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chrysanthos notaras the Patriarch of Jerusalem... 407
and mostly we are lacking books for studying”. 36 The iaşi Academy got a
real boost in importance from nikolaou Mavrokordatos, which invites his
friend Chrysanthos in 1713 to see him in the moldavian capital. Beside
Chrysanthos’ sudden urge for a refuge place (at that moment he was visiting
Brâncoveanu in Bucharest, who got arrested and taken to Istanbul to be
executed for treason), the reason of that invitation was that “he thought of
accomplishing two good deeds that were not to be found in the country at
that time; that are a printing house and a school”. 37 Same as in Bucharest,
the teaching in this newly established institution was accordingly to modern
standards, free and public, the curriculum being practically identical. As a
formal recognition, only less than a year later, the head of the patriarchal
Academy in Istanbul congratulates Chrysanthos for his success in Iasi.
After a short period of decaying due to the 1716 Austrian-turkish war, the
princely Academy in Iasi gets in 1728 a new life and an even a much better
intellectual status, by the care and money of the same Chrysanthos notaras.
Chrysanthos showed also a great personal interest in book publishing,
supervising and supporting financially this activity in the orthodox area.
For instance, shortly after becoming patriarch of Jerusalem he mediated
between King Vahtang VI of Georgia and prince Constantin Brâncoveanu
in order for a press and a master printmaker with his apprentices to be
sent in Georgia. Chrysanthos fulfilled the georgian king’s wish and, at the
beginning of the 18 th century, the kingdom of Georgia could establish its
first printing house as a gift from Walachia. 38
In Bucharest Chrysanthos founded two very consistent libraries, one of
them pending to the local Academy (now in the custody of the library of
the romanian Academy) and another located in a monastery he consecrated
few years earlier, and furnished all the necessary textbooks in Bucharest
and iaşi schools as well.
As a publisher, and a translator as well, Chrysanthos notaras is also
very active. Some of the works he authored, translated or edited are a
history of the patriarchs of Jerusalem (by his uncle Dositheos), a writing
of the byzantine emperor Basil the Great, the laudatio on the occasion of
his appointment as Metropolitan of Caesarea, a theological work of John
Damascene, his own history of the eastern Church, a collection of homilies
(published by his successor on the patriarchal throne of Jerusalem), an
abstract about the history of China (dedicated to Brâncoveanu) and, of
course his great Introduction on Geographical and Spherical – published
36 A. CAMArIAno-CIorAn 1971: 69-70.
37 Idem.
38 M. pACurAru 1992: 278.