This autumn marked three centuries since the martyr’s death for the Romanian people of the man who, as Bishop of Râmnic and Metropolitan of Wallachia, made the Church in his capacity as Bishop of Râmnic and Metropolitan of Wallachia, the supreme institution dedicated to the survival of this much-tried nation on earth, and to its salvation after crossing the threshold into eternal life.
The very fact that this three-century commemoration is possible confronts us with a reality which, at least up there, among the host of Romanian saints, including Saint Antim, is bound to cause a stir when one realises that today’s experts are already calculating the time remaining until the total disappearance of this nation, which has come to ‘retreat like a crab’ after having managed, over two millennia, to weather all the trials to which it was subjected.
We are at a time when we must seek the help of the Almighty and His saints, and especially that of our own saints, in order to withstand the assault—not only upon us but upon the whole world—of the one who seeks to replace ‘Thy kingdom come’ in the Lord’s Prayer with the coming of his own kingdom.
The feast days of the saints must therefore become a source of strength surpassing all powers on earth and beneath the earth for those who maintain a connection with Him who brought us into being from nothingness. And for our Romanian people, heaven has not been emptied, as it did for Nietzsche or for Umberto Eco, who arranged his own secular funeral as a demonstration of the extinction, in his own soul and in those of those present, of the faith that gives man the power to command a mountain to cast itself into the sea.
But as long as this power—the power of faith—remains alive in the overwhelming majority of the souls of today’s Romanians, we can worship and celebrate our saints not merely by virtue of a centuries-old tradition, but with the boldness to ask them to stand alongside us in the Romanian nation’s present-day struggle against the force of universal dissolution that seeks to rule the planet, and in the war against ‘the enemy of human nature’ and ‘the great corrupter’—as Ignatius of Loyola and André Malraux called the devil—and against his earthly minions.
The Diocese of Râmnic, which Saint Antim Ivireanul transformed into a place imbued with the power that dwelt within him—a power which he himself drew from these lands— is called upon once more, just as it was three centuries ago and later in the time of Bishops Damaschin Dascălul, Clement and Chesarie, to be one of the strongholds of the national spirit’s resilience and victory over the adversities of history, as was also demonstrated by the fact that it was here that the man entrusted by God with the mission to confront, together with his people, the very ‘empire of evil’—which for three-quarters of a century had become a terrible historical reality—was born and set out from here, but which was defeated thanks to the Romanian people, who remained Christian and had Patriarch Justinian as their spiritual leader.
As we celebrate Saint Antim of Ivire, it is fitting to recall all these events associated with his name.
Thanks to the decision of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel to compile and publish the complete works of Saint Antim of Ivire, with the assistance of the foremost expert on his life and works, Academician Gabriel Ștrempel, as well as the Reverend Archimandrite Mihail Stanciu, the volume dedicated to his correspondence, entitled Letters, was published for the first time in 2014. This time, the main credit goes to Archimandrite Mihail Stanciu. The edition of the Didachia in the first volume was the twelfth, and the fourth based on the oldest and best manuscript, discovered and first edited in 1962 by Gabriel Ștrempel. The second volume was a welcome reprint of the edition of his Works, edited by the same author and published by Minerva in 1972. The third volume, Letters, is, however, an absolute first and, alongside the monograph Antim Ivireanul, published in 1997 by the Romanian Academy Press, it crowns half a century (exactly 52 years) of effort invested by Academician Gabriel Ștrempel in understanding the personality of Saint Antim Ivireanul and making his work accessible.
Those of my generation still recall how this endeavour began with a resounding scandal. By publishing the volume Antim Ivireanul, Sermons in 1962, through the Academy Press (at that time the ‘Romanian People’s Republic’ Press), he broke the taboos of the era to bring to light, 47 years after the last edition (by Petre V. Haneș, published in 1915) and using the oldest available manuscript, this monument to the Romanian language and culture. But for those who held sway over this cultural sphere at the time, the only thing that mattered was the fact that the author was a ‘priest’, and it was consequently decided to send the entire print run to be melted down.
The one who came up with the saving solution was Patriarch Justinian, who obtained Gheorghiu-Dej’s approval for the Academy to sell the entire print run produced by the publishing house to the Patriarchate, on condition that it be distributed only to parish libraries. I remember how those of us who were interested went about trying to obtain this edition through the goodwill of the priests in the parishes to which we belonged. At that time I belonged to Pitar Moș, and it was given to me by the late, well-remembered parish priest, Father Gregorian.
Ten years later, this time without any difficulty, the first complete edition (excluding the correspondence) of the works of Saint Antim, edited by the same Gabriel Ștrempel at Minerva Publishing House, a fact which in itself marked the division between two eras in the history of post-war Romania.
The revelation now brought by the first edition of the Letters is contained in the lengthy epistle addressed by Patriarch Chrysanthus Notaras of Jerusalem to Iannaki Văcărescu, the cupbearer of Wallachia who was to be martyred alongside Constantin Brâncoveanu and his sons in 1714. Dated December 1709, it came almost two years after Saint Antim Ivireanul had become Metropolitan of Wallachia on 22 February 1708.
Having ascended to the patriarchal see of Jerusalem following the death on 9 February 1707 of his famous and illustrious uncle Dositei Notara, became an adversary of the Metropolitan of Wallachia as a result of the latter’s rejection of his attempts to interfere in the affairs of the Wallachian Metropolis. The letter gives expression to this animosity, but what is important to us is what we learn from it.
The seven-page manuscript, now preserved in the file entitled ‘Old letters of the various Patriarchs of Jerusalem, from the illustrious Nectarius to the illustrious Cyril’ in the Archive of Letters of the Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople, was discovered in the National Library of Athens and published by Ms Pinelopi Stahi in her doctoral thesis Chrysanthos Notaras, Patriarch of Jerusalem – Forerunner of the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment, published in Athens in 1999, pp. 297–305. But it was only two years ago that it was brought to our attention by Archimandrite Mihail Stanciu, first in the study ‘Recent Discoveries Concerning the Arrival of Saint Antim Ivireanul in the Romanian Lands’, in the journal Ortodoxia, 2014, no. 1, pp. 132–142, and then in the volume Letters, where the original text is reproduced, accompanied for the first time by Father Archimandrite Mihail Stanciu’s translation into Romanian and his valuable notes.
From this text we learn that Antim Ivireanul was ransomed by Patriarch Dositei with money from the Holy Sepulchre, ‘we wrote his letter of pardon’, so Hrisant Notara, now Patriarch, had direct and precise knowledge of how events unfolded. We then learn that he was ‘abbot at Cetățuia, in Iași’, so he first came to Moldavia and was already a monk of such standing that he was placed at the head of the community founded by Gheorghe Duca following the death of Abbot Macarie. We also learn that it was Hrisant who, on the instructions of Patriarch Dositei, transferred him to Bucharest and ‘by the will of the late lord, I spoke with Kyr Mitrofan, the Bishop of Buzău [author’s note: D. Z.], to teach him the art of printing, agreeing to pay him two hundred groschen, and thus, thanks to us, he came there and became well-known and achieved what he is today”.
According to the most recent biography of Saint Antim Ivireanul, published by Archimandrite Mihail Stanciu in the album 300 Years Since the Martyrdom of Saint Antim Ivireanul (1716–2016), Bucharest, Basilica Publishing House, 2016, Antim Ivireanul was ransomed by Dositei “around 1685”, and “in the spring of 1686, Patriarch Dositeibrought Antim to Cetățuia Monastery near Iași to work at the newly established Greek printing press run by Bishop Mitrofan of Huși. Although the Polish invasion of Iași in September 1686 forced the hierarch and printer Mitrofan to take refuge in Wallachia, the hieromonk Antim Ivireanul remained under the guidance of the abbot, the hieromonk Macarie, learning Romanian and Church Slavonic and deepening his knowledge of Greek theological and philosophical writings, eventually becoming the monastery’s hegumen.
