Antim — A play in four acts

Abstract

This four-act play recounts the life and martyrdom of Saint Antim of Ivire, Metropolitan of Wallachia, tracking his journey from his ransom from slavery by Lady Marica Brâncoveanu in 1674 on the Bosphorus to his exile and martyrdom in 1716, ordered by Nicolae Mavrocordat. The reader learns about Antim’s work in printing and liturgy, his relations with Patriarch Dositei of Jerusalem, the Brâncoveanu family and Metropolitan Mitrofan, as well as his canonisation in 1992.

The characters

ANDREI, ANTIM, DOSITEI, METROPOLITAN OF THE ROMANIAN
LAND, THE PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM
, LADY MARICA, WIDOW OF PRINCE CONSTANTIN BRÂNCOVEANU
, MITROFAN, METROPOLITAN OF WALLACHIA, FORMERLY OF NYSSA
NICOLAE MOVROCORDAT, PRINCE OF WALLACHIA
MIHAIL ȘTEFAN (IŠTVANOVICI), PRINTER, MACARIE, APPRENTICE TO SAINT ANTIM IVIREANUL
, HIEROMONK AT THE MONASTERY OF HALKI
HAKAN, SLAVE
TRADER BOYAR 1
BOYAR 2
BOYAR 3
ANOTHER BOYAR
A PRINCESS
A DISCIPLE
A MONK
THE COUNCIL OF PRIESTS

Act I The News of the Death

Setting: Late 1716, in the cells of Antim Monastery in Bucharest; the newly elected Metropolitan Mitrofan of Wallachia (formerly of Nyssa) is gravely ill and prays with tears (set – small candlestick, candle, icon… dim lighting, spotlight on the character)

MITROFAN: Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried out to You by day and by night; may my prayer reach You; incline Your ear to my plea, Lord, (raising his eyes from the Book of Hours, he sighs) my prayer… my prayer, that of the unworthy Bishop Mitrofan, who, because of sin, laments my terrible suffering! Ah! I coveted my neighbour’s possessions… intemperance – sinful weakness! Ah! The sin of covetousness! Ah! The cross of sin! Ah! Human weakness! How did it come to such ruin?! The Lamb?! I thought he would spend his penance on Mount Sinai, at Saint Catherine’s; at least then I could have been reassured that the defilement of the political arena would be humbly carried to a place of humility. The wilderness – the monk’s delight! But no! Oh, no! Not like this! He received death, tasted sacrifice, baptism—a baptism of blood! He received the crown of salvation from Christ’s own hand! Ah! Mavrocordat has enveloped us in words… No, no, that is not what was decided in the council! I could not say, for His Majesty’s sake, how much I valued this man, a man of integrity, a holy man, a hierarch and learned bishop of the Romanian Lands, a metropolitan forced into exile for his courage and steadfastness in the spirit of the canons, a guardian of the law! (slowly, almost syllable by syllable) Even at the cost of his own life! (short pause) I shall find no peace, O Lord, and until I stand before Your Righteous Judgement, I accept with holy obedience the bodily suffering which You have permitted for a lawless man such as myself, who, by Your righteous order, endures and gathers sorrow and tears… (Hearing footsteps, he lowers his gaze to the Book of Hours and continues the psalm) For strangers have risen up against me, and the mighty have sought my life! (muttering) (Footsteps are heard approaching from the room. Three discreet knocks are heard at the door of the cell.)

MIHAIL: Most Holy Mother of God, save us!

MITROFAN: Lord, save us!… But who is disturbing my night-watch prayer?

MIHAIL: I kiss your right hand, Most Holy Father Metropolitan!

MITROFAN: May God have mercy!

MIHAIL: I understand from Archimandrite Sofronie, whom I met the other day at the feast of Saint Nicholas, that you wish to see me, Your Eminence!…

MITROFAN: (searching with the candle) But who are you?

MIHAIL: I am Subdeacon Mihail Ștefan, the printer, an apprentice to Metropolitan Antim, having just returned from the Fortress of Alba, where I fulfilled my holy duty under my Most Reverend Lord!

MITROFAN: How did you get in without anyone seeing you?

MIHAIL: I know this place well! I laid bricks and poured out much sweat in its construction!

MITROFAN: (brings the candlestick closer so he can see it… then blesses him on the head) Blessed is he who offers righteous praise in the name of the Lord! But what task have you fulfilled, brother?

MIHAIL: I have written letters to the brethren so that they might not be left empty-handed and without hope in the face of the Catholic temptation that is spreading amongst the simple folk and stealing their sound judgement and righteous sensibilities through heretical dogmas.

MITROFAN: What a temptation! There was a great need for support for those suffering under the Catholic yoke!

MIHAIL: Indeed! I have now also brought with me Father Dimitrie, ordained by Bishop Antim, for our brothers in Șcheii Brașovului.

MITROFAN: Just today I was informed that Ioan Patachi, the Uniate Bishop of Alba, has brought yet another Orthodox parish to its knees!

MIHAIL: I was there when Archpriest Gheorghe of Alba presented Patachi with the archpriest’s staff without the consent of our fellow priests! Otherwise, it is all Jesuitical cunning and intrigue! That is why we stepped up our work as far back as fifteen years ago, when we completed the Bucoavna and the Kiriakodromion! And the books we have printed will bear faithful witness to the faith that this people has carried within them since the womb of their mother!

MITROFAN: So be it! Brother Mihail, through your brotherly care, the light of the knowledge of God shall not be extinguished in the oil-filled lamp of the righteous Christians beyond the mountains!

MIHAIL: We pray for this, that future generations may not give credence to the false councils of Union, concocted with deceitful decrees, nor to the archpriests, lured by gold, who came treacherously—without the counsel of their brethren—to sign the deceitful union with Rome!

MITROFAN: May the Lord protect us and strengthen us in the struggle for Christ the Truth!

MIHAIL: Alas! What a heavy burden! What a heavy burden, Your Grace, and what a weight upon our necks, already burdened by the yoke and sorrow, especially now that my bishop, torn from his spiritual abode, is subjected to exile and seeks to do what the Saviour commanded His disciples: to tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and to trample upon the lion and the dragon!

MITROFAN: I willingly advised him some time ago not to stand in Mavrocordat’s way!

MIHAIL: Your Grace’s presence in his bishopric would speak louder than anything you are trying to do, Your Grace!

MITROFAN: What on earth are you on about? Even on a previous occasion, my words were barely understood when I conveyed to His Highness Voivode Brâncoveanu his wish to step down from the throne! But the clamour of his words reached the Palace, and the Voivode granted his request!

MIHAIL: Your Grace, I realise you wish to instil justifications in my heart! This is not the time for them; our Vladica, though driven by Mavrocordat’s whip, will return with Ilie’s cart and, with the rod of the Lord’s justice, will crush the treacherous villainy!

MITROFAN: Heavy words, Mihaile! Too heavy for my soul and body, weighed down by illness and sorrow!

MIHAIL: The Lord demands that the Truth be a flame in our mouths, ready to burst forth!

MITROFAN: That is so! I have called you here, brother Mihaile, to place in your hands an unsealed firman, the secret of which only you can reveal! (searching through the papers…) Having been looking after this place for a short while, I found these last words of his in Bishop Antim’s old chest! But it is unsealed and bears no seal!

MIHAIL: A sign that it was taken without a word!

MITROFAN: Since it’s unsealed, I’m at a loss as to what to do with it! I know of no one closer to Bishop Antim than your brotherhood! Here, take it!

MIHAIL: You mean it’s not finished?! A good sign! Now that’s a sign! He left it deliberately unsealed, to show us that he will return to complete it! Your Grace, no! Not now! You shall see how Antim, the lover of God, will return from exile! In Tsarigrad, Patriarch Cosmas will show him justice, for he serves Christ the Righteous!

MITROFAN: Brother Mihail, whilst you were in exile amongst the Hungarians, in Tsarigrad the elderly Patriarch Cosmas the Meek passed away to the Lord, and through the intervention of the Sublime Porte, Jeremiah was placed under patriarchal authority!

MIHAIL: I have no fear! The Lord will protect him!

MITROFAN: Mihail, the words my ears have heard today are terrifying!… (with his face to the ground) It seems the Turks did not spare him (with a heavy voice and sorrow) and it is said that the infidel cut short his earthly life on the road to Sinai!

MIHAIL: (kneeling in grief) Alas! Alas! Alas! (in despair) No! No! No! My lord! My soul! (in anguish) The wrath of the Lord shall be upon him who plotted against this humble soul!

MITROFAN: The Turk knows no mercy! Our Bishop resisted his exile with great fortitude! He did not waver for a single moment! A model of steadfastness in his word and his faith!

MIHAIL: Let us go and bring his body back to be buried, as is our duty!

MITROFAN: Rumour has it that the pagans killed him and cast his body near Adrianople into the Tungia River!

MIHAIL: Alas! Alas, my Most Reverend One! My soul! He said he would send word to us!

MITROFAN: He didn’t get the chance! This very evening, after appearing before the Prince, he was seized by the Ismailis and taken to Constantinople to face the Patriarch’s judgement!

MIHAIL: Your Grace!… My soul!

MITROFAN: I understand your anguish, brother Mihaile; I too am overcome with great fear! In these troubled times, we must retreat to the hermit’s cells in the mountains! My soul is in great distress!

MIHAIL (bitterly): There is none greater than this!

