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Metropolitan Gavriil (Banulesko-Bodoni) and Greek-Russian Conflict over Dedicated Monastic Estates, 1787–1812

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Stephen K. Batalden
Stephen K. Batalden
Affiliation:
Mr. Batalden is associate professor of history in Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.
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Extract

One of the more frequently cited but less well understood issues involving Eastern Orthodox interests and modern nationalism in the Balkans has been that of the so-called dedicated monasteries. Dedicated monasteries (prek Ionennye or, in Moldavian, inchinat monasteries) were those landed estates, mainly in the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which were entrusted to the administration of one or another of the Greek patriarchates, holy places, or monasteries of the Near East so that the profits from the land might be used to sustain Greek Orthodox institutions under Ottoman, Islamic rule. These estates, dating to the first such bequests by Danubian boyars in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, became the loci for monastic institutions which yielded a constant source of revenue to their Orthodox trustees in the Near East up to the middle of the nineteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , December 1983 , pp. 468 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1983

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References

1. On the scope of the dedicated monastic holdings, see Giurescu, Constantin C., “Suprafaţa moşiilor mănăstereşti secularizate Ia 1863,” Studii 12 (1959): 155.Google Scholar Giurescu cites 12.16 percent of the land in Moldavia and 11.14 percent of the land in Wallachia as dedicated monastic property. Bobango, Gerald, The Emergence of the Romanian National State (Boulder, 1979), p. 144,Google Scholar mistakenly adds the two figures to arrive at an inflated 23.3 percent for the principalities as a whole. For a full list of the dedicated monasteries, see Giurescu, Constantin C., Istoria Românilor, 2d ed., 3 vols. (Bucharest, 1944), 3: 20–22.Google Scholar

2. For traditional coverage of Russia's commitment to support of dedicated monastic properties, see Jelavich, Barbara, Russia and the Rumanian National Cause, 1858–1859 (Bloomington, Ind., 1959), pp. 104–111.Google Scholar

3. On the Palestinskii Shtat, see the general overview in Batalden, Stephen, Catherzne II's Greek Prelate; Eugenios Voulgaris in Russia, 1771–1806 (Boulder, 1982), pp. 57–58.Google Scholar

4. The finest work on Gavriil is that by Stadnitskii, Arsenii, Gaurtil Banulesko-Bodoni: Ekzarkh Moldo-ulakhiiskii, 1808–1812 gg., i Mitropolit Kishinevskii, 1813–1821 gg. (Kishinev, 1894).Google Scholar In addition to the Stadnitskii biography, see significant additions and corrections to it in Zhmakin, B., “Gavriil Bodoni,” Russkii Arkhiv 36 (1898): 309–377;Google Scholar and in Shcheglov, D., “Novyia dannyia o mitropolitie Gavriile Banulesko-Bodoni,” Kishineuskie Eparkhial'nye Vedomosti (1899), 18:490–503, 19:545–552, and 20:569–583.Google Scholar For Gavriil's early years, see Stadnitskii, pp. 47–52. On the chronology of Banulesko-Bodoni's service as teacher, see the Central State Historical Archive of the USSR (TsGIA),fond 796, opis' 71, delo 144, listy 2–3. For the impact of the Poltava Seminary upon a generation of classical scholars in Russia, including I. I. Martynov and N. I. Gnedich, see Stadnitskii, pp. 62–64; also Kolbasin, E., “I. I. Martynov,” Souremennik 3 (1856): 4–5.Google Scholar

5. For treatment of Voulgaris and Theotokes, the two most prominent Greek prelates in later eighteenth-century Russia, see Batalden, , Catherine II's Greek Prelate, pp. 51–64.Google Scholar

6. Stadnitskii, pp. 68–70. See also Erbiceanu, Constantin, Istoria Mitropolieī Moldavieī şi Suceveī ş a Catedraleī Mitropolitane din Iaşī (Bucharest, 1888), p. lxii.Google Scholar

7. “Pis'ma Eia Velichestvu,” Zapiski Odesskago Obshchestva Istorii i Dreunostei 9 (1875): 292.Google Scholar Bezborodko's letter is dated from Jassy, 7 April 1792. All translations are mine.

8. Stadnitskii, p. 73, identifies the patriarch as Prokopios. However, as is clear from the chronology of Sokolov, I. I., Konstantinopol'skaia tserkov v XIX veke (St. Petersburg, 1904), pp. 408–411,Google Scholar Neophitos VII was patriarch in 1792. Stadnitskii's account of the 1792 incident is affected by his dependence upon Sergios Makraios, “Ypomnēmata ekklēsiastikēs istorias, 1750–1800,” in Sathas, K. N., comp., Mesaiōnikē Viv1iothēkē, 3 vols. (Venice, 1872), 3: 201–419;Google Scholar for Makraios's own treatment of the 1792 incident, see pp. 377–382.

