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Andronikos Falangas University of

Some aspects of Greek-Romanian Religious Relations in the Post-Byzantine-Era (16th - 17 th Centuries)

Ι would like with my communication to remove us far away from the land of and also far from , so far as the Northern Balkan Peninsula and in particular in . This Eastern-Latin country resulted from the progressive union, in the 19th and 20th centuries, of its three components situated in the both parts of the Carpathian mountains: the Danubian principalities of Walachia and Moldavia, founded in the 14th century, and the extra Carpathian region of Transylvania, a former appanage of the Crown of Hungary and subsequently a part of the collapsed Hapsburg Empire. In all these lands the majority of the people consistently professed and continues to profess the Orthodox Christian religion. Despite their Romanic language and their national name that recalls the glorious Romans who colonized the North of Danube and the Carpathian Mountains, The Romanians maintained exceptionally close relations with the Greek Orthodox Church. The two highest Romanian ecclesiastic institutions, the metropolitan sieges of Walachia and Moldavia, founded in the 14th century by the initiative of the first Romanian rulers, were initially put under the direct dependency of the most prestigious Orthodox authority, the ecumenical Patriarchate of . It was a political decision that strengthened the political status of the new created Walachia and Moldavia against the expansionism of the neighboring catholic kings of Hungary and Poland. The majority of the first Romanian metropolitan bishops were of Greek origin. The Greek monk Nikodimos, a man of confidence of the Patriarchs and an adept of the mystical movement of hesychasm, was the organizer of the Walachian monastic life and is venerated in modern Romania as a . Even under the administration of Hungarian Catholics in Transylvania of the 14th century, the local Romanian-Orthodox people maintained direct contacts with the Great Church of Constantinople. It is enough to mention that an important Orthodox of Northern Transylvania (now in Ukraine), the Peri monastery, was under the control of Constantinople who approved its superiors and conferred on them the 2

prestigious title of exarch. These superiors substituted the Orthodox Transylvanian bishops, which were unwanted by the Hungarian rulers and their Italian spiritual instructors. However, the relations between the Romanian and Greek Churches were affected during the 15th century by a serious crisis. It occurred after 1439 when the Greeks decided to accept the union with the , which they believed to be the only way to save the from the Ottoman expansion. Not only the Romanians but also all the Orthodox Slavs and even the majority of the Greek people considered this desperate initiative, which finally failed to save the agonizing Greek Empire, as a betrayal of the true Christian faith. It is very telling that the authors of the Romanian narrative sources of the epoch mention the fall of impious pro-catholic Constantinople without any obvious involvement and even with apathy. The revival of the spiritual relations between Greeks and Romanians starts at the eve of the 16th century, when the former patriarch Niphon II was invited to Walachia. At this time the political and ecclesiastical situation of the South-Eastern Europe has changed. Half a century ago, the Ottoman sultans became the lords of Constantinople. Its conqueror Mohamed II has restituted the ecumenical Patriarchate who, conforming to the Ottoman interests and the Greek popular sentiment, followed an anti-Catholic policy. It was not by chance, that the first patriarch under Ottoman domination, Gennadius Scholarios (1454-1456, 1462-1465), before the fall of Constantinople has been the leader of the opposition to the union with Rome. At the beginning of the 16th century despite the stubborn resistance of some Romanian princes, the Ottomans have also imposed a constant political tutorage on both Romanian principalities that still preserved their internal autonomy and their own rulers. The presence of Niphon in Walachia is the result of all these changes. Niphon, who was born by eminent parents of Byzantine Pelloponese, was a monk imbued by the mystical and anti-Catholic spirit of Hesychasm. He became the metropolitan of and subsequently, two times, patriarch of Constantinople (1486-1488, 1496-1498). After his second destitution he accepted the invitation of the Walachian prince Radu the Great (1495-1508), initiating the long list of the Greek patriarchs who visited or lived in the Romanian lands. His mission was the reorganization of the Walachian ecclesiastical life and undoubtedly the strengthening of the prestige of his host who intended to continue in his principality the Byzantine tradition of caesaro-papism. Niphon started his mission by the 3

