An objective study of the history of the Romanian people highlights, amongst other things, that Orthodoxy is a defining feature of their cultural and civilisational tradition. This is because the ethnogenesis and Christianisation of the Romanians were two concurrent processes, since the Romanian people were born Christian, quite naturally, at the same time as their Romanian identity was formed. Many factors contributed to the parallel unfolding of these two processes, such as the spreading of the seeds of the Gospel of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who became incarnate at ‘the fullness of time’1 in Scythia Minor—that is, present-day Dobruja— by the Holy Apostles Andrew and Philip, and south of the Danube by the disciples of the Holy Apostle Paul; the gradual conquest by the Romans of the regions south of the Danube neighbouring Dacia, in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC; the transformation of Dacia into a Roman province (106–275), following the wars of conquest at the beginning of the 2nd century AD; the presence of the Roman Empire—which became the Eastern Roman Empire, known much later in history as the Byzantine Empire—on the left bank of the Danube and in Dobruja, with the result that this Empire represented a fundamental political, ecclesiastical and military reality for the Romanians in the 3rd–6th and 10th (after 960)–12th centuries, etc.
In this way, Roman civilisation in the Carpathian–Danubian–Pontic region was able to withstand the barbarian invasions that swept through in successive waves throughout the 3rd–13th centuries, so that when the Slavs arrived and settled in Dacia (6th–7th centuries), on their way to the Balkan Peninsula, encountered a mass of Romanised Geto-Dacians, characterised by the active preservation of Romanisation precisely through the lived experience of the Christian faith, expressed in a language with an already established Christian lexicon. Indeed, an analysis of linguistic evidence discovered within the territory of present-day Romania shows that Latin Christian terms were coined by the Romanian people, ‘as an Eastern form of Latin, from a time when a Christian vocabulary had not yet begun to spread from Rome, that is, before the end of the 2nd century, when Christianity there began to develop its own literary expression, which spread throughout the West”. Therefore, these terms, used by Romanians ‘uninterruptedly from the very beginnings’ of the spread of the Christian faith, prove that Christianity ‘penetrated the heart’ of the Romanian people “at least as early as its arrival in Italy, but on a much larger scale, given its proximity to Asia Minor; but also that this Christianity, far from affecting the Latin character of the new nation, helped it to distinguish itself very early on as a form of Latin culture distinct from that of the West, developing into a distinct Latin people’. Consequently, these terms “came into being at a time when the expanse of Eastern Latin culture stretched uninterrupted from the Pindus to the north-eastern Carpathians, before the Slavic mass had interposed itself between the Thraco-Latin culture south of the Danube and that north of the Danube”2
Consequently, Dacian-Roman Christianity and the language of the people through which Christian belief was expressed were the main factors that contributed to the preservation of the ethnic identity and continuity of the Romanians on both sides of the Carpathians in the face of migrating peoples, favouring, alongside other factors, the assimilation of the Slavs north of the Danube (8th–9th centuries). The first references to Romanians in foreign sources also date from the end of this process of assimilation, where they were referred to as Vlahi, Valahi, Volohi, Blachi, βλάχοι, Olahi, etc. 3 These words represent variants of the same term (Walch-Walach) used by the ancient Germans to refer to the Romans, and later the Romanised Gauls and the inhabitants of the Italian Peninsula; it was subsequently adopted by the Slavic and Byzantine worlds, from whom the Hungarians also took it, to designate the Romance-speaking peoples of the Carpathian-Balkan region. Whilst in foreign sources the Romanians are referred to by variants of the above term—which also explains the names given to the extra-Carpathian Romanian lands, such as Ungrovlahia 4 for Wallachia or the Romanian Country, and Moldovlahia 5 for Moldavia— it is evident that in both external and internal documents, they always referred to themselves as ‘rumâni’ or ‘români’, speaking the Romanian language, long before the establishment of their statehood. Indeed, by God’s providence, a variety of factors contributed to them being the sole custodians, amongst all the Romance peoples, of the name ‘Roma’, whilst maintaining a constant awareness of their Roman origins, as well as of the name of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, known as ‘Romania’ (Ρωμανία)6. They have devoutly affirmed their cultural, ecclesiastical and civilisational affiliation with this Empire and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople—factors which have been, and remain, decisive for the actions of Romanians throughout the ages 7.
This historical-political, cultural-ecclesiastical and territorial context explains why, from the 10th century onwards, the Orthodox Christian faith represented the form of resistance adopted by Romanians in the face of Western propaganda, for maintaining their attachment to Orthodoxy helped preserve their cultural and identity cohesion in Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania 8, with Romania standing out “as the only people of Latin language and origin, but of the Orthodox faith”9. Consequently, this “synthesis of Latin culture and Orthodoxy, itself a miracle and a form of unique originality, helped the Romanian people to remain, through their Latin heritage, distinct from the Slavic world, and, through Orthodoxy, distinct from the Catholic nations of the western neighbourhood’10.
Under the influence of the teachings of the Orthodox Church, the Romanians have produced various cultural achievements which, if we consider, for example, their history since the advent of printing—that is, from the beginning of the 16th century 11—consist of the translation and copying of theological books of great importance to the spiritual life of the Romanians; the printing of editions essential both to Romanians and to other peoples of the same faith in their vicinity; the establishment of scriptoria and schools; the sending of young people to study in major centres in the West and the East; the presence of various prominent figures of the time north of the Danube; the study and written use of classical languages (Slavonic, Greek and Latin), alongside initiatives to incorporate the people’s living language into culture; the foundation of numerous places of worship throughout the country and support for centres of Orthodox spirituality in the East, etc.
