The division of the territory inhabited by Romanians into at least three large regions, each subject to different influences if not fundamentally different, represents a reality that would have led to several independent initiatives to translate the Scriptures and other texts of moral instruction into Romanian. However intense the cultural and material exchanges in the Middle Ages may have been, they did not always act in a coherent manner, making it impossible for a single group of scholars to have been responsible for such a complex dissemination of translations as the oldest preserved copies of the Psalter. I believe that each Romanian province tried, in its own way, to respond to this difficult task that arose in the Romanian landscape in the mid-fifteenth century as a result of the disputes around the restoration of Christian unity. At least four threads resulted from the merging, from which, in the sixteenth century, Romanian literature emerged.

A first source passed through the western part of present-day Romania, meaning the Banat of Severin, Crișana and northwestern Transylvania, where the confrontations between Catholicism and Orthodoxy had taken place much earlier, contact with the West was more intense, and there was a stronger need to assert identity given that, especially following the Ottoman occupation of southern Danube, the Orthodox group in medieval Hungary was increasing due to Serbian colonisation.

A second source existed in Maramureș, where coexistence with the Ruthenians and the reverberations of the culture emanating from the University of Prague increased the variety of models, as illustrated by Ioan-Florin Florescu in the exegesis he dedicated to the sources of the Tetraevanghelium printed at Sibiu between 1551-1553, and in Nagy Levente’s synthesis on the relationship between Romanians and the Protestant Reformation.

The third source appeared in Moldavia, where, after a period of hesitation between the Catholic offer from Poland and that brought by Hussite refugees from Hungary and Bohemia, the vision of the anti-unionist Metropolitan Teoctist I was imposed. As a result of his close collaboration with the voivode Stephen the Great, his relations with the Orthodox circles of Athos and Kyiv, and his correct understanding of Moldavian realities (which were deeply affected by wars for the throne but also, to a large degree, religious wars), Teoctist was best able to bring together Slavic sources of very good quality, praiseworthy acculturation initiatives and the resources of the scriptoria of Moldavian monasteries.

The fourth source developed in the interior of Transylvania, in Banat, more precisely in Lugoj-Caransebeș and Hunedoara, being the domain of the Romanian Reformed Episcopate founded in 1566. At its initiative, several editions were compiled from previous translations, and the literary repertory was enriched with its own contributions whose utility went beyond the limits between which other sources operated, including books for worship and not only those for reading. Its inheritance fell to the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Alba Iulia, which resumed the effort to translate and print in the mid-seventeenth century, bringing it into line with the most advanced standards reached at the time in publishing of holy books.

[1] Alexandru Mareș, “Considerații pe marginea datării Psaltirii Hurmuzaki” [Considerations on the Dating of the Hurmuzaki Psalter], LR XLIX, no. 4-6 (2000): 675-683.

[2] Alexandru Mareș, Scriere și cultură românească veche [Old Romanian Writing and Culture] (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 2005), 308-315.

[3] The author advances three hypotheses, depending on the date of the earliest and latest versions of the watermark with the simple anchor mark, i.e., 1501-1506, assuming that the stock was exhausted in 15 years: 1) 1491-1516; 2) before 1501 or even before 1491; 3) after 1506 or even later than 1516 (Mareș, Scriere și cultură, 314-315). The author seems to favour the second variant, by appealing to the second type of watermark, the corbel, recorded in watermark catalogues between 1460-1468 (Mareș, Scriere și cultură, 315).

[4] Ibid., 315.

[5] Alexandru Mareș, “Originalele primelor traduceri românești ale Tetraevanghelului și Psaltirii” [The Originals of the First Romanian Translations of the Tetraevangelium and Psalter], in Ion Gheție, ed., Cele mai vechi texte românești. Contribuții filologice și lingvistice [The Oldest Romanian Texts. Philological and Linguistic Contributions] (Bucharest: Bucharest University, Institute of Linguistics, 1982), 204, republished in Mareș, Scriere și cultură, 280.

[6] Pârvu Boerescu, “Dificultăți ale etimologiei limbii române: abur” [Difficulties of the Romanian Language Etymology: Abur], LR LX, no. 2 (2011): 207.

[7] In order to further underline the value of Pârvu Boerescu’s argument, I reproduce, also in extenso, one of Ion Gheție’s remarks, expressed in several of his publications, most recently in the philological study that prefaces the edition of the Hurmuzaki Psalter, edited by Mirela Teodorescu and published posthumously in 2005. In responding to the question of “in what way the presence of the elements from Hunedoara in the text of the Psalter can be explained”, Ion Gheție offers two answers: “Banat-Hunedoara is the place where the translation of the text was carried out, and in the case of a negative answer, the elaboration of an intermediate copy is placed in this area. In the latter case, the translation of the text would have been done in Moldavia, which is debatable, from where it would have wandered through Banat-Hunedoara, being copied in the local dialect, to then return to Moldavia and be ‘Moldavianised’ a second time, in terms of language. Of these two interpretations, the second, although theoretically possible, is more complicated and needs further philological-linguistic and cultural-historical evidence to be accepted”. Ion Gheție’s conclusion is firm: “We will say, therefore, that the original Hurmuzaki Psalter comes from the southwestern corner of the country (Banat-Hunedoara), and was subsequently copied in Moldavia. The existence of a Northern Transylvanian intermediary remains uncertain at the present stage of our knowledge of the historical dialectology of the Romanian language. The translation of the Hurmuzaki Psalter (as well as the other texts with rhotacism in Banat-Hunedoara) will not be a surprise to those who know that a remarkable activity of translation of religious books into Romanian took place in this region during the sixteenth century. As has been pointed out recently, the Slavo-Romanian Gospel Book of Sibiu (1551-1553); the originals of Coresi’s Cazania I, Molitvenic and the Book of Songs published in Cluj around 1570; and also the Palia of Orăștie all show signs of having originated in Banat-Hunedoara. It should be noted that while Banat-Hunedoara was a flourishing cultural centre during the sixteenth century, we lack any historical information concerning the development of any scholarly activity in Maramureș and neighbouring Transylvania before 1600. See, Psaltirea Hurmuzaki [The Hurmuzaki Psalter], vol. I, Philological study, linguistic study and edition by Ion Gheție and Mirela Teodorescu (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 2005), 20-21.