Around the beginning of 1690, on the recommendation of Patriarch Dositei, the hieromonk Antim came to Bucharest to learn the craft of printing as an apprentice to Bishop Mitrofan, now the head of the princely printing house at the Metropolitan See of Wallachia”.
If, as some researchers suggest, Saint Antim Ivireanul was born ‘around the year 1650’ or, according to others, between 1640 and 1650, he was a man in the prime of life when he arrived here. In 1691 – when his presence and the start of his work here are conclusively demonstrated by the publication of his first printed work in October – he was at least 41 years old, if we accept 1650 as his year of birth, and 76 when he crowned his life and work here with a martyr’s death in the autumn of 1716.
If we accept the dates put forward in the recent album regarding his release and his arrival in Moldavia, he would have been 45 years old in 1685 had he been born in 1640, or 35 if we accept 1650 as his year of birth, and one year older when he arrived at Cetățuia, which since 1678 had been placed under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem along with Bistrița and Probota, and where Patriarch Dositei liked to spend months on end, if we are to believe Emil Turdeanu (op. cit., pp. 294–295).
But if we accept that Antim Ivireanul was brought by Patriarch Dositei to Cetățuia in the spring of 1686, this means that he was still present in Iași when Metropolitan Dosoftei, who had departed with Sobieski’s armies in September, and Mitrofan at the printing house in Cetățuia. The latter had also been Bishop of Huși since 11 January 1683 (Mircea Păcurariu, op. cit., p. 123). Within a few months, whilst on the premises of the printing house itself, Mitrofan would have been in a far better position to pass on this knowledge of printing to the newcomer than he would have been in Bucharest, or as Bishop of Buzău after 10 June 1691. Consequently, what Hrisant says in his letter should not be taken as gospel truth. It is more plausible that the sum Hrisant refers to was not advanced to Mitrofan when he became Bishop of Buzău, that is, after 10 June 1691, but in Cetățuia, since it was for this purpose that Antim had been brought to Moldavia by Patriarch Dositei, and not to Bucharest. He would have been ‘transferred’ to Bucharest when, in Iași, following the departure of Metropolitan Dosoftei into exile and Mitrofan’s departure for Bucharest in the wake of the events of that autumn (the last document in which the Bishop of Huși appears is that issued by Constantin Cantemir on 4 May), matters were no longer going well. We find the hieromonk Antim Ivireanul mentioned again in Moldavia as a witness, in his capacity as abbot at Cetățuia, in a document dated 18 July 1689 published by Ion Caproșu. He therefore arrived in Bucharest after this date.
Undoubtedly, upon his arrival in Moldavia, Antim Ivireanul already possessed a range of skills and was fluent in several languages, primarily Ancient and Modern Greek, but also Arabic, Turkish and, naturally, his native Georgian; he may have learnt Church Slavonic either during a trip to Kiev, as suggested by Teofil G. Rendiuk, or whilst in Moldavia itself, where those versed in Church Slavonic were still to be found. To this was very quickly added his ‘astonishing’ (G. Călinescu) command of the Romanian language.
The ‘self-portrait’ he was compelled to paint in the two letters – memoirs addressed to Constantin Brâncoveanu on 13 January and 3 February 1711 (see Letters, pp. 77–84) after being asked to resign via a princely envoy – a humiliating gesture – is that of a man of great dignity and self-awareness, worthy of the hierarchical position from which he spoke and having served the prince, the Romanian people, the Church and its culture.
His arrival in Moldova at Cetățuia was prompted by Patriarch Dositei of Jerusalem’s need to have his own man in the printing house, the establishment and operation of which dated back to 1682 and were attributable to Metropolitan Dosoftei of Moldova. The presence of the printer Antim Ivireanul was to bring about the most decisive rise of the Greek book within the Orthodox world not controlled by heterodox groups, a phenomenon which transcended the boundaries of Romanian culture, becoming part of the cultural history of the entire East and resonating within European culture.
The presence of the printer Antim Ivireanul was to bring about the most decisive rise of the Greek book in the Orthodox world not controlled by heterodox groups, a phenomenon that transcended the boundaries of Romanian culture, becoming part of the cultural history of the entire East and resonating within European culture.
In two seminal studies published in 1950 and 1952, entitled Le livre grec en Russie: L’apport des presses de Moldavie et de Valachie and Les controverses des Jansénistes et la création de l’imprimerie grecque en Moldavie, Emil Turdeanu demonstrated how the great patriarch, who continued the struggle to defend the Orthodoxy of those who had gathered in Iași in 1642, realising the absolute necessity of a printing press beyond the control of the heterodox, attempted to establish one in the Russia of Peter the Great, but failed. However, one was established for him at Cetățuia by his namesake, Metropolitan Dosoftei, with the assistance of the monk Mitrofan of Bisericani, the printer of his books—books in which he signed ‘the master of the type, the humble monk Mitrofan of the holy monastery of Besericani’ (The Prayer Book for the Understanding) and ‘Eromnah Mitrofan, the maker of the type’ (The Lives of the Saints, vol. I).
The key to these formulations is provided by the man who later became Bishop of Buzău in the Octoechos of 1700, the first to feature a title page in Romanian and a typikon in Romanian, though with the hymns in Church Slavonic. In the preface addressed by Mitrofan to Constantin Brâncoveanu, we read:
“And I, your Majesty’s humble supplicant, as you commanded, began this work with eagerness, and with God’s help brought it to completion, with great spiritual joy. Firstly, for the goodness of this fine work of Your Highness, which is for the common good. And secondly, because this craft of mine—the printing trade—which I have acquired through travelling to many places since my youth and with much toil, it is through Your Highness’s grace that it has been put to good use as I desired, and to be shared with our other brothers, to whom I now present, as a small token of my humble labour in printing and in this book, and with your blessing, I offer it to Your Highness’s glorious reign. This printing press, though it was made by my own hands with God’s help, derives its spirit and life from Your Highness; and for that reason it is fitting to say that it belongs entirely to Your Highness.”
Mitrofan’s account from 1700 is confirmed by Patriarch Dositei in his book The History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, published posthumously in Bucharest by Hrisant Notara in 1715:
‘And in the year 1680, whilst I was in Iași and seeing that the Moldavians had a printing press, whereas the Greeks did not, I was overcome with grief. But God, the ruler and bringer of all that is good, sent us a Romanian hieromonk named Mitrofan, and we gave him six hundred lei (εξακόσια γρόσια = 60 gros) and he built us a new printing press; and so we provided him with the expenses and paper, and we also sent Nectarius’s book opposing the primacy of the Pope, and, contrary to our expectations, it was printed. That is why we distributed it to everyone free of charge. We found this to be a pleasing matter; and whilst we were in Adrianople in the year 1683, we sent paper to Iași and had Simeon of Thessaloniki’s book printed as well. I also wrote letters to the Duke-Voivode” (Translation from Bibliografia românească veche, I, p. 257).
Mitrofan was therefore not merely a printer but possessed the skill of a printer-maker, which he had learnt by ‘travelling to many places’, and in turn taught this to Antim Ivireanul. He printed the first three books in Greek on Orthodox soil at Cetățuia: the two mentioned by Dositei in 1682 and 1683, and the Service of the Holy Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus, the latter in March 1685, signed ‘the Bishop of Huși’.
