Hramul vechiului paraclis al mănăstirii Comana. Note privind cultul sfinților Eftimie și Spiridon în țările române
The patron saints of the Comana monastery chapel (17th- 18th centuries)

Summary/Abstract: The ancient chapel of the Comana monastery, built in 1703, but no longer in existence, was dedicated to Saint Euthymius the Great and to Saint Spyridon of Trimythous. At the beginning of the eighteenth-century, these two saints were rather an unusual choice in the Romanian principalities. The present study aims to identify the context in which they had been introduced and adopted as patron saints in this region. Saint Spyridon was venerated as a protector against plague and I could follow the spreading of his cult through the foundations of several princely families, such as the Cantacuzenos, the Mavrocordatos and the Ghica. Moreover, Saint Spyridon became a patron saint of the furriers’ and shoemakers’ guilds. The cult of Saint Spyridon displays the same, post-Byzantine, features in the Romanian principalities, as in Corfu. Thus, in the seventeenth-century Corfu several miracles have been recorded, attesting Saint Spyridon’s effectiveness as a plague healer. Most likely, his cult was disseminated in the Romanian principalities by the Epirot merchants and craftsmen. Presumably, some of these Epirots who settled down in Wallachia and Moldavia publicized Saint Spyridon among the princely families and among the Romanian merchant communities.

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