Methodius returned to Moravia the same year, A.D. 868. He was what was
called an _episcopus regionarius_, and had therefore no fixed
residence. In the letters of pope John VIII, he is called bishop of
Moravia and Pannonia. The first of these countries was at this period
the theatre of bloody wars; the Slavic inhabitants of the other had
been already converted to Christianity by German priests, as early as
A.D. 798. In consequence of this, Methodius found the Latin worship
established here, and the Latin language in use. The innovation made
by him, however, was of course greatly favoured by the people; who for
the first time heard the gospel read to them in a language they
understood. But he met with the more opposition from the priests. The
whole jealousy of the Romish church seems to have been awakened by
Methodius' proceedings. He found however a protector in the pope
himself; who feared perhaps an entire alienation of the Slavic
population, and their transition to the Oriental church; but was at
the same time desirous to preserve the whole authority of the Latin
language. In a letter to the Moravian prince Svatopluk, he enjoins
expressly, "that in all the Moravian churches the gospel, for the sake
of the greater dignity, should be read first in Latin, and afterwards
translated into Slavic for the people ignorant of the Latin.
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