These deeds helped to shape their continuity in the lands ordained by divine providence for them to inhabit, through the manifestation of national unity, based not only on blood ties, but above all on their Christian way of life, specific to Orthodoxy. It was precisely this foundation that shielded the Romanians from the great spiritual crisis in which the Western world struggled, particularly during the 16th and 17th centuries, and at the same time explains their theocratic conception, which persisted until around the mid-20th century 12. According to this conception, found in the extra-Carpathian Romanian lands 13, the purpose of the State was intertwined with the role of the Church, following the example of the symbiosis in Byzantium and the relationship between the imperium and the sacerdotium. The Church represented a dynamic force in support of the Monarchy, but the Monarchy was also keen to uphold the Orthodox Christian faith, which contributed to the enrichment of the inherited spiritual heritage, that is, Orthodoxy, identified with the ancestral or forefatherly law of the Romanians; hence the name of the Orthodox Church, in their consciousness, as the ancestral or forefatherly Church, regarded as the ‘mother of the Romanian nation’. In this way, the metropolitan of the country formed part of the State’s institutional bodies (the Council of the Country, the Grand Divan or the Divan of Justice, the Assembly of Estates), being the second-highest dignitary in the country, with a political and social role and that of a guide for cultural and spiritual life. The Prince was entrusted with ‘the external care of the Church’ and of his subjects; his authority was accepted and justified as a gift from God, conferred through anointing (chrismation, anointing with oil), based on the profession of faith included in his title: …‘the faithful and devout in Christ God, and the lover of Christ’. Following the act of anointing, the chosen one took the title “Great Voivode and Lord, by the grace of God and the gift of God, ruling and reigning over the whole land”, taking as his spiritual patron, both in Wallachia and in Moldavia, Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, whose name appeared as the particle ‘Io’ (Ἰῶ), which preceded the ruler’s name. This particle, with its dual significance as both a sacred name and a theocratic attribute, encompassed several aspects and, at the same time, commitments: Saint John the Apostle’s love and devotion to Christ the Saviour served as an example for the Romanian princes to follow, ‘which endowed them with a firm conviction and the desire to preserve the purity of the Orthodox faith’; the title of the Romanian princes expressed a distinct political tradition, arising from the fusion of the indigenous spirit with the Byzantine heritage; princely authority was subordinate to Divine Law, that is, to Orthodox teaching and the requirements arising from it and imposed on the prince “both through his office and through the spiritual authority of the metropolitan or the ascetic prestige of the Saints”14
This arrangement spared the Romanians from the great spiritual crisis that afflicted the Western world, particularly during the 16th and 17th centuries, and at the same time explains their theocratic conception, which persisted until around the middle of the 20th century.
Thanks to this spiritual foundation, the rulers regarded themselves as protectors of the Church, becoming the most prominent founders of monasteries and churches. At the same time, they provided material or moral support in all matters concerning the Church and continued the Byzantine imperial policy towards the entire Orthodox Church in south-eastern Europe and the Near East, which was realised through the cultural-philanthropic and political programmes of their reign, in collaboration with the Church, the phrase ‘Byzance après Byzance’ (Byzantium after Byzantium), which Nicolae Iorga attributed to the Romanian Principalities in their cultural-ecclesiastical and socio-political entirety15. To emphasise the generosity of Romanian princes and boyars, the scholar Udriște Năsturel (1596–1658/1659) wrote in Church Slavonic, at the urging and under the auspices of his sister Elina (Elena), the wife of Matei Basarab (1632–1654), Prince of Wallachia, a Treatise on Generosity, as a Preface to the book Triod-Penticostar (Dealu Monastery, near Târgoviște, 1649) 16. In this Treatise, regarded as ‘the first text in Romanian literature composed with such concentrated humanist elements’17, Năsturel highlighted, from a Christian perspective, the precepts of renowned ancient philosophers and historians (Homer, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, etc.), highlighting the significance of generosity ‘for the common good’, ‘the betterment of the homeland’ and ‘the revival of the spirit’ through ‘acts of kindness’18. The same scholar, whose house in Târgoviște was ‘a sort of free humanist academy’, pointed out, amongst other things, in the Preface to the translation from Latin into Church Slavonic of the work De Imitatione Christi (The Imitation of Christ), attributed to Thomas à Kempis (1379/1380–1471)19, the kinship of the Romanian language with “the Râmlenească or Latin language”20. In the continuation of that Preface, he formulated ‘the most authentic conception of Romanian Orthodoxy regarding humanism’, that is, a ‘discreet, sober, substantial humanism, without ridiculous and useless artifices’21, specifying that his love for the Latin language and culture was directed ‘solely towards that learning which is true, not towards untruthful literary art, but to the simple thing that comprehends all that is good without the vain rhetoric of a useless science of our shameful times’22”, which means that he had in mind the preservation of the intellectual and spiritual framework specific to the law of his ancestors.
During the period when Western Europe was undergoing a crisis of spiritual identity—the 16th to 18th centuries— a crisis that has persisted to the present day, a defining feature of Romanian culture was that spiritual life was equivalent to intellectual life 23, both being based on the practice of the Orthodox Christian faith. For this reason, the Humanism adopted by the Romanians was not the result of any internal spiritual crisis, but of an external one, to which Western propaganda—both Roman Catholic and Protestant—contributed on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the expansionist policies of the Ottoman Empire and the ‘Christian’ Great Powers surrounding the territories in which they lived 24.
