Anthim the Iberian

Anthim the Iberian (Romanian: Antim Ivireanul) was a notable figure in the ecclesiastical history of Romania. A Georgian by birth (the appelation "Iberian" has its origins in the ancient Kingdom of Iberia in eastern Georgia, not from the Iberian peninsula), he came to Romania in the second half of the 17th century, as a simple monk.

He became bishop of Râmnicu in 1705, and in 1708 archbishop of Wallachia. Taking a leading part in the political movements of the time, he came into conflict with the newly appointed Greek voivodes (the Phanariotes), and was exiled to Rumelia. But on his crossing the Danube in 1716 he was thrown into the water and drowned, it is alleged, at the instigation of the prince of Wallachia.

He was a man of great talents and spoke and wrote many Oriental and European languages. Though a foreigner, he soon acquired a thorough knowledge of Romanian, and was instrumental in helping to introduce that language into the church as its official language. He was a master printer and an artist the first order. He cut the wood blocks for the books which he printed in Targoviste, Râmnicu, Snagov and Bucharest.

Anthim was also the first to introduce Oriental founts of type into Romania, and he printed there the first Arabic missal for the Christians of the East (Râmnicu, 1702). He also trained Georgians in the art of printing, and cut the type with which his pupil Mihail Ishtvanovitch printed the first of Georgian Gospels (Tiflis, 1709).

A man of great oratorical power, Anthim delivered a series of sermons (Didahii), and some his pastoral letters are as much models of style and of language as of exact and beautiful printing. He also completed a sole corpus of lectionanies, missals, gospels, etc.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.