But the most important publications from the printing press established by Dositei in Moldavia under a regime of absolute freedom—and intended to support his struggle against Catholicism—are undoubtedly the two massive ‘volumes’ that appeared after the press was moved to Iași, at the Monastery of Saint Sava, dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre. The first was entitled The Volume of Reconciliation, with the note: ‘this book was printed in Iași, Moldavia, at the expense of the Holy Sepulchre, in the year of salvation 1694, in the month of February’ and ‘printed by Dimitrie Pădure in Iași, Moldavia, in the year of salvation 1694, in the month of February’. The second, entitled The Treatise on Love Concerning the Latins, was printed in 1698, ‘by engravure and at the expense of the Holy Sepulchre, by Dionisie the monk, with the highly esteemed professor Ieremia Cacavela acting as editor’. The third volume was to be published in 1705 in Râmnic, by Antim Ivireanul.
The next and final book in Greek printed by Mitrofan following the three from Cetățuia was published in Bucharest in 1690 and contained the writings of two authors: Meletius of Sirig and Patriarch Dositeus of Jerusalem himself! Consequently, the patriarch had expanded his sphere of influence with the help of Constantin Brâncoveanu in Wallachia, where he continued to foster Mitrofan, who now signed himself ‘former Bishop of Huși’. But from this point onwards, the baton of Greek scholarship in the Orthodox world would be taken up by Antim Ivireanul for 25 years (October 1691 – August 1716), and he would immediately make his mark through the publication of the monumental volume of 1693, The Holy and Divine Gospel in Greek and Romanian, in which his many talents are evident, leading us to assume that during the years he spent at Cetățuia as abbot – whilst living next to the printing workshop until his move to Iași – at the Monastery of Saint Sava, dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre, were also spent learning the art of printing, first from Mitrofan, whom he would later meet again in Bucharest at the princely printing house and work with in 1690 and 1691, without waiting forPatriarch Dositei to pay him 200 groschen after the Bishop of Buzău had arrived on 10 June 1691. Within just a few months of this date, he was able to attain the mastery demonstrated in his earliest prints and to learn the craft of setting up new printing works.
He established himself as the most active and brilliant printer of Greek books in the Orthodox world. Among the monumental works to which he is credited are the Greek Anthologion of Târgoviște from 1709, dedicated to the Ecumenical Patriarch Athanasius and reprinted several times in the West, and the first edition of Euthymius Zigabenus’s Dogmatic Panoply, also in Târgoviște, in 1710. We are entitled to assume that the years the monk Antim spent in Moldavia, where he found a country, a people and a civilisation that was already a quarter of a millennium old and had reached its zenith in what we call the ‘ancient era’, gave him the opportunity to become a leading exponent of this civilisation himself. By then, of course, he had learnt Romanian, a language in which he would continue to perfect his skills after arriving in Bucharest, but especially in Râmnic, where he would print his first major translations: the Liturgy Book, printed in 1706 by Mihail Iștvanovici together with the Prayer Book, thereby replacing the two works by Metropolitan Dosoftei after a quarter of a century.
It is hard to believe that there is no connection between the similarity of Metropolitan Dosoftei’s choices in Iași and the selection of these two books for what was to be achieved in Râmnic by the man who, for at least a few months,was able to meet in person the first courageous champion of the Romanian language in church worship, the man who had made it a ‘holy language’ alongside Greek, Latin and Slavonic. Antim Ivireanul, as Bishop of Râmnic, would continue the work of the Moldavian Metropolitan in the service of the Romanian book, using two of the books published by Dosoftei in Iași.
With regard to these Moldavian printed works, which Antim Ivireanul could not possibly have ignored, it is evident that he was not left unmoved by the human, hierarchical and scholarly model represented by Saint Metropolitan Dosoftei, since he appears to us as a true reincarnation of him south of the Carpathians – a piece of breaking news, obtained as a result of the research required for the drafting of this article commissioned by His Eminence Varsanufie, Archbishop of Râmnic, concerning the second edition, dated 1683, of the Liturgy Book. Regarding this, N. A. Ursu noted in 1980 in the critical edition of the Divine Liturgy from 1979, published in Iași with an introductory study by the late Patriarch Teoctist—then Metropolitan of Moldavia—that ‘only two incomplete copies of this edition are known to exist: one is held at the Library of the Romanian Academy, and the other at the Central State Library’ (now the National Library of Romania). The copy in the Library of the Romanian Academy, catalogued as CRV 77, is the one from which pages 46–72 were reproduced in facsimile and transcription in the 1980 edition (pages 206–313).
I am able to add a third copy to this list, which we discovered in the Library of the Holy Synod under the call number I 4087. It is bound in a leather-covered wooden case together with most of the Molitvelnic (from the preface to the end, with the final note: ‘Printed in the house of the Holy Metropolis, in Iași, in the year 7191, 16 June. The printer Niculai’). By comparing the text of the Liturgy Book from the second edition line by line with that of the first edition, which served as the basis for N. A. Ursu’s work, we found that the claim that the copy at the Library of the Romanian Academy is incomplete is unfounded, as is the claim regarding the copy at the Library of the Holy Synod. Only if we accept, as N. A. Ursu does, that there may have been a different cover and a preface, as in the first edition—which are missing from the two copies known to him—can we consider them incomplete. However, as this third copy is identical to the other two, N. A. Ursu’s view does not hold up, and all the copies that have come down to us are complete. However, there are some differences between the two editions (which is what led N. A. Ursu to reproduce pages 46–72 in facsimile and transcription), so that a future complete edition based on the text—which in any case represents the author’s last will—will by no means be superfluous. On the other hand, I would like to draw attention to the existence of this copy of the Molitvenic, which is almost complete and excellently preserved, as is the Liturghier, for the forthcoming critical edition which we know is currently being worked on.
What was to impress everyone about Saint Antim Ivireanul was his complete identification with the Romanian people, with their needs, with their aspirations, and with both the good and the less good aspects of their nature, which, as metropolitan, he sought to correct through his sermons. Sextil Pușcariu described him in his literary history as ‘a cultural figure of such overwhelming importance’, whilst for G. Călinescu, “Antim’s command of the Romanian language is astonishing, and indeed, in every respect, the man from Ivire appears to be perfectly assimilated”. He is “an excellent orator and a consummate stylist. His sermons remain vivid to this day”. He is recognised as the greatest metropolitan of Wallachia by all those who have studied him.
But to fully understand how the monk, brought by Patriarch Dositei at an age no longer that of youth, rose to the stature of a figure capable of determining the entire course of a culture, just as Dimitrie Cantemir, Ion Eliade Rădulescu, B.P. Hasdeu, Mihail Eminescu, Lucian Blaga and G. Călinescu himself did, we must look to what was the crucial moment in his biography and development: his election as bishop of the second of the historic dioceses established by Patriarch Nifon II, alongside that of Buzău: the Diocese of Râmnic, to which the entire Romanian population on the right bank of the Olt belonged and of which he became the spiritual leader. The historian Ioan St. Lazăr found an apt way of describing the significance of this moment: ‘The election of Antim Ivireanul as Bishop of Râmnic was a masterstroke by the great prince Constantin Brâncoveanu as well as by his metropolitan [born in Râmnic: Mircea Păcurariu, op. cit., p. 126, n. D. Z.] Teodosie”. “The three years, minus two months, that he spent in Râmnic marked a decisive development: the man of action in the cultural and typographical spheres also became a man of action in the pastoral sphere, which meant an expansion of his sphere of activity, a new turmoil in his own life, and the realisation of inner principles in a Christian ‘struggle’. This alone explains the intense passion evident in his words at the end of this period, that is, upon his enthronement as metropolitan.”
“Here in Râmnic, the Romanian people were no longer, for Antim, a somewhat abstract entity, but a living, concrete reality; a reality that posed all the more challenges given that the hierarch’s sphere of influence lay in an area of strategic importance for aiding the Romanians of Transylvania, who were exposed to the onslaught of Catholicism and Protestantism.”
