#The Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774

The article traces the history of the transfer of the relics of Saint Dimitrios the New to Bucharest on 13 July 1774, against the backdrop of the Russian military occupation and the plague epidemic, and examines the role of these relics in protecting the capital during times of crisis, from the processions of the 18th and 19th centuries through to the Covid-19 pandemic and the anniversary celebrations in 2024.

Bishop Chesarie of Râmnic (ordained in 1774, died in 1780) is regarded as one of the most important cultural figures of 18th-century Romania, through his printing work in Râmnic, where he oversaw the printing of the Minei and other religious texts exclusively in Romanian, thereby making a decisive contribution to the replacement of Church Slavonic in the Orthodox Church of Wallachia.

Drawing on previously unpublished documents from the Central National Historical Archives, this article reconstructs the final years of the Church of the Forty Martyrs in Bucharest, a dependency of the Diocese of Râmnic founded by Mihail Cantacuzino, tracing the efforts of Bishop Saint Calinic of Cernica to save it from demolition, the controversial contract between the French contractor Alexis Godillot and the Bucharest City Council, and the transfer of the land for the construction of the Romanian Athenaeum.