Mark Eliot Nuckols
While Paul began his evangelization of Europe in Philippi, the most successful congregation he founded in Europe may have been in Thessalonica. The church there has a rich legacy, perhaps most greatly exemplified in two brothers, Cyril and Methodius.
The Christians of Thessalonica, 800 years after Paul, sent these two on a mission to Eastern Europe. They prayerfully and obediently abandoned their chosen paths in life and answered God's call to become missionaries to the Slavs. Their endeavors laid the cultural foundations that would enrich the lives of hundreds of millions.
The year 2013 marks the 1,150th anniversary of that mission of 863, the "Moravian Mission." The legacy of Sts. Cyril and Methodius remains strong, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. In brief, they created an alphabet and codified the first Slavic literary language, giving rise to Slavic liturgical and literary traditions, as well as a sense of Christian devotion and identity that is both distinctively Slavic and thoroughly connected with European civilization as a whole.