Metropolitan Anthimos the Iberian of Wallachia pastored in a particularly troubled period of our
history, a time when the ruler Constantin Brancoveanu had to make a real balancing act between the
policies of the three great empires of the time that had an interest in Wallachia: Ottoman, Habsburg and the tsarist Empire together with the kingdom of Poland, witch also had strong interests in the
mouths of the Danube.
Metropolitan Anthimos felt the full effect of the mixture of the powerful of those times in the affairs
of his adoptive country. Regarding his connections with Constantinople, they can be summarized: 1.
His exile among the Turks, when he spent some time in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, close to
the Ecumenical Patriarchate. 2. his activity in Wallachia, where he sought to support the Orthodox
Christians under Turkish rule, and therefore the Greeks in Constantinople. 3. His involvement in
theological disputes of the time and his support of the Constantionopolitan Ioan Cariofi l, falsely
accused of Lutheran-Calvinism. 4. His request for support from the Ecumenical Patriarchate on
the confrontation regarding the canonical jurisdiction that he had with the Patriarch of Jerusalem,
Hrysanthos Notaras. 5. His defrocking by the Ecumenical Patriarch and his Synod, at the request of
Prince Nicholas Mavrocordatos. 6. His rehabilitation through the lifting of defrocking by the Synod
of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1966.
His connections with Constantinople, in general, and the Ecumenical Patriarch, in particular, clearly
show his qualities of fairness, fi rmness and pastoral zeal throughout his whole life.
Keywords: Metropolitan Anthimos of Iberia, Constantinople, Constantin Brancoveanu, Nicholas
Mavrocordatos, printing, Phanariot rulers, Romanian culture

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