Romanians and Mount Athos

1. The Great Lavra (Saint Athanasios)

Contacts between Wallachia and the monastery founded by Saint Athanasios, also known as the Great Lavra, are fairly old and the relevant “documentary dossier” is also significant. However, there remain imprecisions and contradictions, especially regarding the start of these contacts as reported in the literature, more specifically on the rules of Vladislav I Vlaicu (1364–1377) and on that of his namesake, known as Vladislav VIII, who ruled in Wallachia a century later (1446–1456). The present study does not aim to solve this “dispute” or review the donations made from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century to the monastic community established by Saint Athanasios—considered as the founder of monastic life on Mount Athos. The most detailed review of these donations is, again, due to the research of Petre Ş. Năsturel⁶, complemented with new documentary sources by Florin Marinescu⁷. However, in order to maintain a coherent timeline for our presentation, we must briefly mention that the series of financial donations to this establishment was “opened” by the ruling Prince Vlad Vintilă, who, on January 12, 1533, donated 10,000 akçe (a Turkish coin Europeanized as asper).⁸ His charitable gesture was subsequently reiterated by the ruling princes of Wallachia and Moldavia. For example, for the seventeenth century we have three princely writs (Ro hrisoave), already well known in the literature: one related to an offer by the Wallachian ruling Prince Gavril Movilă (September 3, 1619)⁹ and two further documents issued by Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu (1695–1696¹⁰ and 1702¹¹). To these we must add another such document, recently referenced by Florin Marinescu and issued under the rule of Matei Basarab (October 1, 1642)¹². Matei Basarab is known for his support to the Holy Places, so it is worth mentioning that the archives of the aforementioned monastery include three Liturgy Books (Ro liturghiere) compiled under his rule by a certain Antim of Ioannina¹³. Over the eighteenth century princely donations increased, as evidenced in Florin Marinescu’s recent study. It is also noteworthy that the rule of Nicolae Mavrocordat in the seat of the Basarab dynasty was important for renewing older ties with the Athos-based lavra. On July 12, 1729—as a token of gratitude for the arrival of the relics of Saint Michael of Synnada when the country faced an invasion of locusts—Prince Nicolae Mavrocordat made a donation of 6,000 akçe to that establishment¹⁴. Such charitable donations were followed up under the Moldavian reigns of his son, Constantin Mavrocordat (October 23, 1735¹⁵ and 1749¹⁶), Matei Ghica (1753)¹⁷, Constantin Racoviţă (November 8, 1756)¹⁸, Alexandru Scarlat Ghica (<August 5> 1768)¹⁹, Constantin Moruzi (1780)²⁰, and Mihail Suţu (1784)²¹. This is a significant documentary “heritage” that reveals the intensity of interrelations between the aforementioned monastic establishment and the North-Danubian areas. We are now adding 4 (or 5) such charitable bequests retrieved from Romanian archival repositories. One was issued by the Moldavian chancellery and the other by the Wallachian one—both in the second half of the eighteenth century. The first document from this so far unpublished series was issued on May 15, 1765 by the Moldavian chancellery during the reign of Grigore Ghica the Third (1764–1767). Having been informed of the “rules and regulations of the monastery called the Great Lavra,” where the fathers “observed the rules with due diligence,” the prince offered it an annual aid of 50 lei, supplemented by two and a half lei for the “maintenance of the monk who delivered the donation.” This sum was to be gifted to the monastery from the princely coffer “every year without lapse.” Apart from contributing to the Moldavian princes’ series of donations to the aforementioned monastic community, this document also expressed the donor’s hope that, in exchange for this act of generosity, the monks would “pray to the Lord for bestowing goods on this land and keeping it away from harm”²². There were similar explanations for donations from the seat of Bucharest. The earliest such document was issued by the ruling Prince Alexandros Ypsilantis on October 1, 1718. He decided to add a supplement of 300 thaler to the older donation of 100 thaler, which the monastery had received from “erstwhile brother princes,” whose names were not specified in the document. As the document explains, this increase in the quantum of the donation was not simply the consequence of the prince’s “loyalty and devotion” to the “Lord’s establishments,” but also a sign of respect for the protection offered to the country buy the “great hierarch Michael, bishop of Synnada,” whose relics were kept at that monastic establishment. The document reveals that the respected relics brought by the Athonite monks had contributed to the eradication of the destructive effects of a great number of locust invasions²³ (“large numbers of crop-destroying locusts”; Ro “mulţime de lăcuste stricătoare de roduri”), which had afflicted the country for five or six years before the reign of the issuing prince (Ro “să să mântuiască ţara de o urgie ca aceasta ce pătimeşte de cinci şase ani”). This information confirms what other sources say about Alexandros Ypsilantis’s first reign in the Wallachian seat of Bucharest (1774–1782): according to these data it was one “blessed with quiet and peace… as well as with bountiful fruit of the earth”²⁴. However, the reign was not short of “challenges,” and locust invasions were “plentiful,” as a notification of August 1780 specified²⁵. On this occasion, again, the document mentioned that the donation was to be made annually from the princely treasury. In exchange for this generosity, the Athonite monks were to “observe a special duty of prayer to the Lord at all times for the wellbeing and peace of this land” as well as of “displaying the honored head” of the saint whenever the land was threatened with “God’s wrath and crop-destroying locusts” in the hope that the saint would “intercede with prayers and seek salvation for the people²⁶. However, during Ypsilantis’s second reign in Wallachia (1791–1793), the country had to face the negative impact of plague epidemics and renewed military conflict between the neighboring great powers, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Habsburg Empire. On November 30, 1792, the ruling prince Mihail Suţu granted a new decree for a donation to the Monastery of Saint Athanasios. The document in fact confirmed an earlier donation act issued by this prince in favor of this establishment during his “first reign”²⁷. According to the established style, the document mentioned that the charitable donation was made because the prince had been notified “of the plentiful support and help that the saint had bestowed on this country” and consequently he decided to supplement “one hundred <thaler> above the four hundred” that the establishment had received from “erstwhile brother princes”²⁸.