Thus, a key characteristic of Romanian Humanism is its civic nature 25, as it was addressed to the people to re-emphasise the values of the past: Roman identity and ties with Rome; the Latin origin of the language; the antiquity of its institutions; the status of complete independence enjoyed in other historical periods and the evolution of this status in relation to Ottoman rule; and the unity of race and language amongst Romanians across all their provinces24. It should be noted that, for the seventeenth century and the beginning of the next, nationalism or philetism were not yet emphasised, as these aspects, which later became mainstream, were not yet distinct from confessional identity, and unity of faith and attachment to Orthodoxy took precedence over them. As for the close link between confessional identity and ethnic identity, long established in the case of the Romanians, a text from the early 16th century is also telling: the Moldavian-Russian Chronicle, which states that Romanians are descended from the ‘old Romans’, that is, from those who refused to break away from Orthodoxy and continued to live ‘in the Greek faith’, whilst Roman Catholics are referred to as ‘the new Romans’, because they converted from Orthodoxy to the Latin rite, which is why they are also called Latins 26.
Another characteristic feature of the Humanism adopted by the Romanians is its Christian nature, for, for the Romanians, true ennoblement lay in living according to the teachings of the Orthodox Church and the moral precepts it promoted.
In fact, another characteristic feature of the Humanism adopted by the Romanians is its Christian nature, since, for the Romanians, true ennoblement came from living out the teachings of the Orthodox Church and the moral precepts it promoted 27. In this Humanism, ‘derived from that of the great Church Fathers’28), the focus was not exclusively on man, but he was viewed in the light of the revealed truth of his ultimate purpose: spiritual perfection. ‘This fact led to the emergence of a realism oriented towards “the immediate problems of individual or collective life”, as a primary characteristic of medieval Romanian culture; that is to say, a realism which, in its medieval sense, translated itself ‘into an active will’ to put into practice the precepts and values of Orthodox Christian teaching, which was far more important and certain than rushing to subject them to the test of doubt’29. Consequently, for Romanians, the Renaissance did not signify the rejection of a modus vivendi or a surge towards philosophical speculation 30, for Romanian Humanism, represented “by clergy and by enlightened and faithful sons of the Church, is not a scholarly Humanism as in the West or in Byzantium, but a popular one with roots deeply embedded in the traditions and spiritual needs of the people”31. On the contrary, by drawing, for example, on ancient wisdom literature in the search for new authorities and arguments, the aim was to reinforce the truths of faith specific to Orthodox Christian teaching and to resist the ‘missionary’ zeal of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, which at that time threatened the Orthodoxy of the Romanians 32. Furthermore, without risking exaggeration, ‘Romanian culture up to the dawn of the nineteenth century is the fruit of the Church and its Humanism’31.
The understanding of the Gospel message and the expression of Christian life took place not only in the languages of the scholars 33, as they were to be called in the 17th— namely, Slavonic and Greek, to which Latin might also be added — but above all in the language of the common people, as with everything pertaining to human expression (song and poetry, history and thought), facts which explain, once again, the identity of the ancestral law of the Romanians with the Eastern law of the Orthodox East of yesteryear 34. In the spirit of this law, whilst church books, with their varied content, were printed in the languages of the scholars, bearing the seal of the authority of the Prince and the Church—as the sole guarantees intended to dispel any doubts of the time regarding their orthodoxy— their circulation was intended to strengthen the sense of unity in faith amongst Romanians, as well as between them and those in other parts of the Orthodox Christian world. However, when the same books were printed in Romanian, they were also intended to strengthen the sense of national identity and linguistic unity amongst Romanians, but not at the expense of the unity of faith amongst all Orthodox Christians, regardless of their ethnicity 35.
Through an analysis of ecclesiastical printed works concerning the unity of faith, language and ethnicity of the Romanian people 36, the assertion made by the poet Mihai Eminescu in an article from 1882 is vindicated: “Church books, printed in Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia, halt the process of diversification and dialectisation of the living language”. Mihai Eminescu goes on to argue: ‘Through these books, the language acquires a unified standard in both speech and writing, for, by a fortunate instinct, translators and original writers choose as their model the most archaic dialect of the Romanians, that spoken in Wallachia and in part of Transylvania, for the dialects which were then attempting to take shape could be reduced to this, the oldest of all, as a prototype’37 Indeed, one might have expected this process of diversification and dialectisation of the Romanian language, given the dispersal of Romanians across different countries and regions over the centuries 38. However, according to the same Romanian poet and scholar, “if there had indeed been any tendencies towards the dialectisation of our language, they ceased the moment the Church created the literary language, sanctified it, and elevated it to the status of a hieratic and official language. From that moment on, the unifying feature became and has remained language and nationality, whereas previously Romanians tended to confuse nationality with religion’39 in the sense that, as mentioned above, national and religious identities were perceived within the framework of unity of race and faith, based on an attachment to Orthodoxy—an attitude specific to Romanians until the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the next. Looking back at history and analysing this attitude of the Romanians, Mihai Eminescu understood, for example, that the Orthodox Church and the Romanian rulers, faced with Calvinist and40 propaganda, which “had begun to translate church books into Romanian, in order to draw the Romanian people towards the Reformation, had fought the Reformation with its own weapons’, that is, ‘had church books translated into the Romanian language, and introduced the language of the people into the Church and the state, in place of the foreign, hieratic languages’41. Thus, by upholding the Romanian people within Orthodoxy, “but within an Orthodoxy of their own Latin-based language”, the Orthodox Church protected the Romanians from “the danger of denationalisation from the West”, as well as from “the danger of losing themselves in Slavicisation”42.
Another distinctive feature of Romanian culture and their way of life in the spirit of ancestral law is their lack of heresies and schisms concerning faith in Jesus Christ.