MITROFAN: Yet I too am tormented by illness and suffering! First, my spiritual son and dearest friend, Voivode Brâncoveanu, who has gone to Heaven alongside his sons and his counsellor; and then this bishop, who was tried even during his lifetime with grievous insults and suffering!

MIHAIL (with great sorrow): He wished to bring the Brâncoveans here and have them honoured in this Monastery of All Saints! And now they have even taken his body away so that we cannot honour him as is fitting! What sorrow! What pain!

MITROFAN: The Turks knew he was loved by the people, so they had him removed from his post and imprisoned; then, when they saw that the people still wanted him, they banished him from his homeland and eventually put him to death.

MIHAIL: Ah! He was a servant from his youth, and he remained a servant even as he passed to the Lord! What a life! How much sorrow must that soul have felt, knowing that the very land for which he had brought literacy and for which he had unsealed the language of the prayers had condemned him to destruction!

MITROFAN: A Palm Sunday that ended in a Funeral Saturday!

MIHAIL: What grief must have weighed upon his heart to know that it was his very own brothers who were betraying him—both then, when he was but a youth of just 16, and now, having attained the light of the liturgical scriptures!

MITROFAN: I, too, deeply regret his exile, but above all his untimely departure from this life!

MIHAIL: Just as Joseph once in Egypt, sold by his beloved brothers, became, through the Lord’s mercy, the ruler of Egypt; so too Antim, formerly known as Andrei, who from a slave became a liberator of the word and a wise interpreter of the Scriptures!

MITROFAN: A Saturday of Burial made perfect by a Sunday of Resurrection!

MIHAIL: I know what must be done! If it was man’s will that Vladyka Antim should perish, surely it is the Lord’s will that he should be won over for ever for the Romanian-speaking people! The sweat on his brow gave voice to the services!

MITROFAN: That’s right! He must remain forever in the history of this nation—a tormented nation, a nation cursed to cast out its benefactors and squander the wealth they had gathered with such difficulty!

MIHAIL: I wish with all my heart that history will record him!

MITROFAN: May the Lord have mercy!

MIHAIL: Your Grace, give me the firman! Are you saying it’s unsealed and without a seal?! Of course, here it is!

MIHAIL: (rising resolutely…) I, Mihail Ștefan, his close disciple and subdeacon, shall write how it was; in the spirit of truth, his entire life, and this firman shall stand forever in history as a guardian of the image of this hierarch and Holy Martyr, the Metropolitan of Wallachia, Antim Ivireanul!

MITROFAN: We shall seal it here, in his Monastery of All Saints, which, by the Lord’s providence, will in years to come be called ‘Antim’, after the name of this Holy Martyr Metropolitan, who was falsely accused and whose life we were forced to record falsely in the Holy Register!

MIHAIL: Yes, here! Here we shall wash away the false entries, here, where he sacrificed night and day, sweat and prayer, to fulfil the word of Lady Marica, who promised the Lord a monastery for her children and her husband. Let us write, Your Grace! Right from the very beginning, when he was still called Andrei! It all began many years ago, (the lights fade gently…) around 1674, at a fair on the Bosphorus when Constantin Brâncoveanu undertook his post-wedding journey with his wife, Marica, who, together with Patriarch Dositei of Jerusalem, was present at that fair… (Mihail steps out of the frame to the side, followed by Bishop Mitrofan, and sits down at the writing desk, discreetly lit by Bishop Mitrofan’s lamp. The light slowly fades from the characters and falls on the set for Act II)

Act II: The Redemption

Setting: 1674 Lady Marica, newly married, accompanying Constantin Brâncoveanu to Constantinople, walks with the procession, accompanied by Patriarch Dositei of Jerusalem and his disciple Mihail, through the market on the Bosphorus (set: stalls, a large crowd, market traders and merchants).

MARICA: What unspeakable joy to be away from home, if only for a little while, on the banks of the Bosphorus! (the procession agrees in a jumble) Since Constantin has been staying at the Monastery of St George, with Patriarch Gherasim, for counsel and confession, we couldn’t let such a beautiful, warm day pass without a little stroll! Isn’t that right, ladies? (the group responds with much approval) …That’s right! …Yes! Of course, my lady!

MARICA: And perhaps we’ve got a little time to have a natter over some baklava and a coffee! Tsarigrad is full of little curiosities and delights!

A LADY: This Tsarigrad is a land as old as time, which from the very beginning was the light of the East, yet in recent days has become the guillotine of the Orient!

MARICA: Only those who live in these parts can truly speak of it! Patriarch Dositeiu is most entitled to speak with conviction! Let us pray that the Despot may grant us a word of blessing!

DOSITEI: Christ the Lord be with you all!… Tsarigrad is a place steeped in history, partly blessed, and partly permitted by God to reveal His glory! Just as the Holy City of Jerusalem, over which, by God’s mercy, we provide spiritual guidance, and which even today finds itself under a great pagan siege, so too does this Tsarigrad barely flicker beneath the shadow of the pagan crescent! For this reason, we too have been wandering for some time, seeking the mercy and love of those who love Christ!

MARICA: Our joy is all the greater for the companionship you offer us, Most Reverend Father Macarius!

MACARIE: Glory be to the Lord!

MARICA: It was with great ease that I agreed to accompany my Constantine, knowing that he was also coming to see Your Holiness! He has said on many occasions that the Monastery of Halki is the pearl of Tsarigrad, and we ardently wish to honour and illuminate it as befits a sanctuary of the Mother of God!

DOSITEI: What beautiful words I hear from your gracious lips, Lady Marica! Ever since your early childhood, when your grandfather, Antonie Vodă, enlightened you with most beautiful counsel, you have acquired, through the intercession of the Mother of God, not only the name but also the love for the Church of her Son and for the ministry and traditions we hold dear!

MARICA: I have learnt to love what my forefathers and ancestors defended at the cost of their blood; for had they not stood guard over the borders, the whole of the West would have been an endless Bosphorus! And even Your Holiness suffers alienation and exile because of these rabid dogs who tear at our souls to stifle our faith!

MACARIE: (making discreet gestures to speak more quietly) In these foreign lands, the truths are spoken in secret, My Lady!

MARICA: The truth is Christ! The Lord is my light and my Saviour; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the Defender of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

DOSITEI: May God place these precious stones of the Romanian nation, Constandin and Marica Brâncoveanu, at the cornerstone, and may the Lord lift up your feet like those of a stag and set you high above all others!

MARICA: My soul is filled with holy joy to know that the Monastery of the Mother of God in Halki has you as its guardian and spiritual father!

DOSITEI: The Lord’s mercy! We wander and pray, as the prophet David says, ‘May the walls of Jerusalem be built up!’

MARICA: We cherish the monastery beyond words, and we have resolutely resolved to raise it up and illuminate it with great order and in the traditional manner, just as in days of old with Hagia Sophia,… (sighing) the broken and secretly beating heart of Orthodoxy, which awaits its holy healing!

DOSITEI: Here, here has stood for centuries the most radiant bride of the Churches, of whom Emperor Justinian once said: ‘I have conquered you, Solomon!’ I secretly think that for this pride the Lord has decreed her downfall!

MARICA: When the soul is full of sorrow and questions, the mind must fly on invisible wings towards the Lord’s more eagerly than towards those of man!

DOSITEI: Amen! To the Lord… and to His mercy! A pure and blessed thought, Lady Marica!

MARICA: Despota, I certainly did come here knowing you to be a man of God, and this very reason has led me to wish to confess a dream that has tormented my soul ever since my youth!

DOSITEI: May God enlighten me to guide your sisterhood aright! My heart is ready to offer understanding and intercessory prayer! (From his gestures, the retinue appears keen to find out…)

MARICA: That is good! If only I could say all that I feel, away from the ears of everyone! For a confession is a secret, free from temptation and prying ears! Is it not??? (The procession, nodding in agreement, moves away, urged on by Macarie, murmuring amongst the stalls)

DOSITEI: May the Lord soothe your soul from the anguish that gnaws at it! Tell me, sister, what is it that troubles you?

MARICA: The dream! A dream, Despot, which will not let me go and gives me no peace, despite all my will—the strength of which is known only to my tears and my prayers to the Mother of God!

DOSITEI: A dream!? Good heavens!

MARICA: A most strange dream! It seems I am besieged by many children!

DOSITEI: May the Lord have mercy! It is good to have as many as you can!

MARICA: It seems I have both girls and boys! Some of the boys are handsome and radiant, with golden crowns upon their heads!

DOSITEI: May the Lord have mercy and save us! What purpose the Lord has in this dream, only He will know! All I can say, with this abundance of advice, is that you should pray with much praise, and the Lord Himself will heal your thoughts and your dream through His holy work!

MARICA: Amen!

DOSITEI: Until then, as you increase your prayers, have mercy on the poor and fight for every person in distress; visit the sick, clothe the naked, and free those bound by chains!

MARICA: I shall endeavour to fulfil this counsel, sweet as honey and overflowing with the Holy Spirit!

DOSITEI: The Lord has ordained our lives, and we have no power to enslave the poor; but just as through the Lord’s wounds we have all been set free, so we must be slaves only to the Lord! (rarely) Not to man!

MARICA: True!

DOSITEI: How much darker this place has become—for once it was a paradise of light and a sanctuary of love, yet now it is a den of bribes and all manner of trade! How much sorrow and bitterness fill my soul! I can almost see Christ overturning the stalls and rebuking the fools who have once again turned God’s Garden into a den of thieves!