Without the Diocese of Râmnic, the only one that did not cause him unpleasant problems such as the abbotships at Cetățuia and Snagov, and subsequently the Metropolis, the ‘Antim Ivireanul’ of history, hagiography and, above all, literature would simply not have existed. We would have spoken of a hard-working printer from the time of Constantin Brâncoveanu, the hardest-working and most brilliant in the entire history of our printing press up to that point, but nothing more. For he would have lacked precisely the step he took towards the Metropolis through the way he made his mark there, and he would have lacked that ‘genius loci’ absorbed from the lands of Oltenia, which made him a fighter willing to sacrifice himself for his adopted people.
The significance of his three-year-and-two-month tenure as bishop in Râmnic, with the number of books printed and the monasteries restored, was masterfully depicted by the academic Gabriel Ștrempel in his monograph, as well as by other authors. However, just how fully aware the holder of the episcopal crozier of Râmnic was of both the obligations and the opportunities that this episcopal office afforded him is evident solely from the way in which he set about implementing, from the very outset, a genuine programme.
This programme was a synthesis of the two traditions that had existed up to that point: that of Moldavia, represented by the great hierarchs Varlaam and Dosoftei, and that of Wallachia, represented by the voivodes who, from Radu the Great, Mihnea ‘the Wicked’, Vlad the Younger and Neagoe Basarab, continuing through Matei Basarab and culminating in Șerban Cantacuzino, had made the heads of state the principal promoters of culture, and with Neagoe Basarab, indeed one of its creators.
The man who made the promotion of the Romanian language in religious services—not merely in sermons—a matter of state policy was the very holder of state power himself: the Prince of Wallachia, Șerban Cantacuzino, son of Elena, the youngest daughter of Radu Șerban, a soldier and successor to Mihai Viteazul on the throne of Wallachia, a luminous figure to whom the boyars sent a letter that remains moving to this day, published by N. Iorga in Letters of Princes. His nephew on his daughter’s side claimed to be his heir right on the cover of the Holy and Divine Gospel in Romanian, printed in Bucharest in 1682, three years after Dosoftei’s Liturgy Book and the second edition of Apostle of 1683. The Lord himself was the author of the preface in which he explained how he had instructed his brother, Iordache, to arrange the Romanian text according to the order of the Greek text so that it might be used as a liturgical book. The same instruction was given for the Apostles. But with this, his efforts to introduce the Romanian language into church worship came to an end. Six years later, however, Șerban’s famous Bible would appear, printed by the man who had been the printer at Cetățuia and had come to Wallachia following the Polish invasion of September 1686, during the final years of Șerban Cantacuzino’s reign, before going on to fulfil his calling as Bishop of Buzău over the course of 11 years.
Having become Bishop of Buzău in the summer of 1691, Mitrofan would publish a series of essential liturgical books until the summer of 1702, when he died (see Mircea Păcurariu, op. cit., p. 171), passing the baton and the episcopal see to Damaschin Dascălul. He laid the foundations of a tradition that would make this Diocese and the printing press with which he endowed it one of the pillars supporting the Romanian Church and culture from the following century right up to the present day. Yet none of his printed works, including the most impressive of all that had been published up to that point apart from the Bible—namely the twelve Minee from Buzău—went beyond the translation of the typicon explanations, the biblical texts and the synaxaria. The hymns – that is to say, the essential part – remained in Church Slavonic. Although he had been the printer for Dosoftei, the Bishop of Huși, who later became Bishop of Buzău, he did not cross this threshold, which Dosoftei and Șerban Cantacuzino had crossed almost simultaneously. But they had been together for only a short time; one died in 1688 – it is said he was poisoned by his own brother and nephew, who would succeed him to the throne, both of whom disagreed with his foreign policy – whilst the other left the country in the autumn of 1686. The position held by the two remained vacant, and Mitrofan lacked the stature to be a successor and continue their work. Such a figure would only emerge in the person of Antim Ivireanul, who was installed in the see of Râmnic by the new prince (certainly with the support of Patriarch Dositei and at the urging of Hrisant, a close friend of Constantin Brâncoveanu and at that time on good terms with Antim Ivireanul) in place of Ilarion. Officially, Ilarion was deposed and sent to serve as abbot at Snagov because of his inclination towards Catholicism. But as Gabriel Ștrempel states in his monograph, the primary cause was the conflict with Patriarch Dositei Notara, who was interfering in the affairs of the Diocese, just as Hrisant, as patriarch, would later do with Antim Ivireanul as Metropolitan of Wallachia.
Metropolitan Teodosie was certainly at the prince’s side; in his will, he stipulated that Antim Ivireanul should succeed him when he passed away. His discerning eye had recognised in the printer from Bucharest and Snagov the only great figure remaining in the entire Romanian Orthodox Church following Dosoftei’s passing.
What becomes apparent when we examine, in Academician Gabriel Ștrempel’s monograph, the sequence of publications up to that point attributable to Antim Ivireanul – the printer from Bucharest and Snagov – and relate it to what was to follow upon his ascension to the episcopal see of Râmnic, and which is determined precisely by his presence there, is this programme that emerges clearly in the life of our Church for the first time and is linked to a particular figure, and is put into practice immediately: the imposition of the Romanian language in all forms of church worship in place of Church Slavonic, whilst at the same time avoiding its replacement with Greek, as promoted by the representatives of that Greek Renaissance which found its main supporters and financiers on Romanian soil and amongst the Romanians themselves.
Gabriel Ștrempel surmised that Antim Ivireanul had already translated at least parts of the Liturgy and the Book of Prayers by the time he became a bishop, but that as a simple monk, even as abbot at Snagov, he could not have afforded to print them on his own initiative, defying the powerful Greek influence that had led even the sons of Constantin Brâncoveanu to write their compositions—printed by Antim Ivireanul—exclusively in Modern Greek and not at all in Romanian. But this means that it was only in Râmnic, and in his capacity as a hierarch, that Antim Ivireanul found the place and the spiritual environment that enabled him to put his plan into action. ‘The Liturgy and the Prayer Book had been translated by Antim Ivireanul at least a year before they were printed. They were not the only books translated and printed in Romanian by Antim. But, being surrounded by the Greek-speaking community at Brâncoveanu’s court, who did not look favourably upon the use of the Romanian language in the Church, he waged a long and silent battle to gradually eliminate attempts to ‘Hellenise’ the liturgy, which sought to replace the Church Slavonic language. Brâncoveanu generally agreed with Antim’s Romanianisation efforts, but he also had to be mindful of the sensitivities of the powerful bishops in Jerusalem.”
I have quoted from the study entitled The Prayer Book of Saint Antim Ivireanul – a milestone in Romanian-language ecclesiastical culture, which appeared in the volume Șerban Cantacuzino, Antim Ivireanul and Neofit Cretanul – Promoters of the Romanian Language in Worship. This work was published with the blessing of His Beatitude Father Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, ‘Cuvântul vieții’ Publishing House of the Metropolis of Muntenia and Dobrogea, 2013, p. 176. In this study, Academician Gabriel Ștrempel states that ‘The Prayer Book of 1706, translated in its entirety by Antim Ivireanul, is the first to have been printed in Romanian [in fact, it is the second, after that of Metropolitan Dosoftei, note by D. Z.] and has remained in use to this day, naturally with the additions and modifications brought about by the passage of time. The translation was based on the book published by Nicolae Glykis’s printing house in Ianima, which appeared in Venice in 1691. The editing—that is, the revision and correction—was carried out by the hieromonk Ioan Abramios. He, having become a preacher at the princely court in Bucharest and a close associate of Antim, would play a central role in the year of his martyrdom (1716). The book had been conceived by Antim to include a Liturgy Book at the beginning. Seeing the size of the volume and the thickness of the spine—for the paper was heavy—and probably considering how cumbersome such a tome would be to use, he arranged for the Liturgy Book to be separated from the Prayer Book and for each part to be paginated separately (the pages are numbered, not the quires, as was the practice in Western printing houses). However, the title page remained the same: Euhologhion for both the Liturgy Book and the Book of Prayers, as well as the commemorative pages dedicated to Antim, to which we shall refer in the following lines” (pp. 176–177).