It should be noted, as another characteristic feature of Romanian culture and their way of life in the spirit of ancestral law, their absence of heresies and schisms relating to faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Saviour of the world 43, even though they had been neighbours to the region where, for example, Bogomilism took place 44, and were later subjected to the pressures of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Thus, the Romanians, who did not suffer from clerical absolutism, nor did they experience the upheavals of bigotry 45, held firm convictions ‘which, in order to be put into practice, required a daily effort of inner life’46 and less time devoted to theological speculation 47. Illustrative in this regard are the words of the scholar Dimitrie Cantemir (1673–1723), Prince of Moldavia (1693, 1710–1711) and the first Romanian member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences (14 July 1714)48 regarding the practice of the Orthodox faith by the Romanians of Moldavia – a practice shared by Romanians in other countries and regions where they resided: …‘Today the whole people profess the Christian faith and adhere to the Eastern Orthodox Church. In no article of faith do they lean towards other heresies; they set aside nothing of what this faith commands them, nor do they do anything that it forbids. In Moldavia, no heretic or heresy has ever been seen’ originating from the Romanians, ‘and all the more so it could not have developed, probably because this people didwanted anything to do with scholastic theology or other sophistical arts of dialectics, but believed that the simple words of the Gospel and the teachings of the Holy Fathers are sufficient, even without formal education, for the salvation of the soul’49 This fact was also noted by foreign travellers through Wallachia or Moldavia, who left impressions and reflections of interest to those curious about the Romanian phenomenon, as in the case of the Roman Catholic historian Giorgio Tomasi († after 1621), who stated, regarding the Romanians of the two countries beyond the Carpathians at the beginning of the 17th century, that “they regard the name ‘Wallachian’ as an insult, refusing to be called by any other word than ‘Romanischi’ and taking pride in their descent from the Romans”, and “in matters of religion”, that is, with regard to their Orthodox Christian faith—which he characterised as Greek and schismatic— they “behaved with such steadfastness that they never allowed any heresy to penetrate it, nor did they permit anyone other than Christians to be their rulers”50.
‘The language of knowledge, of profound meditation and of literary creation is the expression of a nation’s inner character, which it alone forges through its highest qualities.’
It is a recognised fact that the Church, through its hierarchs and scholars, has contributed to the unified development of the Romanian language. The assessment of the renowned scholar Virgil Cândea (1927–2007) is apt; analysing this contribution, he stated the following: “The language of knowledge, of profound meditation and of literary creation is the expression of a nation’s inner character, which it alone forges through its highest qualities”51 It may be said that these qualities bear the mark of ‘agitation’ as regards, in the case of the Romanian people, the realisation of life’s ultimate purpose in the light of the Gospel of Christ the Saviour. This explains the action taken by Metropolitan Simion Ștefan (1643–1656) in the mid-17th century, who had a book printed in Alba Iulia, ‘the capital of Transylvania, where the Romanians bore the yoke of a rule hostile to them and to the Church they represented, the first complete translation of the New Testament (1648) into the Romanian language, an event which marked an important moment in the history of the literary Romanian language and set an example within the Eastern spirituality of the time, serving a dual purpose: to satisfy the people’s demand to have the Word of God in their spoken language and to strengthen the ethnic, religious and confessional consciousness of the Romanians in the face of attempts at Calvinist proselytism’47
Added to this, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was the printing of the Bucharest Bible (1688). By going beyond the Orthodox Church’s criteria of canonicity regarding the books of Holy Scripture and embracing humanist scholarship, the 1688 Bible—which saw two first editions under the patronage of Prince Șerban Cantacuzino (1679–1688), and subsequently under that of his successor, the Holy Martyr Constantin Brâncoveanu (1688–1714), bore the blessing of the Metropolitan of the country, Theodosius, as well as that of the Patriarchs of Constantinople (Dionysius IV) and Jerusalem (Dositei Notarás, the signatory of the Second Preface to this Bible 52), and brings together the contributions of a number of lay intellectuals (Spătar Nicolae Milescu, the brothers Radu and Șerban Greceanu, Stolnic Constantin Cantacuzino, etc.) and the collaboration of the hierarchy (Bishop Mitrofan of Buzău, the Greek hierarch Gherman of Nyssa). Although it was addressed to ‘the Romanian people’, that is, to all Romanians, ‘for the common good’53; in other words, for the common good, with the aim of strengthening their sense of unity in faith, nation and language, and it is accorded a role in the development of the Romanian language similar to that played by Martin Luther’s Bible in German culture and language 54, the publication of the Bucharest Bible cannot be attributed solely to confessional or catechetical reasons, nor merely to those relating to Church ritual 55. All these factors are intertwined in the cultural interests of the hierarchy and the intellectuals of that time 56, motivated as they were by what served as the unifying factor of Romanian society, namely the legal recognition of a way of life in accordance with their ancestral law, to which was added the cultural and political aspirations of the two princes 57.