MARICA: I see that in suffering and anguish we are rather like kindred spirits! Yet suffering is the Lord’s providence, so that His glory may be revealed! (making the sign of the cross) I believe and I confess! (The Venerable Macarius returns with the procession to join the two)

MARICA (deliberately changing the subject): Indeed, Your Holiness! And you say that the consecration at Halki will be a source of joy for Christendom in this sea of paganism! I hope the bags I have donated will be enough to cover everything!

DOSITEI: We await with great joy the construction of the new cells with the funds provided as a gift through your mercy, and as soon as they are ready we shall be able to consecrate this most beautiful monastery with hymns and unceasing prayer; I pray to the Lord that it may be a place ofa place of rest for all of the Brâncoveanu family when they come to these lands protected by the Lord! (making the sign of the cross) I seal this thought with my oath!

MARICA: Last year, in memory of the late Prince Antonie, my grandfather, I purchased the place where he passed away after his deposition, here in Tsarigrad, near the Galata quarter, and my heart is filled with joy at having heard just yesterday that the church dedicated to Saint Nicholas, which I commanded should ever pray in his memory, has its spires!

DOSITEI: Modesty and obedience have brought the work close to completion! (making the sign of the cross) Glory to God for everything and all!

(Suddenly, a great commotion… a slave trader appears in the market, loudly touting his ‘merchandise’)

HAKAN: Slaves!!!… Slaves!!!… Slaves for sale!!!

MARICA: But what is all this commotion? What is this merchant shouting about?

DOSITEI: It’s Wednesday; the slave market is beginning… the slave trade at this fair! They always come on Wednesdays, looking to sell what they’ve plundered and oppressed throughout the entire East!

HAKAN: (enters the stage) – Köleleeer!!!… Köleleeer!!!… Köleleeer for sale!!!

MARICA: But what is he shouting? What is he saying?

MACARIE: That he’s got slaves… slaves for sale! He gathers them from the plunder and abductions he commits against wealthy families in the neighbourhood, and through threats he collects bags… bags of gold coins, only to squander them just as sinfully as he acquired them! Slaves of almost every origin and language are sold here!

HAKAN: (reaching the procession) – Köleleeer!!!… Köleleeer!!!… Satilik Köleleeer!!! (looking at Marica) Lady köle satin aliyor?

MARICA: Tell him, Reverend, that I don’t understand a word he’s saying!

MACARIE: She doesn’t know Turkish!

MARICA: What did you tell him?

MACARIE: That ‘The lady doesn’t know Turkish!’

HAKAN: We can speak your language! Hakan knows many languages! Allah the Great has ordained that the great Sultan should rule over many languages and faiths! We are the power of the Great Crescent!

MARICA: What do you want? Speak plainly!

HAKAN: We can provide slaves for the Princess’s court! En layik! The very best, from a chosen stock, hard-working at court! (He turns towards the market and shouts again) Slaves!!!… Slaves!!!… Slaves for sale!!!

MARICA: Most Blessed Father, from the very beginning of my confession I understood that only a good deed could persuade God to free me from my dreadful dream that gives me no peace, and upon hearing your spiritual counsel to ‘set free those bound in chains’, my heart was stirred by this most blessed work of salvation!

DOSITEI: A good thought, young lady! A saving thought!

MARICA: I look upon these slaves and see how much oppression, how much sorrow, how much despair has overwhelmed their souls!

MACARIE: Freedom… freedom is the seal of the Lord God!

MARICA: We have heard that souls of all nations and faiths are held captive here, and I wonder whether it might not be right to free a Christian and one of our brothers!

DOSITEI: You shall find grace and mercy for the thought of freeing a soul that is tormented by unjust captivity!

MARICA: How shall we test them? How shall we find out who is a Christian, Despot?

MACARIE: Lord, have mercy!

DOSITEI: A thought has just occurred to me! I shall cry out in many tongues to the Mother of God, and the Lord will give a sign! The Lord protects those bound in chains and will set free the one worthy of His mercy!

MARICA: Thus, without much fuss, we shall discover who rejoices in the Lord’s mercy!

MACARIE: Let us pray to the Lord God that He may be our helper and our strong support!

MARICA: Amen!

DOSITEI (looking up to heaven): Holy Mother of God, hear us!!!

MARICA (watching their gestures closely): Look, one of the servants is making the Sign of the Cross!

DOSITEI: Theotokos, help us – save us!!! O Lord, have mercy – on us!!!

MARICA: Your Holiness, that very man is making the Sign of the Cross!

DOSITEI: I’ll say it once more in Romanian! That’s all I know! We shall find out for certain!… Most Holy Mother of God, have mercy on us!!!

MARICA (turning her gaze towards that slave): The same… the same… Despot, he has made the sign of the Holy Cross for the third time! Glory to God! Now we have a clear sign!

HAKAN: Oh my! You wanted to buy that Köleler servant, but he’s expensive… expensive… expensive!!! This slave has travelled far and wide… a clever one!!! His name is Andrei! Kept for many purses! Had no purses for himself! Expensive! Expensive!

MARICA: How much are you asking for, merchant?

HAKAN: We’re offering a hundred bags of thalers; he’s a pearl of great price, of good blood and good stock—a hundred bags, a bargain, a bargain! I asked for two hundred bags, but I’ve given a discount—a bargain!

MARICA: A hundred??? I only asked for one, not for all of them!!!

HAKAN: Chosen blood, my lady! Precious blood! No, I won’t give any more of a discount!

MARICA: What shall we do, Your Holiness? I must fulfil my desire for liberation! My heart has pledged itself to the Lord!

DOSITEI: My lady, you’ve given the bags of thalers to the Halki Monastery!

MARICA: Yes! For the restoration of the cells in your monastery—that is their purpose!

MACARIE: For the sake of that noble and edifying intention, we shall put them at the service of your heart’s desire!

MARICA: A good idea! But we still need more! We have about ten with us, and Your Holiness has given fifty! That makes a total of sixty pouches! What now? What shall we do? That greedy merchant won’t budge! How shall we manage?

MACARIE: The merchant will be merciful!

MARICA: Merchant, I propose sixty bags! That’s all we have!

HAKAN: We won’t give them! I’m a skilled craftsman, a woodworker, a sculptor, a painter, a master of my craft; I served in my father’s palace as a calligrapher—a skilled craftsman. If we don’t get a hundred, I’ll keep them for ourselves! Come on! Let’s go!

MARICA: Sixty bags and my pearl necklace! It’s priceless! (The retinue expresses their disapproval with grimaces and frowns)

A LADY: No! It cannot be! It’s from Boyar Brâncoveanu, but it’s for the wedding! No!!!

MARICA: I’ll gladly make amends! One must strive earnestly to amass treasure in heaven, whilst here on earth our treasure should be nothing but good deeds!

DOSITEI: A pure thought, young lady! May the Lord bless good deeds and increase them with joy! You shall find true treasure in heaven!

MARICA: I offer sixty bags and my necklace!

HAKAN (untying Andrei and bringing him to Marica): Well done, my lady!… Well done! We accept the necklace and the sixty bags!

MARICA: Glory to God on high!

HAKAN (exits the stage, walking away joyfully and shouting): Hakan’s off to sell the rest! Köleleeer!!! Köleleeer!!! Köleleeer for sale!!!

MARICA: Joy fills my heart, Despot; we have prevailed in our resolve; we have freed, at any cost, the Christian soul that was burdened!

DOSITEI: Great joy reigns in heaven with every good deed of man! May the tormenting dream that plagued your soul grant you deliverance through the liberation you have achieved!

MARICA: For the aid you so swiftly devised to soothe my soul, and for the joy in my heart, I entrust him to you to take him as a disciple, to teach him and bring him to perfection!

DOSITEI: What great joy we have! Our community has been enriched by such a soul! A worthy monastery is not one with new and grand walls, but one with a perfected community and unceasing prayer!

MARICA: What great joy it is to know that a soul tormented by bondage to masters without Christ has come into the House of Christ! What a blessed arrangement the Lord has ordained!?!

DOSITEI: Your words are true, my lady, and we have decided to take in and cherish this servant who has been ransomed at great cost, having given up all the wealth we possessed! The pouches with the coins for the journey, the pouches given to the Monastery, and to top it all, the wedding necklace! Now I clearly understand that the dream was a torment, but it has been transformed into a blessing!

MARICA (looking at Andrei): Tell me, young man, what circumstances have brought you to this slave market? Where are you from? What is your lineage?

ANDREI: My name is Andrei!

MARICA: How astonishing! You speak Romanian!

ANDREI: Yes! I was born under the light of the sun in Ivir to my parents, Ioan and Maria, shepherds and good Christians! In my native village of Ude, I grew up with my brothers and longed for the order of the House of the Lord, loving the words of the prayers! I was loved by my parents, who perished at the hands of those accursed pagan gangs who plundered their life’s savings! They slaughtered members of our clan, and the entire village of shepherds was scattered, along with their sheep; only I escaped with my life!

MARICA: And where did you wander?

ANDREI: My older brothers, who were also shepherds, took me in across the vast expanse of Samtskhe, but it wasn’t long before the gangs returned, raiding that little village too. But to save their sheep and their own lives, they sold me into slavery, speaking highly of me and claiming that I could bring them a greater yield than the flocks they would take from them!