[8] According to Gheție, “there are two hypotheses that can be advanced regarding the relationship between this text [the Hurmuzaki Psalter] and the other sixteenth-century Romanian Psalters: 1) the Hurmuzaki Psalter is a reworking of the translation from which the other contemporary Psalters are derived, and 2) the Hurmuzaki Psalter is derived from another translation [e. a. A. D.] which at some point underwent some modifications by using the version from which the Scheian Psalter, the Psalter from Voroneț and the two Psalters printed by Coresi [1570 and 1577] are derived.” (Gheție and Teodorescu, Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, 21). To make the reference easier to understand, its should be read as a continuation of the quote reproduced in the previous note.

[9] Boerescu, “Dificultăți ale etimologiei”, 206-207. For the same reason I reproduce footnote 35 on p. 207: “The use of the second Romanian version seems to begin approximately on f. 68r, taking into account where the northern, archaic words and phrases exemplified above appear in the manuscript”.

[10] Note the conservative spirit of his later reference to the same detail of the dating of the Hurmuzaki Psalter: “the Hurmuzaki Psalter alone seems, according to the latest philigranological investigations, to date from the first decade of the same century [sixteenth], if not from the end of the previous century [fifteenth]” (Alexandru Mareș, Cărți populare din secolele al XVI-lea - al XVIII-lea. Contribuții filologice [Folk Books from the Sixteenth - Eighteenth Centuries. Philological Contributions] (Bucharest: Fundația Națională pentru Știință și Artă, 2006), 17).

[11] Vladimir Agrigoroaei, “Preambule à une étude sur l’hérésie et la traduction biblique au Moyen Âge et à l’aube de la Modernité”, Biblicum Jassiense VIII (2021): 15-91.

[12] Ion Gheție, “Maramureșul anilor 1500 – patrie a textelor rotacizante?” [Maramures in the 1500s – Home of the Texts with Rhotacism?], LR XVII, no. 3 (1968): 255.

[13] Ion Gheție and Alexandru Mareș, Originile scrisului în limba română [The Origins of Writing in Romanian] (Bucharest: Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, 1985), passim.

[14] Agrigoroaei, “Preambule”, passim, especially 65-59.

[15] Mareș, Cărți populare, 277-307.

[16] Ibid., 304.

[17] Apud Mareș, Cărți populare, 141, 292.

[18] Ibid., 139-140.

[19] The statement requires a brief comment. I have quoted above the information about the translation of the work Floarea darurilor from Italian into “Bogdănească”, a most explicit reference to the Moldavian origin of the translator, Gherman Valahul. Whether or not it is true, Pandele Olteanu claimed on several occasions between 1968 and 1992 that the earliest Romanian version, preserved in ms. BAR rom. 4620, descends from the original language of the reputed work. According to Alexandru Mareș, traces of this Italian translation cannot be detected in the preserved manuscript versions (Alexandru Mareș, “Moldova și cărțile populare în secolele al XVI-lea - al XVII-lea” [Moldavia and Folk Books in the Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries], in Violeta Barbu and Alexandru Mareș, eds., Floarea darurilor. In memoriam Ion Gheție (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române, 2006), 148). As their source, Alexandra Roman Moraru proposed, in 1982, a translation made in Banat-Hunedoara after a (Slavonic?) translation of the Greek version printed in Venice in 1546 (Alexandra Roman Moraru, “Cea mai veche versiune românească a Florii darurilor. Filiație și localizare” [The Oldest Romanian Version of the Floarea darurilor. Filiation and Localization of Translation], in Gheție, ed., Cele mai vechi texte românești, 263-316). The proof was republished in 1996 in a scientifically approved volume in 1992, which did not undergo any further interventions. For this reason, the monograph dedicated by Pandele Olteanu to Floarea darurilor, of whose preparation Alexandra Moraru was aware and which was printed in 1992, is annotated in 1996 as “unpublished to date” (Cele mai vechi cărți populare în literatura română [The Oldest Folk Books in Romanian Literature], vol. I, Floarea darurilor. Established text, philological and linguistic study, glossary by Alexandra Moraru (Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1996), 19, footnote 13). In his synthetic survey on the translation of folk books in 2006, Alexandru Mareș points out – albeit without comment – the conclusion of the translation in Banat-Hunedoara, but without making any reference to the broad refutation of his argument made in 1992 by Pandele Olteanu on the basis of the study published by Alexandra Moraru in 1982 (Pandele Olteanu, Floarea darurilor sau Fiore di virtù [Floarea darurilor or Fiore di virtù]. Study, critical edition, translation and glossary in comparative context (Timișoara: Editura Mitropoliei Banatului, 1992), 188-192). That this is a deliberate omission is demonstrated by the references Alexandru Mareș makes in the footnotes to the annexes of the monograph signed by Pandele Olteanu. For a historian sincerely interested in the problem and unable to handle philological arguments on his own, this deliberate concealment of a contrary and apparently well-founded point of view raises serious questions about the validity of the asserted opinion.

[20] Nagy Levente, Reforma la români. Un fenomen de transfer cultural în secolele XVI-XVII [Reform Among Romanians. A Phenomenon of Cultural Transfer in the Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries] (Oradea: Editura Ratio et Revelatio, 2021), 47-52, 86-91.

[21] One of the first Romanian Reformed centres was active in Caransebeș, and a special dietal decree was issued for the church here in 1564, to be used in common by the followers of Romanae religionis and evangelij professores (Sándor Szilágyi, ed., Monumenta Comitialia regni Transylvaniae, vol. II (Budapest: Akadémiai Könyvkiadó Hivatala, 1876), 224). The dietal act does not mention to which Protestant orientation the so-called evangelij professores (a term usually used to indicate adherents of Lutheranism, but which, in 1564 – the year of the official recognition of the Helvetic confession – could also designate Calvinists) belonged. The firm Calvinist orientation was imposed in 1585, when the new Calvinist bishop of Transylvania was explicitly given the task “to appoint trustworthy preachers [...] in Caransebeș and Lugoj and in other Romanian localities belonging to them” (Paul Binder, “Contribuții la studierea factorilor interni în problema dezvoltării scrisului în limba română (secolele XVI-XVII). Momente din istoria culturală a satului Bărăbanț” [Contributions to the Study of Internal Factors in the Development of Writing in Romanian (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries). Moments in the Cultural History of the Village of Bărăbanț], Apulum XX (1982): 175).