Indeed, the reinforcement of adherence to ancestral or ancient law had also taken place during the same period through the printing in Romanian of the Pravila of Govora (1640/1641) and the work The Seven Sacraments of the Church or A Brief Selection of Canons (Iași, 1644), as well as collections of regulations addressed equally to the clergy, the monastic order and the laity, such as the Romanian Book of Instruction Based on the Imperial Canons and Other Judicial Decrees or Vasile Lupu’s Canon (Iași, 1646) and The Correction of the Law (Târgoviște, 1652)58. On the one hand, these books represented the Romanians’ adoption of ecclesiastical and Byzantine law59; and on the other hand, they were perceived not merely as legal codes, but above all as a guide to spiritual life and moral conduct, disseminated not only in Wallachia and Moldavia, but also in Transylvania 60, since their application was intended to improve the moral, spiritual and social lives of the ‘pravoslavnici’, that is, the Orthodox Christians, and to guide them ‘towards eternal life’61
In the spirit of the same practice mentioned above, the inclusion in the first complete translation of the Bible from 1688 of the philosophical treatise On the Dominant Reason (Περὶ αὐτοκράτωρος λογισμοῦ) or ‘For the Sole Mind of the Reader’ 62—an apocryphal text of the Old Testament regarded as the Fourth Book of Maccabees— indicated the intertwining of humanist and Christian cultural rationales, representing the way in which the clergy were opening up to secular culture, ‘whilst the laity were reclaiming humanist values from and through theological writing’63. At the same time, the book’s message carried other meanings, of which the following are worth mentioning: the call to Romanians, following the example of the Maccabees against the Seleucids (167–160 BC), to resist their oppressors 64—at that time the Ottomans—but with the aim of safeguarding ‘the law of the homeland (patria) 65’, that is, the entire inherited tradition which, in that historical context, was identified with the Tradition of the Orthodox Church66; humanist thought ought not to be devoid of Christian morality, since the central theme of the treatise was that well-directed reason can master the passions, demonstrating the primacy of reason over the emotions precisely in a Book of Books, in which the primacy of faith over reason is proclaimed; the transmission of what is considered to be the oldest ‘philosophical definition of philosophy’67: ‘wisdom is the knowledge of divine and human things and of their causes’68.
‘The Romanian people did not seek to unravel, with their minds’ – in other words, with their reason – ‘the mystery of the dogmas’ of the ancestral Church. Their motto was clear: ‘either you accept them as they are, or, by trying to adjust them according to human reason, you nullify them’. For this reason, for Romanians, ‘dogmas are not stumbling blocks, leading to heresy or a leap into spiritual schism’, but this did not mean that Romanians ‘sidestepped them’69. Thus, “instead of straying into heresy through reason, the [Romanian] people find salvation through emotion in artistic creations”70. Although these creations are individual, there is a close connection between them and the Romanian people, in the sense that ‘what suits the soul and aspirations of the people is appropriated by them’ and ‘becomes [the property] of the entire people, whilst that which finds no resonance in their soul is rejected or left to neglect and oblivion’71. Amongst those works received and adopted by Romanians, in accordance with their ancestral law, are carols, star songs, etc., that is to say, all folkloric creations and popular literature, which in fact express a lofty conception and perception of Christian life, with its moral and spiritual principles, based on a living and upright faith, which governs all aspects of Romanian society 72. Indeed, ‘the Romanian has not slipped into heresies and schisms’, an observation which many have made over the years, precisely because ‘he does not rationalise his faith, but assimilates and lives it’73. As for the ‘schismatic tendency’ or ‘religious schismatic temptation’ which has led and continues to lead to ‘all manner of sectarian contrivances’, Romanians differ from both Westerners and Russians, because, ‘generally speaking, the Romanian does not readily take the leap into spiritual schism’. On the contrary, in the case of Romanians, ‘the schismatic temptation is sublimated into free dreaming and visions that are not binding, and is lost in anonymity; it does not develop into doctrine and does not lead to sectarian creation, to new havens of religious life’. Even though the Romanian people have been unable to halt the invasion of sects upon them, it is well known that ‘all are foreign’ and ‘are not a product of the land. The Romanian spontaneously varies dogmatic and canonical motifs, but not to the point of schism. In their spontaneity, they display a dreamy moderation and great discretion’74
The identity of the Romanian people has been shaped as a borderland identity between East and West. It cannot become unilaterally Western or unilaterally Eastern, and leaving the space in which it dwells means not only abandoning an ancient place, but a loss of its very being.
The geographical space inhabited by Romanians has become ingrained in their very being, for they have felt connected to it ‘since time immemorial’ through their Geto-Dacian ancestors. Owing to this antiquity, the identity of the Romanian people ‘has been shaped as a borderland identity between East and West. It cannot become unilaterally Western or unilaterally Eastern’, and leaving the land in which it dwells means ‘not only abandoning an ancient place, but a loss of its very being’75; in the sense of a distancing and alienation not from the practice of the Orthodox Christian faith—which can be practised anywhere—but from the existential bonds with its ancestors and their cultural and spiritual heritage. The synthetic nature of the Romanian people’s spirituality is not determined solely by “its persistence since time immemorial in the borderland between the West and the East”, but also by “the fusion within it of the Latin character and Orthodox Christianity”. In this way, Romanians are ‘neither unilaterally rationalists like the Latins of the West or the Greeks, who influenced Western Latinity, nor unilaterally mystics like the Slavs or the Asian and African peoples – characterised by an even more total pantheism through their impersonalist religions –”, but rather combine “the rational lucidity of personalist Latin culture with the sense of mystery present in all things”, in accordance with the experience of Orthodoxy, that is to say, a “luminous mystery into which one can progress endlessly”76
Consequently, the characteristic features of the connection between the Romanian people and their ancestral or ancient law, as listed in this study, though to which many others might be added, explain the cultural and civilisational achievements of the Romanians throughout history, their attitudes and reactions in the face of trends and movements towards denationalisation or alienation from the values of Christian life specific to Orthodoxy, their role at the confluence between East and West, and subsequently between Christendom and Islam, etc. All of this stemmed from the Romanians’ attachment to Orthodoxy, which has shaped their very being and provided them with a set of spiritual and moral, as well as national and patriotic, values, in the light of which they havehave organised the various aspects of social, cultural and political life—that is to say, their cultural traditions and customs, the relationship between Church and State, diplomatic ties and treaties with the Great Powers around them, and so on—in other words, the entire way of life of a people, for whom their ancestral law has represented, for so long, and may well continue to constitute, in the centuries to come, a fundamental factor in their identity, unity and continuity of faith, language, nation, culture and civilisation.
- 1
Galatians 4:4.