MACARIE: Another Joseph of Egypt! The Lord will bestow His blessing upon him after so much suffering and betrayal!

ANDREI: So I carved iron, wood and bone, polishing swords and precious seals for bands of pagans! I was forced to paint, to engrave their pagan decrees and to write in their twisted language! And so it went on for seven years of carving, painting and embroidery! But after the death of the master of the house, Hakan, his nephew, blackened by envy and despair, drove me out—much to my joy—from the pagan Palace, and I was sold, through the care of the Mother of God, into your mercy!

MARICA: Are you of our people? You speak our language so well!

ANDREI: I learnt this most beautiful language from my parents in the village of Ude! I do not know where they came from or where they wandered with their flocks, for I know only Ude; and for shepherds, their homeland is wherever the flocks love the sweetness of the grass! They have spent their lives as wanderers, and I believe that the only person on earth who is bound by no borders and as free as in Heaven is the shepherd! Shepherds are the only wanderers who can take full delight (pointing to the surroundings…) in this resting place of the Lord God’s feet!

MARICA: You speak so beautifully! Your tongue is like your faith… a mighty and blessed weapon!

ANDREI: In Ude I learnt many tongues, yet only one language has managed to steal my heart with its sweet cadence! It is your language, …which I feel as though it were my own from the very beginning!

MARICA: You speak so beautifully! Now I understand the price of your redemption!

ANDREI: Thank you, my lady! Thank you, Your Holiness! Thank you for setting me free and for parting with your money, and—beyond all understanding (looking towards Lady Marica)—my lady, you have offered your wedding necklace for my swift release! What do you command me to do now, mistress?

MARICA: Mistress? Not mistress! Not mistress! Praise be to the Lord for your release! From now on you are in the care of His Beatitude, Dositei, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who, by the grace of God, will also be your spiritual father! Obey him, and let us pray together for the salvation of all!

ANDREI: Let us pray! But whose name shall I mention at the Divine Liturgy for this most precious gift?

MARICA: I am Marica Brâncoveanu, wife of Boyar Constandin of Wallachia! Mention the names of our kin, both the living and the departed, as recorded at the Holy Monastery which shall henceforth be your home!

ANDREI: Amen, I say to you, my lady, and I make a solemn vow that as soon as you require my services, I shall come at once and be your most devoted servant!

DOSITEI: May the Lord seal this vow with the seal of righteousness and truth, and may He gladden our souls to the performance of good deeds that bring salvation! Amen!

MARICA: Amen! Despot, God has worked to fulfil our purpose! I am now at peace, knowing that Your Holiness’s community has gained a worthy man who, by the grace of God, will be your disciple and spiritual son! My work has found its fulfilment! Farewell!

DOSITEI: May God accompany you on your journey back to your country! In gratitude to the great boyar Constandin for the care he has shown us, we embrace your souls with prayers to the Lord!

Act III: Wallachia

Setting: September 1716 at the Monastery of All Saints in Bucharest Metropolitan Antim of Wallachia consults with his disciples regarding the books that are to be printed (set: 18th-century peasant house, printing press, inkstones, type on the table, candlesticks, candles and manuscripts; wide shot, daylight)

MIHAIL: Your Eminence, I think this superfluous syllable ought to be removed from the type, as it slightly interferes with the preceding letters! And above all, it hinders a full understanding of the word! In the manuscript you completed seven years ago in Târgoviște, you did not really take this into account!

ANTIM: Let me see! This book we’re compiling must be flawless! I think, first and foremost, that the title ought to be aligned with the edge of the page, like this! (he folds the page...)

A DISCIPLE: Am I to understand that you wish to place the beginning of the text right next to the beautiful medallions bearing the faces of the saints, preserved in ink by Your Holiness!

ANTIM: I think that is better! And this way it can be read more easily: The Faces of the Old and New Testaments, that is to say, the faces of the famous people found in the Holy Scriptures by Antim, Metropolitan of Wallachia! Very well!

MIHAIL: Your Eminence! With this little book, we have reached sixty-four titles which you have bestowed upon the Church of Christ!

ANTIM: How could there not be a need, Mihaile? There is a great need! I have promised the Mother of God that I shall devote the whole of the Lord’s gift—which I have increased throughout my life—to the enlightenment and salvation of all who pray to the True God!

MIHAIL: Glory be to the Lord, Who has allowed me, His unworthy disciple, to be near you!

ANTIM: I have received it as a gift, and as a gift I give all that I have! Such was the most excellent counsel I received from my spiritual father, Dositeiu! I spent many years as a disciple under His Beatitude, and he was a good protector and father to me after the gift of deliverance I received through God’s mercy!

A DISCIPLE: The Lord has ordained the right path for your soul, which has been tested since childhood, Your Eminence!

ANTIM: My spiritual father was also my guarantor in receiving the angelic form of monastic life and the most gracious intercession of Andrew, through whose grace, by the Lord’s mercy, I was granted to become what I am today: Antim, Antim of Iviria, Antim of Iviria!

MIHAIL: The Church has been graced with sweet-smelling incense through the gift of Your Grace!

ANTIM: By the Lord’s mercy, my spiritual father Dositeiu educated me and watched over my spiritual growth, taking me with His Holiness to many holy places: the Holy City of Jerusalem, Constantinople, and the Romanian Lands; and after many days of close service, he entrusted me to the Reverend Mitrofan the printer, who, by the Lord’s mercy, has now become Vicar at Hușiu!

A DISCIPLE: You have perfected the gift you possess, just as Your Grace does with us, your disciples!

ANTIM: Thus did Bishop Mitrofan of Hușiu reveal to me the mysteries of printing, which I now entrust to you!

A DISCIPLE: And so you have arrived in the land of the Brâncoveanu rulers, Constandin and Marica, the doers of good!

ANTIM: It was the Lord’s will, which I joyfully followed, along with various commands, at the Brâncovenesc Palace! First, as a tutor to the prince’s children, and later as master of the princely printing house in Bucharest and abbot of Snagov Monastery, where we also installed the very first printing press!

MIHAIL: We were greatly blessed at Snagov, Your Grace, having known your zeal even from those early days of my apprenticeship, when I first came to know your humility!

ANTIM: The Lord’s mercy, subdeacon!… Of the fifteen books printed at Snagov, I had the joy of sending to our brothers the very first Liturgy book in Greek-Arabic script, a path opened up to Arab Christianity right from the very heart of Orthodoxy, Wallachia! May Patriarch Athanasie Dabas rejoice over the Arabic-script printing press in Aleppo and remember us in his prayers!

MIHAIL: Welcome, too, to the Romanian liturgical books sent throughout Transylvania in this time of trial!

ANTIM: And what a time of trial, Mihaile! How can the Catholic spirit be burdened with such deceptions and grave sins? They have falsely claimed that they held Synods at the behest of the Orthodox archpriests of Transylvania, and that first 38 and then 54 archpriests supposedly signed the union with Rome! What union, Mihaile? Bishop Athanasius knows nothing of having signed such a thing!

MIHAIL: A Jesuit deception, Your Grace Antime!

ANTIM: The archpriests did not share the sentiments of the priests they shepherded! I do not believe they ever gathered, and if they did, they confessed to apostasy on their own behalf, not on behalf of the priests they were shepherding! I have just seen the document drawn up, and it bears signatures falsely added from other resolutions!

MIHAIL: I had a feeling as much!

ANTIM: The Lord will expose this deceitful union and will scorch with fire the souls that have pierced the heart of Orthodoxy! I pray to the Lord to expose all those who are plotting!

MIHAIL: Praise be to God that not even the intrigue stirred up by our brothers at Snagov has stopped the flow of printed works!

ANTIM: True!… We came into this world with nothing… and we leave with nothing! I did not seek the abbotship at Snagov… it was ordained by the Lord’s will! I relinquished the abbotship to show that I am bound to nothing! I am glad that you followed me!

MIHAIL: The Lord blessed us so that, during our four years in exile, a further fifteen books were published, and then you were called to the virtue and ministry of the archpriesthood at Râmnic!

ANTIM: All is ordained by God! Râmnic was the joy of my heart! Only the command of my most wise spiritual father, Metropolitan Theodosius, could dispel the love I had harboured for him for nearly three years!

MIHAIL: And the nine books from the Govora printing press were a source of comfort for the Romanian and Greek liturgical services! A true flowering of Romanian culture and a call across the centuries to preserve Orthodox values!

ANTIM: I wished that future generations would not condemn the boldness shown by a stranger in their land! I loved the reverence of the House of the Lord, and through labour by no means easy, I succeeded in preserving the liturgical text in the language of my homeland, just as my conscience had always dictated to me, feeling as though I were a Vlach wandering through Ivir and returned to my beloved homeland!

MIHAIL: The toil you have expended for the sake of your homeland’s language, like a precious gem, has brought you into the jewel-encrusted crown of the Metropolitans of Ungrovlahia! And just as, through divine providence, the most beautiful Joseph, though sold by his brothers, attained the crown of Egypt, so too, Your Eminence, through being sold by your brothers from Samtskhe to the Ismailis, you were estranged from your parents and your homeland, yet you have attained the crown of the Romanian Church!

ANTIM: It was only from the Good Lord that mercy and love came!

A DISCIPLE: Ooo! A miracle and divine providence and revelation! How often has the liberation and revelation of salvation for many been shown to those who were enslaved and bound!