Furthermore, Academician Gabriel Ștrempel transcribes and publishes for the first time in full the preface with which the printer Mihail Iștvanovici accompanied this printed work, of which only a few fragments had previously been reproduced in the Bibliografia românească veche, Volume I, 1903, pp. 541–542 (Section: Additions and Corrections). It also notes that ‘in 1713, Antim ordered the reprinting of the Molitvenic printed by Mihail Ștefanovici in Râmnic in 1706, bearing the printing costs himself’. He also reproduces the title of this reprint, which was not recorded in the Bibliografia românească veche; there, on p. 487 of Volume I, under no. 164, we find only Liturghii, Târgoviște, 1713. Nor is it recorded in Volume IV, Additions and Corrections, 1944.
It was not until 1968 that our literary historiography was first made aware of the existence of a Liturgy Book translated and printed by Antim Ivireanul in Râmnic in 1706, by the PhD student Dimitrie Coravu, in the article ‘Clarifications and Contributions to the Early Romanian Bibliography’, published in Mitropolia Olteniei, XX, 1968, nos. 9–10, September–October, pp. 722–731. In this article, the author states that ‘As will become clear from the more detailed description of the two printed works, a Prayer Book was printed in Râmnic in 1706 together with the Liturgy, comprising two volumes with the same title [s. D. Z.]: ‘Prayer Book’, Volume I: Liturgy and Volume II: the Prayer Book proper”. To be entirely accurate, it should have been stated that what was printed was not a single Liturgy, but a Liturgy Book containing all three Liturgies: that of Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory the Dialogist. This 1968 article, which was a seminar paper by the priest and professor Alexandru I. Ciurea, went unnoticed for a decade, until 1979, when, marking three centuries since the publication of Metropolitan Dosoftei’s Liturgy Book, Father Professor I. Ionescu published the article entitled ‘Three Hundred Years Since the Printing of Metropolitan Dosoftei’s Liturgy Book (1679–1979)’ in Glasul Bisericii, XXXVIII, 1979, no. 9 – 9–10 September – October, pp. 995–1015. In this article, he also discussed the third translation of the Liturgy Book, produced and printed by Antim Ivireanul in Râmnic in 1706. On pages 1005–1007 of this study we read: ‘The Evhologhion of 1706, the liturgical book most frequently used by the priest, consists of two volumes, each bearing the same title [s. D. Z.]. A fact that is very important and of interest to us here is that the first volume of the Evhologhion contains the Liturgy, with the three liturgies, whilst Volume II contains the Molitvelnic itself.
Thus, for the first time in Wallachia, the Liturgy Book was translated and printed ‘through the efforts and at the expense’ of Antim Ivireanul in 1706, at the printing house in Râmnicu-Vâlcea, which features the same text, typeface and almost identical page layout, with some differences in the engravings compared to the Liturgy Book reprinted in Târgoviște in 1713, thus becoming ‘the founder of our liturgical language’. As the 1706 Liturgy Book is included in the Evhologhion, without bearing the title ‘Liturgy Book’, its contents being listed in the table of contents of the first volume, it was not included in the early Romanian bibliography, nor was it noted by scholars of Antim Ivireanul’s work, neither in studies on Antim Ivireanul nor in treatises on the history of the Romanian language or the history of the Romanian Church. The first description of the 1706 Liturgy Book was made in 1968.
What was the reason, as yet unexplained, that led Antim Ivireanul to print the 1706 Liturgy Book under the title Evhologhion?
We believe that Antim Ivireanul, being a bishop, acted with tact so as not to appear to be defying the authority of his metropolitan, Teodosie, who had agreed to translate into Romanian only the typicon’s instructions, and not the Liturgy itself. In this way, the 1706 Liturgy Book appeared in disguise, under the name Evhologhion, in its first volume, on the grounds that the Liturgy encompasses the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which forms part of the seven sacraments, as the first in the Evhologhion. Of course, Metropolitan Theodosius also demonstrated tact, wisdom, forbearance and love for the Romanian language, for he made no fuss about the work undertaken by Antim Ivireanul; on the contrary, he tacitly approved of it, evidence that he recommended him as his successor in the final moments of his life. The environment in Oltenia was more favourable to such a work, considered ‘revolutionary’, than that of the capital of Wallachia [s. D. Z.]. The Evhologhion, comprising Part I (the Liturgy Book), was also circulated in Transylvania, as indicated by the markings on the copies (Part I and Part II) held at the Library of the Romanian Academy, CVR (call number I 150 A).
Upon becoming Metropolitan of Wallachia (1708–1716), Antim Ivireanul had both the Evhologhion and the 1706 Liturgy Book reprinted in 1713 at Târgoviște as separate volumes” [s. D. Z.].
However, only the title of the volume containing the Liturgy Book is given, not that of the Prayer Book.
And the writings mentioned above from 1979, including the hypothesis that the Liturgy Book was ‘disguised’ as the Book of Prayers, and the recent writings by Academician Gabriel Ștrempel concerning the alleged instruction from Saint Antim Ivireanul to separate the two parts of the Euchologion due to the size the printed work threatened to reach, have been clarified by Archimandrite Policarp Chițulescu, director of the Holy Synod Library in Bucharest, in the article ‘The Râmnic Evhologhion (1706) and the first Romanian Liturgy Book printed by Saint Antim of Ivireanul’, published in ‘Tabor – a journal of Romanian culture and spirituality’, Cluj, VII, 2013, no. 9, September, pages 68–75.
Archimandrite Policarp Chițulescu has conclusively demonstrated that the Liturgy Book and the Prayer Book were printed together at Râmnic, as evidenced by an exceptionally well-preserved copy, one that has not been worn down by prolonged use like all those known to date, and which has not been divided into two separately bound volumes for ease of handling, unlike the majority of those that have come down to us. It bears the call number I 4637 and originated from the library of the well-known Transylvanian historian, Father Dr Gheorghe Ciuhandu. It was purchased from his heirs in 1961 by the Romanian Patriarchate. This printed work does not consist of two volumes presented as such, as has been stated, but contains the translation of the book printed by Mihai Glykis in Venice in 1691, in which the Liturgy and the Book of Prayers also appear together, a book to which Saint Antim of Ivireanul himself refers on the last page of the Râmnic printed edition.
The Râmnic volume has a single cover, on which is written:
Evhologhion, that is to say, the M[o]l[i]tv[e]n[i]c, now printed for the first time in this form and arranged according to the Greek order, in the 18th year of the most exalted reign of the most enlightened ruler of all Wallachia, Ioan Constandin B[asarab] B[râncoveanu] V[oivode], with Kir Teodosie serving as Metropolitan of the country, through the labour and at the entire expense of the God-loving Kir Antim Ivireanul, Bishop of Râmnic. By Mihail Iștvanovici, subdeacon and printer in Râmnic, in the year of our Lord 1706.
It also includes the Liturgy Book, as in the Greek edition which served as its original.
‘The Greek edition of 1691, printed in Venice at the publishing house of Nicolae Glykis,’ writes Father Archimandrite Policarp Chițulescu, – was at that time among the newest and most accessible Greek editions of the Euchologion, and probably the most trustworthy, since Saint Antim of Ivire used it, but we believe he chose it also because it had been revised by a renowned translator of texts and editor, Ioan Avramie, who was to become a very devoted friend of his” (p. 71).