convocation of a synod with the participation of Radu the Great and the Walachian nobles. The synod elaborated a plan of the restructuring of the Church of Walachia. It also formulated the relations between the prince and the nobility. But Radu the Great and his court were not Byzantines! Niphon, a rigid exponent of the Byzantine tradition, was not prepared to approve the moral behavior of the Romanian high class of the epoch. Shocked by a matrimonial scandal, he didn’t hesitate to criticize the Radu’s family. Finally he has proved to be a danger for the prince’s prestige. So he ought to leave Walachia for the Mt Athos where he finished his exemplary Orthodox life in 1508, in the Dionysiou monastery. But Niphon’s death has not impeded his influence and even his physical appearance on the Walachian ground. Some years later, in 1512, the influential noble family of Craiovescu extirpated with the Ottoman’s aid the dynasty of Radu the Great by the killing his brother and successor Vlad the Younger. The same family imposed at the Walachian throne one of its members Neagoe Basarab (1512-1521). The luck of legitimacy of the new prince was evident. Thus, his political propaganda concentrated on the Niphon’s sanctity. On his request Gabriel, the head of the monastic community of Mt Athos, composed a Life of Niphon. According to this hagiographical text, expelling Niphon, Radu the Great committed a sin that insulted the God’s justice and caused the fall of the dynasty. In his turn, Vlad the Younger was under the diabolic influence of the Radu’s brother-in-law who has been excommunicated by Niphon as the protagonist of the above- mentioned matrimonial scandal. In contrast with these sinners, Neagoe Basarab is presented in the Life of Niphon as the holy man’s spiritual son who took care of the former patriarch during his conflict with Radu. It is evident that Neagoe tried to project himself as a follower of the Byzantine model of pious sovereign. Inspired by the Byzantine political tradition, Neagoe repeated at his capital Târgovişte the expiatory ceremony organized by the emperor Theodosius the Younger in Constantinple in favor of his mother’s soul who dared to persecute a Father of Church Athanasius Chrysostomus. Like Theodosius who brought from Caucasus the relics of the saint Athanasius, Neagoe Basarad organized a pompous transfer of Niphon’s body from Mt Athos. It was exposed in the church of Dealu monastery, the Radu the Great’s burial chapel, where a religious service assured the pardon of the dead prince. The readers of the Life were informed that Neagoe witnessed the 4 following revelation: he saw the dirty and terrifying Radu’s body to leave its tomb; the dead prince was cleaned by the holy water that sprung from the Niphon’s reliquary and finally returned, sparkling in its purity, to the grave. This expiatory ceremony is only one of many expressions of the Byzantine revival at the Neagoe Basarab’s epoch. Few years after, in 1517, the Walachians saw the Ecumenical Patriarch Theolept Ist (1513-1522) to arrive in their lands with a suite of four eminent metropolitans. He was accompanied by the head of Mt Athos Gabriel, whom we already met, and a number of superiors and other eminent Athonite monks. They were invited by the Neagoe Basarab to participate in the foundation of the monastery of Curtea de Argeş and, on the same occasion, to canonize Niphon. Thus, Niphon was officially introduced into the pantheon of the Orthodox . Until nowadays he is venerated by the Romanian people who recognize him as their national saint. We can imagine the splendor of the mentioned ceremonies that recalled the glorious days of the Byzantine Empire, far away from the Muslim-controlled Constantinople. The Great Rhethor of the Ecumenical Patriarchate Manuel of Corinth didn’t hesitate to refer to Neagoe with a majestic Byzantine-styled title: “emperor and autocrat of all the Great Walachia”. Neagoe has also adopted the attitude of the Byzantine emperors towards the Orthodox holy institutions. He generously gratified the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Jerusalem. He assured also generous pecuniary aids to a great number of venerable in the Greek lands, and particularly to the most prestigious in all the Orthodox world monastic republic of Mt Athos. Characteristically, Gabriel in the Life of Niphon qualifies the Walachian prince as “great founder of the whole Holy Mountain”. We believe that the Neagoe’s munificence was not only dictated by his desire to consolidate his reign or to augment its glory. According to our opinion, he truly wanted to help his Orthodox brothers directly subjected to a Muslim authority. We also consider that Neagoe also hoped that God would recompense him and his family on the earth and, after his death, in heaven. Neagoe Basarab was not the only Romanian ruler who opted to regain the place of the Byzantine emperors as a defender of the Orthodoxy often affected by the avidity of the Ottoman treasury, the abuses of the sultan’s high officials but also the costing ambitions of many Orthodox personalities. 5