- 2
Fr. Dumitru STĂNILOAE, Reflections on the Spirituality of the Romanian People, in the series ‘Dumitru Stăniloae – Complete Works’ IX, Basilica Publishing House of the Romanian Patriarchate, Bucharest, 2016, pp. 343, 349 (hereinafter: STĂNILOAE, Reflections). For an analysis of these terms, see also the same author, ‘The Antiquity and Spirituality of Romanian Christian Terms, in Solidarity with those of the Romanian Language in General’, in STĂNILOAE, Reflections, pp. 380–430.
- 3
These terms are found as follows: ‘vlah’ appears in the language of the South Slavs, ‘voloh’ in that of the East Slavs, ‘blachus’, ‘valachus’ or ‘vlachus’ in Latin and Italian sources, ‘βλάχος’ in Byzantine sources, and ‘oláh’ in Hungarian sources [Ion I. CROITORU, ‘The Ethnogenesis of the Romanian People and the Earliest State Formations’ (hereinafter: CROITORU, Ethnogenesis), in idem, Orthodoxy and the West in the Spiritual Tradition of the Romanians. The Unity of Orthodoxy and the Defence of the Orthodox Faith against 17th-Century Protestant Propaganda, vol. I, Cetatea de Scaun Publishing House, Târgoviște, 2012, p. 26, note 32 (hereinafter: CROITORU, Orthodoxy and the West, I)]. It should be noted that medieval authors also used other archaic terms for Romanians, such as Misieni, Dacians, Getae and Pannonians. Of these archaic terms, the ethnonyms ‘Dacians’ and ‘Getae’ were used to refer to the Romanians north of the Danube from the 10th century onwards; see Gheorghe I. BRĂTIANU, An Enigma and a Miracle: The Romanian People, Corint Publishing House, Bucharest, 2000, pp. 201, 218–219, notes 50, 106.
- 4
A term found in Slavic and Greek documents, meaning ‘Wallachia near Hungary’ or ‘Wallachia towards Hungary’ to distinguish it from other Wallachias on the Balkan Peninsula (CROITORU, Etnogeneza, p. 32). The same territory was referred to in Latin documents as Transalpina, meaning ‘the land beyond the mountains’, a term coined by the Hungarian royal chancellery, whilst in Ottoman documents it was known as Eflāk, the Arabic term used to designate the Vlachs of the Balkans, as well as those north of the Danube (CROITORU, Etnogeneza, pp. 32–33).
- 5
That is to say, ‘Wallachia by the River Moldova’, a term found in Slavic and Greek documents. The Ottomans, referring to the country’s founder, Prince Bogdan I (1363–1367), used the names Boghdān ili, in other words, ‘Bogdan’s land’, or Karā-Boghdān, in other words, Black Bogdania. In Latin documents, the term used is Moldavia (CROITORU, Etnogeneza, p. 34). For other terms used for Moldova, see CROITORU, Etnogeneza, p. 34.
- 6
As is well known, the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire or of Romania were called Romans (ρωμαίοι), a term derived from ‘Romioi’ (ρωμιοί, ρωμηοί), a term used to designate the heirs and practitioners of the Orthodox Christian faith; the use of these terms marks the transition from pagan Romanity to Christian Romanity. For further details, see Father Ioan ROMANIDIS, Patristic Theology, translated from the Greek, with notes, bibliographical additions and an afterword by Ion Marian Croitoru, Târgoviște, 2012, pp. 100–101, note 193. For other meanings and interpretations of the term ‘Romania’ and its origin, see Academician Ion-Aurel POP, ‘The History and Meaning of the Names “Romanian/Vlach” and “Romania/Wallachia”. Reception speech’, at www.acad.ro/discursuri_receptie/doc2013/d0529-IAPop-DiscursReceptie.doc (accessed 13 August 2018).
- 7
CROITORU, Ethnogenesis, pp. 26–27.
- 8
Or Terra Ultransilvana, Latin terms used by the Hungarian chancellery, meaning ‘the land beyond the forest’. This territory, inhabited by Romanians, was also known as Ardeal, a term derived from the Hungarian Erdély, which appeared in the documents of the Ottoman Porte as Erdel (CROITORU, Etnogeneza, p. 28, note 40).
- 9
Fr. Al. I. CIUREA, ‘Humanism and Theology in Ancient Romanian Culture’, in Romanian Orthodoxy, edited by His Eminence Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu, Published by the Biblical and Missionary Institute of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, 1992 (hereinafter: Romanian Orthodoxy), p. 166; Ion I. CROITORU, ‘Romania between East and West. The Spread of Christianity, Ecclesiastical Organisation and the Beginnings of Monastic Life among the Romanians’, in CROITORU, Orthodoxy and the West, I, p. 67.
- 10
STĂNILOAE, Reflections, p. 370; see, with minor alterations, the same paragraph in Rev. Dumitru STĂNILOAE, ‘The Role of Orthodoxy in Shaping and Preserving the Identity of the Romanian People and National Unity’, in Orthodoxia 30/4 (1978), p. 599.
- 11
Although most historians and researchers believe that this event took place at Dealu Monastery, near Târgoviște, there are still differing views today, the most widely held being that the site of the first Romanian printing centre was at Bistrița Monastery in Oltenia; see Archimandrite Veniamin MICLE, Petre CICHIRDAN, Church Printing among the Romanians, Praxis Publishing House of the Archdiocese of Râmnic, Râmnicu-Vâlcea, 2016.
- 12
That is, until the end of the monarchy in 1947 [V. V. MUNTEAN, ‘The State and the Church among the Romanians (14th–20th centuries)’, in Revista Istorică, n.p., 7/5–6 (1996), p. 438].