“The Greek name ‘Evhologhion’ of the 1706 Râmnic edition, followed by its Slavonic variant, Molitvenic, has misled some researchers, causing them to overlook the Liturgy in this volume,” writes Father Policarp Chițulescu, turning a blind eye to the shortcomings of a local scholarship riddled with such “flaws”. For it would have sufficed, in the absence of this exceedingly rare volume—which only became accessible in 1961— for those who compiled the Bibliografia românească veche to look beyond the cover at the book’s contents in order to take note of the very clear titles, accompanied by the pages bearing the portraits of the authors of the Liturgy Book (it is not Saint Basil but only Saints John Chrysostom and Gregory the Dialogist). As Father Policarp Chițulescu also writes, ‘from the very first reading, the title indicates that this is the first time a volume with the structure of the present one, modelled on the Greek version, has appeared. That is to say, for the first time the Liturgy Book is published together with the Prayer Book in a single volume, under the old name of Evhologhion […]. At the end of the Râmnic Evhologhion, it is also specified which Greek edition was used as the source for the translation by the Râmnic editors, supervised by Bishop Antim” (pp. 70–71).
Father Policarp Chițulescu categorically rejects the hypothesis put forward by Academician Gabriel Ștrempel: “Thus, the idea that the workshop abandoned the original plan to compile the two works and instead gave each a separate title page and table of contents (which no longer corresponded to reality) is unfounded. This shows once again that the 1706 Râmnic Liturgy Book was only printed bound together with the Prayer Book, following the Greek model cited’, p. 72.
Our insistence on this seemingly trivial matter stems from the fact that, as we also read in the article in ‘Tabor’—which we felt it necessary to bring to the attention of all our readers— ‘The Evhologhion printed at Râmnic in 1706 constituted the definitive step towards the Romanianisation of the church service [s. D. Z.] through the introduction into the Romanian language of the most important and most frequently used liturgical texts’ (pp. 72–73).
The Director of the Holy Synod Library has put in an enormous amount of work to highlight for the first time “the fact that the 1706 Evhologhion was particularly well received amongst the Romanian clergy. The surviving copies indicate a significant presence and use of these in Transylvania and the Banat, and the degree of wear on the pages confirms this.” In note 13, the author of the article has combined the information regarding this exceptional circulation of the Râmnic book in Transylvania, a way of shedding a powerful light on the figure of Bishop Antim Ivireanul in terms of his impact on the Transylvanian Romanians and the significance of his ability to select the books most likely to serve the interests of the Romanian people. It may be said – as we read in the article – that ‘the rapid spread of these two books throughout the Romanian Principalities, owing to the exceptional reception they received amongst the clergy, would hasten a second edition of them, and thus the Liturgy Book and the Prayer Book will appear as separate volumes in Târgoviște in 1713’ (p. 70).
The episcopate of Saint Antim Ivireanul in Râmnic was thus at the origin of this authentic cultural phenomenon, which was the triumph of the Romanian language within the Church. This was also demonstrated by the fact acknowledged by the Archimandrite, that ‘undoubtedly Saint Antim began work on the translation of the Liturgy and the Book of Prayers before becoming bishop of Râmnic, but given the large volume of texts, he and his assistants probably made use of existing Romanian manuscripts, but most certainly of the Slavonic-Romanian and Greek printed works of the time’ (p. 73).
Saint Antim Ivireanul’s episcopate in Râmnic thus lay at the origin of this authentic cultural phenomenon, namely the triumph of the Romanian language within the Church.
Without the Vâlcea region, which acted like a magnet placed beneath iron filings to produce a ‘magnetic field’, we would not, however, have witnessed this glorious episode from the zenith of our ancient culture. A heyday overshadowed by the political catastrophe that would claim the lives of both Constantin Brâncoveanu and his metropolitan, and usher in the Turkish-Phanariot regime for nearly a century.
That the Bishop of Râmnic set out, from the very beginning, to establish Romanian culture through the Church on the foundation of the language spoken by this people, after three centuries of using the universal Church Slavonic, which was in danger of being replaced by Greek, is demonstrated precisely by the way in which he managed to pick up the thread that had been severed with Metropolitan Dosoftei’s departure into exile.
The spiritual and intellectual strength, and the fortitude of character of this former slave to the Turks—who would ultimately perish because of a political illusion, just as so many others would perish a quarter of a millennium later, were so great that he single-handedly took upon himself the destiny of an entire culture, at a time when many were prepared to push it into the shadows in favour of another culture that had become ‘fashionable’, but which threatened to become dominant in the political climate that was taking shape.
That Antim Ivireanul felt he was working alone, and that he would share with no one not the glory, but the responsibility for what he was setting out to do from the banks of the Olt, the seat of his pastoral office, is demonstrated precisely by the title of these two Râmnic-printed works, gathered into a single volume but numbered separately. In this title, the Prince of Wallachia appears merely as a chronological reference: ‘In the 18th year of the exalted reign of the Most Enlightened etc.’ He is not mentioned as having made any contribution, neither by command nor by financial means, as in other cases. The name of the hierarchical superior also appears only as ‘Kir Theodosie, Metropolitan of the Land’. Both the labour and all the expenses were borne by the God-loving Kir Antim Ivireanul, Bishop of Râmnic. Under this name appears the name of the printer: “Mihail Iștvanovici, the subdeacon and printer”, and the place where the work was carried out: “In Râmnic, in the year of our Lord 1706”.
The printer’s preface, made available in full for the first time in 2013 by Academician Gabriel Ștrempel, contains the first and last tribute paid to the hierarch, and in it we find an allusion to his status as a slave, compared to that of Joseph in the Bible, who was sold by his own people but rose to prominence at Pharaoh’s court, just as he himself ascended to this position. It is the only authentic eulogy ever dedicated to him (the comparison with Gheorghe Radovici’s preface to the 1712 Octoechos is significant) and of which he himself was aware. However, when the two books were republished separately in 1713, whilst he was Metropolitan (the printer now being the other apprentice, Gheorghe Radovici), this sole tribute, received at Râmnicul Vâlcii, would disappear. Otherwise, apart from the replacement of Metropolitan Teodosie’s name with his own, in accordance with protocol, nothing would change. He remains the sole architect and sole driving force behind the course he set for Romanian culture through these books, to which the first entirely Romanian Octoechos was added in 1712—a project conceived and begun by Metropolitan Dosoftei but never completed. (In 1706, in Râmnic, the hymns remained in Church Slavonic and it appears they were taken from Mitrofan of Buzău’s Octoechos, published in 1700).
It has been noted that the Diocese of Râmnic was the closest and maintained the closest ties with Transylvania, particularly with Sibiu, but also with the city of the Union and the Metropolis: Alba Iulia. To what was revealed in the recent article by Archimandrite Policarp Chițulescu, we should add that the Bishop of Râmnic was directly involved in the events taking place across the mountains, where attempts were being made to divide the Romanian people along religious lines, and he supported the Romanians of Sibiu and Brașov, the latter centred around the Church of St Nicholas in Șcheii Brașovului, founded by Neagoe Basarab. But the man sent by Constantin Brâncoveanu to strengthen Transylvanian Orthodoxy in Alba Iulia, the capital of the Principality, with a treatise based on Bishop Varlaam’s work of 1643—with some revisions and additions—was the most valuable, most important and most devoted disciple of Saint Antim Ivireanul from the time he was abbot at Snagov: Mihail Ștefanovici or Iștvanovici. His mission in Transylvania, as Academician Gabriel Ștrempel wrote in his monograph, was not merely that of a printer, but first and foremost to ascertain what was happening there and how the struggle could be waged. What he actually managed to achieve was, in 1699, to publish, alongside the Bucoavna intended for the education of the new generation, the Chiriacodromion in Alba Iulia, the book with the longest lifespan and widest circulation in the entire Romanian cultural sphere, the 13th edition of which, following the Alba Iulia edition, was printed in 1929, 240 years later. All 13 editions originate from Transylvania and Wallachia, where the need for it was felt most keenly, with three coming from Râmnic (1748, 1792, 1798). The man whose name is associated with this book would go on, after his time in Râmnic, to become the cultural ambassador to Georgia and the founder of the printing press in his teacher’s homeland. From there, he would never return to his homeland and it appears he ended up in the Netherlands, where all trace of him was lost. His intellectual stature, however, is fully revealed to us in the preface to the book printed at Râmnic, and it is unlikely that the man sent by Constantin Brâncoveanu over the mountains with his own money and the necessary instructions, but who set out from the wine press at Snagov, only to return later to Râmnic, did not carry within him all that lay in the heart of his spiritual father, about whom, as a bishop, he would write a magnificent eulogy.