[22] Claudia Tărnăuceanu, Ana Maria Gînsac and Cosmin Popa-Gorjanu, “Colloquial Calque Translations, Rookie Errors, and Grammaticalization Clusters in a Latin Complaint of the Romanian Knezes from the Remete Estate, c. 1360-1380”, in Vladimir Agrigoroaei and Ileana Sasu, eds., Translation Automatisms in the Vernacular Texts of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), 31-39. Thanks are due to the editors for the opportunity to consult this text before printing.

[23] Adrian Magina, “Opțiuni confesionale în rândul nobilimii din Banat (secolele XV-XVII)” [Confessional Choices Among the Banat Nobility (Fifteenth-Seventeenth Centuries)], AȘD vol. I (Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2005): 122.

[24] Iulian-Mihai Damian, “Frati minori italiani e Banato trecentesco”, in Alvise Andreose et al., eds., Tradizioni e istituzioni religiose nello spazio culturale italo-romeno tra medioevo e prima età moderna. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi (Milano, 24-25 ottobre 2019) (Roma: Nella Sede dell’Istituto Palazzo Borromini, 2022), 51-88.

[25] Vladimir Agrigoroaei, “Pauper Paulus și mănăstirea tainică de la Sântămărie Orlea” [Pauper Paulus and the Mysterious Monastery of Sântămărie Orlea], AT 24 (2014): 183-228; Idem, “Les peintures de Strei et l’Union des deux Églises”, Museikon 2 (2018): 37-78.

[26] Szilágyi, Monumenta, vol. II, 326, art. 17.

[27] Iulian-Mihai Damian, “Inspirația, contextul și aplicarea decretului regal Privilegium Ruthenorum (1443) în Transilvania și Banat” [The Inspiration, Context and Application of the Royal Decree Privilegium Ruthenorum (1443) in Transylvania and Banat], AȘD I (Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2005): 96.

[28] Violeta Barbu, “Românii și Reforma la 1534” [The Romanians and the Protestant Reformation in 1534], in Barbu and Mareș, Floarea darurilor, 361.

[29] Palia de la Orăștie. 1581-1582. Text – Facsimile – Indice [Palia from Orăștie. 1581-1582. Text – Facsimiles – Index], ed. by Viorica Pamfil (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1968), 10-11.

[30] Nagy, Reforma la români, 96.

[31] Eugen Munteanu, Lexicologie biblică românească [Romanian Biblical Lexicology] (Bucharest: Editura Humanitas, 2008), 511.

[32] Vladimir Agrigoroaei, “The First Psalters in Old French and Their 12^th Century Context”, in Vernacular Psalters and the Early Rise of Linguistic Identities. The Romanian Case (Bucharest: Dark Publishing, 2019), 31-32. Bernard Wodecki (“Polish Translation of the Bible”, in Jože Krašovec, ed., The Interpretation of the Bible. The International Symposium in Slovenia, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series 289 (Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), p. 1202) suggests the 12^th century, a view contradicted by the fact that the earliest known Polish versions are influenced by the Czech translation, thought to date from the thirteenth century.

[33] Wodecki, “Polish Translation of the Bible”, 1204; Julia Verkholantsev, Ruthenica Bohemica. Ruthenian Translations from Czech in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland (LIT Verlag, 2008), 51; Agrigoroaei, “The First Psalters in Old French”, 32.

[34] Agrigoroaei, “The First Psalters in Old French”, 33.

[35] Renáta Modráková, “Benedictine St George’s Monastery at the Prague Castle as a Crossroad of Medieval Cultural Trends and Ideas”, in Monika Benišínova, (Trans)missions: Monasteries as Sites of Cultural Transfer (Oxford: Archaeopress Archaeology, 2022), 41.

[36] Iulian Mihai Damian, “Vetus et nova haeresis. Inchiziția franciscană la hotarul sud-estic al regatului ungar la mijlocul secolului XV” [Vetus et nova haeresis. The Franciscan Inquisition on the Southeastern Border of the Hungarian Kingdom in the Mid-Fifteenth Century], AȘD II (2006): 100; Idem, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie [John of Capestrano and the Late Crusade] (Cluj-Napoca: Centrul de Studii Transilvane, 2011), 148.

[37] Ioan-Florin Florescu, În multe chipuri de Scripturi. Studii de traductologie biblică românească [In Various Ways of Scriptures. Studies in Romanian Biblical Traductology] (Iași: Editura Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, 2015), 168, 171, 175-176, 200-201.

[38] Vladimir Agrigoroaei, “Le faux problème hussite dans la littérature vieil-roumaine”, in Eugen Munteanu, ed., Receptarea Sfintei Scripturi între filologie, hermeneutică și traductologie. Lucrările Simpozionului Național „Explorări în tradiția biblică românească și europeană”, VII, Iași, 18-20 mai 2017 [The Reception of the Holy Scriptures Between Philology, Hermeneutics and Traductology. Proceedings of the National Symposium “Explorations in the Romanian and European Biblical Tradition”, VII, Iași, 18-20 May 2017] (Iași: Editura Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, 2018), 81, 87.

[39] Damian, “Vetus et nova haeresis”, 98-99; Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, 146-147; Nagy, Reforma la români, 29-30.

[40] Borys A. Gudziak, Crisis and Reform. The Kyivan Metropolitanate, the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Genesis of the Union of Brest (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1998), 43-44; Dan Ioan Mureșan, “Isihasmul și prima etapă a rezistenței la deciziile Conciliului florentin în Moldova (1442-1447)” [Hesychasm and the First Stage of Resistance to the Decisions of the Florentine Council in Moldavia (1442-1447)], Studia hi. 44, no. 1-2, 1999: 26-28.