- 13
In Transylvania, or Ardeal, and some neighbouring areas (Banat, Maramureș), the tradition of this concept was interrupted due to the Hungarian occupation (10th–12th centuries) and the social, political and ecclesiastical oppression to which the Romaniansendured for many centuries on end.
- 14
For further details, see Ion I. CROITORU, ‘Orthodoxy – the cultural and civilisational tradition of the Romanians’, in CROITORU, Orthodoxy and the West, Vol. I, pp. 124–126 (hereinafter: CROITORU, Orthodoxy); as well as the same author, ‘Examples to Follow from Saint Antim of Ivire: Reformer of Morals, Analyst of Political Life and Defender of the Orthodox Faith’; idem, ‘The Role of the Press during the Reign of Vasile Lupu, Prince of Moldavia’ (both studies currently in press).
- 15
See N. IORGA, Byzance après Byzance, Editions Balland, Paris, 1992; as well as O. ILIESCU, ‘La naissance d’une idée politique: Byzance après Byzance’, in Revue Roumaine d’Histoire 25/1–2 (1986), pp. 35–44.
- 16
Early Romanian Bibliography, 1508–1830, Vol. I (1508–1716), ed. by Ioan BIANU and Nerva HODOȘ, J. V. Socec Printing Works, Bucharest, 1903, pp. 171–175 (hereinafter: BRV, I); CROITORU, Orthodoxy, pp. 128–129.
- 17
Virgil CÂNDEA, The Dominant Reason, Dacia Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 1979, p. 54 (hereinafter: CÂNDEA, The Dominant Reason).
- 18
BRV, I, 173; CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 137.
- 19
Printed in 1647 at Dealu Monastery, Târgoviște; see Early Romanian Bibliography, 1508–1830, Vol. IV (Additions and Corrections), ed. by Ioan Bianu and Dan Simonescu, Socec & CO. Printing Works, Bucharest, 1944, p. 195 (hereinafter: BRV, IV).
- 20
BRV, Vol. IV, p. 197.
- 21
Fr. Ioan G. COMAN, ‘The Humanism of Romanian Orthodoxy’, in Romanian Orthodoxy, p. 137 (hereinafter: COMAN, Humanism).
- 22
COMAN, Humanism, p. 137.
- 23
Alexandrul DUȚU, Aspects of Romanian Culture in the 18th Century, Editura pentru literatură, Bucharest, 1968, p. 121; Virgil CÂNDEA, ‘Intellectuals in South-Eastern Europe in the 17th Century (I)’, in Revue des Etudes Sud-Est Européennes 8/2 (1970), pp. 187–188.
- 24a24b
CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 127.
- 25
CÂNDEA, The Dominant Reason, p. 21.
- 26
P. P. PANAITESCU (ed.), Slavic-Romanian Chronicles from the 15th–16th Centuries published by Ioan Bogdan, Editura Academiei, Bucharest, 1959, pp. 158–159; see also ibid., ‘Contribution to the History of Chancery Literature in South-Eastern Europe’, in Revue des Etudes Sud-Est Européennes 5/1–2 (1967), pp. 33–37; CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 127, note 33.
- 27
CÂNDEA, The Dominant Reason, pp. 26–27.
- 28
COMAN, Humanism, pp. 148–149.
- 29
CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 128; Virgil CÂNDEA, ‘Dominant Features of Medieval Romanian Culture’, in Bulletin of the International Association for South-East European Studies 6/1–2 (1968), p. 68 (hereinafter: CÂNDEA, Romanian Culture).
- 30
Alexandru DUȚU, ‘From One Form of Universality to Another: A Renewed Image of the Past’, in the same author, Romanian Culture within European Civilisation, Minerva Publishing House, Bucharest, 1978, p. 119.
- 31a31b
COMAN, Humanism, p. 149.
- 32
CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 128.
- 33
An expression used by Saint Dosoftei, Metropolitan of Moldavia; see CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 131, note 54.
- 34
CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 133, note 61; see also Nicolae IORGA, The Romanian Conception of Orthodoxy, Bucharest, 1940, pp. 8–9, 15–16; † NICOLAE, Metropolitan of Banat, ‘The Meanings of the “Ancestral Law”’, in Romanian Orthodoxy, pp. 40–42 (hereinafter: NICOLAE, Metropolitan of Banat, The Meanings).
- 35
CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 134, note 65.
- 36
See Ștefan PASCU, ‘The Book and the Spiritual Unity of the Romanian People’, in Biblioteca și cercetarea, III, Cluj-Napoca, 1979, pp. 1–19; Protopresbyter Spiridon CÂNDEA, ‘Our Old Church Language: A Factor of National and Religious Unity’, in Mitropolia Ardealului 2/9–10 (1957), pp. 680–698.
- 37
Mihai EMINESCU, ‘Whenever the “Romanian” was in opposition…’, in ibid., Works XIII, Journalistic Writings 1882–1883, 1888–1889, Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 1985, p. 168 [the article was published in Timpul VII/176 (14 August 1882), see ibid., p. 474]; Antonie PLĂMĂDEALĂ, Teachers of Romanian Thought and Sentiment, Published by the Biblical and Missionary Institute of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, 1981, p. 63 (hereinafter: PLĂMĂDEALĂ, Dascăli); Romanian Writers on Language and Style, Albatros Publishing House, anthology edited by Gh. Bulgăr, Bucharest, 1976, p. 137.
- 38
CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 135, note 67.
- 39
Mihai EMINESCU, ‘With time, they began to recognise…’, in Timpul VI/221 (10 October 1881), see idem, Orthodoxy, an anthology by Fabian Anton, Eikon Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 2003, p. 59 (hereinafter: EMINESCU, Orthodoxy).
