St. Gorazd was probably born in the Great Moravian Court south of Nitra. His name had old Slavic origin and it was typical for our region and the region of southern Slavs. It referred to a man who was “talkative”. He was educated in one of the monastery schools or capitulary school where he learned Latin. He was one of the colleagues of the Solun brothers Constantine and Methodius after their arrival to the Great Moravia. Because he was his close assistant, Bishop Methodius named him his successor. He allegedly pointed at him saying: „This is the free man of your country, he is well-educated in Latin books, he is true“. The Pope Stephen V did not recognize the Methodius’s decision on the death bed and forbade him to perform “the position”. He requested that Gorazd appeared at the Pope’s court personally and explained his attitudes in “real words“. Gorazd either did not want to go to Rome, or simply could not. In the turbulent times when Methodius’s disciples were expelled from Great Moravia, he was not among those who would leave for Bulgaria or for Ohrid, not even among those who were sold to slavery by the Jews. He might have been killed or he was hiding on some magnate’s court. Soon, people started to worship him as a saint and after some time, he got into the medieval liturgy calendars.
He is considered by some to be the author of St. Methodius’s biography written in the old Slavic language. Others think that when Pope John IX renewed the Great Moravian archiepiscopate in the year 900, he named Gorazd into this position. There are, however, no documents confirming these facts.
Prof. Matúš Kučera