Achievements of the Byzantines

A bit of everything, I may say. The Byzantine Empire was certainly more progressive than anything Europe had to offer at the time (semi-barbaric feudal west comes to mind) and they did preserve a good deal of the Graeco-Roman tradition, althoug mostly by accident, since their official christian religion was based exactly upon the denial of the Graeco-Roman tradition (menticide seems to have been the official dogma of christianity in East and West, and a tradition of free-thinking, individualistic, science-loving people was not admired among the clergy of the time).

But they did stop the westward expansion of the Muslims at a time when Europe had not the means to defend itself from them (had the Balkans fallen to the Arabs, I think history would be quite different) and they did Christianize the Slavs (a move of extraordinary importance) and also the influence they passed on to the western europe (starting from Italy) after the first fall of Constantinople and after the Ottoman conquest, was indeed one of the cornerstones of the Renaissance.

I wouldn't say that the establishment of Christianity is an "achievement" per se and anyway that was done before the actual "Byzantine" period started.

What about "keeping the candle of progrese lid in the darkest time of Europe"

I think that the Christianisation of the East was fairly important. It defined a whole region and culures.

But as somebody stated above, a bit of everything. The Byzantines were a great empire, disgracefully disregarded by western scholars as some degenerated Roman Empire. Fortunately, nowadays, the approach is different and less biased. Especially for the people of Greece, the balkans and at some degree of Western Europe, the Byzantine legacy is felt.

if they were fully Greek why would they be so conserned with making an alphabet for slavic people.

Cyril is actualy a Bulgarian name and Methodios, with out the -os part.

Thank you for stating the facts Komenos. Just a brief point: the "proper" name of Cyril is "Kyrillos", as the proper name of Methodius is "Methodios" (with a delta rather than a "d").

Their mission to the Slavs (all Slavs, not Bulgars in particular btw) was an assignment by the Byzantine Emperor, in an effort to bring the large Slavic populations under the direct influence of Constantinople. It was a political mission, so to say. One of the cases when the side effects overwhelm the prime objective, since the petty geopolitical games of the Byzantines brought a huge body of people into literacy and Orthodoxy.

Well I can't be agreed with your posiotion that Cyril and Methodius are greeks. First which I want to say is that the only reason because most of people think that Cyril and Methodius are byzantines /i think there is a difference between greeks and byzantines, excuse me if I wrong/  is only because that buzantines history is more popular than bulgarian. Second You can be so sure after your source is only byzantines hronicals. Third - is unlogically  byzantines to creat an alphabet for other nation. Least  because of national spirits. Fourth - to creat alphabet and to translate the bible to other language must know very deeply knowlegde of this language, it's must be your mother tongue. If we suppose that they were byzantines and according to historians who support this verssion they've learnt this language on the local bazar in the Salonika. So tell me how many words would you learn from a bazar. Would you learn so much to transalte such a complex book like the bible? And if you get that in this time people can be compared with today's. This verssion became absolutelly unlogical for me. Even now will be hard for me /for exemple/ to translate the bible from english to bulgarian. There are more proofs but now I am too tired and please I don't want to make any propaganda here. Even I don't want to convinse you that Ciril and Methodius are Bulgarians I just want to make you some doubts about this verssion /that they are byzantines/ and you alone to search for the answers. When most of  you were  reading byzantines history they saw that according to some people Cyril and Methdoius are byzantines and accepted it without any doubts, but before some years even the Pope recognized them as bulgarian saints.Also only bulgarians in the word celebrating the day of slavonic culuture and  writing. So if you are so sure that they are greeks why don't  you celebrate it and would you think that we will kept in high honour greeks or any others nations?????!