Silver 1 ducat, which honors Cyril and Methodius, is issued under the premium brand Czech Ducats, which is part of the Czech Mint.

Today we mention their names in the same breath, but initially, each followed his own path in life. The younger Konstantin, born in 827 and who later took the monastic name Cyril, was one of the greatest scholars in Thessaloniki, Greece - he was a philosopher, theologian, professor, orator, and polyglot. The older Methodius, who was born in 813, served in the Byzantine civil service as a lawyer and excelled in organizational skills. But they were brought together by their time in the monastery, where they became the closest of collaborators. They complemented each other perfectly and undertook foreign missions on behalf of Byzantium. They set out on their most significant mission when the prince of distant Great Moravia sent a request to Constantinople for the dispatch of scholars who would convert the Slavic people to the Christian faith. However, the missionaries Constantine and Methodius accomplished much more than that. In the year 863, they brought not only the Christian religion to this land in the heart of Europe, but also its culture, traditions, values, and education. Moreover, they created the first Slavic alphabet, Glagolitic, and the liturgical language, Old Church Slavonic. They became teachers to both the local princes and the common people…

The silver medallion is minted in incuse relief meaning that the design on one side is recessed below the surface. The faces of the two apostles, separated by a Christian cross, were designed by medalist Adam Alva Fejfar. “This is a depiction of brothers, so they must be similar, even though there is a large age difference between them. I created many sketches, which I gradually stripped down and simplified until they were reduced to mere silhouettes. I came to the conclusion that for both portraits I would start with basic, identical features, which I would merely sketch out, and I would only discover the final appearance of both brothers during the modeling process. My aim was to achieve a sense of an identical visual foundation and then, through free modeling, to create a slightly different character for each portrait,” explains the artist.

The mintage totals 500 pieces.