CONTRIBUŢII LA BIOGRAFIA UNUI IERARH DIN MOLDOVA VEACULUI AL XVI-LEA: NICANOR, MITROPOLITUL SUCEVEI
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE BIOGRAPHY OF A HIERARCH FROM 16th-CENTURY MOLDAVIA: NICANOR, THE SUCEAVA METROPOLITAN

Summary/Abstract: The Church history of Moldavia in the last quarter of the 16th-century is complex in terms of the effects of political instability on the ecclesiastical plan. One of the hierarchs of which little is known is Nicanor, considered founder and abbot of the “Agapia Veche” (Old Agapia) monastery, who became bishop of Roman, locum tenens metropolitan of Moldavia, then metropolitan, being a special case for that period, provoking historiographical debates, due to the fact that he was demoted from the position of metropolitan to that of bishop of Roman by prince Aron Vodă “the Tyrant”. He had retired several times to the Agapia monastery, and played an important role in the Synod of Iași, organised in 1600 by Michael the Brave, which decided to nominate new hierarchs to the vacant episcopal sees left by those who had fled from Moldavia with Ieremia Movilă. In this article, I provide some contributions concerning Nicanor՚s connections with princes of Moldavia, on his beginnings in ecclesiastical life, about his cursus honorum, and his activity as a hierarch and retired bishop, by analysing some less researched and contextualised sources, in particular a dedicatory annotation on a manuscript preserved in the National Library in Sofia.

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