Mutimir

Christianization

Mutimir seemingly decided to maintain the communion of Church in Serbia with the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople when Pope John VIII of Roman Church invited him to get back to the jurisdiction of the bishopric of Sirmium (see also Archbishopric of Moravia) in a letter dated to May 873. Komatina considered that the pope wanted to strengthen the influence of Roman Church on the eastern part of Illyricum considering the borders from a distant past and not recent including Mutimir's actual ancestors. The Serbs and Bulgarians subsequently adopted the Old Slavonic liturgy instead of the Greek. During the rule of Kotsel of Pannonia (861–874), communications between Serbia and Great Moravia must have been possible. There is a possibility that some Cyrillomethodian pupils reached Serbia in the 870s or 880s. The lasting Christian identity is evident in the tradition of theophoric names in the next generation of Serb royalty: Petar Gojniković, Stefan Mutimirović and Pavle Branović. Petros and Stephanos are both characteristically Byzantine.