9. Stadnitskii, p. 72. For a full account of the political machinations employed on all sides in Moldavia, especially the intrigues of Prince Mourouzēs and the countering strategy of Metropolitan Gavriil and the Russian consulate, see the reports of the Russian consul in Jassy, Ivan Ivanovich Severin, 25 May 1792 to 29 December 1792, in the Archive of Russian Foreign Policy (Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossii, hereafter cited as AVPR), fond “Rossiiskoe General'noe Konsul'stvo v Iassakh,” 1792 g., delo 83, listy 20–44; also for reports to Severin, see in the same fond, delo 85, lisly 2–76.

10. Iacov Stamati was metropolitan of Moldavia, 1792–1803. On Stamati, see especially Melchisedek, Bishop (Ştefănescú, Mihail), Chronica Huşilor şi a Epocoptei cu aseminea numire (Bucharest, 1869), pp. 342–371.Google Scholar On Paisii Velichkovskii and the extreme asceticism of the hesychasts, see Chetverikov, Sergei, Moldavskii Starets Patsii Velichkovskii: Ego zhizn', uchenie i vliianie na pravoslaunoe monashestvo (Paris, 1933).Google Scholar

11. Stadnitskii, pp. 74–75. For the relevant published Russian consular reports, see Academia Republicii Populare Romīne, Institutul de Istorie, Documente privind istoria Romîniei coleţia Eudoxiu de Hurmuzaki (Serie nouă), vol. 1,Google Scholar Rapoarte Consulare Ruse, 1770–1796 (Bucharest, 1962), pp. 489–497.Google Scholar On the June date, see AVPR, fond “Rossiiskoe General'noe Konsul'stvo v Iassakh,” delo 85, list 560b.

12. Stadnitskii, p. 76. This is an internal quote in Stadnitskii taken from “Câte—va notiţe asupra dupunerĭ lui Gavriil Mitropolit provisor al Moldoveî in anul 1792,” Ortodoxul, no. 49 (1884): 386;Google Scholar the article in Orthodoxul is based on Makraios.

13. Stadnitskii, p. 77.

14. Ibid., pp. 78–86.

15. Ibid., pp. 99–100. Stadnitskii's account from 1808 on is documented largely from the archive of the Kishinev Diocesan Consistory, the repository of church administrative papers from the principalities for the period 1808–1812. For the present status of this collection, see Putevoditel' po Tsentral'nomu Gosudarstvennomu arkhivu Moldauskoi SSR, chast' 1 (Kishinev, 1959).Google Scholar

16. For a listing of dioceses and bishops, as well as a general history of the Romanian church, see lorga, Nicolae, Istoria bisericii româneşti şi a vieţii religioase a românilor, 2 vols. (Văleniitde-Munte, 1909);Google Scholar for lorga's “Lista Mitropoliţilor şi Episcopilor Români,” see 2: 319–374.

17. Stadnitskii, pp. 171–243.

18. This basic decree of 23 December 1808 is reproduced in full by Stadnitskii, p. 210.

19. Stadnitskii, pp. xii-xxiv, published the complaints as a supplement, along with Gavriil's response. The complaint is entitled “Zhaloba, podannaia igumenstvuiushchimi v grecheskikh monastyriakh, chto v Moldavii, prezidentu Divanov Moldavskago i Valakhskago, senatoru diestvitel'nomu tainomu sovetniku i kavaleru, Vasiliiu Ivanovichu KrasnoMilashevichu na moldo-vlakhiiskago ekzarkha Mitropolita i Kavalera Gavriila.”

20. Stadnitskii, pp. 227–231.

21. Ibid., pp. 233–234.

22. Ibid., pp. 234–235.

23. Ibid., pp. 240–241.

24. Ibid., p. 242.

25. For Gavriil's activities in Connection with the Bessarabian section of the Russian Bible Society, see Clarke, James F., Bible Societies, American Missionaries, and the National Revival of Bulgaria (reprint of 1937 Ph.D. thesis, New York, 1971), pp.48–50.Google Scholar

26. On the flight of Greek prelates to Russia, especially at the end of the 1768–1774 Russo-Turkish War, see Batalden, S. K., “A Further Note on Patriarch Serapheim II's Sojourn to Russia,” Balkan Studies 18 (1977): 411.Google Scholar

27. Keith Hitchins uses the expression in his review of Bŭlgarskoto Tsūrkovno-natsionalno dvizhenie do Krimskata Voina, by Markova's, Zina (Sofia, 1976), in Slavic Review 39 (1980): 153.Google Scholar