Equals to the Apostles Clement, Bishop (+916), Naum, Sabbas, Gorazd and Angelar (X)
The holy Equals to the Apostles Clement of Ohrid, Naum, Sabbas, Gorazd and Angelar were Slavs, disciples of Cyril and Methodius (commemorated 11 May). At first they laboured to enlighten Moravia. After Saint Methodius, Gorazd was appointed to the episcopal see. Saints Clement, Naum, Angelar and Sabbas served as presbyters.
The Slav enlighteners were opposed by a strong Latin-German group of missionaries, backed by the support of the Pope and the protection of Svyatopolk, the Moravian prince. Pope Stephen VI forbade divine services in the Slavonic language. Through the prince’s authority the disciples of Saint Methodius, and among them the blessed Clement, were handed over to trial. The holy fathers were cruelly tortured: they were stripped and dragged over thorns and brambles, and then tormented for a long time in prison, just as their spiritual father Saint Methodius had been.
In 886 one part of the captives, the young ones, were sold to Jewish slave traders and ended up in the market of Venice. Saints Gorazd, Sabbas, Naum and Angelar were banished together with other older captives. Naum and Angelar went to Bulgaria. The holy fathers at once set about studying the Slavonic books collected by the Bulgarian nobles.
Soon Saint Angelar died, and Saint Clement was appointed teacher in Kutmichevitsa, a region in the south-west of Macedonia. In the Eastern Church worthy men, known for their pious life and possessing the gift of eloquence, used to be chosen to carry out this duty. The holy father began his labours in this new office in 893. In 893 Clement was consecrated Bishop of Drembica, or Velica, and Naum took his place.
The hierarch Clement was the first of the Bulgarian hierarchs to serve, preach and write in the Slavonic language. At the same time he tirelessly sought out chosen men from his Slavonic-speaking flock and prepared them for the service of God. The holy chief shepherd laboured for the glory of the Lord until deep old age. When he grew weak, the saint went to rest in Ohrid, in the monastery he himself had founded. Here he continued his work of translation: he translated a large part of the Pentecostarion. Soon the bishop fell gravely ill, and in 916 he commended his soul to the Lord. The blessed father’s body was laid in a coffin prepared with his own hands and buried in the monastery of Saint Panteleimon in Ohrid.
Saint Clement is regarded as the first Slavonic writer: he not only continued the work of translation begun by Cyril and Methodius, but also left us original writings, the first examples of Slavonic spiritual literature.
The holy relics of the blessed Gorazd and Angelar are buried near Berat, in Albania, and the remains of Saint Naum in the monastery dedicated to him, near Lake Ohrid.