The Romanian help was particularly valuable in the 16th century, when the support of the Muscovite to the Orthodox population of the and the Middle East was not yet so substantial. At that period Walachia and Moldavia became the safe haven for a great number of high Greek prelates and simple monks. In the person of Romanian princes, like Neagoe Basarab, they found the successors of their Byzantine, Southern Slav and Georgian sovereigns. Many times they found the occasion to expose this quality of their Romanian high benefactors in their charters, letters, liturgical priors and artistically conceptions. In Mt Athos for example, we can see the portraits of the Moldavian prince Alexander Lăpuşneanu and his son and successor Bogdan placed, like the portraits of the sovereigns of the Byzantine era, as sign of the monks’ gratitude. The prince Alexander, who ruled in Moldavia between 1552 and 1568, manifested his generosity to many Athonite communities. Precisely at monastery, he rebuilt and repainted the main church. He conceded to the monks of his property rights for an inn in Thessalonica and, most probably, allowed them an annual allocation of 300 ducats. At Dionysiou he financed the iconostas of the main church; he also offered a splendid icon of St . At Xenophon, because of his munificent donations he is considered “the new founder”. In addition to pecuniary aid, he donated to the monastery a precious Byzantine manuscript. He accorded to Gregoriou a land property in Moldavia. Likewise, Alexander Lăpuşneanu presented an entire Moldavian village to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and to the St Sabbas monastery. The end of his reign clearly shows his ideological and spiritual orientation: like the pious Byzantine emperors of the past, he accepted the religious vows and finished his days under the name of the monk Pachomius. One of his successors at the Moldavian throne was Peter the Lame (1574- 1579, 1582-1591). He continued the tradition of the munificence in favor of his coreligionists of the and particularly in favor of Mt Athos and is regarded as one of greatest Romanian benefactors. A Greek narrative source of his epoch, the Chronicle of Pseudo-Dorotheus’ of Monembasia, offers a picturesque description of the warm reception that Peter offered at his court to the Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremy II (1572-1584, 1587-1595) and his companion the Metropolitan of Monembasia Hierotheus in their return from Russia during the winter of 1589-1590. We quote: “The very pious prince Peter received them splendidly and spectacularly. He appointed cooks to prepare their meals, and 6

men for all services: for the horses, for the grass, for the woods. After the rough behavior of Russians, the two hierarchs enjoyed the Romanian hospitality. In Russia, the Boris Godunov’s men had forced them to recognize the elevation of the Russian Church to the rank of Patriachate under the threat to their lives. The chronicler particularly appreciates the Peter’s civilized attitude to his guests and his Byzantine- inspirited moral values and culture. He concluded that this prince “merits to rule not only over Moldavia, but also over Constantinople”. The same Pseudo-Dorotheus’ of Monembasia describes also the coronation ceremony of the young Peter’s son as co-prince. The ceremonial context reminds of the Byzantine splendor of Neagoe Basarab’s days. We read that Peter the Lame invited for this purpose a lot of eminent clergymen. Among them, there were two Patriarchs, of Jerusalem and of Antioch, and the above-mentioned Hierotheus of Monembasia, who was probably the real author of the chronicle. The clerics left Moldavia impressed by the prince’s generosity. The Byzantine pomp characterizes in particular the epoch of the prince Basil Lupu who ruled Moldavia between the years 1634-1653. A person of Southern Balcanic origin, he distinguished himself as the leader of a Moldavian revolt against the increasing Greek influence. However, after he occupied the throne, he proved to be one of the most philhellenic princes of the Romanian lands. He was also constantly inspired by the Byzantine imperial ideal. After his accession he added the prestigious name Basil to his name Lupu, in the reminiscence of the glorious Byzantine defeater of Bulgarians. He endowed his court with a Byzantine splendor. He also tried to spread the Byzantine culture in his principality inviting Greek scholars. In addition he attempted to impose a patronage over the Ecumenical Patriarchate. His ambition was provoked by the critical financial situation of the Great Church of Constantinople that menaced its very existence. Indeed, the magnanimous Moldavian prince paid off all its debts. He also declared his intention to secure the Patriarchate in the case of future economical difficulties. The Patriarch Parthenios Ist (1639-1644) and his synod expressed their gratitude by offering to the prince Basil the miraculous body of St Parasceve of Epivatai in 1641 (St Parasceve was a Byzantine nun of the 11th century famous for her ascetical virtues). The precious relics left Constantinople escorted by three Greek metropolitans and an Ottoman military unit. The prince, the metropolitan of Moldavia and other local bishops waited for them on the Moldavian border, and few days after 7