[41] Damian, “Inspirația, contextul și aplicarea”, 92-94; Marius Diaconescu, “On the Isidore’s Encyclical Letter Addressed from Buda on March 5^th, 1440, to the Romanians, Ruthenians and Serbs in the Kingdom of Hungary”, AUB ist. II (2011): 56-63.

[42] Marius Diaconescu, “Les implications confessionnelles du Concile du Florence en Hongrie”, MT I, no. 1-2 (1997): 34.

[43] Diaconescu, “Les implications confessionnelles”, 37; Gudziak, Crisis and Reform, 44-45; Mureșan, “Isihasmul”, 30-32; Damian, “Inspirația, contextul și aplicarea”, 94-95.

[44] Damian, “Inspirația, contextul și aplicarea”, 95-98.

[45] Gudziak, Crisis and Reform, 45.

[46] Ibid., 43-45; Dan Ioan Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando, titulaire du Patriarcat de Constantinople (1474-1497), et son role dans la politique orientale du Saint-Siège”, Annuario VIII (2006): 160, 208.

[47] Dan Ioan Mureșan, “Teoctist I și ungerea domnească a lui Ștefan cel Mare” [Theoctist I and the Royal Anointing of Stephen the Great], in Dumitru Țeicu and Ionel Cândea, eds., Românii în Europa medievală (între Orientul bizantin și Occidentul latin). Studii în onoarea profesorului Victor Spinei [Romanians in Medieval Europe (Between the Byzantine East and the Latin West). Studies in Honour of Professor Victor Spinei] (Brăila: Muzeul Brăilei, Editura Istros, 2008), 381.

[48] Mureșan, “Isihasmul”, 46-47; Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 382-383.

[49] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 184; Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 384-386, 394-398.

[50] Gudziak, Crisis and Reform, 45.

[51] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 177-178.

[52] Dan Ioan Mureșan, “De l’intronisation du métropolite Théoctiste I^er au sacre d’Étienne le Grand”, in Ștefan cel Mare și Sfânt. Atlet al credinței creștine [Stephen the Great and Holy. Athlete of the Christian Faith] (Sfânta Mănăstire Putna, 2004), 352.

[53] Mureșan, “De l’intronisation”, 365-366.

[54] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 184; Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 326-327.

[55] Gudziak, Crisis and Reform, 14.

[56] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 238-239.

[57] Gudziak, Crisis and Reform, 45-46; Mureșan, “De l’intronisation”, 359-360.

[58] Gudziak, Crisis and Reform, p. 47; Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 177-178.

[59] Documenta Pontificum Romanorum historiam Ucrainae illustratia (1075-1953), collegit introductione et adnotationibus auxit P. Athanasius G. Welykyj OSBM, vol. I (1075-1700) (Romae: Sumptibus Ucrainorum apud exteros degentium, 1953), 146.

[60] Ibid., 138-139. On the same day Calixtus III also issued Macarius’s recommendation to the King of Poland (Ibid., 140). On September 11, 1458, Pius II asked the Catholic bishops of Lviv and Przemysł to return to Bishop Macarius Galicensis the corresponding revenues collected from the united Ruthenians (Ibid., 153-154). The issuance of these documents contradicts the hypothesis that the appointment of Macarius was in fact intended as a transfer of the see somewhere in the territory of Hungary (Adrian Andrei Rusu, Ioan de Hunedoara și românii din vremea sa. Studii [John of Hunedoara and the Romanians of his Time. Studies] (Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 1999), 99-100).

[61] Menyhért Érdujhelyi, “Magyarországi gör. katholikusok a mohácsi vész előtt” [The Greek Catholics in Hungary Before the Mohács Disaster], Katholikus Szemle 11, no. 1 (1897): 44-53.

[62] Diaconescu, “Les implications confessionnelles”, 49-51; Rusu, Ioan de Hunedoara, 99-101; Mureșan, “De l’intronisation”, 359-360, 370; Dan Ioan Mureșan, “Bessarion et l’Église de rite Byzantin du royaume de Hongrie (1463-1472)”, in Christian Gastgeber et all., eds., Matthias Corvinus und seine Zeit. Europa am Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit zwischen Wien und Konstantinopel (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2011), 83-84, 91-92.

[63] Микола Вегеш, Степан Віднянський, “Цікаве дослідження про подільського князя Федора Корятовича – володаря Мукачівського замку. Рец. на: Федака С. Д. «Ми, Федір Корятович, з ласки Божої князь із Мункача ...»: історичний нарис. Ужгород: Карпати, 2017. 136 с., іл.” [An Interesting Study About the Prince of Podil Fedor Koryatovych – The Owner of the Mukachevo Castle. Review at: Fedaka S. D. “We, Fedor Koryatovych, by the grace of God, the prince from Munkach ...”: Historical Essay. Uzhgorod: Karpaty, 2017. 136 pp., illustrations], Краєзнавство 3 (2019): 284-287.

[64] Aleksandar Krstić, “Familiares of the Serbian despots in and from the territory of Banat (1411-1458)”, in Zoltan Iusztin, ed., Politics and Society in the Central and South-Eastern Europe (13th – 16th centuries) (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Mega, 2019), 94-95.

[65] Krstić, “Familiares”, 103, 106.

[66] Александар Крстић, “Деспот Ћураћ Вуковић и закуп коморе у Наћбањи” [Despot Đurić Vuković and the Lease of the Chamber in Baia Mare], Историјски Часопис LXIV (2015): 252.

[67] Diaconescu, “Les implications confessionnelles”, 38.

