Together with the religion which he imported from Byzantium, "Prince-Saint" Vladimir naturally imported, also, priests, architects, artists for the holy pictures (_ikoni_), as well as the traditional style of painting them, ecclesiastical vestments and vessels, and--most precious of all--the Slavonic translation of the holy Scriptures and of the Church Service books. These books, however, were not written in Greek, but in the tongue of a cognate Slavonic race, which was comprehensible to the Russians. Thus were the first firm foundations of Christianity, education, and literature simultaneously laid in the cradle of the present vast Russian empire, appropriately called "Little Russia," of which Kieff was the capital; although even then they were not confined to that section of the country, but were promptly extended, by identical methods, to old Novgorod--"Lord Novgorod the Great," the cradle of the dynasty of Rurik, founder of the line of sovereign Russian princes. Whence came these Slavonic translations of the Scriptures, the Church Services, and other books, and the preachers in the vernacular for the infant Russian nation? The books had been translated about one hundred and twenty-five years previously, for the benefit of a small Slavonic tribe, the Moravians. This tribe had been baptized by German ecclesiastics, whose books and speech, in the Latin tongue, were wholly incomprehensible to their converts. For fifty years Latin had been used, and naturally Christianity had made but little progress. Then the Moravian Prince Rostislaff appealed to Michael, emperor of Byzantium, to send him preachers capable of making themselves understood. The emperor had in his dominions many Slavonians; hence the application, on the assumption that there must be, among the Greek priests, many who were acquainted with the languages of the Slavonic tribes. In answer to this appeal, the Emperor Michael dispatched to Moravia two learned monks, Kyrill and Methody, together with several other ecclesiastics, in the year 863. Kyrill and Methody were the sons of a grandee, who resided in the chief town of Macedonia, which was surrounded by Slavonic colonies. The elder brother, Methody, had been a military man, and the governor of a province containing Slavonians. The younger, Kyrill, had received a brilliant education at the imperial court, in company with the Emperor Michael, and had been a pupil of the celebrated Photius (afterwards Patriarch), and librarian of St. Sophia, after becoming a monk. Later on, the brothers had led the life of itinerant missionaries, and had devoted themselves to preaching the Gospel to Jews and Mohammedans. Thus they were in every way eminently qualified for their new task.