Page:Nicolae Iorga - My American lectures.djvu/38

 so exclusive were the rights of the ruling prince in matters of the church — without need to seek the advice of the Metropolitan—that Mihnea Radu, in the middle of the 17th century, arrogated to himself the hitherto purely Constantinian privilege of introducing new rules into the statutes for the organisation of Orthodox churches. This was the natural result of his being the helper, benefactor and adviser of all Patriarchs in the Orthodoxy as well as of their subordinate bishops. For the monks of the Holy Mountain, enriched by Roumanian gifts (for which the existing relics and monuments stand eloquent testimony), for those of the Thessalian monasteries, for the Hierosolymitans and many other oriental Christians, the Moldavian or Wallachian ruler of the moment was the successor of the emperor of Constantinople and not only in their local foundations, but also in the most celebrated churches of Christendom. In portraits they are often represented wearing ecclesiastical garments and crowned in the manner of the Caesars.

A prince ruling the church; priests leading their village congregations; monks (except in the great houses of calligraphers, translators and artists, Bistrița in Wallachia, and Neamț in Moldavia — the reform by the Russian Paisij, to create new abodes of learning, not occuring until the 18th century) who were formerly peasants, modest tillers of the soil; bishops for canonical occasions only, permitting this church to be included in the great organism of the eastern Patriarchates; this was the Roumanian religious life in both principalities.

For all this there would appear to have been no authority emanating from Constantinople, nor would this seem to have been possible. In the beginnings of the Wallachian hierarchy, the Bishop of Vicina at the mouth of the Danube was entrusted with the care of the new