Cyrillic alphabet

An alphabet, based on Greek characters, that was created in the ninth century to serve as a medium for writing Orthodox texts translated from Greek into Old Church Slavonic (q.v.). Named for Cyril, the leader of the first religious mission from Constantinople to the Slavic peoples, Cyrillic is used by modern Russian, Belarusian, ""Moldavian"" (q.v.), and several other languages, both Slavic and non-Slavic.

Source: Library of Congress