[68] The information comes from a letter addressed by the Franciscan monk John of Capestrano to Pope Calixtus III on July 4, 1455, in which he describes in detail the duplicitous policy of the despot Đurađ Vuković-Branković towards the Florentine Union, noting among numerous accusations that: Gloriatur proinde habuisse a praefato praedecessore vestrae sanctitatis bullam aedificandi novem loca in regno Hungariae, ubi manutenere vult calogeros graecos, qui omnino dicunt Spiritum sanctum non procedere scilicet a filio; qui negant purgatorium esse, qui inficiantur animas quorumcunque sanctorum nullam gloriam usque ad diem iudicii habere; nec animas quorumcunque damnatorum aliquam poenam pati usque ad iudicium, et multa alia, quae longum esset enarrare (Acta Bosnae potissimum ecclesiastica cum insertis editorum documentorum regestis ab anno 925 usque ad annum 1752. Collegit et digessit P. Eusebius Fermendžin, Zagrabie, 1892, 225). For the context in which John of Capestrano’s accusations were made, see Diaconescu, “Les implications confessionnelles”, 38-40. The existence of the monasteries is confirmed by the correspondence between the despot and Pope Nicholas V in 1453; for the context in which this correspondence took place, see Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, 105-106, 114. As a result of the conflict with the Hunyadi family, the descendants of the despot Đurađ Vuković-Branković lost all their possessions in Hungary in 1459 (Krstić, “Familiares”, 109), and the Serbian communities of the first wave of colonization were dissolved after the disappearance of the Hungarian Kingdom and the emergence of the Pashalik of Buda in 1541. No evidence survives of the monasteries he founded under the protection of the privileges granted by Pope Nicholas V in 1453.

[69] Georgius Fejér, Genus, incunabula et virtus Joannis Corvini de Hunyad, regni Hungariae gubernatoris, argumentis criticis illustrata (Budae: Typis Typogr. Regiae Universitatis Ungaricae, 1844), 152.

[70] Lajos Thallóczy and Antal Áldásy, eds., Codex diplomaticus partium Regno Hungariae Adnexarum, vol. II. A Magyarország és Szerbia Közti Összeköttetések Oklevéltára, 1198-1526 [Documentary Archive of Hungarian-Serbian Ties, 1198-1526] (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1907), 150.

[71] Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, 104.

[72] Acta Bosnae, 225.

[73] Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, 122-128.

[74] Diaconescu, “Les implications confessionnelles”, 41; Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, 106.

[75] Iulian Mihai Damian, “Iancu de Hunedoara, Ioan de Capestrano și Biserica transilvană de rit răsăritean: noi mărturii despre mitropolitul Ioan «de Caffa»” [John of Hunedoara, John of Capestrano and the Transylvanian Church of the Eastern Rite: New Testimonies about Metropolitan John “of Caffa”], AIIX XLIII-XLIV (2006-2007): 1-14; Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, 129-136.

[76] Damian, “Iancu de Hunedoara”, 5, 11-12.

[77] Damian, Ioan de Capestrano și Cruciada Târzie, 130, n. 125. Attention is drawn to a namesake, Macarius, former Metropolitan of Serres, who retired to a monastery in Athos after 1445 and was also among the intimates of Isidore of Kyiv, who wrote him a letter, the date of which is apparently unknown.

[78] Diaconescu, “Les implications confessionnelles”, 57.

[79] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 216.

[80] Rusu, Ioan de Hunedoara, 100-105.

[81] Marius Porumb, Biserica arhiepiscopală din Feleac, ctitoria lui Ștefan cel Mare [The Archiepiscopal Church of Feleac, the Foundation of Stephen the Great] (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Renașterea, 2003), 12-13.

[82] Jakó Zsigmond, A kolozsmonostori konvent jegyzőkönyvei (1289-1556) [The Registers of the Convent from Cluj-Mănăștur], vol. I (1289-1484) (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1990), 329, no. 569.

[83] Rusu, Ioan de Hunedoara, 101-106.

[84] Gudziak, Crisis and Reform, 52; Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 230.

[85] Diaconescu, “Les implications confessionnelles”, 56.

[86] August Treboniu Laurianu, ed., Magazinu istoriku pentru Dacia [Historical Magazine for Dacia], vol. III (București: Cu tipariul Colegiului Național, 1845), 178.

[87] Ana Dumitran, “The Chronology of the Murals in the Râmeț Monastic Church (Alba County, Romania) Based on a Reevaluation of the Dating of the Narthex Inscription”, Museikon, 4 (2020): 148-149.

[88] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 237-238.

[89] Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 376-377.

[90] Mureșan, “Isihasmul”, 21-24.

[91] Ibid., 25; Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 378-379.

[92] Mureșan, “Isihasmul”, 42-43; Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 382-384.

[93] Mureșan, “Isihasmul”, 50-52, 54-55.

[94] Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 394-398.

[95] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 186-191.

[96] Pârvu Boerescu, Din istoria scrierii românești. Preliminarii teoretice. Alfabetul româno-chirilic. Vechea scriere româno-latină (1570-1830). Crearea alfabetului românesc modern [From the History of Romanian Writing. Theoretical Preliminaries. The Romanian Cyrillic Alphabet. The Old Romanian-Latin Script (1570-1830). Creation of the Modern Romanian Alphabet] (București: Editura Academiei Române, 2014), 103.

[97] Mureșan, “De l’intronisation”, 341-342; Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 219; Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 381.

[98] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 189.

[99] Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 409-411.

[100] Ibid., 411-413.

[101] Ibid., 340-343, 416.

[102] Ibid., 323-326.

[103] Maria Magdalena Székely and Ștefan S. Gorovei, Maria Asanina Paleologhina. O prințesă bizantină pe tronul Moldovei [Maria Asanina Palaiologina. A Byzantine Princess on the Throne of Moldavia] (Sfânta Mănăstire Putna, 2006), 69-70. The earliest known official use of this title is in the vicinity of the votive miniature in the Tetraevangelium of Humor, which was completed in June 1473. The absence of the voivode’s wife from the image is interpreted by D. I. Mureșan as a protest on the part of the miniaturist monk Nicodemus of Putna against the new political orientation of Stephen the Great, while the title of tsar was meant to remind him of his legal obligation to remain a defender of Orthodoxy (Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 219-220, n. 295). As it was not intended for the personal use of the ruler, but for that of the Humor monastery, this kind of psychological effect can be excluded. So can Nicodemus’ alleged initiative to carry out only part of the patron’s order, at least until radiological analysis confirms that the white area in the lower right half was never painted. See also https://www.putna.ro/Tetraevanghel-s3-ss2-c1-cc1.php (accessed on 30.10.2022).

[104] Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 327-329.

[105] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 204-205. See also Ștefan S. Gorovei, “1473: Ștefan al Moldovei și lumea catolică” [1473: Stephen of Moldavia and the Catholic World], AIIX XXIX (1992): 77: “Stephen the Great’s action, triggered in 1473, must be seen as part of Pope Sixtus the Fourth’s projects” (author’s emphasis, Șt. S. G.).

