The Moravian Mission
Clement, Naum, Angelar, Gorazd, and Sava were among the foremost disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodios and took a full part in the Cyrillo-Methodian mission in Great Moravia. They labored to translate Scripture and the liturgical books into Old Church Slavonic, and the group is associated with the development of the Glagolitic alphabet and with the first Slavic civil code used in Great Moravia.
Twice the disciples defended the Slavonic liturgy in Rome — before Pope Adrian II and Pope John VIII in 880 — against the accusations of heresy raised by German clergy who opposed worship in the Slavonic tongue. When Methodios died in 885, Pope Stephen V forbade the Slavonic liturgy, and Bishop Wiching, who succeeded Methodios, expelled the disciples from Moravia.
Mission to Bulgaria and the Ohrid School
Driven from Moravia, Clement arrived in Bulgaria in 885/886 at Belgrade, where he was welcomed by the local governor along with Naum and Angelar. Prince Boris I commissioned Clement to establish theological education in Old Church Slavonic, entrusting the future of Slavonic letters to the disciples.
Over seven years (886–893) Clement taught approximately 3,500 disciples in Kutmichevitsa, running separate schools for children and adults as well as a court school that later flourished under Prince Simeon. In 893 he was made Bishop of Dremvitsa/Velitsa, also called Greater Macedonia, becoming the first Bulgarian hierarch to serve, preach, and write in the Slavonic language. He founded the Ohrid Literary School and a monastery at Ohrid dedicated to St. Panteleimon.
When Clement was raised to the episcopate and moved to Ohrid, Naum followed and continued the work at the Ohrid Literary School as his successor there. Earlier Naum had founded the Pliska Literary School (886–893), one of two academies established by Boris I, before joining Clement at Ohrid.
Literary Work
Clement is credited with composing original spiritual literature and sermons, with authoring a biography of Cyril and Methodios, and with translating the Pentecostarion (the Flower Triode). He is also credited with writing the oldest known service dedicated to Saints Cyril and Methodios.
He is sometimes credited with the invention of the Cyrillic alphabet, though modern scholarship places the development of that script at the Preslav Literary School rather than with Clement himself.
The Companions
Gorazd, fluent in Slavonic, Greek, and Latin, succeeded Methodios as bishop in Moravia before the expulsion; the OCA synaxarion notes that the disciples first lived as ascetics in Moravia.
Naum (c. 830–910) was born in Moesia in the First Bulgarian Empire and took part in the Moravian mission for roughly twenty-two years. He is venerated as one of the Seven and is considered the first native saint of Bulgaria, canonized through Clement's own initiative.
Angelar, ordained a deacon in Rome in 868 alongside Sava, fled to Bulgaria with Clement and Naum but died shortly after arriving, probably in 886.
Relics & Shrines
Clement was buried at the Monastery of St. Panteleimon at Ohrid, which he had founded. In 2008 the Macedonian Orthodox Church donated a portion of his relics to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
Naum's relics are housed in the Monastery of Saint Naum near Lake Ohrid, which he founded in 905. The relics of Gorazd and Angelar rest near Berat, in present-day Albania.
Miracles & Traditions
Historically Documented: A signed stone plate dated April 24, 889 was identified in 2018 at Ravna Monastery, confirming the early presence of the Cyrillo-Methodian disciples in Bulgaria.
