The Diocese of Râmnic – Noul Severin has been led by a number of worthy hierarchs, who have brought honour to this important episcopal see. Among them, we remember with special honour Bishop Climent 1, who is little known, as textbooks and specialist works have devoted relatively little space in their pages to this worthy hierarch, who carried out admirable scholarly and administrative work during his 13 years of ministry.
Climent was born around 1685 in the village of Pietrarii de Jos, in the county of Vâlcea, to Paraschiva and Radu Modoran; one of his brothers, Mihail, was a priest, another, Simeon, a village headman, whilst a sister, Ștefana, was a nun, having previously been a priest’s wife. He entered monastic life at Hurezi Monastery, and in 1732 the Austrian administration of Oltenia appointed him abbot of Bistrița Monastery, the beautiful foundation of the Craiovești family, which he led until 28 June 1735, when he was elected Bishop of Râmnic, a position subsequently confirmed by the Emperor in Vienna. His ordination, however, did not take place until May 1737 2. Following his ordination, Bishop Climent travelled to Sibiu, where he swore an oath of allegiance to the Emperor before General Wallis, and also met with delegates from Brașov 3.
His ministry, which began amidst much turmoil, continued under even sadder circumstances due to the fact that, in June 1737, Austria and Russia went to war against the Ottoman Empire. Military events unfolded in such a way that the Turkish troops, far outnumbering their opponents, achieved victories in the territories annexed by the Habsburg Empire under the Treaty of Passarowitz, including Oltenia. General Ghillany, who commanded the Austrian troops, was forced to retreat into Transylvania due to the Turks, crossing the Carpathians in the second half of October 1737. On the 27th of that same month in 1737, ‘the detachment remaining at Craiova under the command of Colonel Salhausen, the president of the Austrian administration’4 also withdrew. With his withdrawal, Austrian rule in Oltenia also came to an end 5.
At this point in Bishop Climent’s life, historians have recorded many views regarding the decision he took concerning his relationship with these empires. Below, based on documents and reliable information, we shall attempt to express our view on the period from the outbreak of the war until December 1737 in the life of Bishop Climent.
The Great Memorial Book of the Archdiocese of Râmnic mentions this period in Bishop Climent’s life, stating that: ‘Because the Germans had ruled these five counties for 21 years, when the year 7246 (1738), the Turks rose up in war against the Germans, defeated them, drove them out of this country, and burnt this Bishopric, the holy church and all the surrounding houses; and as everything was destroyed and lay in ruins, utter desolation befell them; and, with no place left to live, this priest fled over the mountains to Lotru, for even the wicked people of this region, those who had escaped unscathed and unblinded, had fled through the mountains and into the caves. So the holy man, seeing his flock scattered and lost, weeping bitterly and in great distress, resolved to cross over from there to Transylvania. And at that time, Constantin Vodă, son of Nicolae Vodă Mavrocordat, was prince in Bucharest; they wrote to this father, urging him to come down from the mountains and go to pay homage to the Turks and Tatars, who were coming to enslave that part of the land and leave not a single soul behind; and, with great dread, he emerged and went forth, and paid homage, thereby quelling the turmoil and averting the enslavement that had been feared, doing great good to his entire diocese and remaining in the hands of the Tatars and Turks for two years, and in the third year, peace was made, honoured and confirmed by the imperial firman of the Sultan mentioned above (Mahmud Haan, n.n.), and he returned once more to his seat at the Bishopric…’6
Based on the accounts contained in the Archdiocese’s register of the dead, the historian Nicolae Dobrescu comments in his work, dedicated to this period, as follows: ‘In a report received in Vienna in December 1737, Lobkowitz complained about the Bishop of Râmnic (Climent, n.n.), who, after having been informed of this himself, had defected to the Turks together with the abbot of Govora and several priests. Also in December 1737, Lobkowitz reported that Bishop Climent had sent him two open letters addressed to the inhabitants, the clergy, the people and the nobility, from Prince Mavrocordat and the Turkish serachier Mustafa Pasha, urging them to submit to the Turks. Bishop Climent had asked Lobkowitz what he should do, and Lobkowitz had advised him to flee to Transylvania with all his possessions; which the bishop did not do, but instead withdrew, as the diocese’s chronicle states, to the region of Lotru, whilst the diocese, the church and the surrounding houses were burnt down. The memorial in question, however, also tells us that Constantin Mavrocordat wrote to the bishop urging him to come down from the mountains and submit to the Turks and Tatars, which the bishop did, remaining for 20 years (the memorial, of course, states this instead of 2 years) in the hands of the Turks and Tatars, until peace was concluded in the third year7”.
