The Alphabet of Church Slavonic

The religious life of Cyrillic centres on Church Slavonic, the liturgical language descended from the translations of Cyril, Methodius and their school. In Cyrillic letters, Church Slavonic remains the language of worship for the Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian Orthodox churches and for Slavic Greek Catholics, so hundreds of millions of believers still hear and read scripture through this alphabet in its traditional form, with titlo abbreviations over sacred names and letters retained for their canonical value.

Liturgical printing preserves an older letter inventory than any modern national orthography, so learning to read the service books is a small scribal initiation in itself. The alphabet carries a public sacred memory as well: Bulgaria, North Macedonia and other countries keep the feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius as a day of Slavic letters and culture, honouring the alphabet itself as a religious and national inheritance. Icons of the two brothers conventionally show them holding a scroll of letters, an image of the belief that giving a people an alphabet for worship was an apostolic act, and that the letters on the scroll are themselves part of the gift.