A SAINTS GRAVE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 330, 17 September 1932, Page 2

A SAINTS GRAVE

WOMAN CLAIRVOYANTE TELLS POSITION QF ANCIENT TOMB. EXPERTS INVESTIGATING. What seems to be a striking case of successful clairvoyance is reported from Buehlov, in Moravia, near the site of the former capital of the Slavonic Moravian Empire destroyed by the incuvsion of the Magyars from the East at the end of the Ninth Century. An old peasant woman with chairvoya'nt powers designated a spot where she said the hitherto unknown grave of St. Methodius, the first Christian missionary to and Bishop of Moravia, would be found. Excavations on the spot brought to light at a considerable depth a tombstone with the inscription "Sanctus Methodius," and the insignia of a bishop. The opening of the tomb has been postponed until- the arrival of experts. St. Methodius and his brother St. Cyril, two Greek monks from the neighbourhood of Salonika living in the first half of the Ninth Century, are known as the apostles to the Slavs, and played an important part in the history .of Eastern Europe. St. Cyril first reduced the Slavonic language (Old Bulgarian, often called Old Slavonic) to writing, and a revised from of the alphabet he devised is still used for Russian Ukrainians, Bulgarians, and Serbs, Although St. Methodius first brought Christianity to the Czechs and Slavs from Constantinople, their connection with the Eastern Church was broken by the incursion of the Pagan Magyars, so they have ever since been linked with Latin Christianity and in consequences used the Latin alphabet like the Poles, Slovenes, and Croats. That the inscription on the tombstone is in Latin suggests that it was probably nqt the original tomb, on which an inscription in Greek or Slavonic might he expected.