ANTIM: I am overcome with joy because six years ago you were able to bring the printing press, crafted with much toil in the Ivirean script, to Tiflis! Vachtang, the sixth voivode, has sent a letter of thanks and is praying for salvation!

MIHAIL: It could not have been otherwise! Your Grace will earn much love and reward from the Lord for enlightening the services of our Ivirean brethren!

ANTIM: Have you sent word to Gheorghe and the pious Dionisie to come and assist with this new book of ours?

MIHAIL: The novice Gheorghewas sent yesterday to look after the monastery printing press at Govora, whilst the hieromonk Dionisie is in Șcheaii, Brașov, with the two hundred liturgical books and has not yet completed the task you assigned him.

ANTIM: We must complete the book by Saint Nicholas’ Day! I feel that if we delay any further and fail to complete this book, it will remain without a title! Let us not cease to pray to the Lord for the enlightenment of the Holy and Divine Church!

MIHAIL: But I am your most devoted disciple! Whether in due time or before, I shall devote my time to the completion of the work we have begun!

ANTIM: Mihail, my dearly beloved disciple, since my call to Bucharest, my peaceful repose in the peace of Christ has known much turmoil and affliction!

MIHAIL: The Lord will bring peace and joy to the one who has brought sweetness to the Romanian services!

ANTIM: I have come to fulfil this duty at the behest of the dying lips of the gentle Metropolitan Theodosius, my benefactor and spiritual father! Ever since the spiritual father of my youth, Macarie, passed away to the Lord in Halki, Metropolitan Teodosie took me under his spiritual protection and thus saw me grow and labour! It was he who introduced me to the Voivode for the confirmation of my election at Râmnic! And now my brothers in the Lord are grumbling at the appointment of a man from Iva to the metropolitan see!

A DISCIPLE: ‘Let the tree laden with fruit be examined with a pruning knife, Your Grace!’

ANTIM: Three years ago, Vladica Mitrofan, the Metropolitan of Nyssa, examined me himself and urged me to retire, whispering venomous words into my ear!

MIHAIL: But it was to him that Prince Constandin went to confession!

ANTIM: Disgusted by it all, I withdrewto the Aninoasa Monastery in Argeșiu, and after a month of vigils—during which I also carved a few doors and candlesticks for the little church in Jupânești—I sent Prince Constantine a letter, and he learnt of all my distress! He was convinced that I was not guilty of any such slander!

MIHAIL: Joy filled my soul to hear that Brâncoveanu has done justice to Your Grace!

ANTIM: Yes! Marica’s intercession! Marica, Marica interceded on my behalf! My heart understood and realised that the Prince wished to appoint as Metropolitan his own confessor and secret counsellor!

MIHAIL: Lady Marica, wise and righteous!

ANTIM: I would have left long ago, but I cannot betray the vow I made at the time of my liberation! I have not come to this Romanian land seeking anything! I want nothing; I have no need of any seat of authority; I wish only to save the printing press I promised to Metropolitan Teodosie and Brâncoveanu!

A DISCIPLE: Poor lady, the poor thing! What a great sorrow she has suffered!

ANTIM: I have prayed that the Lord may free her from the tormenting dream that has plagued her since her youth! Behold, the dream has revealed God’s will, and today her sons, alongside the great voivode Constantine and his counsellor Enache, have received the divine martyr’s crown from the hand of Christ!

MIHAIL: Worthy martyrs who have strengthened the faith, hope and love of all of us who worship the Most Holy Trinity, the Mother of God and His Saints!

A DISCIPLE: And it was by the providence of the Good Lord that you came to serve Him in Wallachia!

ANTIM: Yes! My life has taken a different path since then; and from forging anvils and swords for pagans, the Lord has ordained me to forge for Christians everywhere another sword that causes no bloodshed, which brings not suffering but blessing—the sword of the Spirit, the Word of Salvation of Christ our God, a Word which the Lord has set in print for the enlightenment of all Christians in their native tongue!

MIHAIL: In addition to the eighteen books printed here in Bucharest, let us add this one too, with the images and deeds of the characters from Holy Scripture! That makes a total of sixty-four! And if we count, for each book, the hundreds of copies found in the churches, I believe that the Lord of Hosts has found a most resounding lyre in Your Holiness!

ANTIM: There have been many good years of printing work, and these three under the guidance of Stephen the Great Cantacuzino! We have completed our work in peace! (the bells are heard ringing…)

MIHAIL: Has time flown so quickly towards Vespers, or is there some other occasion for the bells to be ringing?

ANTIM: It is barely midday! Look what is happening! What sign could this be?

A NOVICE (entering hurriedly): Your Eminence, the Metropolitan, Archimandrite Sofronie has urgently announced the arrival at our monastery of a stagecoach driven by the Metropolitan of Nyssa, Mitrofan! It seems he is in a hurry and wishes to see you without fail! Whilst you were deciding on a reply, Father Sofronie escorted him to the chapel for the customary welcoming service with the Gospel and censers of fragrant incense!

ANTIM: Hmm! Mitrofan, you say!? The last time I saw him, he came to convey Prince Brâncoveanu’s wish that I should step down from the metropolitan see! What intrigue might he be hatching this time round?

MIHAIL: He is now the confessor and counsellor to the new prince, Nicolae Mavrocordat!

ANTIM: A change of rulers—the joy of fools!

A DISCIPLE: How shall we proceed, Your Holiness?

ANTIM: Put the mantle on him and seat him in the bishop’s pew to attend the vigil! Take the omophorion and the epitrachelion and honour him as the local bishop! Only in this way can we grant him a little more leeway to quench his thirst for such places and dignities!

MIHAIL: Your Grace, let us prepare what we have been working on all day!

ANTIM: Send the congregation home! Tomorrow is another day from the Lord! I am deeply troubled by the thought that Bishop Mitrofan did not come in peace!

MIHAIL: At once! (Mihail urges all the disciples to leave the room and make their way home)

ANTIM: In eight years of ministering in these parts, my soul has not found the peace I longed for, but has dwelt in much sorrow! I longed to do much for this people, who were fated to depose their rulers and leaders merely for the sake of treachery! As for the ‘ghier’ and the ‘Bucoavne’ that may still remain undistributed in the churches, order that they be sent to Șcheii Brașovului and to Alba!

ANTIM: Yes, it is right to apply oil and myrrh to the wounds of our brethren beyond the Carpathians! Leave a few talers in Poiana, then stay in Alba until you receive further news from me!

MIHAIL: I shall do so, My Lord!

ANTIM: Spread the word that we are praying for all those who suffer unjust oppression for Christ and His Gospel!

MIHAIL: Amen!

ANTIM: And send this bishop’s staff, which I have fashioned myself, to Gheorghe in Govora, for the comfort of the souls of those whom we have shepherded with fatherly love! But this must be done quickly! Therefore, take Father Dimitrie with you—the one ordained on the Feast of the Dormition—and, having informed the archpriest, settle him in Șchei!

MIHAIL: May the Lord keep you in His holy care, and may His Mother embrace the work and zeal you show to the Romanian people!

ANTIM: Worthy disciple and my beloved subdeacon, I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, and I have finished my course!

MIHAIL: I shall be ever mindful that should the call come soon, I am ready to return and give my last breath for Your Grace!

ANTIM: Let us not allow our nature to be drawn towards the vain things of this world, for they are all fleeting and deceitful!

MIHAIL: Amen!

ANTIM: On your way out, tell Archimandrite Sofronie to summon Bishop Mitrofan to our cell! We shall see what he has to say! Now go! Do as I say!

MIHAIL: Bless me and forgive me, your most humble servant!

ANTIM: (blessing him on the head…) May the Lord forgive us, have mercy on us, and grant us peace and good health!

MIHAIL: Amen! (Mihail withdraws and Antim, lighting a new candle in the candlestick, kneels before the icon of the Mother of God)

ANTIM: Most Holy Mother of God, in my time of trouble, do not forsake me, the unworthy one! I know of no other refuge but you, Mother of God! Protect me under your Holy Protection! (turns towards the icon of the Saviour) My hope is in the Father, my salvation is in the Son, my protection is in the Holy Spirit; Holy Trinity, glory to You! (kneels… brief pause.) Lord, my Merciful One and my Saviour, my soul is troubled by temptations, yet my body gives me no respite… illness has overtaken me because of the troubles of my soul! I cannot ease the gout that afflicts my body! The pains find no respite! …I suffer, Lord! …I suffer danger and torment!… The terrors of death have overtaken me! I have known the betrayal of my brothers since my childhood! I sense my end, O Lord! Take care of me! Yet not my will, O sinner, but Yours, Lord! Yours, Lord! Yours! I have sought to reconcile the Crown with the Church! (joins his palms) Only these two joined palms—the Church and the Crown—make up the perfect prayer of a people! From my childhood I have sought peace, which is better than justice itself, O Lord! Grant me strength, O Lord, to weather the storm of my tribulations! Constantine the Voivode, whom You have today crowned with the martyr’s wreath, O Lord, I have set things straight. And he was called my brother, for whose sake, out of my grief for Marichia, I have built this monastery, a place of eternal rest for his martyr’s body together with the entire host! And now, I wish for Nicolae Mavrocordat to be granted great mercy and peace for the Church, and I wish to advise him sincerely so that he may become beloved and cherished by the people! (He hears the sound of voices and footsteps in the antechamber… he says slowly and solemnly…) Lord, God of my salvation, Thy will be done! (Mitrofan appears timidly)

MITROFAN: Lord, have mercy on us! Bless us, Most Reverend Father Antim!