[106] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 211.

[107] Ibid., 212, 215.

[108] Ibid., 234, 236, 237.

[109] Székely and Gorovei, Maria Asanina Paleologhina, 183.

[110] Mureșan, “Girolamo Lando”, 237-239.

[111] Francis J. Thomson, “The Slavonic Translation of the Old Testament”, in Jože Krašovec, ed., The Interpretation of the Bible. The International Symposium in Slovenia. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series 289 (Sheffield Academic Press, 1998): 873-878.

[112] Moshe Taube, “The Fifteenth-Century Ruthenian Translations from Hebrew and the Heresy of the Judaizers: Is There a Connection?”, in Vyacheslav V. Ivanov and Julia Verkholantsev, eds., Speculum Slaviae Orientalis: Muscovy, Ruthenia and Lithuania in the Late Middle Ages (Moscow: Novoe ozdatel’stvo, 2005), 189-198.

[113] Taube, “The Fifteenth-Century Ruthenian Translations”, 197-198.

[114] Dmytro Čyževs’kyj, A History of Ukrainian Literature (From the 11^th to the End of the 19^th Century), Second Edition, with An Overview of the Twentieth Century, Edited and with a Foreword by George S. N. Luckyj (New York and Englewood, Colorado: The Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences and Ukrainian Academic Press, 1997), 230-232; Taube, “The Fifteenth-Century Ruthenian Translations”, 190-191; Mikhail Beider, “On the Frontiers of Sacred Spaces: the Relations between Jews and Orthodox Christians in the Early Modern Ruthenian Lands on the Example of Religious Proselytism and Apostasy” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Free University of Berlin and Charles University in Prague, May 10, 2016, accesed in 31.10.2022, https://d-nb.info/1121007759/34), 41-50.

[115] Taube, “The Fifteenth-Century Ruthenian Translations”, 187; Beider, On the Frontiers of Sacred Spaces, 21-31.

[116] “The Slavonic Translation”, 650-664; Beider, On the Frontiers of Sacred Spaces, 50.

[117] Taube, “The Fifteenth-Century Ruthenian Translations”, 202-203.

[118] Ibid., 201.

[119] Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 327-329, 351; Beider, On the Frontiers of Sacred Spaces, 53, 59.

[120] Beider, On the Frontiers of Sacred Spaces, 53: Elena was the daughter of Evdokia of Kyiv, who was the sister of Mikhailo Olelkovich, whose retinue included the Jew Zachariah, a man with a vast knowledge of astrology, astronomy, necromancy and magic, who arrived in Novgorod in 1470 and is considered the founder of the Jewish sect. Fedor Kuritsyn, one of the leaders of the Judaizing movement, served long missions at the court of Stephen the Great in the 1480s as head of Ivan III’s diplomacy. See also Taube, “The Fifteenth-Century Ruthenian Translations”, 185-186, 201.

[121] Thomson, “The Slavonic Translation”, 881.

[122] Verkholantsev, Ruthenica Bohemica, 27, 33-35, 43-50; Agrigoroaei, “Preambule”, 36-37.

[123] Verkholantsev, Ruthenica Bohemica, 51.

[124] Ibid., 87-89; Agrigoroaei, “Preambule”, 37.

[125] Verkholantsev, Ruthenica Bohemica, 52-69, 71-85; Agrigoroaei, “Preambule”, 37-38.

[126] Giuseppe Perri, “Print Culture in Early Modern Ukraine and Its Ukrainian Historiography”, in Stefan Kiedroń, Anna-Maria Rimm, in co-operation with Patrycja Poniatowska, eds., Early Modern Print Culture in Central Europe. Proceeding of the young scholars section of the Wrocław seminars, September 2013 (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2014), 131.

[127] Verkholantsev, Ruthenica Bohemica, 27.

[128] Ibid., 26.

[129] Viorel Ciubotă, “Tetraevangheliarul slavon de la 1546 tipărit la Sibiu – exemplarul din biblioteca Universității Naționale din Ujgorod” [The 1546 Slavonic Tetraevangelium Printed in Sibiu – The Copy in the Library of the National University of Uzhgorod], SC - Satu Mare XXX/II (2014): 16-19; Evangheliarul slavo-român de la Sibiu. 1551-1553, Studiu introductiv filologic de acad. Emil Petrovici, Studiu introductiv istoric de L. Demény [The Romanian-Slavonic Gospel Book of Sibiu. 1551-1553, Introductory philological study by Acad. Emil Petrovici, Introductory historical study by L. Demény] (București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1971), 84; Andrei Eșanu and Valentina Eșanu, “Filip Moldoveanul (?-1554), primul tipograf de limbă română” [Filip Moldoveanul (?-1554), the First Romanian-Language Typographer], RIM Chișinău, no. 1-2 (117-118) (2019): 19.

[130] Gabriel Ștrempel et al., ed., Manuscrise slavone și românești din Biblioteca Universității Naționale din Ujgorod: catalog [Slavonic and Romanian Manuscripts from the Library of the Ujhgorod National University: Catalogue] (Satu Mare: Editura Muzeului Sătmărean, 2012), 49-51.

[131] Ibid., 52-56.

[132] Ibid., 68-71.

[133] Ibid., 79-83.

[134] Ibid., 72-75.

[135] Ibid., 136-140.

[136] Boerescu, “Dificultăți ale etimologiei”, 206-207.

[137] See quotes in footnote 8.

[138] Andrei Avram, Nazalitatea și rotacismul în limba română [Nazality and Rhotacism in Romanian] (București: Editura Academiei, 1990), 134-136: “Without wishing to discuss here the complicated problem of the localization of the texts with rhotacism, we only mention that one of the three psalters, PH, is characterised by a linguistic peculiarity which we cannot attribute (and no one has attributed) to Banat and which, in all likelihood, does not originate either from the languages spoken in Moldavia.”