The atrocities committed by the Turkish and Tatar armies in the mountainous region of Vâlcea County, where 3,000 Austrian soldiers were stationed 8, were due to the fact that Oltenia was under Turkish rule, with the exception of Vâlcea County, whose inhabitants had not yet sworn allegiance. For this reason, Tos Pasha of Craiova intended to set out with his army ‘to enslave, slaughter and wipe out all the people in the mountainous region’, whilst Bishop Climent, having emerged from the Lotru Mountains and arrived in Craiova in February 1738, intervened on their behalf on two occasions to appease the Ottoman commander, thus acting as a ‘mediator of peace and pacifier of the fierce soldiers’9
Regarding these sad circumstances in which Bishop Climent found himself, Nicolae Iorga wrote: ‘The war soon engulfed him too, embodying within himself all the discontent of the Oltenian clergy, the Oltenian nobility, and the Oltenian countryside in general, against a regime of exploitation and oppression, which, whilst using precise and refined Western rhetoric, had placed itself under the protection of the Turks. In 1739, upon returning to Râmnic, he found nothing but ruins, but, as a consolation, Romanian and Orthodox rule’10
The distinguished scholar and tireless researcher, the Most Reverend Father Archimandrite Veniamin Micle of the Holy Monastery of Bistrița Vâlcei, mentions that, during the war between Russia and Austria against Turkey, the town of Râmnicu Vâlcea was occupied by Turkish troops, and Climent took refuge in the Lotru Mountains 11.
Bishop Climent also appears in some judicial councils convened at the behest of the country’s rulers, for the purpose of confirming or demarcating certain estates. For example, on 22 June 1743, at the behest of Mihai Racoviță, he took part in a judicial assembly alongside the steward of Argeș, Sandu Bucșenescu, the steward Radu Olănescu and others, with a view to resolving the dispute over the Paraginosul and Fratoșteanul mountains, over which the inhabitants of Lotru had a ‘dispute and quarrel’ with those of Ciocadia-Gorj12
In light of the authentic documentary evidence cited above, which confirms that Bishop Climent left the Diocese of Râmnic and took refuge in the Lotru Mountains, we naturally ask ourselves: where did this bishop stay until December 1737, during the winter, when he emerged from the Lotru Mountains, or with whom was he sheltered—presumably a priest—from a settlement in the Lotru Valley? Here, in the Lotru Mountains, which he was probably familiar with, he received a letter from Prince Constantin Mavrocordat, advising him to come down from the mountains and submit to the Turks and Tatars, so that the country might be spared desolation 13, and the bishop, having been well advised, obeyed the prince.
This question has troubled me for a long time, and I have found a possible answer. In the inventory of the Voineasa Parish, there was a category of books donated and handed over to the Vâlcea County Museum in 1975, amongst which was a Holy Gospel, printed by Bishop Climent in the year 1746, with leather covers. The entry for this sacred item in the inventory stated that the book had been donated to the church in Voineasa by Bishop Climent of Râmnic14 We presume that the bishop’s gesture was made in remembrance of, and as a token of gratitude towards, the villagers or the village priest for the time he spent in this area whilst in exile, in Voineasa on the Lotru Valley, specifically in 1737, when he was advised by General Lobkowitz, Prince of the Transylvanian troops, to cross into Transylvania with all his possessions. It is well known that via Voineasa – via Vama Cucului – it was fairly easy to make contact with those in Transylvania. Whilst Bishop Climent was in the Lotru Mountains (Voineasa, n.n.), he received an invitation from Constantin Mavrocordat to come down from the mountains and pay homage to the Turks and Tatars, which he did15 The book is not in very good condition. The year of the donation is not specified, but the presence of this book in the inventory of the church in Voineasa may shed light on Bishop Climent’s place of refuge in the Lotru Mountains.
The Holy Gospel, Râmnic, 1746, together with other liturgical books from the parish, were handed over to the Vâlcea County Museum in 1975 and are currently stored and preserved at the Hurezi, Govora and Bistrița, alongside other bibliophile treasures from the Diocese of Râmnic. Today, they are being studied with great interest by specialists, who are discovering within their pages new and significant insights into the lives and deeds of the people of those times, thereby enriching the national culture.
