A Macedonian state-church delegation led by the Speaker of Parliament Afrim Gashi attended today's moleben in the San Clemente basilica in Rome - the place where Saint Cyril is buried. The service was led by the Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia His Grace Stefan. The occasion - May 24, the Day of the Pan-Slavic Enlighteners.

San Clemente isn't an ordinary place. It is one of the oldest Christian basilicas in Rome, with three layers: an upper layer from the 12th century, beneath it a church from the 4th century, and beneath that, even deeper - a mithraeum from Roman times. Saint Cyril died in Rome in 869 and was buried right here, in the middle layer. For the Macedonian Orthodox world, this is a first-rank shrine.

At the service, Archbishop Stefan said: „Your work did not vanish with the centuries. Your sacrifice keeps bearing new fruit. As long as our people exist, your names will be spoken." A poetic line for work that gave literacy to an entire Slavic world - from the Adriatic coast to the Russian tundra. Cyril and Methodius created an alphabet still used today by over 250 million people across Europe and Asia.

Gashi, as a state representative, will also visit the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he will lay a wreath at a Macedonian memorial plaque from 2015. That plaque records gratitude to Pope Adrian II, who in 868 consecrated the Slavic books - an act that formally legitimized the free use of the Slavic language in the liturgy. Without that papal blessing, the work of Cyril and Methodius might have remained a local experiment.

The posture of this visit matters in another context as well. Macedonia has very few common moments in which the government, opposition and church speak in the same tone. The celebration of the Slavic enlighteners is one of them. Worth noting - alongside the party fights and ethnic arguments, there are themes where the state can speak with a single voice. Cyril and Methodius, it turns out, still have that ability - 1,150 years after their death.