A monk of Secu and metropolitan of Moldavia
Varlaam, also written Barlaam, received the baptismal name Basil. The Romanian Patriarchate’s account describes his early study of Greek and Slavonic in the Secu valley, his entry into the monastery, and his service as abbot. It dates his translation of Saint John Climacus’s Ladder to 1618. [1]
He became metropolitan in 1632 and helped organise the Synod of Iași in 1642. After Prince Vasile Lupu lost his throne in 1653, Varlaam returned to Secu. He died there in 1657. The Romanian Orthodox Church recognised him as a saint in 2007.[1]
The press and school at the Three Holy Hierarchs
The monastery of the Three Holy Hierarchs in Iași housed a press established in 1640 under Prince Vasile Lupu. Its history places the Cazania within a larger programme of education and Romanian-language publishing. [2]
The associated school followed a Kyiv model. Its foundation provided support for teachers and students, and the monastery’s account quotes Vasile Lupu’s intention that pupils should not have to pay for instruction. Subjects included languages, church singing, catechism, arithmetic, rhetoric, and poetry. The press likewise served more than one purpose: alongside religious works, it produced Vasile Lupu’s law book in 1646. [2]
What the Cazania contains and how it was made
The Cazania of 1643 is also known as Carte românească de învățătură, the Romanian Book of Teaching. It gathers instruction for Sundays, major feasts, and saints’ days. The University Library in Iași describes Varlaam as collecting, revising, and editing older homilies translated from Greek or Slavonic that already circulated in manuscript. His role therefore included bringing inherited teaching into a new printed form.[3]
The preface reproduced by the library makes that work personal. Varlaam presents the collection as a responsibility arising from the gift entrusted to him by God. He also acknowledges the practical cooperation behind the book: Vasile Lupu financed the printing, while Metropolitan Petru Movilă of Kyiv supplied the press and the equipment it required. Religious purpose and the craft of printing meet in this account of how the volume came into being.[3]
A book for readers and listeners
The monastery’s history emphasises the book’s reception among people who heard its teaching as well as those who read it. Its Romanian prose helped make religious instruction available beyond the circle of people trained in Slavonic. The collection’s place in literary history is closely connected with that public use in the Church.[2]
Books and where to begin
The English volume in our catalog presents the Sunday Gospel homilies. Its scope is narrower than the historical collection’s full range of Sundays and feasts. Begin with the Gospel passage for a Sunday, then follow the homily’s explanation and application; the product page identifies the contents of this edition.
Related authors and places
Saint Anthim the Iberian belongs to a later chapter of Orthodox printing and preaching in the Romanian lands. Sophronius of Vratsa offers a related example of vernacular preaching in the Bulgarian tradition.