Archbishop and the Frankish Conflict

Pope Hadrian II consecrated Methodius bishop and sent him back to the Slavs; soon afterward he was raised to the rank of archbishop, set over a revived ecclesiastical province centered on the ancient see of Sirmium in Pannonia, with jurisdiction over the Moravian and Pannonian Slavs. This placed a papal archbishop directly athwart the territory the Bavarian sees of Salzburg and Passau had long claimed as their own, and the Frankish hierarchy reacted with fury — disputing his jurisdiction, denouncing his Slavonic liturgy, and ultimately seizing his person. This file sets out the archiepiscopate, the revived Pannonian see, and the jurisdictional collision with the Frankish Church.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Equals-to-the-Apostles)

Methodius Made Archbishop

After Cyril’s death in Rome in 869, the Papacy did not let the Slavonic mission lapse. Pope Hadrian II consecrated Methodius and dispatched him to the Slavic lands as Rome’s own envoy; within a short time — the sequence is compressed in the sources — he was elevated to the dignity of archbishop, charged with an ecclesiastical province for the Slavs (Vita Methodii 8; trans. Kantor 1983; Dvornik, Byzantine Missions Among the Slavs, 1970, ch. 6; Tachiaos, Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica, 2001, ch. 8). The papal initiative was prompted in part by Kocel, the Slavic prince of Lower Pannonia (the region around Lake Balaton), who had welcomed the brothers and now pressed Rome to give the Slavs their own bishop (Vita Methodii 8; Kantor 1983; Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom, 1970, ch. 2; Dvornik 1970, ch. 6).

The see to which Methodius was appointed was deliberately chosen. Rather than erecting an entirely new bishopric, the Papacy revived the ancient metropolitan see of Sirmium in Pannonia — a city that had been an important Christian center in late antiquity, traditionally associated with the apostolic-era figure Andronicus (cf. Romans 16:7) — and made Methodius archbishop of this restored Pannonian province (Vita Methodii 8; Dvornik 1970, ch. 6; Tachiaos 2001, ch. 8). The choice was canonically shrewd: by reviving an old see rather than creating a new one, Rome could claim to be restoring an ancient jurisdiction rather than intruding upon the Bavarian sphere — though to the Bavarians the distinction made no difference (Dvornik 1970, ch. 6; Vlasto 1970, ch. 4).

The Collision with Salzburg and Passau

The appointment set a papal archbishop, celebrating a Roman-approved Slavonic liturgy, in direct command of lands the Bavarian Church regarded as its own missionary preserve. The archbishopric of Salzburg and the bishopric of Passau had for decades treated the Carantanian, Pannonian, and Moravian Slavs as their territory, evangelized by their clergy in Latin and subject to their jurisdiction; Methodius’s province cut straight across this claim (Vlasto 1970, ch. 4; Dvornik 1970, ch. 6). The Bavarian case is preserved in the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum (“The Conversion of the Bavarians and Carinthians”), the Salzburg memorandum composed about 870, which rehearses the long labors of the Salzburg church among these Slavs precisely in order to assert its prior right against the interloper — and which refers with hostility to a certain “Methodius” who had lately appeared “with the newly-invented Slavic letters” and pushed aside the Latin language and the Roman doctrine and authority (Conversio 12; trans. and discussion in Vlasto 1970, ch. 4; Dvornik 1970, ch. 6). The document is a primary witness to the Frankish grievance, and its very hostility makes it valuable: it shows how the Bavarian Church saw Methodius — as a usurper of its jurisdiction and a corrupter of proper Latin worship (Vlasto 1970, ch. 4).

The conflict was therefore three-layered, and all three layers reinforced one another. It was jurisdictional — who had the right to govern the Slavic Church, Rome’s archbishop or the Bavarian bishops? It was liturgical and doctrinal — the trilingual objection to the Slavonic liturgy, now revived against Methodius as it had been against both brothers (see The Trilingual Dispute). And it was political — the Frankish Church was an arm of Frankish power, and a Slavonic, Rome-appointed hierarchy threatened the East Frankish kingdom’s hold over the border Slavs (Dvornik 1970, ch. 6; Vlasto 1970, chs. 2, 4; Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth, 1971, ch. 4).

The Political Setting

Methodius’s archiepiscopate unfolded against a turbulent political background that repeatedly undercut his position. His original patron, Rastislav of Moravia, fell in 870: betrayed by his nephew Svatopluk, he was handed over to the Franks, blinded, and deposed (Vlasto 1970, ch. 2; Dvornik 1970, ch. 6). Svatopluk, who succeeded to power in Moravia, was a far less reliable protector of the Slavonic cause — at times supporting Methodius, at times indifferent or hostile, and surrounded by a Latin clergy (notably the Swabian priest Wiching, later made a bishop) who worked steadily against the archbishop (Dvornik 1970, ch. 6; Vlasto 1970, ch. 2; Tachiaos 2001, ch. 8). The fall of Rastislav and the rise of the ambivalent Svatopluk removed the firm Slavic backing on which the mission had depended and left Methodius exposed to his Frankish enemies at the very moment he most needed a patron (Dvornik 1970, ch. 6).

It was into this exposed position that the Frankish bishops struck. With Rastislav fallen and Methodius’s territory in dispute, the Bavarian hierarchy seized the chance to deal with the troublesome archbishop directly: they took him into custody and brought him to trial before a synod of Frankish bishops — the ordeal that opens the next file (see The Imprisonment). The conflict that had begun as a debate over the language of worship had become a naked contest of power, and Methodius, holding only a papal commission and the loyalty of his Slavic disciples, was for a time wholly in his enemies’ hands (Dvornik 1970, ch. 6; Vita Methodii 9; Kantor 1983).

The Stakes for the Slavonic Church

What was at issue in this conflict was nothing less than whether a Slavonic Church could exist at all in central Europe. Had the Bavarian bishops prevailed permanently, the Slavs of Moravia and Pannonia would have been absorbed into the Latin, German-clergy Church of the Frankish world, and the experiment of a native Slavic Christianity would have ended at its source (Obolensky 1971, ch. 4; Dvornik 1970, ch. 6). That it did not end there in Methodius’s lifetime is owed to his own steadfastness and to the protection — wavering but real — of the Roman see, which had invested its authority in the Slavonic mission and would, when pressed, defend its archbishop against the Frankish bishops (Dvornik 1970, ch. 6; see The Imprisonment). But the conflict was never resolved in Moravia; it was only suspended, and after Methodius’s death the Frankish party would at last drive the Slavonic clergy out (see The Expulsion and the Ohrid School). The Slavonic Church survived not where it was born but where its exiled disciples carried it.

See Also

References

  • Vita Methodii (Life of Methodius), chapters 8–10. Trans. in Marvin Kantor, Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints and Princes. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 1983.
  • Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum (c. 870), ch. 12. Trans. and discussed in Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom, ch. 4.
  • Scripture: Romans 16:7. (On Andronicus, traditionally linked to Sirmium/Pannonia.)
  • Dvornik, Francis. Byzantine Missions Among the Slavs. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970, ch. 6.
  • Tachiaos, Anthony-Emil N. Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001, ch. 8.
  • Vlasto, A. P. The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970, chs. 2, 4.
  • Obolensky, Dimitri. The Byzantine Commonwealth. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971, ch. 4.