NOTE: More appropriately the Cyrillic Alphabet because not all slavic-speaking people use the Cyrillic alphabet

The Slavs in Macedonia were Christianized from Byzantium some time during the seventh century and by the eight century there were bishops in eighteen Macedonian towns subject to the Metropolitan of Salonica. The Slavs at this time attempted to write their Slav tongue using Roman and Greek letters which they found difficult when trying to record sounds found in Slavonic but not in Latin or Greek.

The first attempt to create a specific alphabet for the Slavs was made by Constantine the Philosopher (who later took the religious name Cyril) (827-869). He and his brother Methodius (825-884) were born in the city of Salonica and were sons of a military governor Leo who died in the service of the Byzantine Empire.; Because of this, Cyril received his education at the Magnaura School of Constantinople and in 850 became Professor of Philosophy at the university in Constantinople. Methodius had been a civil administrator in a Slav region near Salonica and had retired to a monastery in Asia Minor.

When Rostislav, King of Great Moravia, sent to the Byzantine Emperor, Michael III in 862, for teachers able to teach his subjects Christianity in their own Slavic language (to oppose German political and ecclesiastical influence) the emperor sent for Cyril pointing out that all men of Salonica spoke Slavonic well! He asked Cyril to prepare the necessary alphabet and translations of liturgical books for the Moravians. Cyril enlisted the aid of his brother Methodius and together they went to Moravia in 862-3. It should be noted that in the ninth century the Slav dialect of Southern Macedonia around Salonica was readily comprehensible to all Slavs including those of Moravia.

The two brothers enlisted many pupils and were successful in their teachings despite the opposition of the German bishops. In 867-8, at the invitation of Pope Nicholas I, the two brothers traveled to Rome taking some of their pupils for ordination. They were received by the new Pope Adrian II, who condemned their detractors who claimed that only Hebrew, Latin and Greek could serve as written and liturgical languages.

Cyril died in Rome in 869 and was buried in the church of St. Clement. Methodius was appointed Archbishop of Pannonia and papal legate and sent back to Moravia with his newly consecrated pupils where he continued their work teaching many young men to be priests and translating many liturgical and law books.

In 885, after the death of Methodius, all of his disciples were expelled and some sold into slavery in Venice and the German Bishops took control of the area.

The disciples who escaped made their way to Bulgaria where they were welcomed by the newly-Christianized King Boris. Boris had decided to accept Christianity from Byzantium in 864 (he had considered Rome to avoid becoming a vassal of Byzantium). His decision was not well accepted by his Bulgar (non-Slavic) nobles who saw Boris's desire to become a "Divine-Right" King in the Byzantine style as a means of lessening their power since they normally chose their king based on ability to lead, etc. They also resented his plan to make Slavonic the language of hiss realm, since it was the language of their vassal Slavs. They rose in a rebellion against Boris and he destroyed all the families who did to the last man. The Byzantines flooded his country with Greek-speaking priests whom the people did non understand. When the expelled disciples arrived he saw in them a way of reducing Byzantine influence in his country. He had recently acquired areas in South-Western Macedonia from Byzantium and sent Clement there to establish a school in Ochrid. In the twenty-three years that he worked there first as a teacher, then as a bishop, about three thousand people were taught the Slavic alphabet and became clergy and teachers and the Slavonic Liturgy was instituted in the churches in the area. Ochrid become the ecclesiastical centre from which the Cyrillic script and the Eastern Orthodox faith were spread throughout Serbia, Bulgaria and Kievan Russia.

The alphabet created by Cyril was known as Glagolitic and continued to be used in parts of Macedonia and Croatia up to the 17th century. The Slavonic liturgy in Glagolitic is still used in some Roman Catholic churches in Dalmatia and Montenegro. When Clement and other disciples came to Macedonia and Bulgaria they found that the people were already using Greek and Latin letters to write Slavonic. In 893 in Preslav at a National Conference, it was decided that a uniform alphabet comprised of Greek, Latin and some of the Glagolitic letters would be used and it would be called the Cyrillic Alphabet in honour of Constantine-Cyril, the Enlightener of the Slavs.