“Examining the spelling of the PH text, I concluded that it reflects the stage of evolution of the lat. N intervocalic, which I defined as the first phase of rhotacism (with the mention of nasality), a conclusion based on the observation that words with rhotacism are usually written with иr (the most frequent spelling) or ⅝r; the rare cases when r is written can be classified in the general phenomenon of “zero notation” or are the result of the copyist's negligence [...]. In our opinion, if the PH reflected a language with rhotacism that had reached the phase existing in Moldavia since the fifteenth century, it would be expected that this text would contain exclusively the r spelling – as in the Slavonic documents of the same century (and as in the Romanian documents and letters written in the aforementioned province in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries  [...]) – or at least the use of the r spelling would be, in words with rhotacism, much more frequent than the иr and ⅝r spellings (as in PS and PV, where the r spelling appears ‘almost regularly’ [...]). Excluding the implausible hypothesis that the original from the province of Banat was copied in Moldavia at a time when the northern languages of this province still preserved the first phase of rhotacism, i.e. before the fifteenth century, when the earliest records of the second phase of the rhotacism with [r] date from [...] – , we are obliged to admit that PH does not represent a language characterized by the phase of rhotacism existing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in that region and, consequently, to turn our attention to areas of the Dacoromanian linguistic system where the denasalization of vowels in forms like [lũră] occurred later than in Moldavia. In the Voronetian Codex both phases of rhotacism, with and without nasalization, are recorded. Therefore, the fact that in PH there are usually spellings of the type of lunră (lu⅝ră) and that, at the time when this text can be assumed to have been translated and copied, only spellings of the type of lură appear in Slavonic documents written in Moldavia supports the view that rhotacism in PH is a feature originating in a language spoken in Maramureș or a nearby region in northern Transylvania, not in a language spoken in northern Moldavia.”

Ibid., 217-218: “We assume that the transition from pre-rhotacism to the first phase of rhotacism [lũṅă] > [lură] did not occur anywhere before the separation of the Istro-Romanian dialect from Dacoromanian (thus in a period beginning no later than the fourteenth century. In some languages of Ardeal and Maramureș rhotacism is later than the fifteenth century (in fact, [ṅ] still exists, together with [r], in some rhotacistic languages). The transition from the first to the second phase of rhotacism took place in Moldavia earlier than in the rhotacistic languages (or at least part of the rhotacistic languages) of the other two aforementioned provinces. [...] In Maramureș rhotacism – for which we have evidence that can give us clues as to the absolute chronology of palatalization and rhotacism – is posterior to 1500.”

[139] See n. 4.

[140] For which see the studies of Iosif Camară, “Cele mai vechi Psaltiri românești și redacțiile Psaltirii slavone” [The Oldest Romanian Psalters and the Redactions of the Slavonic Psalter], Caietele Sextil Pușcariu V (2021): 72-81, and “New Information on the Slavonic Sources of the Oldest Romanian Psalters”, Paleobulgarica XLVI, no. 1 (2022): 81-94.

[141] Ioan Mihalyi de Apșa, Diplome maramureșene din secolul XIV și XV [Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries Diplomas from Maramureș] (Sighet: Tipografia lui Mayer și Berger, 1900), 536-537.

[142] Diaconescu, “Les implications confessionnelles”, p. 52-53.

[143] For the last discussion concerning this mention, long debated in Romanian historiography, see Nagy, Reforma la români, 18-19.

[144] Gheție and Mareș, Originile scrisului în limba română, 339-342.

[145] At least that is what the expressions “the Banat-Hunedoara – western Transylvanian language” and “the southwestern quarter of the country, i.e., Banat-Hunedoara and neighbouring areas” imply (Ion Gheție, “Banatul și textele rotacizante” [Banat and the Rhotacistic Texts], LR XXXI, no. 3 (1982): 239; Gheție and Mareș, Originile scrisului în limba română, 195, 198, 202, 206 (with the explicit mention of Crișana), 263, 300. For the exegesis on which these expressions are based, see Ion Gheție, Baza dialectală a românei literare [The Dialectal Basis of Literary Romanian] (București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1975), 238-242.

[146] Names such as Luca Muncăceanul (from Munkács), Pavel Cotuna Muncăceanul, Ioan Muncăceanul, Vasile Sturze Moldoveanul (from Moldavia), Agaton Moldoveanul, deacon Ioan from Moldavia, Ioniță Voița Suceveanul (from Suceava), Popa Ioan from Țara Leșească [from Poland], Alexandru Eustafie originally from Galicia complete the list of seventeenth- to eighteenth-century pilgrim scholars found in Crișana (Florian Dudaș, Vechile manuscrise românești din Țara Bihorului [Old Romanian Manuscripts from Bihor Country], vol. I (Oradea: Biblioteca revistei „Familia”, 2007), passim.

[147] Mariana Combiescu, “Psaltirea de la Mehadia” [The Psalter of Mehadia], LR XVII, no. 3 (1968): 259-268; Alexandra Roman, “Psaltirile românești din secolele al XVII-lea și al XVIII-lea. Probleme de filiație” [Romanian Psalters of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Problems of Filiation], LR XXIII, no. 3 (1974): 233-242; Gheorghe Chivu, “Psaltirea – de la litera la spiritul textului sacru. Considerații asupra unui manuscris moldovenesc de la mijlocul secolului al XVII-lea” [The Psalter – From Letter to the Spirit of the Sacred Text. Considerations on a Moldavian Manuscript from the Mid-Seventeenth Century], Text și discurs religios I (2009): 37-43.

