“One cannot estimate the significance, for the future of Orthodoxy, of the Slavonic translations [of Cyril and Methodius].” —Orthodox apologist Timothy Ware When the Moravian Prince Ratislav requested that the Byzantine Emperor Michael III send missionaries to Moravia “to explain to us the Christian truths in our own language,” it was the brothers Cyril and Methodius who were sent. They had already developed a reputation as keen thinkers