Not long afterwards, as political circumstances changed, the monks of the Great Lavra petitioned the princely divan and obtained a renewal of their charitable grant from the new ruling prince, Alexandru Moruzi (1793–1796). While mentioning the donations of Alexandru Ipsilanti and of his predecessor, Alexandru Moruzi was less generous: on September 13, 1793 he confirmed his donation as equaling the amount granted by his ruling predecessor without any further supplement²⁹.We still have no data available on what action the monks of the Great Lavra took in this matter: did they renew their application for charity to Alexandru Ipsilanti, during his second reign on the Wallachian throne (1796–1797), or to Constantin Hangerli (1797–1799). Such a possibility should not be excluded: further research could certainly bring clarifications on these matters. The monastic community appealed again to the generosity of Alexandru Moruzi who was also for a second time on the Wallachian throne (1799–1801). In September 1799 the prince confirmed his older donation. This time however—according to secretarial practices that had become entrenched—the logothetes of the princely chancellery were content to mention the ruling prince’s donation at the top of the document in a rather terse style: “we endorse this writ and now that he is in second reign, we request that his charity be respected in detail, as listed below.”

2. The Gregoriou Monastery

In its general lines, the history of the Gregoriou Monastery is similar: its links to the North-Danubian principalities had a long tradition that seems to have commenced during the last years of the reign of Ştefan cel Mare (1457–1504), who appears to have made generous financial resources for the restoration and extension of the establishment³⁰. In fact, the links may not have been as intense as previously sought: the data we have so far show that such contacts are documented only for the early half of sixteenth century and they mostly “privileged” Moldavia, if we consider the two donations made by the establishment by the ruling princes Ştefăniță vodă (1520) and Alexandru Lăpuşneanu (September 21, 1553)³¹. We do not know whether, during their travels to the Moldavian capital, the monks from Gregoriou ever stopped in Wallachia hoping to receive donations from the ruling princes who through the will of the Lord had obtained the thrones in the princely seat of Bucharest. I the light of the available data so far, it would appear that such plans were not afoot. The historian Petre Ş. Năsturel simply commented that “pour le moment, on se contentera de l’information que l’higoumène de Grégoriou participa à la consécration de l’église d’Argeş, en 1517”³².

Out of reasons that remain insufficiently known for a long period, more precisely from the second half of the sixteenth century to the early half of the eighteenth, the monks from Gregoroiu did not travel to the north of the Danube in search of new financial support. Although their presence in Wallachia and Moldavia cannot be totally excluded, we incline to think that such initiatives did not take place, for reasons that are not easy to fathom at this moment. The series of charitable donations to the monastery was to be reprised, as mentioned earlier, only two centuries later, more precisely in the summer of 1765, when the Athonite monks—who were looking for aid for the refurbishment of their monastery, destroyed by a fire in 1761³³—stopped in the North-Danubian regions, first asking for support from the Wallachian ruling prince of the moment, Ştefan Racoviţă (1764–1765). Subsequently, he showed he was sensitive to the requests of the brother monks “from Sveta Gora, known as the Gregoriou” (Ro “de la Sveata Gora, ce să numeşte Grigoriiat”) and aimed to follow the example of “late and erstwhile ruling princes.” He also wished to be included in the list of founders (to become ktetors with donations of whatever means affordable; Ro “a ne face noi ctitori cu oareşce milă după darea îndemână”) and be remembered at the holy liturgies: on June 7, 1765, the prince granted an annual charitable bequest of 100 thaler, money to be offered from the revenue of salt mines in Wallachia.

