[Trikaduliana]

Next week a friend of mine is visiting Nitra in Slovakia, which is normally taken as the centre of St Methodius' mission to Great Moravia. I was wondering if there is anything to see dating back to that time, or an Orthodox presence there that anybody here knows about.

[sandyphoebetvmaa]

In Nitra I don't know, but there is a place on the Danube just outside Bratislava called Devin where if I remember rightly the mission to evangelise Slovakia arrived. It's a beautiful place, an ancient fort overlooking the confluence of the Danube and (I believe) the Morava. When the Slovaks began their long struggle for independance from the Hungarians, their nationalist intellectuals used to meet there to drink beer and foment revolution. For a euro a pint you can still drink excellent Slovak beer just under the fort. You reach Devin with a town bus from Novi Most bus terminus.
In Bratislava, on the hill leading up to the castle, there is a lovely Orthodox Church overlooking the town. Intersting to note that Slovaks, who are mostly Catholic, celebrate Saints Cyril and Methodius, who brought them the Word well before the schism. Hope this info is of some use, love, Simon

[mypharmalife]

That is great, Simon, thank you very much! I will pass that on (and dream of drinking beer beside the Danube).

[Alina20100]

As a follow-up question, I have been reading a bit about the Moravian mission and would like to ask whether two figures in it are officially canonized by the Orthodox Church. The first is Price Rastislav who invited the mission, and the second is Gorazd, who was selected by St Methodius to succeed him as Metropolitan. He was among those disciples who were sold into slavery by the Germans, and I believe his fate is unknown.

I think I have seen icons of the first of these, but don't know where they come from.

[M1zdL0hh]

The feast day of St Gorazd (Horasdus), Equal-to-the-Apostles and disciple of Sts Cyril and Methodius, is July 27. St Rostislav of Greater Moravia, is commemorated on May 11.

[23InetrySypekek]

Thank you, Olga. I should have figured out that St Gorazd was canonized from the fact that the Archbishop of Prague and New Martyr Gorazd took his name.