the cortege made a triumphal appearance in the Moldavian capital Iaşi. There, the saint’s body was exposed in the magnificent Church of Three Hierarchs, newly founded by Basil Lupu, and since then this church became one of the most important centers of the Moldavian pilgrimage. Before the arrival of the relics, the prince Basil had dedicated the Church of the Three Hierarchs with its properties to all the monastic communities of Mt Athos. We can imagine that the donations of countless Moldavians pilgrims constituted a considerable source of income for the Holy Mountain. In the same time, in the neighboring Walachia, the local prince Matthew Basarab (1632-1654) emulated his Moldavian homologue and rival, providing his principality with the relics of another Byzantine saint, St John bishop of Synada in Asia Minor, an illustrious defender of the veneration of icons at the time of the iconoclast repression. For this purpose Matthew received one of the saint’s hands from the athonite monastery of , amply benefited by his munificence. The hand in its precious reliquary has been exposed for centuries in the Arnota monastery founded by Matthew. The Basil Lupu’s reign marks the end of a most glorious period of the Greek- Romanian ecclesiastic relations. During his reign, the Greek clergymen found a wealthier protector in the person of another monarch of a rising power. It was the czar of Russia who directed his expansionist views towards the Southeastern Europe after the union with the Zaporog Cossacks facilitated by the Greek patriarchs’ policy. I would not like to create the impression that the Walachian and Moldavian princes were the only Romanians who promoted the Greek-Romanian religious interaction. Several local nobles imitated their lords offering pecuniary aids to Greek holy places, some of their land properties or their own pious foundations. One cannot also neglect the charity of simple Romanian clergymen and peasants. The Greeks, who had established, enriched and ennobled in the Romanian lands, constitute a special and a very interesting category of benefactors. In order to realize the meaning of their generosity in favor of the Greek or Romanian Church, it will be useful to give some examples. They show that such attitude was not only dictated by the pious solidarity with their compatriots or the Romanian coreligionists, but was also an obligation imposed by social status. In the middle of the 16th century, John Giormas, a Greek of , evidentially a merchant, obtains in Walachia some titles that position him in the 8

inferior nobility. Then he builds a church and a number of shops in the commercial center of in order to dedicate them to the diocese of Pogoniani in his fatherland. His social status is raised after a successful marriage with an aristocratic widow. This matrimonial union and subsequently his higher social position are sealed by the foundation of a monastery in Bucharest. The ambitious Epirote becomes still more powerful after the death of his wife. As the princes’ Chiajna favorite, he occupies an important function reserved only for the members of the highest nobility. After his fulgurate social success, Giormas took the decision to offer his monastery with its wide lands and gipsy slaves to the Athonite monastery of . Noblesse oblige! In these days, another homo novus of the Walachian society was the Greek Oxiotis. He was born in the same region of Pogoniani of Epirus and also married a local lady. Like in the case of Giormas, his social ascension was confirmed by his benefaction in favor of the same Stavronikita monastery and of the Epirote monastery of Giromeri. After some decades in Moldavia appears in the ranks of high nobility the Greek merchant Zotos Tzigaras. Like the two previous, he is originated from Epirus, but this time from the town of Ioannina. As soon as he received from the above- mentioned prince Peter the Lame the hand of his daughter princess Maria, Zotos felt a need to create his own coat of arms and to pose for an official portrait in a noble’s position. Furthermore, after the marriage, he ought to found in Iaşi the Hlincea monastery, which was afterwards dedicated to Dionysiou monastery in Mt Athos. Finally, Zotos didn’t forget to prove his noble sentiments to his native Ioannina; by his testament he became the benefactor of its churches. Other notorious protagonists of the Greek-Romanian religious relations are the Greek clerics permanently established in the Romanian lands. A number of these people were the administrators of the properties that their Patriarchates or monasteries had obtained in Walachia or Moldavia. At the beginning of 17th century the most important among them was a Cypriot clergyman called Luke, who apparently had found over Danube refuge, after the Ottoman conquest of his island in 1571. In Walachia he became the bishop of the town of Buzău and subsequently the metropolitan of the country. The Greek scholars know Luke of due to his calligraphic production and the influence that he exercised over a circle of contemporary calligraphers. However the importance of his 9