Beyond the fact that the document is the earliest donation to the Athonite establishment by a Wallachian ruling prince known to us, it also adds a “juridical detail” that, in our view, is not irrelevant. More precisely, as there was no Wallachian “precedent”—which indirectly confirms our hypothesis that in the course of these two centuries the Gregoriou monks did not travel to the north of the Danube—the “juridical reason” for the ruling prince’s philanthropy referred to the donations made to the establishment by the Moldavian rather than to the Wallachian princes: “because in past times this holy monastery benefited from princely charity as early as the late Moldavian Ştefan voievod, son of Bogdan vodă and grandson of Ştefan vodă, with his writ of 24 April 7028 <1520>, whereby he donated 6,000 akçe”³⁴. From this angle, we believe that it safe to argue that the old links between the Athonite monastic community and Moldavia as well as the ruling prince’s Moldavian ancestry played a role in the prince’s decision to make the grant, as well as in the monks’ decision to appeal to the incumbent ruler in the Bucharest seat, to whom they presumably presented their older donation documents.

Although the expenses for the refurbishment of the monastic establishment must have been onerous, it appears that the monks from Gregoriou only resumed their demanding travels to the north of the Danube a decade later. The frequent changes of ruling princes, the insecurity before and during the new Russo-Ottoman conflict (1768–1774), but also possibly the dispersion of their community after the aforementioned fire may explain why this happened. The peace treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) and the return to a degree of normality, as much as could be expected at the time, offered a chance to the Gregoriou monks to return to the Romanian lands in the expectation of new charitable donations.

On this occasion, the monks from Gregoriou decided to help their cause with appeals to the seats of Bucharest and Iaşi. They did not simply seek a renewal of the older donation acts but also attempted to secure a subordination of their community to one of the monastic establishments in the two regions. If successful, such an attempt was supposed to offer them a chance of longer sojourns in the two cities as well as securing land and monetary donations from boyar families looking for divine redemption. The person who took on this task—which did prove successful—was the monk Joachim, “keeper of the liturgical vessels” (Gr σκευοφύλαξ, skeuophylax) at the Gregoriou monastery. In 1776–1777 he obtained the dedication as metochia (Gr singular μετόχιον, metókhion) for his establishment of both the Vizantea skete in the region of Vrancea (Moldavia) as well as of the Spirea skete in Bucharest (Wallachia)³⁵. A recent study by a researcher from Iaşi, Cătălina Chelcu, on the dedication of the Vizantea skete is now available³⁶.Therefore, the following section will focus on the context in which the aforementioned Joachim obtained the dedication (Gr. afierôsis; Ro închinare) of the Spirea skete in Bucharest, a religious establishment founded in the mid-eighteenth century by a Doctor Spirea, originally from the isle of Corfu³⁷. The documents show that—following monk Joachim’s initiatives most certainly—the decision to dedicate the establishment belonged to Metropolitan Grigore of Wallachia. The Metropolitan had an act of dedication (Ro carte de afierosire) drawn up in May of 1776, which has not survived³⁸. The decision of the Wallachian hierarch was confirmed by the ruling Prince Alexandru Ipsilanti with a writ issued later, on October 31, 1777³⁹. There was a gap of almost a year and four months between the two documents and at this stage it is not possible to explain the delay. However, we wish to discuss another document, dated February 6, 1774, which might shed some light on the timelines. It is a “certificate” whereby the usher (Ro ceauş) Iordache, Zoiţa, and Pană Cărpenişanu confirmed a donation made to the father hegoumenos Costandin of <the> skete Spirea” an erstwhile bequest made by their mother, comprising eight acres of a vineyard that had fallen into disuse as well as “her landed property and orchards on the hill called Budişteni.” At first sight, this document attests similar charitable endowments made to religious establishments for the salvation of the donors’ souls. However, this document offers a detail that is relevant to the timeline leading to the dedication of the Spirea skete to the Gregoriu Monastery. More precisely, besides wishing to secure the “remembrance [of their mother’s] soul,” the donors also mentioned the fact that at that time the Spirea skete was already “dedicated to the Monastery of the Saint Neculai Gregoriou, the Holy Mount” (Ro “închinat la Sfântul Neculai Grigoriu, la Sfânta Agură”)⁴⁰. Although in itself this detail is not likely to change significantly our view of the timeline for the dedication of the Bucharest-based establishment, it might suggest that the representatives of the Athonite community could have been at Doctor Spirea’s foundation at least two years before the metropolitan confirmed “officially” its subordination. It is possible to suggest—with a degree of hesitation—that the monks from Gregoriou had “settled” at this establishment during the Russo-Ottoman military conflict of 1768–1774, a period during which the skete sustained major destructions.