ANTIM: I wish you joy, Your Grace! But what brings you to our abode?

MITROFAN: May the peace of Christ always be our support, Vladyka, and may Christ be in our midst! I come, as always, with good intentions!

ANTIM: Just as I did last time?

MITROFAN: Did I come last time?

ANTIM: Last time you asked for something I was unable to fulfil! And Prince Constantine saw, at the time appointed by the Lord, the sincerity of the friendship I have shown!

MITROFAN: I hope that the Lord’s mercy may grant us a few words and some spiritual counsel!

ANTIM: I am listening!

MITROFAN: Let us not be led astray by our nature, Vladyka; in the name of Christ, I wish that, following the anguish my soul has endured, through the pain of losing a figure such as Constantine Voivode Brâncoveanu, my spiritual son and soulmate, we may be united in spirit, even if the friendship we shared with this martyr-like figure may serve as our bond and refuge!

ANTIM: Unbelief, Vladyka, I say as in confession, unbelief in the words of men tempts my soul after so many tribulations and perils thathave beset my heart for eight years, ever since I began fulfilling this duty commanded by the dying lips of my spiritual father and Metropolitan Theodosius!

MITROFAN: Your Grace, the tireless labour and self-sacrifice you have shown for Christ have made you worthy of praise in history and honour within the Church!

ANTIM: I have done what the Lord has permitted! My support has been Constantin Brâncoveanu and the wise Ștefan Cantacuzino, by whose permission and assistanceI have, over the past eight years, printed a further eighteen books in our press and erected, to the glory of the Lord, holy places of worship for the piety of devout Christians throughout the Romanian nation!

MITROFAN: May the Good Lord reward you with salvation, Your Grace!

ANTIM: I have never failed, to the best of my ability, to teach the flock of the Word what is useful and salvific! Likewise, for the uplifting, enrichment and adornment of these holy places, I have had great desire and divine zeal, so that through my many labours—from the printing of books and the charity of merciful Christians— I was deemed worthy to raise from the foundations this beautiful little church here in the Monastery of All Saints, in the hope that the bodies of the Holy Martyrs of Brâncoveanu may come and rest here at the sound of the Lord’s trumpet!

MITROFAN: I have seen it! You have also built plenty of cells for the repose of those who wish to choose the monastic life in this holy place!

ANTIM: By the Lord’s mercy!

MITROFAN: We all know the zeal you show for the Church of Christ, and this was my main reason for coming to Your Grace with advice and good will!

ANTIM: First of all, Your Grace, we must rid our hearts of hatred and envy and speak the truth to one another!

MITROFAN: Let us not harbour envy towards one another!

ANTIM: Nor should we betray one another with cruel and merciless hearts, nor should we harm and impoverish one another’s souls!

MITROFAN: I would not even dream of such a thing!

ANTIM: Let us cast aside wickedness, covetousness for our neighbour’s possessions, deceit, malice, strife and envy; and then let us pray!

MITROFAN: My soul is filled with great bitterness at the suffering that torments you!

ANTIM: The Lord has said never to lose hope in His Gift—and I must call peace and forgiveness of the greatest value!

MITROFAN: Bless us and forgive us, Your Grace!

ANTIM: May the Lord forgive us and, in His peace and blessing, save us!

MITROFAN: Amen!

ANTIM: So, how might I be of service to you, Vladyka?

MITROFAN: Ever since Prince Mavrocordat was informed by Your Grace that the Austrian armies were advancing upon us in Wallachia with the intent to lay waste and shed blood, great turmoil has arisen at the Palace!

ANTIM: That’s right! I told the Prince the truth! The messengers have sent word across the mountains!

MITROFAN: Upon hearing this dreadful news, as you said, the Prince, filled with concern, set off with his family for Giurgiu!

ANTIM: I know this all too well! For I followed him faithfully! But on the way we learnt that the armies had not arrived, so we turned back! On our return, we spent about three days in Giurgiu, busy with confessions and ordinations throughout the diocese!

MITROFAN: When the Florentine Antonio Del Chiaro was questioned the other day, he told His Highness about the anger Pope Clement is showing because of the aid you are giving to the Orthodox Christians beyond the mountains! But he made no mention whatsoever of an Austrian attack, being unaware of this fact! For this reason, His Highness flew into a rage at having been deceived and accused you of treason and political self-interest!

ANTIM: Treason?! What treason are you talking about? Whose treason? That of the man who was misled along with His Highness? That of the faithful metropolitan who set out on the journey there and back with His Highness? I don’t understand!

MITROFAN: He has accused you of treason and sent me to inform you that he wishes you at the Palace at once to give an account! The Pope’s complaints are irrelevant; it is merely the deception involved in that senseless departure!

ANTIM: Let the Pope take good note that these people from beyond the mountains are our brothers in Christ! The false synods of union with Rome do not concern the Orthodox people, who, from their mother’s womb, have recited the Creed without the addition of the so-called ‘filioque’!

MITROFAN: We must be on our guard, Your Grace! The Austrian armies have not set out for Wallachia, and the Prince has realised that you wish to drive him out of the country through intrigue and, ultimately, to call in reinforcements to enthrone a local ruler!

ANTIM: The Austrian attack is not merely rumour! There are plenty of signs! They will come one day! Did the Prince not wonder—surely they must have learnt that he was fleeing across the Danube?

MITROFAN: Do you know what sort of man Secretary Antonio del Chiaro is?!

ANTIM: A serious man! He would not spread mere rumours! And he is well acquainted with the intrigues of the Habsburgs and the Vatican; indeed, the Pope has even visited him in the dead of night!

MITROFAN: A consummate diplomat!

ANTIM: Not long ago he said that the Pope is planning to unite all the Christian armies and wants to march on the Sublime Porte! (making the sign of the cross) God forbid! The pagan oppression has reached a breaking point!

MITROFAN: Alas, Your Grace, in these places the truth is spoken in secret!

ANTIM: Christ is the Truth!… What sort of Christian country is this, which pays for its freedom, which is fenced in by paganism! And the interference of Christian rule, endorsed by paganism, weighs upon the Church like yet another crown of thorns upon Christ’s head!

MITROFAN: Your Grace! These words are madness! The Church must remain in prayer whilst politics is governed by a foreign decree!

ANTIM: This patch of earth will not find its precious peace until we free ourselves from the foreign yoke that weighs heavily upon our shoulders and upon our souls, which are full of suffering!

MITROFAN: Ah,… it stings to hear, and even more so to say!

ANTIM: We are waging a hard and unseen struggle, Your Grace! The final hour will come when, God forbid!, the Ottoman Gate will be called, and Your Grace at the helm of the Church will be nothing but foreign rulers over these Romanian-speaking lands! Then there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!

MITROFAN: Glory to God! Our spiritual son and dear friend, Nicolae Vodă Mavrocordat, is a good ruler and a lover of Christ!

ANTIM: We pray to the Lord for this! I pray that he may be sincere and zealous for the truth; only then will he see the purity with which I honour him, without a shred of concealment!

MITROFAN: It is for this very reason that I have come, to inform Your Grace of the Prince’s summons to give an account at the Palace!

ANTIM: Go and tell him that I shall arrive at the Palace as soon as I have finished the canon!

MITROFAN: (embracing Antim…) Please forgive me for disturbing your prayer, Your Grace!

ANTIM: May the mercy and grace of Christ be with us all!

MITROFAN (withdrawing…): Amen!

ANTIM: (returning to his prayer on his knees…) Lord, God of my salvation, by day I have cried out and by night before Thee; may my prayer reach before Thee; incline Thine ear to my plea, O Lord, for the wicked have risen up against me and the mighty seek my life, my soul, O Lord, is overwhelmed by sorrow, and my body is worn out by illness; I have sought, O Lord, to bring peace to the people, and You alone know my grief, O Lord, my toil, my sleeplessness, and my distress! From my earliest days I have known the snare of bondage, and with sorrow I confess that even today I feel how that same snare gnaws at my soul and my body, which has been tested by many misfortunes and dangers! (emphatically, …with great sorrow) Lord, record in Heaven my toil and my sacrifice for this blessed people! (the lights fade on the character and the entire stage)

Act IV At the Prince’s

Scene I

Setting: September 1716, the Palace of Nicolae Vodă Mavrocordat; the boyars are preparing, alongside the Prince, to receive Metropolitan Antim Ivireanu in the council chamber for judgement (set – gilded wood, a crowd of boyars seated on armchairs and an imperial throne in the centre)

BOYAR 1 (entering, addressing the other boyars…): Has the Metropolitan arrived? The Prince is furious and has ordered that he be notified immediately of his arrival so that he may recount the terror he and his children have endured because of the trap set for him during his recent flight! The skirmish at Călugăreni was a lie, and the Prince is furious!

BOYAR 2: Yes! Not a word of the Austrian upheaval or his armies! Surely the Metropolitan knows much of this false issue, which must be carefully considered and weighed up!

BOYAR 3: It is said that the Pope is furious at Metropolitan Antim’s meddling beyond the Carpathians and is urging the Habsburg to challenge this interference, using any pretext to remove this Metropolitan who is thwarting papal policies!

BOYAR 1: And in Istanbul there is great turmoil; the Sultan is furious and will send someone to behead whoever opposes his policy! Either the Prince or the priest!