- 1
Selected bibliography on Bishop Climent – see: Ghenadie Craioveanu (Enăceanu), Condica sfântă, Bucharest, 1886, pp. 149–155 (the same text also appears in Biserica Ortodoxă Română, Year IX (1885), No. 1, pp. 40–41 and No. 2, pp. 91–93); Nicolae Dobrescu, The History of the Romanian Church in Oltenia during the Austrian Occupation (1716–1739), Bucharest, 1906, pp. 116–135; Athanasie Mironescu, The Holy Diocese of Râmnicu-Noul-Severin: Past and Present, Bucharest, 1906, pp. 134–141; N. Iorga, The History of the Church and the Religious Life of the Romanians, 2nd edition, vol. II, Bucharest, 1930, pp. 105 and 112–113; Church Life in Oltenia, Yearbook, Craiova, 1941, p. 105; Rev. Nicolae Șerbănescu, ‘The Bishops of Râmnic’, in Metropolis of Oltenia, Year XVI (1964), nos. 3–4, pp. 193–194; Gh. I. Moisescu, St. Lupșa and Al. Filipașcu, History of the Romanian Church, vol. II, Bucharest, 1958, p. 191 (a few errors have crept into this page); Mircea Păcurariu, ‘Bishop Climent of Râmnic’ in The Metropolis of Oltenia, Year XVII (1965), nos. 1–2, pp. 22–50; The Diocese of Râmnic and Argeș, vol. I, Râmnicu Vâlcea, 1976, p. 126; Eugen Petrescu, Vâlcea – Land of the Getic Wolves or the Region of the Vâlci, Vol. II, Conphys Publishing House, 2007, p. 79; Rev. Prof. Dr Ion Gavrilă, Church Music in the Vâlcea Region, Roza Vânturilor Publishing House, Bucharest, 2010, pp. 102–104.
- 2
Deacon Silviu Anuichi, ‘Romanian–Serbian ecclesiastical relations in the 17th and 18th centuries’, in The Romanian Orthodox Church, vol. XCVII (1979), nos. 7–8, p. 927, where Father Silviu Anuichi makes the following observation: “It appears that Metropolitan Vichentie’s decision to postpone the ordination of Bishop Climent was dictated by the impression that the new bishop intended to proclaim the autonomy of the Diocese of Râmnic, transforming it into a suffragan metropolis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in accordance with Bishop Damaschin’s previous wishes”.
- 3
Mircea Păcurariu, The Links between the Orthodox Church in Transylvania and Wallachia and Moldavia in the 16th–18th Centuries, Sibiu, 1968, p. 130.
- 4
George Pomenește, ‘The Church in Oltenia under Austrian Rule’ in Studii Vâlcene, Fântâna lui Manole Publishing House, Râmnicu Vâlcea, 2006, p. 318.
- 5
Nicolae Dobrescu, The History of the Romanian Church in Oltenia during the Austrian Occupation (1716–1739), Bucharest, 1906, p. 131.
- 6
Athanasie Mironescu, The Holy Diocese of Râmnic and Noul Severin: Past and Present, Bucharest, 1906, pp. 258–259; Father Marin Dumitrescu, A History of 40 Churches in Romania, Bucharest, 1907, vol. III, p. 19.
- 7
Nicolae Dobrescu, The History of the Romanian Church in Oltenia during the Austrian Occupation (1716–1739)…, p. 132 and the appendices, pp. 211, 212.
- 8
Stefan Papacostea, Oltenia under Austrian Rule, Editura Enciclopedică, Bucharest, 1998, p. 309. The author states that: “The mountainous region in the north of Vâlcea County remained unconquered, where the Austrians had managed to maintain their troops, who were guarding the lines of communication with Transylvania”; Mircea Păcurariu, ‘Bishop Climent of Râmnic’, in Mitropolia Olteniei, Year XVII (1965), nos. 1–2, pp. 27–28.
- 9
Mircea Păcurariu, Bishop Climent of Râmnic…, p. 28.
- 10
N. Iorga, The History of the Church and Religious Life of the Romanians, 2nd edition, vol. II, Bucharest, 1930, p. 105.
- 11
Archimandrite Veniamin Micle, ‘Abbot Climent of Bistrița, Bishop of Râmnic’, in Cultura Vâlceană, vol. XIII (2020), no. 171, October, p. 11.
- 12
T. G. Bulat, Documentary Contributions to the History of Oltenia: The 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries, Râmnicu Vâlcea, 1925, pp. 118–120; Mircea Păcurariu, Bishop Climent of Râmnic…, p. 27; Archival Treasures of Vâlcea, catalogue (1567–1800), Bucharest, 1985, vol. II, p. 99.
- 13
Mircea Păcurariu, Bishop Climent of Râmnic…, p. 27
- 14
Rev. Nicolae Moga, ‘Notes on the liturgical books that belonged to the Parish of Voineasa-Vâlcea’, in Renașterea, Year XX (2009), January–March, p. 22, Fr. Nicolae Moga, ‘Churches Lost from the Lotru Valley’ in Cultura Vâlceană, Vol. VIII (2015), No. 113 (August), p. 7. The Holy Gospel contains a preface written by Bishop Climent, addressed to Prince Constantin Mavrocordat. It deals generally with the Holy Gospel, explaining the symbolism of the four evangelists. It then praises Prince Constantin’s zeal for the printing of books.
- 15
N. Dobrescu, The History of the Romanian Church in Oltenia..., p. 133.