- 40
This propaganda was carried out chiefly in Transylvania throughout the 16th and 17th centuries; see Ion I. CROITORU, ‘Protestant Propaganda in the Romanian Principalities’, in the same author, Orthodoxy and the West in the Spiritual Tradition of the Romanians. The Unity of Orthodoxy and the Defence of the Orthodox Faith against Protestant Propaganda in the 17th Century, vol. II, Cetatea de Scaun Publishing House, Târgoviște, 2012, pp. 467–526.
- 41
EMINESCU, Orthodoxy, p. 59. For this reason—the introduction of the Romanian language into the Church and the state, with direct reference to the Metropolis of Moldavia and Suceava—Mihai Eminescu asserts that the Church is ‘the mother of the Romanian nation’ [idem, ‘It is said that in the council...’, in ibid., Works IX, Journalism 1870–1877, Academy Press, Bucharest, 1980, p. 258 (the article was published in Curierul de Iași in November 1876, across several issues; see ibid., p. 662)].
- 42
STĂNILOAE, Reflections, p. 371.
- 43
Bogdan PETRICEICU-HAȘDEU, A History of Religious Tolerance in Romania, Bucharest, 21868, p. 21 (hereinafter: PETRICEICU-HAȘDEU, A History of Religious Tolerance); S. MEHEDINȚI-SOVEJA, Romanian Christianity, Criterion Publishing-USA, 22004, pp. 66–71; CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 137.
- 44
A heresy that developed in the Balkans and Asia Minor during the 10th–15th centuries; see ‘Bogomils’ in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford, 1997, pp. 219–220; Fr. S. RELI, ‘Bogomilism and the Romanians’, in Candela 57 (1946), pp. 28–44.
- 45
PETRICEICU-HAȘDEU, A History of Religious Tolerance, p. 23.
- 46
CÂNDEA, Romanian Cultures, p. 70.
- 47a47b
CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 138.
- 48
See Fr. M. ȘESAN, ‘Dimitrie Cantemir, Academician’, in Mitropolia Moldovei și Sucevei 38/5–6 (1962), pp. 507–510.
- 49
Dimitrie CANTEMIR, Description of Moldavia, Editura Academiei, Bucharest, 1973, p. 339.
- 50
Giorgio TOMASI, ‘A Description of Wallachia and Moldavia’, in Foreign Travellers on the Romanian Lands, vol. III, Editura Științifică, Bucharest, 1971, pp. 673–674.
- 51
Virgil CÂNDEA, ‘The New Testament in Romanian as an Act of Spirituality and Culture’, in The New Testament 1648, published by the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Alba Iulia, Alba Iulia, 21988, p. 46.
- 52
See BRV, I, pp. 286–290.
- 53
BRV, I, p. 281.
- 54
PLĂMĂDEALĂ, Dascăli, p. 220.
- 55
For the development of the printing of liturgical books in Romanian, see CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 136. For the production of scriptural texts intended for worship and printed up to 1688, see CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 139, note 94.
- 56
CÂNDEA, The Dominant Reason, p. 115.
- 57
V. CÂNDEA, ‘The Political Significance of an Act of Feudal Culture’, in Studii. Revistă de istorie 16/3 (1963), pp. 651–671; CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 139.
- 58
CROITORU, Orthodoxy, p. 130.
- 59
I. N. FLOCA, ‘The Govora Rules of 1640–1641’, in The Romanian Orthodox Church 81/3–4 (1963), p. 298.
- 60
See Fl. DUDAȘ, ‘Ancient Romanian Laws Discovered in Transylvania’, in The Romanian Orthodox Church 96/7–8 (1978), pp. 797–811.
- 61
Preface to The Correction of the Law, Târgoviște, 1652, in BRV, I, p. 195.
- 62
As regards the author of this apocryphal text, see CÂNDEA, The Dominant Reason, pp. 174–175, notes 5 and 6.
- 63
PLĂMĂDEALĂ, Dascăli, p. 156.
- 64
CÂNDEA, The Dominant Reason, p. 184.
- 65
1 Maccabees 4:33–34, in the Septuagint, ed. Alfred Rahlfs, Athens, 19792, p. 1159; CÂNDEA, Rațiunea dominantă, p. 207.
- 66
CROITORU, Orthodoxy, pp. 142–143.
- 67
Up until Pythagoras, those who devoted themselves to the study of divine and human matters were called ‘wise men’; they subsequently came to call themselves, with modesty, ‘philosophers’. See CÂNDEA, The Dominant Reason, pp. 148 and 196, notes 87 and 80.
- 68
1 Maccabees 4:16, in op. cit., p. 1158; CROITORU, Orthodoxy, pp. 142–143.
- 69
Theodor FECIORU, The Romanian People and the Religious Phenomenon: A Study of Folklore, published by Librăria Teologică, Bucharest, 1939, pp. 19–20 (hereinafter: FECIORU, The Romanian People).
- 70
FECIORU, The Romanian People, p. 20.
- 71
FECIORU, The Romanian People, pp. 21–22.
- 72
See Rev. Dom. N. IONESCU, Orthodox Dogma in the Thought and Life of Our People, Bucharest, 1931; Olimpiu CONSTANTINESCU, Religious Sentiment in Folk Literature, Part I, Chișinău, 1928.
- 73
FECIORU, The Romanian People, pp. 259–260.
- 74
Lucian BLAGA, The Trilogy of Culture. II. The Mioritic Space, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 1994, pp. 112–113.
- 75
STĂNILOAE, Reflections, p. 19.
- 76
STĂNILOAE, Reflections, pp. 30–31. For a similar analysis, see also STĂNILOAE, Reflections, pp. 476–477.