One particularly valuable document offering details on the difficult situation at the Spirea skete dates from April 1777. The author was a certain Hristofor, a former head usher (Ro ceauş de aprozi), related to the other ktetors (founders). In the text he states that the “father Metropolitan of Ungrovlachia, kir kirios Gligore” reimbursed with the sum of 350 thaler for the expenses he had incurred for the “upkeep” of the skete and the surrounding vineyards. Ultimately—and this detail also has some relevance—the act also mentioned that the skete was to be offered for the “accommodation of foreign father monks” (Ro “spre lăcuinţa părinţilor călugări streini”). Hristofor only asked that he should be included and remembered “with my entire house at the holy proskomidie, with all the other ktetors that come from my lineage” (Ro “să fiu şi eu cu toată casa mea pomenitu la sfântu jărtfelnic, împreună cu ceilalţi titori ce să trag dân neamul mieu”)⁴¹.

As the document issued by the Wallachian metropolitan in May of 1776 has not been preserved—or perhaps it is still awaiting discovery in some archive coffer—the only documentary source to offer further details on the context and motivation for the dedication in favor of the Gregoriou community is the aforementioned writ issued by Alexandru Ipsilanti⁴². The princely writ offers detailed data on the reasons for the dedication, on its context as well on the endowments to be made to the church “built by the late Doctor Spirea” (Ro “ce au fostu făcut-o răposatul Spirea doftoru”). First, the prince justified his gesture as a way of rewarding “the endeavors … of the pious kir Joachim” (Ro “râvna….cuviosul<ui> chiriu Ioachim”), skevophilax of the Gregoriou Monastery and exarch of the Athonite monasteries⁴³, who, in the course of time had made donations and, “with his money and incurring debts” (Ro “cu ai săi bani, ce şi cu datorii”), had redeemed many Christians, some residents of Wallachia and Moldavia, who had been taken as prisoners “at the time of the latest war” (Ro “într-această trecută vreme a răsmiriţii”)⁴⁴. Furthermore, the prince recalled that when the aforementioned monk was in Wallachia in his role as representative of the entire monastic community on Mount Athos, not wishing to “trouble his beloved peace of mind in the midst of the city” (Ro “să se supere iubita sa odihnă în mijlocul oraşului”), he appealed to the benevolence and generosity of the country’s metropolitan to let him stay in a “corner remote from worldly noise, to collect himself without undue cares” (Ro “un colţu despărţiru de sgomotul lumii, ca să se odihnească făr de gânduri”). In his turn the metropolitan, as a sign of appreciation for the endeavors of monk Joachim, granted him the administration of the establishment founded by the aforementioned Doctor Spirea with a mission to care “for the everlasting remembrance of the souls” (Ro “pentru mai multă sufletească pomenire şi de-a pururea aducere aminte”) of the ktetor and his family.

The princely writ shows that the high hierarch issued a document for purpose—which, as mentioned earlier—does not appear to have survived. The document specified that “this holy church was dedicated to his holiness and his holy Monastery Gregoriou of the Holy Agros with all its liturgical objects and sacred vessels” (Ro “i-au hărăzitu această sfântă biserică cuvioşiei sale şi sfintei monastirei sale Grigorie ot Sfânta Agora cu toate sfintele odoare şi vase”). The document also specified the boundaries of the “church location” and the obligation to offer to the Metropolitane three okka (approximately 3.846 kg in modern units) annually.

Having assessed that this dedication was done according to the law and in all fairness (Ro “această afieromă s-au făcut cu cale şi cu to<a>tă dreptatea”), Prince Alexandru Ipsilanti endorsed the metropolitan’s decision and authorized the pious monk Joachim to build around the building whatever he deemed necessary “for the beauty of this holy church, and making it a skete” (Ro “spre podoaba acestei sfinte biserici, făcându-o schitu”) to be used by the brethren of Gregoriou who might stop over in Wallachia. This time again, the ruling prince expressed his hope that, in exchange for his charitable donation, all these servants of the Lord would pray for the forgiveness of his sins and those of the other incumbents on the throne, as well as for the “welfare, safety, and peace of this country’s Christian people.” (Ro “pentru bună starea, paza şi liniştea norodului creştinescu a ţerei acestei.”) And to ensure that monk Joachim was to enjoy the mental and material peace that he had sought, in the same writ the prince also gifted the skete at Spirea with a landed property at Stăneasca in Ilfov county—the former land of a certain Costache Popescu—which also had a stone church from the “time of the war“ (Ro, “în vremea răzmiriţei”), now no longer in use. He also authorized the skete to have “ten tax-exempt peasants for laboring” on this land (Ro “10 scutelnici pentru posluşanie”)⁴⁵.

All these details are undoubtedly important. However, beyond these data we must also recall that this dedication was directly linked to the dedication of the skete at Vizantea, through the endeavor of the same monk Joachim. All this had consequences not only for the skete at Spirea, but also for the dynamic of relations between the Gregoriou community and Wallachia. Like in many such situations⁴⁶, the aforementioned dedication had an obvious impact on the patrimonial situation of the two establishments. For example, as they had the opportunity to spend longer periods both in Wallachia and in Moldavia, the Athonite monks managed to administer very skillfully the assets of Spirea but could also appeal more often to the generosity of the country’s princes and to donors elsewhere. The evidence is to be found in documents which made new donations or confirmed older ones—often at short intervals—with bequests of land or money.