ANOTHER NOBLE: Enough of this gossip, my lords! Bishop Antim is a man of God and would never do such a thing! He knew how to get on well with Prince Brâncoveanu, and also with his usurper, Ștefan Cantacusino! Do you think that a man such as His Eminence—a foreigner who gave the Romanian Church the written word and the liturgical language of the homeland, and who strictly upholds the canons—would do such a thing? I cannot bring myself to believe it! Do you not fear God’s punishment? (The Prince enters the council chamber noisily and furiously, accompanied by Metropolitan Mitrofan of Nyssa… the audience stands frozen…)

MAVROCORDAT: Did you tell him, Your Eminence, to come? Where is he? He used to be the first to arrive in the council chamber to present the Church’s case! Where is he now?

MITROFAN: He is certainly on his way! He had to prepare the canon and I could not prevent him from carrying out the Lord’s Church service! I have conveyed Your Highness’s displeasure to him in full!

BOYAR 1: I suspect he does not recognise the stature of a Lord, let alone a figure such as Nicolae Vodă Mavrocordat!

MITROFAN: He will come!

MAVROCORDAT: Let him come and explain himself! How dare he!?! Does he not fear being condemned for his schemes? Hear what he says! The Austrians are coming! Priestly fantasies! I shall not forgive such plots and treachery! You shall taste my wrath! Until then, my boyars, report to His Highness the amount of the broken tax you have collected from the rabble!

NOBLE 2: Your Highness, your new tax, the ‘rupta’, has not been collected; the peasants have risen up and are fleeing to the mountains, or are putting up bloody resistance to the collection of the taxes imposed by Your Highness!

MAVROCORDAT: Let them pay with an ox or a horse, or with whatever horned beast they have in their yard! Or let them give more wine or wheat in lieu of the harvest tax! Carry this out to the letter!

BOYER 3: Your Highness, the tax on the harvest is rather high for those who toil hard in the vineyards and make wine with tears and great effort! Not to mention the land tax! And our tax on the flocks of sheep is oppressive and a heavy burden! It ought to be reduced by at least half!

MAVROCORDAT (angrily): Take note! This is no market where one haggles with the ruler!

BOYAR 3 (bowing…): Forgive me, Your Highness!

MAVROCORDAT: What do you mean, boyar?… Can’t you afford to pay for the feast? You? You can’t afford it?

BOYAR 3 (bowing…): Forgive me, Your Highness!

MAVROCORDAT: You have lined your pockets at the expense of the common folk, and now you find yourselves in dire straits?… What utter impudence is this? You shall taste our wrath to your heart’s content! What insolence! My anger burns like fire against those who concoct lies and cause discord! (Metropolitan Antim enters the council chamber, discreet yet solemn, under the gaze of all present)

ANTIM (bowing his head slightly, speaking softly…): May the Good Lord keep you in good health and bless your lives!… Bishop Mitrofan has informed me that you wished to see me!… I have come!… Here I am!

MAVROCORDAT: I expected you to come sooner, Your Grace, but you are taking your time with that canon! Or do you, too—like those across the Bosphorus—set off on your pilgrimage when you ought not to be distracted by other calls!?

ANTIM: The order is the order, Your Highness, and we cannot set it aside… for it has been established by the Holy Fathers of God with solemn vows! Moreover, I do not believe Your Highness could take such matters upon yourself by attempting to curtail even in the slightest the affairs of Christ’s Church!

BOYAR 1 (in a whisper): Listen! A curse!

ANOTHER NOBLEMAN (discreetly…): No, nobleman! He’s speaking of the order of things! What he says is right!

MAVROCORDAT: I did not even summon you for advice!

ANTIM: The Church is the mother of this blessed land, Your Highness, and whoever the Lord ordains to rule over it cannot cause any pain to his mother, the Church!

BOYAR 1 (whispering…): Such impudence!

MAVROCORDAT: Too much audacity, Your Holiness! I have summoned you to account for the schemes you seek to carry out in these parts! The false rumours you bring to the Palace seem more like political manoeuvring! (the boyars nod obsequiously)

ANTIM: A warning is no plot, Your Highness! And if I wished to protect you from dangers, (emphatically) which are sure to arise one day, I did so out of the deep respect I hold for you!

MAVROCORDAT: Nonsense, Your Holiness! Nonsense! Nonsense!

ANTIM: A plot is woven with cunning words, Your Highness! But I speak with great love and a desire for peace in our hearts, and Christ God Himself stands as an unseen witness! (the boyars grumble)

MAVROCORDAT: Yes! I have seen what sincerity and peace you bring me! At Călugăreni the other day you said that the Habsburgs seek to burn everything to the ground, all the way to the Danube! And though it may not be exactly as you said, I have, against my will, felt a fear of death for myself and my people!

ANTIM: So too my soul, Your Highness! So too I, who set out alongside Your Highness as a faithful counsellor and a friend at heart!

BOYAR 1: You sought to remove the Prince by cunning and to bring one of your political advisers to the throne! The Sublime Porte is on high alert! It will punish you severely! It summons you to Istanbul to stand trial!

MAVROCORDAT (raising a finger to silence the boyar…): Enough! You are not permitted to speak! (turning back to Metropolitan Antim) What have you to say about the schemes and opposition you are plotting?

ANTIM: This sanctuary has no other counsel or purpose than the peace of God and the good order to which Your Highness is directly accountable! …And what could I possibly have against Your Highness, since I joyfully, by God’s command, commemorate you in the litanies of the services for health and good works? As for the other accusations levelled by Your Highness, my soul is calm and at peace!

MAVROCORDAT: Yours may be at peace! Mine, Your Eminence, is pierced by the pain of betrayal! The Sultan is wrath and fire! You shall be sent there to give an account!

ANTIM: It is fitting that we first set aside malice and strife, and then speak, for then the peace of Christ will find our hearts!

MAVROCORDAT: Who do you think you are, speaking to me like this? Enough of these tricks! Do you not understand my power?

ANTIM: Look rather into my heart, Your Highness! The mind must have its sharpness! But my heart is free from malice and fear at the sound of Your Highness’s words! Let us not be proud in our hearts! In Christ we are equals and brothers through the gift of faith that warms our hearts!

MAVROCORDAT: Be reasonable, Your Grace! …But what did you do with Brâncoveanu’s purses, as rumour has it? To the best of our knowledge, Lady Marica gave many purses to build the crypt for her departed loved ones!

ANTIM: Exactly as you said! We have added as much as we received, and we thought to adorn the beautiful monastery, dedicated to All Saints, which we have decked out with fine ornaments in the hope of bringing here the martyrs who received the baptism of blood at the hands of the pagans across the Bosphorus!

MAVROCORDAT: More nonsense! You won’t fool me with your talk! You will answer for this in Constantinople! The Patriarch is well aware of these matters and awaits you in judgement! I do not look kindly upon your cunning! Now I am beginning to see through you and understand you!

ANTIM: On the contrary, Your Highness, it would seem that no, you do not know me!

MAVROCORDAT: The Florentine secretary Antonio Del Chiaro says the Pope is furious at your interference beyond the Carpathians!

ANTIM: It is only right, Your Highness! They are our brothers! I am astonished that a righteous lord could think otherwise! A lord must be the guarantor of a people and the pillar of their faith! Our brothers are suffering beyond the Carpathians and their souls find no solace! If you do not uphold our language and faith, the curse will overtake you… the curse of spilled blood… the curse of no longer walking this earth!

MAVROCORDAT: Enough, people! I’m not interested! You’re the one to account for this! Your insinuations are clear proof of the betrayals you’ve committed against me!

ANTIM: He who is indifferent to the faith of the people he rules is displeasing to God and is also a traitor to his nation and country!

MAVROCORDAT (furious… rises from his chair): What do you mean, I am indifferent to my own people?

ANTIM: Be aware, Your Highness, that a ruler must be the very soul of the people he rules! And should anyone seek to strike at the Orthodox faith, he must be a fierce and swift defender of his people’s faith!

MAVROCORDAT: I shall send you into harsh exile if you prattle on any longer!

ANTIM: What father does not value the lives of his children more than his own? A ruler ought rather to be a father and teacher to the people!

MAVROCORDAT: I have studied enough at the Sublime Porte! I can teach them many things!

ANTIM: And what are the people to learn? From the Sublime Porte, which mocks the Orthodox faith and blasphemes against the cross, the law, Holy Communion, the dead, candles, the soul, the grave, memorial bread, holy bread, confession, baptism, marriage, and all the Sacraments of the Holy Church of God? Is that what the people are to learn?

MAVROCORDAT: Your ramblings are trying my patience!

ANTIM: You will realise, Your Highness, that by all this we are reviling and mocking our own law! Which of the pagans does such a thing? Or which people mock their own law as we do, and are laughed at by the Turks?

MAVROCORDAT: What exactly are you trying to say?

ANTIM: Do we not, by practising these things, revile God and His commandments? The Turks have caused us to no longer respect anything of our law! Through their mocking oppression, we treat our churches as though they were stables, and when we go there, instead of listening to the services and praying to God to forgive our sins, we wear rings and earrings and laugh and make fun of each other worse than in a tavern! This is what the Turks want: to mock us and laugh at us!

MAVROCORDAT: I am a good Christian, and my confessor can bear witness to the care I take of my soul when I go to church!

