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Missionaries to Eastern Europe had to cope with political barriers long before the Iron Curtain was established. The ninth-century Prince Ratislav of Moravia was very intrigued by Christianity. He ruled a region inhabited by Slavs that included much of the modern-day Czech Republic and Slovakia. He was concerned that if he welcomed missionaries from the neighboring Christian kingdom of the Franks, it might give powerful Frankish rulers an opportunity to annex his kingdom. He wanted Christianity with no political strings attached. So he wrote seeking missionaries from distant Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire and the protector of Christianity in the East, entreating, "We have not a teacher who would explain to us in our language the true Christian faith."

Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople, chose two brothers for the job: Constantine, who would later adopt the name Cyril when he became a monk, and Methodius. Photius chose his ambassadors well. Cyril and Methodius had grown up in Thessaloniki and spoke a Slavic dialect as well as Greek. They were well educated; Cyril had served as the librarian at the great church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, while Methodius had been a governor of a Slavic region of the Empire. Together the brothers had gained experience representing Byzantium to its neighbors, debating the merits of Christianity on diplomatic missions to the Khazars and Arabs.

Cyril had earned the nickname "The Philosopher" for his well-known love of wisdom. When an imperial officer once asked him to define philosophy, he replied that it was "the knowledge of matters of God and man, to what extent man can approach God and how, through virtue, it teaches man to be in the image and likeness of the Creator."

Initially Cyril was reluctant to accept the mission to Moravia, because the Moravians had no written script for their language. The emperor encouraged him to pray about the matter, and with God's help Cyril created a script for the Slavic language. Based upon the Greek and Hebrew alphabets, the Glagolitic alphabet originally contained 43 letters. In later centuries, this script was simplified and eventually called the Cyrillic alphabet after its inventor. Cyril and Methodius used their new alphabet to adapt the Moravians' oral language into a written language, Old Church Slavonic, to be used for both worship and literature. Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe continue to worship in versions of this ancient language today, and the Cyrillic alphabet is used for many modern Eastern European languages, including Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Serbian.

Cyril translated the New Testament into the Moravians' own language, sharing Christ and also laying the foundation for written literature in Eastern Europe. Cyril recognized that the Bible was a gift from God and therefore emphasized that a translator must strive for the highest possible degree of accuracy in order to preserve the true meaning of the text. But he also approached the task of translation as a poet, delighting in the beauty of biblical language and imagery.

After three years of teaching the gospel in Moravia, Cyril and Methodius set out for Rome with the newly translated Slavic Scriptures and young Moravian disciples to be ordained as clergy. They knew that the young church in Moravia would ultimately need good relations with its nearer neighbor Rome as well as the more distant Constantinople.

As they passed through Venice on their way to Rome, they encountered opposition from Roman Catholic church leaders. The powerful Franks had already complained to the pope about the missionary efforts of the two brothers. How dare they allow Moravian Christians to worship in Slavic rather than in Latin? There were only three languages holy enough to be used for prayer: Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Cyril's opponents found a biblical basis for their position, arguing that "King of the Jews" had been inscribed on Christ's cross in these three languages.

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