Equal-to-the-Apostles, Confessor Gorazd of Ohrid (Moravia), Equal-to-the-Apostles

St. Gorazd was born in Great Moravia in the 9th century; sources do not establish an exact birth year. He became one of the closest disciples of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, accompanying them on their journey to Rome in 867. After St. Methodius's death in 885, Gorazd himself was chosen by Methodius as his successor to the Moravian archiepiscopal see. However, conflict with the Latin clergy and Pope Stephen V, along with opposition from the Moravian prince Svatopluk, led to the expulsion and imprisonment of Methodius's Slavic disciples. Together with the other exiled disciples (Clement, Naum, Angelarius, Sava), Gorazd relocated to Bulgaria, where he continued the work of establishing Slavic literacy and Slavonic-language worship — notably at the centers of learning in Pliska, Ohrid, and Preslav. He is venerated as part of the Synaxis of the Seven Apostles to the Slavs (Sedmochislenitsi) — Cyril, Methodius, Clement, Naum, Angelarius, Sava, and Gorazd. The exact year and circumstances of his death are unknown ("after 886"); the Orthodox Encyclopedia notes that later legends of his personal activity specifically in Bulgaria (e.g., founding a monastery at Berat) are scholarly unreliable and belong to the realm of legend.