ANTIM: To church! There, in a hurry, we confess and receive communion, and there, just as hastily, we return to our usual sins; and we take such pleasure in them and are so pleased to commit them, as if we were gaining a great fortune!

MAVROCORDAT: Exile awaits you, priest!

ANTIM: Some confess out of fear of some misfortune, whilst others out of human shame; but there are two kinds of confessors (murmurs… the council wonders whom he is referring to…Mitrofan storms off the stage) – one in the countryside and the other in the city… to the one in the countryside he confesses his great sins, which the fool forgives out of ignorance, whilst to the one in the city he confesses his petty sins, so that they may spread the word of his holiness and righteousness! This is how we practise the mystery of confession!

MAVROCORDAT: I shall send you to a place where you shall face nothing but stones and dust, to the Sinai Desert! Into exile! Bring in the guards! Take him away! (Meanwhile, Metropolitan Antim is stripped of his cassock and mitre, bound by the guards, and utters a final word…)

ANTIM: Love the land you rule over, Your Highness, and do not devour your brother’s flesh and labour, nor drink his blood and the sweat of his brow with greed and insatiability! I, Antim Ivireanul, Metropolitan of Wallachia, leave as my final words to be known that I have loved the propriety of the House of the Lord and, through labour by no means easy, have succeededto preserve the liturgical text in the language of my homeland, just as my conscience has always dictated, feeling as though I were a Vlach wanderer through Ivir, returned to my beloved homeland! I have committed the word of salvation of Christ our God to print for the enlightenment of all righteous Christians, in the language of their homeland! I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, and I have finished my course! May the Lord’s will be done! (The guards take Metropolitan Antim and lead him off stage; the lights go out and come on from the side on the play’s first scene, where Metropolitan Mitrofan of Wallachia, at the end of 1716, notes on the firman found unfinished, the true life of Metropolitan Antim Ivireanul, as dictated by the sub-deacon Mihail Ștefan; set: a table, candlesticks, documents, a projection onto the two characters…)

MITROFAN (writing and pronouncing what he writes almost syllable by syllable, as if for a dictation…): He was then taken by the Ismailis and brought to Tsarigrad to the Patriarch to be judged by the Most High Consistory!

MIHAIL: We have no proof that he ever got there! As we know, there’s a peasant saying: ‘What’s in one’s hand is no lie’, so we’ll tell it as we’ve heard it here! (spelled out as if for a dictation) He was taken, (said emphatically) by his own people, and handed over through treachery to the Ismailis, who, after stripping him of his robe and cap, bound him like a slave andtook him out of his homeland to Istanbul, only to be taken later to Mount Sinai to spend the rest of his life in exile at St Catherine’s Monastery! (spoken normally) That is far truer and better, Your Grace!

MITROFAN: That’s right!… Some say that the lamb was slaughtered and thrown into Lake Snagov! I sent spies in secret, and they found no evidence! The abbot and the community at the neighbouring monastery have heard nothing of the matter!

MIHAIL (making the sign of the cross): May the Lord God soon reveal to us, through a holy manifestation, the location of his martyr’s body so that we may honour it as is fitting! (A clamour and commotion outside in the courtyard; great uproar, shouts and screams.)

MITROFAN: What could be disturbing our work? What is happening in the courtyard? (A monk runs into the room and cries out in terror)

A MONK (in great fear…): Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! Oh my goodness, Your Grace! Quickly, quickly, run and tell the Prince! Oh my goodness! Lord, protect us and have mercy on us!

MITROFAN: Why are you shouting like a madman, Father? Do you wish to be punished for this madness of yours?

A MONK: The Habsburg is coming! The Habsburg is coming! A priest on horseback has come from the Land of Loviște and has seen how the Habsburg is coming with a great army towards the Danube! Thousands upon thousands are coming towards the Danube!

MITROFAN (agitated): Good heavens! Vladyka Antim was right when he said they would come! Brother Mihaile, I’m off to break the news to Prince Mavrocordat! The time has come, just as Metropolitan Antim once foretold! Stay here and keep watch over this dwelling of Vladica Antim! I’m off to inform the Prince and his family! Father, let us go to the Prince! (Mitrofan leaves the room in a fluster and exits the stage; Mihail remains alone)

MIHAIL (alone, soliloquising): Go, Your Eminence! Go! Oh dear! Truly, the Divine John says in Scripture that ‘the hired shepherd, who is paid in silver, does not care for the sheep, for he is paid; and when the wolf comes, he flees and leaves the sheep to perish!’ At least they have come to believe the truth spoken by our Holy and Martyr Father, Vladyka Antim Ivireanul! (He takes Mitrofan’s place at the writing desk and, dipping his quill in ink, writes and reads aloud) “He was a servant from his youth, and he remained a servant until he passed to the Lord! Signed, Mihail Ștefan, the printing apprentice of Metropolitan Antim and his sub-deacon!!! (He looks up from the document and thinks aloud) What a life! How much sorrow must this soul have felt, knowing that the people for whom he had produced books and for whom he had made the language of the prayers accessible had condemned him to perdition! What grief must have weighed upon his heart to know that it was his very own brothers who were betraying him—both back then, when he was but a lad of 16, and now, having reached the light of the liturgical scriptures! (rises from his chair) Let me see the firman once more!… (Mihail speaks in a declamatory tone) A treasure trove of gifts, like a tree planted beside the springs of water and sent by God from distant Iviria to Romanian soil, Antim Ivireanul devoted his entire being to the service of the Church and the Romanian people. Multiplying the talent bestowed by God and proving himself a fearless defender of the true faith, Antim of Ivir stood as a strong witness and a steadfast shield against the unbelievers. Praying to God for the salvation of his flock, the enlightened and tireless hierarch Antim served our Church as a monk, abbot, bishop and metropolitan, setting an example to all in everything he did. A teacher of the true worship of God, the pride of the bishops of Wallachia, the adornment of the scholars, and a sweet-spoken conveyor of divine wisdom in the beautiful Romanian language,our father Metropolitan Antim revealed himself through his rich and fruitful work as a printer, writer, artist, preacher, minister and great shepherd of souls. In the midst of these exalted works, as a result of envious intrigues, Metropolitan Antim Ivireanul was removed from his episcopal see and forced to take the path of martyrdom. For his steadfastness in the true faith, he endured great tribulations and torments, and even a martyr’s death for Christ. His body, dismembered by the unbelieving Turkish guards, was cast into the waters of the Tungia, a tributary of the Maritsa, whose waters carried his tears and martyr’s blood to the shores of God’s immortal and eternal kingdom! (makes the sign of the cross) Holy Hierarch and Martyr Antim, pray to God for us!

Scene II

(A group of priests appears amongst the figures and one of them solemnly reads the canonisation decree)

A PRIEST: To the beloved clergy and faithful Christians throughout the Romanian Patriarchate, grace, mercy and peace from God, the Father of Lights, and from us, patriarchal blessings! From the very beginning, the Holy Church has held the Holy Apostles and Martyrs in special honour. As is fitting, it has also numbered amongst the company of saints those hierarchs who shone forth through their godly lives. From among these, the Holy Synod of our Orthodox Church has deemed it fitting to raise our Father, the Hierarch and Martyr Antim Ivireanul, to the honour due to him and to number him among the saints. Our Hierarch Antim of Ivirean, being counted amongst the saints as a confessor and martyr for the true faith in the piety of the faithful, from the very moment of his martyrdom, and following the synodal custom, calling upon the Power of the Most High, worshipped in the Trinity, to come to our aid, we decree: That from this present year of salvation, 1992, our Hierarch Antim, Metropolitan of Wallachia, shall be numbered among the host of saints and honoured in accordance with all ecclesiastical custom, being inscribed in our Church’s calendar, the Synaxarion and the Miney, as ‘Saint Hierarch and Martyr Antim of Ivire’ on 27 September. We further decree that the life, the liturgy and the icon of the Saint be printed and received with reverence by the Orthodox Christians. The icon bearing the image of Saint Antim the Hierarch and Martyr of Ivirean shall be placed in churches in a location befitting his rank; and should new churches be built, they may be dedicated to this Saint. And so as to increase the piety of the city’s faithful, the patronage of Saint Antim the Martyr of Ivirean shall also be added. In full confirmation of that which we have decreed on this day in a synodal and canonical manner, we have drawn up and hereby confirm with our signatures this Tomos of canonisation of Saint Antim the Martyr of Ivire, which we bring to the attention of the faithful and the pastors of the Romanian Orthodox Church (makes the sign of the cross) Holy Hierarch and Martyr Antim of Ivire, pray to God for us!

ALL CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY: Holy Hierarch and Martyr Antim of Ivire, pray to God for us!

Music: The troparion of Saint Antim of Ivire, Hierarch and Martyr.

The characters

Act I The News of the Death

Act II: The Redemption

Act III: Wallachia

Act IV At the Prince’s

Scene I

Scene II

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Poems by Bishop Vartolomeu Stănescu

Interview with Archimandrite Nikodim, abbot of the Holy Monastery of Filotheou on Mount Athos

The Ninth Catechesis of our Holy Father and Confessor Theodore, Abbot of Studion, to his disciples

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A brief overview of anti-mythology over the last two decades

The Coat of Arms of Saint Antim of Ivire – possible stylistic interpretations

Hieromonk Antim Ivireanul – printer at the Metropolis of Ungrovlahia and abbot of the Monastery of Saint Sava in Bucharest (1691–1694)