One example of such a document, dated in the first month of the 1778 was one in a longer series whereby the same Alexandru Ipsilanti granted the monks at Gregoriou an annual donation of 500 thaler, which also came from the tax on salt mines set by the state treasury (Ro “cu pecetluit”), as well on taxes on the wines on the hill at Şchei, which they had to share equitably with the monastic community at Sfinţii Apostoli in Bucharest. This time, too, the prince offered an explanation with reference to his obligations, as heir of the Byzantine basileis, to support “the Lord’s holy sites by all means available” and renew the endowments made by his ancestors (without naming them, however!) He also made a reference to the honor due to Saint Nicholas, the monastery’s patron, as well to the dilapidation at Gregoriou, which had been almost entirely destroyed (Ro “s-au fost arsu desăvârşit”) in the fire of 1761. The merits of monk Joachim were also mentioned in the princely writ: he was said to have made great personal efforts (Ro “cu din silința şi truda cuvioşiei sale”) and secure donations from many of the faithful (Ro “cu ajutoriu şi milă dupe la creştini”). Not only did he manage to restore both the building, outbuildings, and surrounding areas (Ro “o au prefăcut şi o au întemeiat-o cu toate prejmuirile”), but he also reconstituted the community by bringing in resident father monks (Ro “aşezând şi părinți călugări spre locuință într-însa”), thus helping the monastery fulfill again its spiritual role⁴⁷.

A special mention deserves to be made of the rather rich decoration of the writ—what the specialist literature calls “elements of visual rhetoric.” The writ was produced by none other than the logothete Constandin, “teacher of Slavonic at the princely school at Saint George the Old (Ro “dascal slovenesc ot şcoala gospod de la Sveatâi Gheorghe cel Vechiu”). The frontispiece, a medallion surmounted by an open crown with two lions rampant, shows the heraldic symbol of Wallachia—the crowned aquila—framed by two anthropomorphic figures: on the right is Wisdom (with a mirror in the left hand and a snake in the right; on the left is Justice (with a sword in her left hand and a set of scales in her right).

From this perspective, it can be argued that Alexandru Ipsilanti’s writ adds another piece to the interesting and growing field of research on the rapport of text and image, and more precisely on representations of duties and virtues in our old documents, issued by the chancelleries of the two extra-Carpathic principalities, themes recently addressed by our colleague Ovidiu Olar⁴⁸.

The series of donations to Gregoriou Monastery resumed in the short reign of Nicolae Caragea (1782–1783). In October of 1782 he issued a writ which renewed the monastery’s right to receive 500 thaler from the revenue of the salt mines as well as the wine tax from the hills at Şchei, “at the rate of two bani per vadră” (today ca. 10 liters). He also reconfirmed the dedication as a metochion of the church “built by the late Doctor Spirea on the estate of the Holy Metropolitanate (Ro “ce au făcut-o răposatul Spirea dohtorul pe moşia Sfintei Mitropolii”)⁴⁹. In addition, in the early days of the same month, the prince also reconfirmed the earlier charitable donations to the skete at Spirea—underlying again its status as a metochion of the Athonite lavra: the right to have ten tax-exempt peasants for work on the estate and the exemption from the payment of tax over two hundred sheep⁵⁰, specifying that this latter exemption had been granted to the skete by Alexandru Ipsilanti as early as the month of December 1780⁵¹.

One year later (October 22, 1783), only a few months after his ascension to the Wallachian throne, undoubtedly following a request from the Athonite monks, the ruling prince Mihail Suţu (1783–1786) issued in his turn a writ reconfirming the older donations to the Gregoriou Monastery: the 500 thaler from the revenue of the salt mines and the wine tax from the vineyards on the hills of Şchei⁵². This time, too, the princely decree referred to the precarious situation of the establishment (“with no revenue for the sustenance of the monastery and of the father monks who live there”; Ro “neavând vreun venit din care să poată mănăstirea şi părinţii călugări ce lăcuiesc într-însa să să hrănească”), citing also the previous writs of the “brother princes” Alexandru Ipsilanti and Nicolae Caragea⁵³.

The rule of the extravagant Nicolae Mavrogheni (1786–1790), as well as the start of a new conflict between the neighboring great powers (1787–1792), might explain why it was not until 1790 that the chancellery issued two further donation documents for the Gregoriou Monastery and its Bucharest-based metochion. Thus, on the 10th of May 1790, the “divan of the Principality of Wallachia” invoked again the state of “impoverishment” (Ro “scăpătăciune”) of the establishment, but also cited the princely decrees of January 30, 1778 and December 9, 1780. The act reconfirmed the earlier privileges and tax exemptions of the Spirea skete. Given the political and military situation, the signatories also included the Austrian consul Merkelius⁵⁴. Three months later, it was the turn of the Gregoriou Monastery monks to claim the renewal of their erstwhile charitable endowments: they referred to the former decrees of princes Alexandru Ipsilanti, Nicolae Caragea, and Mihail Suţu, as well as to the promise of “His Highness Prince Coburg, commander of all the armies and protector of the land” (Ro “preaînălţatului principe Coburg, marele comandir al tuturor [o]ştirilor şi oblăduitorul ţării”) for the protection of the former “privileges” granted by the aforementioned princes⁵⁵.

