Editing Christianization (section)

=== Europe and Asia of the High and Late Middle Ages (800 to 1500) ===
In Central and Eastern Europe of the 8th and 9th centuries, Christianization was an integral part of the political centralization of the new nations being formed.{{sfn|Štefan|2022|p=101}} In Eastern Europe, the combination of Christianization and political centralization created what Peter Brown describes as, "specific micro-Christendoms".{{sfn|Štefan|2022|p=101}}  [[Bulgaria]], [[Bohemia]] (which became [[Czechoslovakia]]), the [[Serbia|Serbs]] and the [[Croatia|Croats]], along with [[Hungary]], and [[Poland]], voluntarily joined the Western, Latin church, sometimes pressuring their people to follow. Full Christianization of the populace often took centuries to accomplish. Conversion began with local elites who wanted to convert because they gained prestige and power through matrimonial alliances and participation in imperial rituals. Christianization then spread from the center to the edges of society.{{sfn|Štefan|2022|p=101}}

Historian Ivo Štefan has written, "Although Christian authors often depicted the conversion of rulers as the triumph of the new faith, the reality was much more complex. Christianization of everyday life took centuries, with many non-Christian elements surviving in rural communities until the beginning of the modern era".{{sfn|Štefan|2022|p=101}}{{sfn|Štefan|2022|p=101}}{{refn|group=note|Historian Ivo Štefan asserts that, in general, adoption of Christianity in Bohemia, Poland and Hungary was not forced either by pressure from outside or by violence.{{sfn|Štefan|2022|p=101}} }}

==== Language and literature ====
In the Christianization process of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia territories, the two Byzantine missionary brothers [[Saints Cyril and Methodius|Saints Constantine-Cyril and Methodius]] played the key roles beginning in 863.{{sfn|Ivanič|2016|pp=126, 129}} They spent approximately 40 months in Great Moravia continuously translating texts and teaching students.{{sfn|Ivanič|2016|p=127}} [[Saints Cyril and Methodius|Cyril]] developed the [[Glagolitic alphabet|first Slavic alphabet]] and translated the gospel into the [[Old Church Slavonic]] language.{{sfn|Schaff|n.d.|pp=161–162}} Old Church Slavonic became the first literary language of the Slavs and, eventually, the educational foundation for all Slavic nations.{{sfn|Ivanič|2016|p=127}} In 869 Methodius was consecrated as (arch)bishop of Pannonia and the Great Moravia regions.{{sfn|Ivanič|2016|p=127}}