Keywords: Orthodox Church, monasticism, Balkans, Romania, Greece, Mount Athos, politics, chauvinism
Abstract:
The present article discusses an older Balkanian issue, which can still teach us a history lesson, which the European or Balkanian peoples might find necessary, namely that of the 19th-century Greek chauvinism. This attitude had several consequences in the Romanian monastic space at Mount Athos, and also in the political and ecclesiastic area, in general with reference to the Greek-Romanian relations. The chapters of the article are: I. “the Great Greek Idea” in the Balkans and the effects of Greek propaganda on the Romanian Skete Prodromos at Mount Athos; II. The Slav propaganda, of the Russian government, at Mount Athos; III. The National significance of the Romanian Skete Prodromos in the Context of the Romanian State Policy towards the South-Danubian Romanians; III.1. The Evolution of the Issue of the Romanian Schools and Churches in the Balkanian space in 1870-1890; III.2. The Cultural and National Significances of the Romanian Skete Prodromos in the Context of the General Cultural Policy of the Romanian State to Support the Romanian “National Renaissance”, in Balkans. There were several diplomatic steps undertaken by the Romanian state authorities to analyse together with the Ecumenical Patriarchate (in 1870) several issues like: the protection and the preservation of national and ecclesiastic autonomy of Romanian Skete Prodromos. Their declared intention was to support the Romanian monastic village at Mount Athos in the larger context of supporting the actions of cultural, ecclesiastical and national emancipation of the south-Danubian people in Balkanic Peninsula in the second half of the 19th century. The ecclesiastical-canonical arguments, presented by the Ecumenical Patriarchate (which echoed the ecclesiastical political interests of the Greek nation in the Ottoman Empire) did not always coincide with the Romanian national ecclesiastical thinking. There were different points of view which referred to different national and territorial principles specific to the Church autonomy and autocephaly in the second half of the 19th century.
Pages: 93-109