Once the country started to recover gradually from the destruction caused by the war that concluded with the peace treaty of Iaşi (1792) and until the next conflict of 1806–1812, the older donations to the two establishments – whose destinies were increasingly fused, at least from the Romanian perspective – were reconfirmed by most of the country’s rulers, although the amount of the donations did not change. Examples include: Mihail Suţu (February 1, 1792: donation to the Spirea skete⁵⁶), Alexandru Constantin Moruzi (March 4, 1793⁵⁷ and May 5, 1793⁵⁸: donation to the Spirea skete; September 1, 1793: donation to the Gregoriou Monastery⁵⁹), Constantin Hangerli (June 10, 1798: donation to the Spirea skete⁶⁰; July 22, 1798: donation to the Gregoriou Monastery⁶¹), and Constantin Ipsilanti (January 2, 1803⁶²: donation to the Spirea skete; September, 13 1803: donation to the Gregoriou Monastery⁶³). To complete our overview of donations made to the Gregoriou Monastery by the rulers of the two Romanian principalities, it is worth mentioning that on June 28, 1795 the ruling prince of Moldavia, Alexandru Ioan Calimah, ruled that the monastery was to receive an annual donation of 350 lei from custom tax and from revenue from princely salt mines⁶⁴.

In the early decades of the nineteenth century the number of donations to the Gregoriou Monastery (and implicitly to its metochion, the Spirea skete) declined. Undoubtedly, this was due to the complex and insecure situation of the two Romanian principalities at the time, as well as to the diminishing financial and material resources of the state budget. For this period, we only have data on three princely decrees: two are dated for the year 1813 as reported in the literature⁶⁵ and were issued by Ioan Gheorghe Caragea (1812–1818). One was issued in 1819 from the chancellery of Alexandru Suţu (1818–1821), which in effect concluded the series of princely donations from Wallachia and Moldavia to this Athonite monastic establishment. This document, issued by the last Phanariot ruler in Wallachia, is in fact a simple reconfirmation of the status of the Spirea skete as metochion of the Gregoriou Monastery, as well as of the charitable donations made to the latter establishment. The document reiterates references to the “endeavors” of the late monk Joachim, to the decision of Metropolitan Grigorie from 1776 and to the “writs of the erstwhile brother princes.” As had been the case with previous princely decrees, the prince, on whose behalf Chiriţă the “divan chancellor” (Ro “logofătul dă la divan”) had compiled the writ, expressed his hope that his donation “would be well-founded, unaltered and unchanged for times everlasting … and that his charity should be observed scrupulously at all times.” (Ro “să fie bine întemeiată, nezmintită şi neclintită nici odinioară în veci… şi milele să i să păzească pururi nestrămutat.”) However, this was not to happen as the next periods proved to be unfavorable to the maintenance of the holy sites “where there is poverty and need, and weakness” (Ro “unde easte neajungerea şi ştiută trebuinţa şi neputinţele”)⁶⁶.

3. The Karakallou Monastery

In his aforementioned study, Petre Ş. Năsturel noted that “les rapports du monastère de Karakallou avec la Valachie sont bien moins connus que ceux qu’il entretint avec la Moldavie voisine.” To some extent, he accepted the possibility that these links might have been initiated during the rule of Neagoe Basarab (1512–1521)⁶⁷. The late, regretted historian cited—rather laconically—the famous Life of Saint Niphon, which alleged that the ecclesiastical figures attending the consecration of the princely foundation at Curtea de Argeş included the hegoumenos of the Athonite Karakallou Monastery. The source also claimed that the Wallachian prince—in his customary generosity to other representatives of the Athonite communities—had “endowed’ him with money, villages, cattle and “many buildings” (Ro “multe ziduri”)⁶⁸, although so far we do not possess secure evidence for such donations⁶⁹.

In the view of the same historian, after this supposed first “contact” there followed a lengthy ‘quiet’ period of nearly eight decades for which we have no records of links between the monastic community at Karakallou and Wallachia. Things were different in Moldavia if we consider the financial support offered to the community in the first half of the sixteenth century. The ruling Prince Petru Rareş (1527–1538; 1541–1546) contributed to the defense turret of the monastery, and Lady Ruxandra, the widow of Alexandru Lăpuşneanu, also made contributions⁷⁰. At this time, we do not have clear indications as to why the monastic community at Karakallou preferred the “Moldavian route” at the expense of the Wallachian one.

