LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

Chrysanthos notaras the patriarch of Jerusalem –
his influence on the 18 th century Walachia and Moldavia.
historic and biographical considerations
Introduction
VICtor GoDeAnu
the people who gave substance to the enlightenment movement were
mostly cosmopolitan, humanist, and highly critical thinkers who generally
were not associated with the university or with the Church. Brand names
like Diderot, Voltaire, d’Alembert, hume, Gibbon, lessing, Franklin and
many others, from europe to America, were “the philosophers” who
operated a very sharp criticism on what they considered as prejudice and
ignorance. through their natural, rationalistic and positivist philosophy (the
source of a revolutionary ferment that will overcome europe and America
in the years 1800) they meant to change the world to a better, rational one;
therefore, the old universe shaped by the Church thinkers and old schools
of thought seemed to have to crumble and fade away.
nevertheless, the novelty of the encyclopedic spirit, finding its highest
expression in Diderot-d’Alembert Encyclopedia, the new philosophy and
the criticism, the prevalence of reason and of liberal spirit entered the
Christian-orthodox realm – thought of as static and traditionalistic – and
gave rise to a new cultural awareness and a national spirit as well, that
ultimately lead to emancipation from the ottoman rule.
A fundamental and very positive characteristic of the enlightenment
movement, hidden however within its cultural substance, was that it
represented the articulation of two basic characteristics: the rationalism
and the Christianity, with the result that the Western europe was, and
still is, rationalistic and Christian altogether. 1 From this rather unexpected
1 e. VenIzeloS 2005: 47-48.