzags and the Tirsians.  At first i thought the Abzags could be the Alans/Ossetians/Sarmatians (since their word for language is "aevzag", or according to this Russian site, "abzag").  This site mentions the Abzags as predecessors to the Abkhaz people, who are southern Caucasian, not "Scythian" (i.e. northern Iranian).  But I have no idea who the Tirsians could be.  Tiras is a son of Japheth in Old Testament genealogy, so Constantine may be referring to some nation that claims descent from them.  The Dniestr river was once called Tiras (hence the city Tiraspol), but I have never heard of a literate Christian nation existing in this area before the time of St. Cyril.  This area is part of Moldova now but it seems unlikely that Constantine was referring to Vlachs.