The printing in Râmnic of the last in the series of ‘volumes’ prepared by Patriarch Dositei, The Volume of Joy – an edition that was published whilst he was still alive – can also be regarded as a debt repaid to the man who had freed him from bondage and to whom he owed – in Hrisant’s own words – what he had come to be. ‘The expense and care’ lay with Patriarch Dositei of Jerusalem, but it was printed by “the most God-loving and most learned Bishop of Râmnic, Lord Antim of Ivir, in the year 1705, in the month of September”. Conversely, the printing of the Anthologion in 1705, followed the next year by the Liturgy Book and the Romanian Prayer Book together, and the Octoechos—for the time being with the text of the hymns remaining in Church Slavonic— all together served as proof that a true leader of the people had taken the see of Râmnic, capable of thinking and acting to turn the divine and human institution he led into a real power. A power that was at once spiritual and worldly, capable of serving a specific people: the Romanian people.
We can say without a shadow of a doubt that the bishop was fully committed to the realities faced day in, day out by the faithful over whom he presided. This would become even clearer when he became metropolitan and a preacher from the pulpit, and when his political partisanship led to his conflict with Constantin Brâncoveanu, and subsequently the extreme humiliation and murder, in 1716, at the hands of the Phanariot whom he had confronted in a self-sacrificing manner.
‘The Gentle’ Teodosie (N. Iorga) andchose as Bishop of Râmnic and would recommend as his successor to the metropolitan see the man of the strongest spirit and, at the same time, the one endowed with all the gifts of the trade: printer, engraver, miniaturist and leader. He did not suspect him of being a church orator either, but encouraged him through his appointment!
The new Bishop of Râmnic immediately published the first of his pamphlets, intended to make the clergy of Vâlcea—and, through them, the entire Romanian clergy—the greatest force capable of serving the Romanian people whilst ministering to God. And the fact that this nation has endured for a further three centuries, even though so many sought to bury it, is proof that Saint Antim did not labour and sacrifice himself in vain.
Not enough emphasis has been placed on what Bishop Antim Ivireanul was keen to produce in the very first months of his episcopacy: the Antologhion, monumental in its graphic presentation and a true emblem of the new pastoral era. It is a book of the utmost importance to post-Byzantine Orthodoxy, made possible by the invention of the printing press: a synthesis of the entire liturgy, which as early as 1632 the Slavs of Ukraine had translated and printedin Lviv in several editions with the support of Cyril Lucaris, and following the 1638 edition, Matei Basarab reprinted it in 1643 at Câmpulung, at the instigation of and with a preface by Udriște Năsturel. But it remained without impact, a true ‘erratic block’ for 62 years, until Antim Ivireanul personally had it reprinted (“Through the labours of the God-loving Kir Antim Ivireanul, Bishop of Râmnic”) with all the liturgical instructions translated by him into Romanian, along with the biblical texts – some taken from Mitrofan’s Minee – and, for the first time, the Romanian version of the Serbian synaxarion of Saint Parascheva the Pious, which would remain in the Minee until 1892. On the cover we read that it appears ‘With the zeal and at the entire expense of the most honourable, of noble and distinguished lineage, Mihai Cantacuzino, known as the Spătar, for the common good of the Churches of Christ and the benefit of the Orthodox faithful”, which shows the hierarch of Râmnic also in the role of a ‘sponsor’ for his publishing initiatives. All the hymns remain in Church Slavonic, and anyone who claims that Antim Ivireanul translated the Greek Anthologion—which he himself printed at Snagov in 1697—proves that they have not even opened the book!
This book, which was literally epoch-making for post-Byzantine Orthodoxy, was supplemented by the Octoechos of 1706, with the hymns also remaining in Church Slavonic for the time being, though they were to be translated into Romanian and printed in 1712. The Octoechos appears bound together with the Anthologion in all three copies that have survived to the present day: the one at the Library of the Romanian Academy lacks the title page, though this is present in the copy at the Library of the Holy Synod and in the one at Cozia. It was adopted in 1726 in Moldavia by Metropolitan George IV, who printed the Anthologion together with the Octoechos in the same volume.
The Antologhion was not to be printed in its entirety in Romanian until 1737, by Climent, based on the translation by Damaschin Dascălul, who was, in every sense, the successor to Antim Ivireanul: both as Bishop of Râmnic and as the one who fulfilled the mission Antim had undertaken in the service of the Romanian language. The Romanian version printed by Climent was in turn adopted in Moldavia by Metropolitan Iacob Putneanul. Starting from Râmnic, it spread throughout the Romanian lands for two centuries, proving just how inspired the Bishop of Râmnic was in the choice he made in 1705. But the fact that he was the driving force behind a programme of decisive importance for the entire future course of Romanian culture, a programme which he personally championed and for which he recruited dedicated collaborators to ensure its swift success through printing, was demonstrated above all by the two books printed together in 1706.
When Metropolitan Teodosie passed into eternity and, in accordance with his last will and testament, was succeeded by the Bishop of Râmnic, the latter would, in 1712, print the Octoechos in its entirety in Romanian for the first time in Târgoviște, a task that Metropolitan Dosoftei had been unable to complete in Iași. He would also reprint, again in Târgoviște in 1713, in separate volumes, the Liturgy Book and the Prayer Book – a founding act through which he established his own programme with the authority of the country’s metropolitan, but also his own place and decisive role in the history of Romanian culture, a culture to which he provided all the necessary books to make the path he had laid out irreversible.
It would fall to Damaschin Dascălul to continue and perfect this work. But Damaschin Dascălul, too, fell victim to the guillotine of history, which beheaded Antim Ivireanul and Constantin Brâncoveanu, whilst merely forbidding him from publishing his immense contribution as a translator. It was left to his descendants in manuscript form, in Râmnic, during the Austrian occupation of Oltenia.
Damaschin succeeded Mitrofan as bishop in Buzău and then succeeded Antim Ivireanul in Râmnic, when the latter took up the metropolitan see. He was a veritable ‘clone’ of Ivireanul, and the fact that in the fresco at Govora – the monastery restored by the former – they are depicted on either side of the entrance door is a felicitous inspiration on the part of those who gave this instruction to the painters.
The Austrian occupation of Oltenia, which lasted for nearly three decades (1718–1739), prevented Damaschin from publishing his treasure trove of translations, which included the 1705 Anthologion and Mitrofan’s Minei, the essential half of which remained in Church Slavonic. It was a sort of prelude to what was to happen 227 years later! His plea to the new authorities to allow him to print these books has been preserved, but he received no favourable response. This task would fall to his successor, Climent, a skilful diplomat. He would succeed in reviving the tradition of Ivirean’s monumental printed works in 1737, when he printed the first entirely Romanian Anthologion under foreign occupation; it was subsequently reprinted numerous times in Wallachia, Moldavia and beyond the mountains.