activity goes beyond the domain of the Greek paleography. During the Michael the Brave’s reign (1593-1601), he served his land of adoption as diplomat, trying to assure the Russian support to the Walachian prince’s cause. Indeed Michael, supported by the influential family of Cantacuzene and other eminent post- Byzantines, developed an ambitious anti-ottoman program marked by a number of spectacular victories that stirred the Greeks’ hopes for an imminent restoration of the Byzantine Empire. Luke’s great political service to Romanian people took place during the Transylvanian occupation of Walachia, between December 1610 and Mars 1611. The prince of Transylvania Gabriel Βáthory (1608-1613) unexpectedly crossed the Carpathian Mountains, expelled the legal Walachian prince Radu Şerban and occupied all the country that became the theatre of the invaders’ continuous atrocities. Luke with a part of the local population was forced to flee searching refuge in the of Danube. The end of this critical situation was marked by the initiative of the Cypriot metropolitan to assemble his exiled herd in order to demand together from the suzerain sultan the retreat from Walachia of the Transylvanian troops. Indeed, the Ottoman response forced Βáthory to return to Transylvania and to give his place to the new Walachian prince Radu Mihnea (1611, 1611-1616, 1620- 1623 and 1616-1619, 1623-1626 as Moldavian ruler). The tragic events that happened during the Transylvanian occupation were recorded by another prelate of Greek origin that resided like Luke in Walachia. It was Matthew, the metropolitan in partibus infidelium of Myres of Lycia in Asia Minor. Like Giormas and Oxiotis, he was born in the region of Pogoniani in Epirus. He was a cultivated person who had assiduously served the interests of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Russia and Ukraine (yet a part of the Polono-Lithuanian state). About 1602, he definitively settled in Walachia where he stayed until his death in 1624. He became the superior of the venerable Dealu monastery, the place where Neagoe Basarab had organized the expiatory ceremony, which I mentioned above. In 1609, the Great Church gave him his honorary metropolitan title. He left an important hagiographical and historical work, but is more known in the Greek world as an assiduous calligrapher. I would like to emphasize his social preoccupation that occupies an important part of his historical writing and refers directly the Romanian people. Worried by the spread of the anti-Greek sentiments in the Walachian society, he doesn’t hesitate to 10

criticize severely the rapacious attitude of some influents nobles and merchants of Greek origin. Based on his Orthodox sentiments, he finally concludes that we the Greek “must have care, we must love and we must honor the Walachians, because they are our brothers”. With this Matthew’s commandment, which projects him as a precursor of the inter-Balkan cooperation, I would like to close my communication. I sketched only some aspects of the multiplicity of the Greek-Romanian religious relations in the post Byzantine era, but a general tendency is unambiguous. It is the progressive “byzantization” of the Byzantine principalities in the 16th and 17th centuries. This phenomenon undoubtedly happened under the influence of Greek Orthodox Church, this quintessence of Byzantium that survived the collapse of the Empire.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ariadna CAMARIANO-CIORAN, L’Épire et les Pays roumains, Ioannina 1984,

V. CÂNDEA, C. SIMIONESCU, Witnesses to the Romanian Presence in , Bucharest 1979

A. FALANGAS, “Νφων Β, Πελοποννσιος, οκουµενικς πατριρχης κα θνικς γιος τν Ρουµνων,” Βυζαντινα Μελται, 5 (1994), pp. 504-521.

N. IORGA, Byzance après Byzance. Continuation de la Vie byzantine, 2nd ed., Bucarest 1971 (reprinted Paris 1992).

P.Ş. NĂSTUREL, Le Mont Athos et les Roumains. Recherches sur leurs relations du milieu du XIVe siècle à 1654, Rome 1986.

M. PĂCURARIU, Istoria Bisericii ortodoxe române, I, Bucharest 19912.

L. POLITÈS, “Un centre de calligraphie dans les principautés danubiennes au XVIIe siècle, Lucas Buzau et son cercle,” in Χe Congrès International des Bibliophiles, Athènes 30 septembre – 6 octobre 1977, s.l. [1979], pp. 1-11 +4 illustrations.

* * * Sfinţi români şi apărători ai legii strămoşeşti, Bucharest 1987.

D. SIMONESCU, “Le chroniqueur Mathieu de Myre et une traduction ignorée de son « Histoire »,” Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes, 9/1-2 (1966), pp. 81-114.

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R. THEODORESCU, Roumains et Balkaniques dans la civilisation sud-est européenne, Bucharest 1999.