A monument of brothers St St Cyril and Methodius will be erected in Mongolia
since the Cyrillic alphabet they
created is used in the Asian country.

The news emerged Tuesday after a meeting between Bulgarian Culture Minister, Vezhdi Rashidov and the Ambassador of Mongolia in Bulgaria, H.E. Mr. Zerendorsh Ganhuyag.

The two signed a program for
cooperation between Bulgaria
and Mongolia in the culture sector for the 2012 – 2016 period.

Rashidov informed that a week of Mongolian culture in Bulgaria and a week of Bulgarian
culture in Mongolia at the end of this year and the beginning of next year will
be the first step in implementing the program, which further includes
organizing art exhibits, musical festivals, concerts, theater plays,
translation and publishing of literary works, among others.

The program also provides for exchange of lecturers and researchers, direct
contacts between educational institutions, teaching and promoting the language
and literature of the two countries.

Each year, Bulgaria and
Mongolia will provide respectively stipends for one college student and one
PhD, along with a joint 12-month specialization quota.

Brothers Cyril and Methodius were born in Thessaloniki, in 827 and 826 respectively. Both were outstanding
scholars, theologians, and linguists.

In the 9th century the Holy Brothers Sts. Cyril and Methodius created the Slavic alphabet and made the first
translations in it. Their disciples introduced the alphabet in Bulgaria, putting the beginning of its
journey to the world.

St. Cyril and St. Methodius invented the so called
Glagolithic alphabet, the first Slavic
alphabet, whose letters were based on the three holy elements for Christianity
– cross, triangle, and cirle. Subsequently, it was modified by their Bulgarian
disciples – St. Kliment of Ohrid
and St. Naum of Preslav, with
St. Kliment calling the new alphabet Cyrillic
in favor of his teacher.

Several centuries later, Patriarch Evtimii launched a literary reform and
updated the alphabet, assuming that words are expression of the divine essence
of things.

Pope John Paul II proclaimed
the two Sts Cyril and Methodius
Co-patrons of Europe together
with St Benedict of Norcia in 1980.

The Cyrillic alphabet has been
in existence for more than eleven centuries, but it was introduced for the
first time in the European Union
after Bulgaria obtained full
membership in 2007. The Bulgarian language brought the total number of
“linguae europeae” to 23. With its adoption the alphabets in use
across the Union got enlarged by one more – the Cyrillic.