Damaschin died after collapsing as he was leaving the liturgy, struck down by a stroke or a heart attack, perhaps not unrelated to his futile struggle. But he was succeeded by Climent, from the village of Pietrarii de Jos in Vâlcea County, whom nothing and no one could stop.
Following Oltenia’s return to Wallachia and the changes brought about by the 1774 peace treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Bishop Chesarie was the one who succeeded in placing the dome on the cathedral being built by Coresi, whilst printing the Minei of Râmnic. But his work was cut short after six volumes (October–March) by a suspicious death, leaving the remaining six months’ work to his Greek successor, who was obliged to complete what his predecessor had left half-finished.
A seminal work dedicated to the ‘Râmnic School’ by Alexandru Duțu elaborated on what Nicolae Iorga had essentially set out in his brilliant synthesis, published in 1901: the dawn of the modern national revival broke in this part of the country and was heralded in Chesarie’s prefaces. Shortly afterwards, in 1786, the Moldavian hierarchy, led by Iacob Stamati, would put an end to Phanariotism within the Church 35 years before doing so in the political sphere, installing Leon Gheucă as metropolitan against the will of the Phanariot prince and the Ecumenical Patriarchate, who had also sought a Greek candidate following the death of Gavriil Callimachi.
What is most striking of all in Bishop Antim’s biography and in the work he accomplished at Râmnic is his ability to create a tradition, that is, to compel his successors to carry on what he had begun.
When, after three years and two months, he was called to head the Metropolis of Wallachia, he bid a final farewell to these blessed places, to enter the maelstrom that would engulf him. But only after he had succeeded in seeing through to the end the programme he had begun in Râmnic: the definitive establishment of the Romanian language in church worship, thereby thwarting all attempts to replace the defunct Church Slavonic with a defiant and contemptuous form of Greek, the beneficiary of a political regime imposed by the great Ottoman power for a hundred years.
What Dosoftei had been unable to achieve, despite having initiated the process, and what Șerban Cantacuzino had only partially succeeded in doing, this Georgian monk was destined to accomplish from here, in Râmnic, and furthermore to endow Romanian culture, from the metropolitan’s seat, with a literary work that three centuries have failed to consign to oblivion.
Today, Saint Antim of Ivire is needed more than ever with his lesson from three centuries ago and with his heavenly presence, to thwart attempts to render his feast day impossible, in less than half the years that have passed since his ascension into the company of the saints, for there will no longer be anyone in the world capable of doing so!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Antim Ivireanul, The Divine and Holy Liturgies, Târgoviște, 1713. Text edition, introduction, philological and linguistic study, note on the edition and glossary by Alina Camil. Afterword by Eugen Munteanu. The book was published with the blessing of His Beatitude Father Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, Basilica Publishing House, 2015.
Ion Caproșu, Documents relating to the history of the city of Iași. Volume II, Internal documents (1661–1690), Iași: Dosoftei Publishing House, 2000, p. 580. Document no. 658.
Șerban Cantacuzino, Antim Ivireanul and Neofit Cretanul – Promoters of the Romanian Language in Worship. Work published with the blessing of His Beatitude Father Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, Cuvântul vieții Publishing House of the Metropolis of Muntenia and Dobrogea, 2013.
In particular, the following studies:
Gabriel Ștrempel, Professor, PhD, The Prayer Book of Saint Antim Ivireanul – a milestone in church culture and the Romanian language (pp. 171–184).
Gheorghe Chivu, Professor, PhD, ‘The Liturgy Book of Antim Ivireanul and the Establishment of the Muntenian Model in Romanian Liturgical Writing’ (pp. 185–193).
Mircea Păcurariu, The History of the Romanian Orthodox Church (17th and 18th centuries). 2nd edition, Bucharest, 1994.
Mircea Păcurariu, ‘Bishop Climent of Râmnic’ in Studies in the History of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, Romanian Academy Press, 2005, pp. 69–94.
Nicolae Iorga, New Contributions to the History of Our Church. I. Metropolitan Antim Ivireanul in his struggle with Jerusalem for the rights of his church. Paper presented at the Session of the Romanian Academy on 23 November 1934. II. Several documents concerning the Church of Bukovina and Moldavia, Bucharest, ‘Cărților bisericești’ Press, 1934, 19 pp. Extract from ‘BOR’, LII, 1934, nos. 11–12) (BAR, II 129836).
Alexandru Elian, Antim Ivireanul – defender of the prerogatives of the Metropolitan See of Ungrovlahia.
Alexandru Elian, Antim Ivireanul as a fighter against Ottoman oppression. Both in the volume Byzantium, the Church and Romanian Culture, Iași, Trinitas Publishing House, 2003.
Emil Turdeanu, The Greek Book in Russia: The Contribution of the Presses of Moldavia and Wallachia (1682–1725). Paper presented at the 6th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Paris, 2 August 1948, in Revue des études slaves, 28, 1950, pp. 69–87. (and excerpt). Reprinted in the volume Études de littérature roumaine et d’écrits slaves et grecs des Principautés Roumaines, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1985, pp. 297–315.
Emil Turdeanu, ‘The Jansenist Controversies and the Establishment of Greek Printing in Moldavia’, published in Mélanges de linguistique et de littérature offert à M. Mario Roques, vol. III, Paris, 1952, pp. 281–302. Reprinted in the aforementioned volume, pp. 275–296.
Alexandru Duțu, Aspects of Romanian Culture in the 18th Century (1700–1821). Studies and Texts, Bucharest, Editura pentru literatură, 1968. In particular Part II. The People of Râmnic and the Problem of Time (pp. 119–170) and Texts: The Prefaces of Chesarie. The Prefaces of Grigore Râmniceanu (pp. 173–198).
Ioan St. Lazăr, ‘The Significance of the Years Spent as a Pastor in Râmnic for the Life and Work of Saint Antim Ivireanul’, in the volume His Grace Gherasim, Bishop of Râmnic at 90. Edited by Ioan St. Lazăr and Rev. Constantin Cârstea, Râmnicu-Vâlcea, Adrianso Publishing, 2004, pp. 289–307.
Ioan St. Lazăr, Saint Antim of Ivire, Christian Orator, Râmnicu-Vâlcea, Conphys Publishing House, 2005.
Elena-Iulia Dițoiu, ‘The First Day of the Indiction in Antim’s Anthologion of 1705 (on the Cozia copy)’ in Antimiana II, An anthology of studies, papers and articles edited by the ‘Antim Ivireanul’ Centre for Medieval and Pre-modern Studies. Volume edited by Prof. Dr Ioan St. Lazăr, Râmnicu-Vâlcea, Babel Publishing House, 2012.
Teofil Rendiuk, Constantin Brâncoveanu and I. Mazepa. Unpublished Pages of History in Memory of the Remarkable Prince of Wallachia, Constantin Brâncoveanu, and the Illustrious Hetman of Ukraine, Ivan Mazepa, Bucharest, Pro Universitaria Publishing House, 2016.
Teofil Rendiuk, Hetman Ivan Mazepa – the known and the unknown, Kyiv, Adef Publishing House, 2010, pp. 363–445 (in Romanian).
Dan Zamfirescu, The Romanian Book of Instruction by Saint Varlaam, Metropolitan of Moldavia, Bucharest, Roza Vânturilor Publishing House, 2012/2013, Chapter IX, The Chiriacodromion of Alba Iulia and The Key to Understanding by Ioanichie Galeatovski, pp. 381–434.
Agnes Terezia Erich and Radu Ștefan Vergatti, New Insights into the Life of Saint Antim of Ivire.