[148] “Before the Council of Florence, following the example of other nations whose languages were derived from the Roman language, the Moldavians used Latin characters. However, after the Metropolitan of Moldavia had switched to the Papist faction at that council, [...] his successor, the deacon of Mark of Ephesus, a Bulgarian by birth, named Theoctist, in order to further extinguish any papist seed in the Moldavian Church and to deprive the youth of the power to read the sophisms of the papists, advised Alexander the Good not only to expel from his country those who thought otherwise about the holy things, but also the Latin letters, and to replace them with the Slavonic ones” (Dimitrie Cantemir, Descrierea Moldovei, traducere după originalul latin de Gheorghe Guțu [Description of Moldavia, translation from the Latin original by Gheorghe Guțu] (București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1973), 371). For a synthesis of the interpretations given to this passage, accompanied by the placement of Cantemir’s opinion alongside the statements made by previous chroniclers, see Alexandru Mareș, “Despre un pasaj controversat din Descrierea Moldovei” [On a Controversial Passage in the Description of Moldavia], LR LXVII, no. 1 (2018): 65-89. From the bibliography referred to and discussed, the study dedicated by Dan Ioan Mureșan to the biography of Metropolitan Teoctist I, in which all the seemingly unsubstantiated statements of Dimitrie Cantemir are analysed with the utmost accuracy, offering credible and very well-documented solutions, is missing. See Mureșan, “De l’intronisation du métropolite Théoctiste I^er”, 337-374. In his latest return to the subject, Dan Ioan Mureșan convincingly clarifies the replacement of the practice of the predominant use of Latin in the voivodal chancellery by Slavonic, following Alexander the Good’s awareness of the secret agreement between his Polish suzerain and the King of Hungary to divide Moldavia, established by the Treaty of Lublin in 1412. Later that year, Alexander the Good brought the relics of St John the New to Moldavia; accepted the new metropolitan sent by the Ecumenical Patriarch; became the protector of the Zographou monastery, from where he transferred the monumental Slavonic literary corpus of Euthymius of Tărnovo; divorced Anna Ringałła, the sister of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytold; granted protection to the Hussites; and entered into open military conflict with Poland (Dan Ioan Mureșan, “Sauver l’héritage d’Euthyme de Tărnovo. Le patriarche Joseph II, la Moldavie et Zoghraphou”, in Марко Скарпа et al., eds., Религиозен разцвет България XIII – XV в. / Floraison religieuse Bulgarie XIII^e – XV^e s. Долади от Международната научна конференция София, 12-13 юли 2019 г. (София: Кирило-Методиевски студии, книга 30, 2021), 136-137. Only the inclusion of Metropolitan Theoctist in Dimitrie Cantemir’s speech remains unexplained, after the dating of Moldavia’s relations with Zographou could be traced back to the first decades of the fifteenth century (Ibid., 110-112). Prior to the discovery of the edifying document in 1416, Dan Ioan Mureșan attributed to the metropolitans Damian and Theoctist, both of Bulgarian origin, the initiative to bring to Moldavia the cultural heritage of Euthymius of Tărnovo (Dan Ioan Mureșan, “Zographou et la transmission de l’idée impériale bulgare en Moldavie”, Bulgaria mediaevalis 2 (2011): 736-737).

[149] Mureșan, “Teoctist I”, 385-386.

[150] It is precisely for this reason that I consider it unnecessary to discuss here the presence in the Scheian Psalter of the Athanasian Symbol with the Filioque, whose translation and association with the Psalter text would most likely have occurred in the sixteenth century, in the context of the pro-Reformation reigns of the first decades of the second half of the century. The Scheian Psalter itself, which philigranological analysis has dated to between 1573 and 1578, may have been composed during just such a reign, namely that of John the Terrible (Ioan Vodă cel Cumplit) (1572-1574). For the dating of the translation of the Athanasian Symbol see Alexandru Mareș, “Note despre prezența Simbolului atanasian în vechile texte românești” [Notes on the Presence of the Athanasian Symbol in Ancient Romanian Texts], in Mariana Mangiulea, ed., In honorem Gheorghe Mihăilă (București: Editura Universității din București, 2010), 169-176 (with the previous bibliography). For the dating of the Skeian Psalter see Alexandru Mareș, “Datarea Psaltirilor Scheiană și Voronețeană” [The Dating of the Skeian and Voronetian Psalters], LR XXXIII, no. 3 (1984): 191-198. For Moldavia’s relations with the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, see Șerban Papacostea, “Moldova în epoca Reformei. Contribuții la istoria societății moldovenești în veacul al XVI-lea” [Moldavia in the Reformation Era. Contributions to the History of Moldavian Society in the Sixteenth Century], Studii Rev. Ist. XI, no. 4 (1958): 55-76, and Maria Crăciun, Protestantism și ortodoxie în Moldova secolului al XVI-lea [Protestantism and Orthodoxy in Sixteenth-Century Moldavia] (Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 1996).

[151] See the studies of Iosif Camară, mentioned in n. 141.

[152] Florescu, În multe chipuri de Scripturi, 168, 171, 175-176, 200-201.

[153] In 1502, the Venetians knew that Mount Athos was under the protection of “dil Carabodan”, cf. Ștefan Andreescu, “Ștefan cel Mare ca protector al Muntelui Athos” [Stephen the Great as Protector of Mount Athos], AIIA Iași XIX (1982): 653. Regarding a psalter with numerous Romanian handwritings which belonged to the Zographou monastery and has proven to be a real key to decoding how the Serbian version – represented today by the Belgrade Psalter and identified as the main source of the Romanian protograph – was diffused, see Iosif Camară, “New Information on the Slavonic Sources of the Oldest Romanian Psalters”, Paleobulgarica XLVI, no. 1 (2022): 84-85. Regarding the long-standing relations between Zographou Monastery and Moldavia, see Mureșan, “Sauver l’héritage d’Euthyme de Tărnovo”, 110-112, 123-129. Mureșan analyses a document which attests, for the year 1416, the quality of “ktetor and benefactor” Alexander the Good for the Athonite monastery. Patronage of the monastery was transferred in that year to the Moldavian voivode by the last descendant of the Bulgarian dynasty, Joseph II, who was at that time holder of the office of Ecumenical Patriarch. The purpose of this document is said to have been to delimit the framework in which a community of Moldavian monks, including the young Gavril Uric, was established at Zographou. The monastery’s mission was to copy and send to Moldavia the entire corpus of the Menaia compiled by Patriarch Euthymius of Tărnovo (Ibid., 127-129).

[154] Camară, “New Information on the Slavonic Sources of the Oldest Romanian Psalters”, passim.

[155] On the exclusion of northeastern Transylvania, see Andrei Avram, “Cu privire la cronologia transformării în africate a oclusivelor (pre)palatale în graiurile dacoromâne” [On the Chronology of the Transformation of (Pre)palatal Occlusives into Affricates in Dacoromanian Languages], SCL XXX, no. 3 (1979): 214.

[156] Gheție, Baza dialectală a românei literare, 239.

[157] Ibid., 206.