About Anthim the Iberian and his first books printed in Wallachia (The Romanian Land)

Abstract

In the pages of this study, we have presented the results of the hermeneutical analysis carried out on the texts of the Prefaces and Colophons of the first books printed by Anthim the Iberian (Antimoz Iverieli) on Romanian soil (1691–1699), which, until the present day, have not been examined and evaluated in the specialized literature from an interdisciplinary perspective (historical, philological, theological etc.).

The informed reader will be able to observe that the majority of the books printed by Anthim the Iberian were in the Greek language, and that this was due to the fact that they had been commissioned — through the mediation of Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu — by Dositheus II Notaras, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was interested not only in promoting Greek-language culture, but also in meeting the urgent need for printed books throughout the Christian East.

During the reigns of Princes Șerban Cantacuzino (1678–1688) and Constantin Brâncoveanu (1688–1714), Wallachia (the Romanian Land) became a place of refuge not only for Greeks educated in the spirit of Byzan­tine culture, but also for numerous clerics from all four Greek Patriarchates (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem), who were in need of Greek books, supplied to them both by the princely printing press and by that of the Metropolitanate of Ungro-Wallachia.