Museums, Library and Churches to Commemorate the Cyrillo-Methodian Anniversary This Year

3. 1. 2013

On the celebration preparations the Olomouc Region cooperates with its subsidized organizations, the National Heritage Institute, the Olomouc Museum of Art and Catholic as well as Orthodox Churches. The Regional Museum and the Research Library, which belong to the Region, will prepare a joint exposition devoted to Cyril and Methodius. The Museum of Art takes care of the preparations of a Cyrillo-Methodian exposition in its Archdiocesan Museum. The Regional Library will also have a look at the theme of the missionaries in a more general way and will remember the missionaries who left our region to spread faith in the world, for example in America. Between 2013 and 2014, a number of exhibits from these exhibitions will be shown also in other places, for example in Prague and in Zlín.

On this occasion, information material on the theme of church monuments, places of pilgrimage and pilgrims' paths in Moravia is being prepared as well. It will be issued under the title "Duchovní dědictví Moravy a Slezska" (Spiritual Legacy of Moravia and Silesia) by the Olomouc, Zlín, Moravian-Silesian and South Moravian Regions together. Those interested may, apart from making use of the printed form of the publication and its electronic version in the PDF format, download the information by means of a special application right to their mobile phones.

According to the Olomouc archbishop Jan Graubner, the project titled "Open Gates" will also become part of the clebrations, in the course of which commented tours will take place in selected churches. On the national basis, expert conferences will be organized in Prague and at Velehrad. A feature film with a working title "Cyril and Methodius - The Apostles to the Slavs" is emerging as well. The celebrations will culminate at Velehrad on 4th and 5th July.

Cyril and Methodius came to Great Moravia from the Greek Solun in 863. They created the first Slavic script, the glagolitic alphabet, and based on Slavic dialects also a church language - the Old Church Slavonic. They translated important parts of the Bible into it and said masses in it. Fortified settlements located in the territory of present day Mikulčice and Staré Město were the centers of Great Moravia. To these also the fortified settlement in Olomouc was added later. After the decline of the empire the fortified settlement in Olomouc was the only one out of these three centers that was preserved and became a bearer of the Great Moravian traditions. "Findings from the last fifty years show clearly what an important role Olomouc plays in this period of time," stated historian Miloslav Pojsl of the Palacky University Department of Religious History, Patrology and Christian Art.