Moldavian Prince Stephen and Romania

Krista Zach

pp. 92-101

in: Stanislav J. Kirschbaum (ed), Central European history and the European union, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

Abstract

In most South-East European countries, the institution of a patron saint has seen a revival in the post-Communist period. After 1990, representatives of medieval "national" cultures formed the object of redefined cults, among them founding kings, martyrs, men of the church with outstanding reputation, and also popular heroes from national history. With the Romanians, as elsewhere, medieval patrons were usually saints and martyrs of the early church such as Nicholas, Andrew and George; national patron saints were the exception. In the Principality of Moldavia, the Greek neo-martyr John the New of Suceava was adopted by the ruling prince in 1415 as the country's patron saint. A cult was created and reactivated several times from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. At the end of the last century, John was canonized properly, declared a pan-Romanian saint, but, in fact, lost his primary medieval functions as a patron and protector to far better-known, much more popular, heroes taken from national Romanian history. The purpose of this chapter is to examine why and how a medieval hero became a national symbol in post-Communist Romania.