With reference to this second “episode” of the connections between the Karakallou Monastery ant the Wallachian Principality—which Petre Ş. Năsturel dates to the reign of Mihai Viteazul (1592–1601)—we must admit that in this instance too the information we have is scarce, indirect, and highly uncertain. The record for this supposed “moment” could be a filigree crucifix, “joliment travaillé” identified by the historian in the monastery’s treasury. According to the Slavic inscription, which bears the year 7105 from the Creation of the World (1596–1597)—rendered in French by the historian—this was an artefact offered by the Wallachian prince and his lady to the Ungrovlachian metropolitan of the time, Eftimie. However, we do not have any data on the precise moment, context, and channels for the arrival of the liturgical item into the possession of the monastic community. In fact, even the historian who identified the item expressed his reservations about the possibility that the crucifix was indeed a donation to the monks at Karakallou from the Wallachian hierarch. At the same time, the author specified that only further research on the metropolitan and on the engraved inscription could offer further clarification on this⁷¹. To our knowledge this inquiry is still pending—and is unlikely to happen soon—which leaves open the issue of connections between the Wallachian Principality and the Karakallou Monastery in the late sixteenth century.

According to related data gathered with punctilious patience by Petre Ş. Năsturel, the collections of the Karakallou Monastery include a silk epitrachelion (that is, a priest’s stole), with gold-thread embroidered representations of the twelve apostles, created in a Wallachian workshop on commission from the ruling prince Matei Basarab (1632–1654) and his wife, Elena. This time, again, the liturgical object was considered as evidence for another stage—the third—in the history of links between the Karakallou Monastery and the Romanian Principality. Unfortunately, the Slavonic-language text does not yield enough data, as it only mentions the year 7158 (1649/1650) from the Creation of the World but not specifying the establishment for which the object was destined⁷². In this case, again, further research might be able to shed light on this supposed moment in the complicated “dossier” of links between Wallachia and the Athonite site. Similar uncertainty persists in connection with the period between the end of Matei Basarab’s reign and the start of the Phanariot regime in Wallachia (1716). So far we do not have any “traces”—of any kind—documenting the existence and/or continuation of such links in the period considered here. Until conclusive evidence emerges, we argue that the “proofs” generally offered in the specialist literature must be treated with caution. However, the role of “chance” should not be underestimated and future research could produce some surprises⁷³!

It was not until the eighteenth century that the “dossier” thickens—although uncertainty persists. From this period, we have four donation decrees. As far as we are aware, they were first mentioned briefly by Father Gheorghe Moisescu in a study published seven decades ago⁷⁴, without any details as to the repository where they are kept. The information was subsequently reprised in various studies on relations between the Romanian lands and Mount Athos. After searches in archival repositories, we managed to identify and transcribe three of these princely writs, which allowed us to continue our research into the links between Wallachia and the Athonite Karakallou Monastery. The data in the documents show that the earliest in the series—which will probably grow in the not-too-distant future—was issued by the chancellery of Nicolae Mavrocordat, shortly after the end of the first year of his second reign in Wallachia (1719–1730). Although not identified yet—which does not exclude the possibility that it may be “lost” or “forgotten” in some Romanian or Athonite archive—the aforementioned document was the “legal basis” that allowed the monks to visit Wallachia during the eighteenth century to collect the princes’ donations and request the renewal of this right. As the subsequent acts of reconfirmation show, following a request made by the “father monks of this holy monastery” (Ro “părinţii călugări dă la această sfântă mănăstire”), on July 20, 1720⁷⁵ Nicolae Mavrocordat offered them a donation of 50 thaler, the first donation by a Wallachian prince to the establishment “called Caracalu… on the Mount of Athon, under the patrons Peter and Paul, the Holy Apostles” (Ro “ce să chiiamă Caracalu … ce easte în Muntele Athonului, unde easte hramul Sfinţilor Apostoli Petru şi Pavel”)—if we exclude the support allegedly offered by Neagoe Basarab two hundred years earlier. In justification for his charitable gesture, in his donation document the prince mentioned the older writs that the monastery had “from erstwhile late princes, from Prince Vlad, Prince Alexandru, and Prince Radu” (Ro “dă la alţi răposaţi domni mai dănainte vreme, dă la Vlad vodă, dă la Alexandru vodă şi dă la Radu vodă”). This rather gen eric and vague chancellery formulation is to be found in all the three documents that we identified. The three names of princes were fairly common in the onomastic “repertoire” of the Wallachian dynasty and the rather evasive way in which they are cited makes it difficult to identify the three princes. Besides giving some “weight” to his generous donation, Nicolae Mavrocordat could have perhaps wished to embed his name in the lengthy series of Wallachian princes who protected and supported the holy sites.

Although the “weaknesses” they faced were onerous, as all three writs recorded, the data we have shown that, after this first generous gesture, for reasons only known to them, the resident monks at Karakallou had to wait for over half a century before they could renew their links with the seat of power in Bucharest. This also applied to the requests they made to the incumbents at the Iaşi court. On September 26, 1776, hearing the calls of the monk brethren, but also out of his faith and the love he felt “wholeheartedly… for the holy divine places” (Ro “din tot cugetul … asupra sfintelor şi dumnezeieştilor lăcaşuri”)—a standard phrase used in many such princely decrees—Alexandru Ipsilanti renewed his predecessor’s donation, without changing its amount. According to the document he issued, the recipients were to benefit from the aforementioned sum of money “from my lordship every year unfailingly” (Ro “de la domniia mea în toţi anii nestrămutat”). Like many other donation documents, this decree listed the reasons for the princely generosity: “to offer the holy monastery succor and strength and help the monk fathers with their food and clothing and assure my lordship and my lordship’s parents of everlasting remembrance (Ro “părinţilor călugări dă hrană şi dă îmbrăcăminte, iar domni<i>i mele şi părinţilor domni<i>i mele veşnică pomenire”). The document also entreated those who through divine grace were to follow him on the throne to endorse and not allow a lapse “in this benefaction, and let it be passed on to the next princes” (Ro “mila aceasta, ca şi ale domniilor sale mili să fie dă alţi domni priimite”)⁷⁶. We do not have clear evidence for this, but we can presuppose that the Karakallou community observed the stipulations of the donation document and received financial support throughout the entire reign of Alexandru Ipsilanti. When Ipsilanti lost the throne in the early days of 1782 the monks decided to go and present themselves to the new prince, Nicolae Caragea, from the first days of his reign, according to an already established practice. They asked for the renewal of the benefaction. Seeing the “aforementioned writs” (Ro “ce s-au zisu mai susu”) and learning about the “pains and weaknesses” (Ro “patimile şi neputinţile”) that the brethren monks faced, the new ruler showed compassion and “renewed the donation” sometime during 1782, without changing the value of the alms⁷⁷, thus following the example of his predecessor. Two years later, on January 16, 1784, the new ruler, Mihail Suţu, renewed the charitable donation using the same format of the document, in which only the name of the prince, those of his sons, and of the divan members were changed⁷⁸.

We do not know—at least not for the time being—whether the Karakallou monks ever traveled again to Bucharest (and Iaşi) for the renewal of their old benefits. Future research might show if the donation of Mihai Suţu to the aforementioned monastery might have been the last in this rather modest series of donations. Further study might contribute to a better understanding of the politics and wish of the rulers of the two Romanian states who, in their role as heirs of the basileis from Constantinople, wished to continue the tradition of support for Orthodoxy in general, and more specifically, for the monastic community on Mount Athos.

Instead of conclusions

The new data presented and analyzed in the present study may not significantly alter the general picture of the endeavors by ruling princes in Bucharest and for the maintenance of Orthodox establishments outside the borders of the two states. But they do enrich the jigsaw puzzle for the period of the eighteenth century, which, as shown, can be completed with further archival research. Furthermore, beyond details on the value and rhythm of the donations made to the three monastic communities on Mount Athos, the new documentary material presented here offers suggestive indications not only for the ideological foundations of princely munificence, but also for the activity of the period’s princely chancelleries, a topic still insufficiently addressed in the historical literature⁷⁹.

On this last theme, one should note that the majority of these donation decrees are not remarkable either in terms of chancellery format or of their decorative elements. From the perspective of “visual rhetoric”⁸⁰, they have a rather modest appearance, the main feature being the use of cinnabar for the terms denoting princely titles, the names of ruling princes and their sons, as well of initials of sections or terms.

These documents were equally “basic” in terms of the manner in which they were “authenticated.” This was routinely done using the seal ring of the price who issued the writ, while the manu propria signature of the ruler was often ‘placed’ in a cartouche often designed in a fairly rudimentary style. There are only two notable exceptions within this diplomatic reality, although it should be noted that the differences are more than obvious. One is the donation writ issued by Alexandru Ipsilanti in January 1778 for the Great Lavra, in which the virtues of Justice and Wisdom are anthropomorphized⁸¹. The other is the donation document issued in January 1784 by Mihail Suţu for the Karakallou Monastery, where the prince’s autograph signature is inserted in a cartouche the frame of which is configured and “filled” with a green pigment.

We may wonder if this unimpressive quality of the format and of the visual elements may have been the result of a general “decline” in the activity of the princely chancellery—due to the multiplication and diversification of bureaucratic activities—or the immediate consequence of an increasing awareness of the limited ideological implication and value of these documents among decision-makers. Further study should also address the “personal stamp” that some “professionals” in princely chancelleries brought to the process of compiling these donation documents. Future, more detailed, research based on wider corpus of such documents may one day provide some convincing answers to our present queries.